Ivoria, Tanith Lee [popular ebook readers .TXT] 📗

even actual) facts. During the second visit, a second visit to the bog - problem solved.

But Laurence has not been able to re-visit now. Laurence has vanished. And Nick has seen the pin.

Why had Laurence had it - and where from? From the dig at Coreley? Had he found it on site and stolen it? Maybe worse, had he got it elsewhere, via some shady black market in ancient artefacts, and meant to plant it on the site during filming - creating an exciting additional, and Laurence-aggrandising, coup.

Either seems feasible to Nick.

In his early forties, maybe Laurence is undergoing some sort of premature male-menopause or mid-life crisis. It would be just the kind of brainless clichéd state he would buy into.

Nick wonders if he himself is amused by all this. When and if Laurence comes back, will he now be in Nick’s power? Nick finds this notion leaves him cold. He does not care. He does not even care if Laurence has gone for good, or not… one way or the other.

Even so he takes the Roman pin and puts it upstairs in the bedroom, under a narrow area of carpet that tends to come loose next to the window-wall.

Then, as he has before, he glues the carpet back in place. The glue generally holds for a few months, especially in winter.

On Monday an unknown young woman calls Nick. She is polite and sounds slightly nervous.

She says her name is Kit, and she hopes he will not mind but a friend of hers, Sonia Daforian, raved about him, and said he might be willing to see her. Nick has never received a second hand intro like this and is not sure he wants to take it up.

But the girl has a musical voice and a soft London accent. She works, she explains, where Sonia works, and describes the work and the building, which are the correct ones. Nick is somehow curious, and agrees to meet Kit at four that afternoon for a drink. He makes no promises of a result, nor does the girl, but she thanks him and murmurs warmly she will look forward to it. She adds a brief description: “I’m twenty-eight -well, I am in December. About five-five, blonde, slimmish.” (Nick wonders if she is fat, but that would not faze him; Lilian is very fat. Weight, or lack of weight, do not, and would not, put him off.) She says she will be wearing blue.

The venue is the Chandos off Trafalgar Square. When he walks in at four minutes to four, Kit - he recognises her instantly - is already waiting for him.

For a second, he checks.

Although he has identified her from her given details, blue suit, pale blue blouse, and curvaceously but factually slim, she is beautiful. She is additionally a very successful peroxide blonde, with clear white skin and eyes to match her clothes. Yes. She has a look of Claudia. He can see it at once. It throws him, almost frightens him. The fact is he has never in his life seen anyone who resembled Claudia, even Serena, even himself, who are the less like her for being like her. It has never occurred to him a real likeness might be possible. Yet - here this girl is, sitting cross-legged as Claudia might have, sipping what is probably a straight soda with ice -never Claudia’s drink - and reading a book with a garish red and grey cover that Claudia would doubtless never have picked up.

Nick considers quite seriously walking out and going away. But just then the girl looks at him.

She identified him too, evidently. Sonia will have described him. The girl smiles, a little uncertainly. He thinks he may appear stern, disapproving even. He smoothes his expression and goes over.

“Hi. I’m Nick Lewis.”

“I know.” Like a well-mannered old-fashioned guy she stands up and holds out her hand so he can shake it. Her hand is cold - nerves? “I’m Kit.” She looks straight into his eyes and says, with an innocent boldness, “You’re even more handsome than Sonia said.” Then - she flushes. Nerves or excitement? She looks away. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“That’s fine. I’ll get them. Do you want another of those?”

“I think I need a brandy,” she says. She laughs. Nice laugh. “I’m scared to death. Sorry. Never done this before.”

Practiced, he says, “Don’t worry. I’ll get your brandy.”

“No - just wine - dry white, thanks. Thank you.”

“Glass or bottle?”

She laughs again. “Just a glass.”

When he comes back though he brings a bottle and two glasses, and pours both half way full.

The wine helps her loosen up, and he also helps. He is accustomed. Women have been uneasy before, at first, in his presence, even when everything has been arranged. Concentrating on easing her out of it, he keeps forgetting how like Claudia she is, then being reminded; caught by it with a jolt and electric surge neither horrible nor pleasing. It defies his analysis.

He had, while standing at the bar, wondered - if it comes to it - if he will be able to make love to her. He will have to ask her to talk to him, he concludes, because her voice is not at all like his mother’s, unless, of course… if Kit’s voice had been actor-trained in the era when Claudia began to act - not prissy or over-clipped, but more of the latter day school of the Oliviers… Would she then have sounded like Claudia?

She tells him a little about her life. She says she is not quite another career girl, does not dislike her job but would rather paint. She does that in her spare time. The only men she meets are types she says she detests, or if she does like them then they are unavailable. And because of that - she naively, or honestly, confesses - she has been sexually inactive for two years.

When the bottle is empty she asks him to join her for a meal. He