Death of a Hussy

Начало книги

You might have known people really do dress up for dinner in the Highlands.” Maggie Baird shifted her large bulk irritably in the driving seat and crashed the gears horribly.

Beside her in the passenger seat of the battered Renault 5, her niece, Alison Kerr, sat in miserable silence. Her Aunt. Maggie had already gone on and on and on about Alison’s shabby appearance before they left the house. Alison had tried to protest that, had she been warned about this dinner invitation to Tommel Castle, she would have washed and set her hair and possibly bought a new dress. As it was, her black hair was lank and greasy and she wore a plain navy skirt and a white blouse.

As Maggie Baird mangled the car on its way to Tommel Castle – that is, she seemed to wrench the gears a lot and stamp down on the footbrake for no apparent reason at all – Alison sat and brooded on her bad luck.

Life had seemed to take on new hope and meaning when her mother’s sister, Maggie Baird, had descended on the hospital where Alison was recovering from lung cancer in Bristol. Alison’s parents were both dead. She had, when they were alive, heard little about this Mrs. Maggie Baird, except, “We don’t talk about her, dear, and want to have nothing to do with her.”

Читать дальше →