Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott Read Free Book Online

room.
    “Tired, a bit hungover. We had a party here last night, as you can see.” She gestured towards the kitchen and a sink full of unwashed glasses. “The last garden party of the summer.” She twisted her hair into a knot, pulled a couple of chopsticks from a drawer, and stuck them through the knot of hair. Maria’s face had brightened by the time she reentered the room, Titus on her shoulder.
    “Good party?” I asked.
    “Brilliant. Mum bought those red paper lanterns from the Chinese supermarket on Mill Road, so when it got dark they were all lit up all the way down the garden to the pear tree.”
    “It was too cold, really,” Kit said, “but we just wanted to squeeze one more party out of the autumn, didn’t we, rabbit?” Maria blushed. She was thirteen and her mother had begun to embarrass her. So, Kit was still squeezing parties from the summer like blood from a stone. Kit was afraid of the dark; she hated the winter. Dreaded it creeping up on her. Maybe that’s why she worked on revenge tragedy—those sudden bloody stabs in the dark, a violent death in an alleyway, meaningless and cruel. She’d been dancing the night before, pushing back the dark.
    Maria moved her sewing to one side to clear a space among the sequins and buttons on the conservatory table to make room for the plate of Moroccan lamb Kit pulled out of the microwave. I ate and drank my gin and tonic looking down over the darkening garden, while Maria and Kit talked about funerals they’d been to, exams, mobile phones, the garden, and the party. I wasn’t really listening till Anthony’s name came up.
    “Anthony stayed over,” Maria said, eyes wide. “In Mum’s bed.”
    “Maria!” Kit exclaimed with mock outrage. “You make it sound like we’re lovers or something.”
    “Well, you are in a way, aren’t you? I know, I know. He’s always here and he brings you flowers and presents and sometimes he stays over. You can never be really, really sure that someone’s gay, can you? People fall in love.”
    “If Anthony was going to fall in love with me he’d have done so fifteen years ago.”
    “Not necessarily,” I said. “You’re more interesting
and
more beautiful now.”
    “Bugger off,” she said. “That’s a hollow compliment if I’ve ever heard one.”
    “But she’s right,” Maria said, scanning her mother’s face. “You
are
more beautiful now. Well, a bit.”
    Kit raised her eyebrows at me. “I can just see it all now. You can just drive back home to your fancy Brighton flat, Lydia Brooke. I’m not having you stay here to shift all the alliances in my house. This daughter of mine is supposed to be on my side. Look at the pair of you ganging up on me. You were always trouble.” The pupils of her eyes narrowed. She meant it. She was still angry with me from before. I would have to be careful.
    “I’ve got some pictures for Anthony,” I said. “And some flowers for you and a case of pinot noir in the back of the car.”
    “More graffiti pictures? You were always his main supplier. Does he know you’re back? What have you got? Show me.”
    “Oh, the usual,” I said, passing her the camera so she could scroll through the tiny pictures illuminated on the screen. “I picked up some great tags from Amsterdam earlier this year, and there’s new tagged walls from the skater park in Brighton. I took some pictures this afternoon too in Cambridge—the scrap-metal yard next to the Leper Chapel. There’s a tag I’d not seen before: NABED. Green letters, black shadow. Does he have that one?”
    “Christ. Yes. Trust you to find that one on your first afternoon. NABED. It’s not really a tag. It’s political. An animal-rights group. They target the animal-lab people and leave their tag after an attack, like a signature.”
    “What does NABED stand for?”
    “No one really knows. They’re completely silent.”
    “No Web site? No manifesto?”
    Maria left the room—pointedly. Kit watched her go.
    “No, just