Neon Madman by John Harvey Read Free Book Online

disappeared and I was left in the hallway with nothing to do but admire the quality of the rug and count the Hockney prints on the walls.
    He came back and opened another door and gestured for me to go through. There wasn’t anyone else in that room either and it didn’t look the kind of room that took too kindly to people.
    When I looked round for laughing boy he’d gone again, but not for long. He came back with a silver tray and a couple of bone china cups and saucers. He set this down on a table and walked back out again. There were two cups, so I guessed that someone might be joining me. I looked at the tea and wondered if I should wait.
    Hell! I was thirsty enough to let my usual good manners slide a little.
    The saucer was lime green with gold leaf edging and a yellow daffodil painted on a black background at its centre. The outside of the cup was white, except for the obligatory gold leaf. The entire inside of the cup was another hand-painted daffodil, along with green leaves and blotches of white and black. The china tea was translucent and there was a jasmine petal floating on the top. I looked at the second cup; there was a petal there as well.
    I was tasting the tea and wondering if you got a petal every time when the door opened and she came in.
    â€˜Don’t get up, Mr Mitchell,’ she said coolly as I sat transfixed.
    She reached down and took her tea and walked away so that I could get a better look at her. Either that or my deodorant hadn’t worked at all.
    Whatever her reason she was worth looking at and it didn’t matter a damn that she knew it.
    There’s a late forties movie called ‘Out of the Past’ that’s supposed to star Mitchum and Douglas. It doesn’t. There’s this smooth, beautiful woman in it played by Jane Greer and every time she’s on the screen there’s no looking at anyone else.
    Maybe she doesn’t have Lauren Bacall’s wit and she misses the ice coolness of Veronica Lake, but there’s something that’s all her own. The waved hair that clung to one side of the face; the face made up to look like satin sheets; eyes that were brown pools you wanted to dive right into. That was what she had.
    It was what Murdoch’s wife had, too. It was to her advantage that forties dresses were back in style for they suited her figure as well as the rest of her. I looked her up and down and then down and up but each time I came back to those eyes.
    I didn’t understand a whole lot of things but right now most of all I didn’t understand what her old man was doing hitting the sack with other women when she was around. But perhaps that was the trouble. Perhaps she wasn’t around as far as he was concerned.
    In which case …
    I tried a wry smile and turned my head to one side as though asking her a question. I didn’t think I needed to spell it out and I was right.
    â€˜I thought you came to talk business,’ she said without so much as a flutter of her eyelashes.
    â€˜That depends what you mean by business.’
    â€˜I mean my husband’s business.’
    I gave her a long look. ‘That might be exactly the kind that I’m interested in.’
    â€˜Do you think you can handle it?’ The right eyebrow rose a questioning quarter inch.
    â€˜I’m not sure, but I’d like to give it a try.’
    â€˜We’ll have to see what we can do later.’
    â€˜Why leave it tighter?’
    â€˜Because right now your tea’s getting cold, your mouth’s hanging open like a dog on heat and there are things that are more important.’
    There was nothing I could say. Jane Greer had someone else write her words for her, but this one, she just took them off the top as she went along. I kept my mouth open and tried pouring some tea down it. She was right. It had started to get cold.
    Mrs Murdoch came over and put down her cup and saucer; she was close enough for me to reach up and touch