Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella Read Free Book Online Page A

glaring meaningfully at me. “And what will happen to …” I hesitate. “How does it work with the … body?”
    “The body will be kept at the mortuary for now. If we decide to proceed with an investigation, it will remain there until we file a report to the coroner, who will demand an inquest, should the evidence be sufficiently credible and consistent.”
    He nods briskly, then heads out. As the door closes I subside. I’m suddenly feeling shaky all over. I’ve invented a murder story to a real policeman. This is the worst thing I’ve ever done. Even worse than the time I ate half a packet of biscuits aged eight and, rather than confess to Mum, hid the whole biscuit tin in the garden behind the rosebush and had to watch her search the kitchen for it.
    “You realize I’ve just committed perjury?” I say to Sadie. “You realize they might
arrest
me?”
    “‘They might arrest me,’” Sadie echoes mockingly. She’sperched on the window ledge again. “Have you never been arrested before?”
    “Of course I haven’t!” I goggle at her. “Have you?”
    “Several times!” she says airily. “The first time was for dancing in the village fountain one night. It was
too
funny.” She starts to giggle. “We had some mock handcuffs, you know, as part of a fancy dress costume, and while the policeman was hauling me out of the pond, my friend Bunty locked her handcuffs round him as a lark. He was livid!”
    She’s in paroxysms of laughter by now. God, she’s annoying.
    “I’m sure it was hilarious.” I shoot her a baleful look. “But, personally, I’d rather not go to jail and catch some hideous disease, thank you.”
    “Well, you wouldn’t have to if you had a better story.” Her laughter stops. “I’ve never seen such a ninny. You weren’t credible
or
consistent. At this rate they won’t even proceed with the investigation. We won’t have any time.”
    “Time for what?”
    “Time to find my
necklace
, of course.”
    I drop my head down on the table with a clunk. She doesn’t give up, does she?
    “Look,” I say at last, raising my head an inch. “Why do you need this necklace so badly? Why this one particular necklace? Was it a present or something?”
    For a moment she’s silent, her eyes distant. The only movement in the room is her feet, swinging rhythmically back and forth.
    “It was a present from my parents for my twenty-first birthday,” she says at last. “I was happy when I wore it.”
    “Well, that’s nice,” I say. “But—”
    “I had it all my life. I wore it all my life.” She sounds suddenly agitated. “No matter what else I lost, I kept that. It’s the most important thing I ever had. I
need
it.”
    She’s fidgeting with her hands, her face tilted down so all I can see is the corner of her chin. She’s so thin and pale, she lookslike a drooping flower. I feel a pang of sympathy for her, and am about to say, “Of course I’ll find your necklace,” when she yawns elaborately, stretching her skinny arms above her head, and says, “This is
too
dull. I wish we could go to a nightclub.”
    I glare at her, all my sympathy gone. Is this the gratitude I get?
    “If you’re so bored,” I say, “we can go and finish your funeral if you like.”
    Sadie claps a hand over her mouth and gasps. “You
wouldn’t.”
    “I might.”
    A knock at the door interrupts us, and a jolly-looking woman in a dark shirt and trousers puts her head around it. “Lara Lington?”
    An hour later, I’ve finished giving my so-called “statement.” I’ve never had such a traumatic experience in my life. What a shambles.
    First I forgot the name of the nursing home. Then I got my timings all wrong and had to convince the policewoman it had taken me five minutes to walk half a mile. I ended up saying I was training to be a professional speed walker. Just thinking about it makes me cringey and hot. There’s no
way
she believed me. I mean, do I
look
like a professional speed walker?
    Then I