Part 30 (1/2)

'Where's the b.l.o.o.d.y fire I'm coming.'

Bridget was out of breath. I wondered what she had been up to. The question was answered soon enough. She opened the door wearing nothing but a towel, and I sniffed some middle-aged woman's perfume Shalimar or something equally unimaginative.

'Haven't you heard of making an appointment?' she asked me.

She left the door open and walked back into her hallway. I took this as an invitation to enter. The wide oak floorboards were smooth and golden. She didn't demand that I remove my shoes, unlike Moses. Joe followed closely behind me.

In spite of myself, I was excited that I was entering a house on Ann Street. Another childish goal achieved. However, I didn't like the fact that Joe was with me, given that he was the only other living soul who knew of my obsession with this street. He watched me closely. I suspect he had more than one reason to.

Bridget walked up the curving staircase. It was elegant, reminiscent of Gone with the Wind, only smaller and more tasteful. A runner of red carpet went up the centre of each stair. On either side of the carpet was pristine white paint.

'Agnes does a good job of your place,' I shouted up to her. She ignored me but Joe shot me a warning look. My voice seemed to echo around the high hallway as a gla.s.s cupola showered light in. The atmosphere was peaceful elegance; no wonder Joe liked it.

Bridget walked into the kitchen. Opening the well-stocked stainless-steel American fridge, she pulled out a chilled bottle of champagne and filled three gla.s.ses. Additionally, she placed fat strawberries in a cut-gla.s.s bowl and offered me one alongside my champagne.

'It adds to the flavour,' she added helpfully, as if I'd never had champagne before.

Bridget's blonde hair hung about her shoulders. Newly washed, it shone, and I could not in all honesty say that it looked like a s.k.a.n.ky mane, even though I wanted to as usual. The thick white towel showed off her light golden tan, no doubt obtained from a tanning salon in Stockbridge. Her toenails were also professionally pedicured. What was this with me and women's feet, was I becoming a foot fetis.h.i.+st? I was pleased to note the gnarly blue varicose veins that marred her otherwise attractive legs. At least I didn't have those, and, if Kailash was anything to go by, I wouldn't.

I sniffed the strawberry; it was deliciously ripe. Bridget hadn't made the mistake of sticking them in the fridge and spoiling their flavour.

'I came here for answers, Bridget. This isn't a social call and a gla.s.s of inferior champagne will not make it one.'

'Prosecco Valdo is all the rage this summer,' she haughtily informed me, but her use of 'Prosecco' instead of champagne did make me wonder: if she was the blackmailer and raking in so much money, why was she buying cheap wine?

'Bring your wine through to the drawing room,' she ordered. I was somewhat surprised that she hadn't excused herself to get dressed, but it showed me just how intimate she and Joe were and I didn't like it.

A Waterford crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, and I could see our little trio in the ornate gilt mirror that was hung over the fireplace. Joe towered above us, his masculinity dominating the room. We sat down on the overstuffed sofas and Bridget and I faced each other like gunslingers. Joe took the easy way out and opted for a wooden chair on the outskirts of the action, ready to jump in if things got too rough, or jump out if they got too embarra.s.sing.

'I've seen the video, Bridget,' I told her.

'Did you enjoy it?' she asked.

'You are one s.a.d.i.s.tic b.i.t.c.h. Moira Campbell didn't want to be there.'

She stared at me coldly. 'What makes you so sure that I wanted to be there, Brodie?'

'I've already told you that I've seen it.'

'And that makes you the expert?' she asked, putting down her gla.s.s and getting up from her seat.

'Would you like one?'

Picking up an antique silver cigarette case, she offered it first to Joe. He declined and, as an afterthought, she pa.s.sed it in my direction. She didn't know him as well as I thought. I picked one up. Joe glared at me. I put it back.

A smile formed on Bridget's lips as if to say I was a stooge and that was how she had played me he who laughs last laughs loudest. Let Bridget think I was a naive idiot more than one successful person in history had used that strategy.

'What happened between you and Alex Cattanach?' I resumed. 'You were pretty much an item. I even heard talk that you had arranged a civil partners.h.i.+p. After I had been to see her in the asylum, you seemed pretty upset when you asked me how she was.'

'You flatter me with your attentions. You seem to take more than a pa.s.sing interest in my affairs. I didn't know you cared, Brodie.'

'Our lives seemed to overlap, much to my distaste. I was dismayed by your girlfriend's overt interest in me and I had the sneaking suspicion that you had something to do with Alex Cattanach's curiosity.'

'I can't take the credit for that you managed to p.i.s.s her off all on your own. You seem to have a talent for it. Is that her only talent, Joe?' she purred at him; she was far too old to be playing the ingenue and it was nauseating.

'Brodie has rare and unique abilities in many fields, Bridget, all of them to my taste.' Joe's voice was deep and censorious but Bridget refused to be insulted.

'What happened between you and Alex Cattanach?' I asked, ignoring how I'd felt when Joe had supported me.

'It's very simple. She found someone else and dumped me. I was hurt.'

'Hurt enough to attack her?'

'Don't be so stupid, Brodie. I got over her; thanks to you, actually.'

I s.h.i.+fted my weight in the chair. She misunderstood and hissed: 'Don't flatter yourself; you're not my type. Joe, on the other hand, is a different story I have always been partial to going over to the enemy now and again.'

'I can imagine,' I said, not wanting to imagine any such thing at all. 'Who was Alex's new girlfriend?' I pressed, steering us back on course. 'And how come no one else has spoken about her?'

'I don't owe you or Alex Cattanach any favours. If you want to find out who her girlfriend was then you'll have to do it yourself.'

'I think you might want to help me slightly more than you realise, Bridget,' I countered. 'There is the small matter of the tape what age were the girls?'

'They were over sixteen, and even if they weren't you can't prove when that video was made. I'm not talking and the other two girls are dead.'

'What about the mystery lady? The woman behind the camera? Was it Alex Cattanach?'

Bridget walked over to her music system and selected a compilation of love songs. It was dire she whipped through the first few bars of some dirges sung by an overblown American woman before settling on Whitney Houston. It seemed horrendous to me, but there was something pitiful in the way that Bridget stood. The slump of her shoulders and the way her thin mouth turned down at the corners made me think that perhaps Alex had been the love of her life everything else was just bravado.

I didn't have time for sympathy, though.

'I asked you if Alex Cattanach was the camerawoman.'

'No, she was not she abhorred the video; it was against her so-called b.l.o.o.d.y principles. G.o.d ... you know even better than I do what Alex is like was like when it came to right and wrong.'

Bridget walked up and down on the red handmade Turkish carpet, smoking furiously, drawing deep with every breath. Lost in her own thoughts I saw that this was a routine she carried out often, probably every time she was under stress.

'She couldn't take the pressure of being a lesbian, you know she felt as if she was sinning against G.o.d. It drove her to drink, and she was a pretty mean drunk.'

'Personally, I didn't find her too sweet sober.'

'I had nothing to do with that crusade of hers against you, Brodie. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it, because that would be a lie. There are few things that I would have enjoyed more than seeing her nail you for fraud. But I didn't start it up, I didn't ask her to go after you.'

Her red-taloned hands picked up her gla.s.s. Draining it, she left to get a refill.

'Why aren't you saying anything?' I hissed at Joe.