Free Fine Lines - SA by Simon Beckett

glanced at Anna. She looked shocked. "She didn't use them, did she?"
    "No, thank God. When he did that she came to her senses. Realised what a shit he was and pul ed herself together."
    "Perhaps he's just a shrewd judge of human nature," I said, furious with her. "That could have been what he intended." Miriam was unconvinced. "It might have been, but my friend seemed to doubt it. And even if it was, he was stil taking a hel of a risk."
    I smiled. "It's a pity he didn't have a box handy on Saturday night.
    We could have presented them to Jessica."
    Deflected back to her dismal party, Miriam laughed embarrassedly. "God, yes. I think I'd have even held her down while someone used them." She chatted some more, but she had finished what she came to do. An apology on the one hand, a character assassination on the other. When she had gone I turned to Anna.
    "That was rather surprising about Zeppo. I didn't think he was the type to do something like that."
    "No, neither did I. Just goes to show you never can tel ." I busied myself with a catalogue. "If that is what happened. Miriam's stories do tend to be a bit apocryphal at the best of times, and a third-hand version from someone's aunt hardly seems to be the most reliable source. I'm sure Zeppo wouldn't do a thing like that." I stopped before I became too defensive.
    It was best to dismiss it. I closed the catalogue. "Anyway, if her taste in art was anything like Miriam's, I couldn't blame him if he had." We laughed.
    The second piece of slander came from Zeppo, and was much more encouraging. I had not heard anything from him since Saturday, and suspected that his silence was a display of petulance after his loss of face. But by mid-week he had presumably licked his wounds enough to feel like talking to me again.
    "It's Donald," I said when he answered the phone. "I've been trying to get in touch with you." I kept my voice neutral.
    "I've been away. I can go away, can't I?"

    "Of course. I simply wondered where you were. I've been trying to get hold of you for days."
    "Wel , now you have, so what's your problem?" His moodiness was beginning to annoy me. "The problem is that in future I would appreciate it if you would at least let me know when you're planning to take a holiday." I had not intended to argue, but I was not going to be spoken to like that.
    "Oh, I'm so sorry. What would you like a written apology on your desk by tomorrow morning? With detention for spel ing mistakes?"
    "There's no need to be facetious."
    "Stop acting as though you fucking own me then! If I want to go away for a day, or two days, or a fucking month I wil , and I don't expect you to get on my back about it! Okay?"
    I was astonished by his outburst. "May I remind you that I'm paying you for this?"
    "You're paying me to do a job, and I'm doing it. I don't have to take shit from you as wel . If you're going to start acting the big boss, you can find someone else to get into your girlfriend's pants. If you can. Understand?" I took a deep breath. I realised this was only Zeppo's way of reasserting himself after Saturday. It was better to let it pass. I stil had a trump card he was unaware of, but I was not going to throw it away in the heat of the moment. It would be al the sweeter when he final y realised that, whether he wanted to or not, he would do as I told him.
    "I think you've made yourself perfectly clear," I said.
    "Good." Neither of us spoke for a moment. I cleared my throat. "If you've got that out of your system, I cal ed because I thought you ought to know Miriam came into the gal ery yesterday."
    "So?"
    "Apparently you used to be … acquainted ... with a niece of one of her friends." I repeated what she had told us about the razor blades.
    It immediately put him in a better mood.
    "Christ, I'd forgotten al about that." He laughed. "Shit, what was her name? Carol? Susan? I can't remember. Did she use them?"
    "Don't you know?"
    "Why should I? I was hardly going to phone her to see if she'd