Free The Widow by Nicolas Freeling

experience? Ring up people to practise on? Tell them sorry, but you see, you’re the first I’ve ever had?
    â€˜No, I don’t wish that.’
    â€˜Is it your office you’re calling from?’
    â€˜No, that won’t do either. This is a personal matter. Wait, you live by the Observatoire, right? Meet me on the street in the neighbourhood, all right? Six this evening or a little after, by the statue of Jeanne d’Arc, all right?’
    â€˜Very well, if that’s what you want,’ wondering whether it was all right but not about to turn down the chance.
    â€˜What charge do you make for that?’ still tough.
    â€˜None at all, until I know what I could do.’
    â€˜Fair enough. Uh – navy blue coat, brown hat.’
    The third voice on the tape was that of a youngish girl. Self-assured, but obviously under strain.
    â€œThis is Marie-Line Siegel. I live in the Meinau – no, I don’t think it’s any use giving you the address, or not yet. I wish I knew – I’ll just have to hope you can suggest something; there’s a terrific fuss each time about what I’ve been doing and where I’ve been. Listen; I need to come and see you, but I don’t know exactly when I can make it. This afternoon – sorry but I can’t risk your ringing me at home; this is a public box. My father … – shit, I hope I can make you see. No, it’s useless to talk: look, around two if I can make it, and I ask you to excuse me if I’m late or anything.” Rang off abruptly.
    Siegel in the Meinau. Arlette reached for the phone book and shrugged; it was a common enough name. The girl had been hurried and flustered, and not particularly coherent. The clear educated voice of the well-brought-up, but some trouble at home, seemingly. One could only hope she would persevere and follow it up: nothing one could do for the moment.
    The day was full, in a tiresome manner. This Englishwoman, any time now, may be. A girl who might or might not appear in the early afternoon. And this Dupont, whatever his name was, at six by the Saint Maurice church. Only two minutes’ walk along the road: one wouldn’t take the car. All of them vague and awkward: nothing definite.
    Was that the pattern things would take? She shrugged. The very first working day. And if she’d wanted it cut and dried like a dentist …
    Start in the kitchen, where every woman begins.
    The cleaning woman, a bow-legged little soul from Portugal, was having a cup of coffee: she worked well and hard, as long as she could down a strong one at quarter-hour intervals. We all have our little fads, huh. Arlette had one too, and put her overall on.
    Arthur would have to cook the supper. If this Dupont wanted to talk, as seemed likely, she might not be home for some time. Get something out of the freezer. Sorry, but food is important. All those years in Holland Arlette had never understood those women who threw away twenty pairs of shoes as good as new, while their idea of a meal was a frozen chicken, improved with bits of tinned pineapple. Arthur, mercifully, took food seriously.
    And something fairly rapid for now. Too bad if it was a bit late. Mm, that Dupont. Sounded the kind of man that comes in and turns the television straight on, because of that hard day at the office, and heaven help the wife if there isn’t solid grub ready, dead on time. She was about halfway through, when the buzzer went. She took her overall off with one hand and combed her hair with the other. The judas showed a young woman in black, glancing in a surprised way around the ‘waiting room’.
    Arlette was pleased with the waiting room. Partition off a lump of corridor, even a wide one, and the result is a box, hard though you pretend it isn’t. She had decided to admit the box. It was lined with pine boarding kept pale, hung with simple, pretty flower prints, and given spotlights and ventilation in the