Tour de Force by Christianna Brand Read Free Book Online Page B

half dead with self-consciousness, at his side. Fernando was evidently concerned to excuse himself for his lack of diving prowess. ‘I am, however, great swimmer, Miss Trapp, Cambridge half-blue for swimming just missed: you see – fine muscles, big torso, very strong …’ He hammered his magnificent chest with gorilla arms till his bosoms wobbled like the red-brown jelly from under beef dripping. Mr Cecil, appearing now at Cockie’s side, leaned over the rail and watched them go, almost with tears in his eyes. ‘I do think he’s rather gorgeous.’ In the afterglow of Fernando’s sun-tanned splendour, his thin limbs looked like a tangle of over-cooked spaghetti. Under one pallid arm, he carried the precious red attaché case.
    Vanda Lane came out of her room. It was extraordinary, thought Cockie, what it did for her to be, even temporarily, exalted over her fellows. In the sea and on the diving-board, she was frankly the admiration of all; she accepted it modestly but in this moment of trifling supremacy, she had lost her air of shrinking evasiveness, of resolute discontent: her face and figure were suddenly boldly handsome, outlined in the close severity of tight black cap and tight, well-fitted black satiny bathing-dress. She wore black rubber shoes and carried a rolled-up wrap of white towelling, and the touch of white against the sheen of the blue-black gave her once again, as on the beach at Rapallo, the look of a swallow, exquisitely poised for flight.
    Unwontedly friendly, she came over and stood beside them at the rail. ‘Have the others appeared yet?’
    â€˜Mr and Mrs Rodd have gone on,’ said Cockie. ‘Miss Barker went after them.’
    â€˜No doubt,’ said Vanda Lane, dryly.
    â€˜Well, I mean …’ But he would not make matters worse to make them better. ‘And Mr Fernando has just gone along with Miss Trapp.’
    â€˜Still clutching the handbag!’ said Cecil, gaily.
    She leaned forward and looked at him across Inspector Cockrill. ‘I see you have yours too.’
    Just one’s scribblings, said Mr Cecil. London was going all Hoowarnese next season or his name was not Cecil Pr.… Well, Cecil. Masses and masses of tiny frills from the knees down and terribly tight under the tail, they’d all have to walk about with their knees bent like Spanish dancers, it would be too new for any! The little red attaché case was crammed to the top, nothing elaborate, of course, nothing finished, just one’s rough scribbles to take to Rome and complete in the studio but, and this was the vital thing, ideas . …
    â€˜Which you’ve gathered since you came to Italy?’ said Vanda.
    He went a shade white, gave a little startled yap like a small dog and like a small dog snapped round on her. ‘What do you mean by that?’
    She put on an innocent face. ‘Does it suggest some special meaning?’
    He tossed back the lock of gold hair but it was purely from habit, there was no room in him now for affectations. ‘I don’t know. It seems …’
    â€˜Ah, seems,’ said Vanda. Her hands were fisted on the rail of the balcony, but loosely like the paws of a cat, and she kept up an air of easy bantering, only subtly touched with venom. ‘Ah – seems! But this is a holiday; and on holiday, nothing’s quite what it seems. People aren’t what they seem. Are they, Inspector? You’re a policeman – you know that.’
    Above them the sun blazed down, below them the sea danced, sequined blue, the terraces were a massed glory of rose and oleander, of myrtle and orange blossom, of palm and pine; but suddenly there was a chill wind about them, ugly and chill. Cockie said flatly: ‘People are never exactly what they seem.’
    â€˜But especially on holiday,’ she insisted. ‘Surrounded by people who don’t know one. No give-away relatives, no childhood friends, no