Free Pix (Volume Book 24) (Harpur & Iles Mysteries) by Bill James

mean?’
    â€˜Yes, very 1990s,’ he said, the new millennium being in his mind and probably good, although, of course, 9/11 was in the new millennium, so you never knew what might come.
    â€˜Where is it?’
    â€˜The stuff that was taken up?’ he said.
    â€˜Yes, what did you do with it?’
    â€˜Burned.’
    â€˜Oh, Manse! Many people would be glad of a carpet of that quality, even a bit worn. Hotel standard.’
    â€˜I don’t like the idea.’
    â€˜What?’ Sybil replied.
    â€˜Other people walking over carpet that used to be in my family’s home. Does that sound sentimental? I’m sorry.’
    â€˜And the new carpet – have you chosen it?’
    â€˜Oh, yes, to be put down when the decorating’s finished.’
    â€˜Who helped?’
    â€˜Helped what?’
    â€˜Who helped you choose?’
    He felt like saying that Chandor or Chandor’s peopledidn’t exactly
help
him choose but made damn sure he
did
choose, and fucking fast. ‘I picked it myself.’
    â€˜No advice from Carmel or Lowri or Patricia?’
    â€˜I decided something not too vivid, yet with a colour theme that impressed,’ Shale replied. ‘The same sort of . . . well . . . 
mood
as the Pre-Raphaelites.’
    â€˜Do you know what I thought, Manse, when I failed to get in?’
    â€˜It would be confusing, I can see that,’ he replied.
    â€˜I thought, he’s changed the bloody locks so I can’t just roll up and catch him screwing one of those cohabit dames on the rug in front of the splendid Arthur Hughes,’ Sybil said, ‘or more than one.’ It angered him that she could add those last few words. His rule about one woman at a time in his home had always been totally firm. He felt insulted. Manse tried to remember whether he’d ever screwed Sybil on the rug in front of the splendid Arthur Hughes. If not, she must be second-sighted to some extent, though he’d never noticed that before. He had for definite bought the Hughes before she left him, or she would not of referred to his ‘wank women’. Shale thought it was the kind of generous thing he might of done at some time – screwed Sybil on the rug in front of the Arthur Hughes – so as to show her that regardless of the glorious Pre-Raphaelite models he still wanted
her
. But, if he had took the trouble to bang her there, it did not do the trick, did it, because she still left him for that greengrocer or psychiatrist, whatshisname?
    â€˜It would of been an even more lovely surprise, to meet you inside the rectory, Syb – like suppose your key still worked and you’d come in and found me in my den,’ Manse said. ‘Just the way things used to be.’
    â€˜I wonder if you really want that, Mansel.’
    Well, yes, he did wonder himself, and felt ashamed. There was quite an area of Manse that believed a husband
should
want to see his wife around the house, even a wife who bolted, and particularly in a rectory where the family should surely be a true solid example. He considered the behaviour by Chandor and his people had been a one-off – or a two-off, if you counted bringing the art back, takingthe body and trying to spruce up the place – yes, a one-off or a two-off, so a wife in this house probably wouldn’t never come across anything shocking like that in the future. Probably, Carmel or Lowri or Patricia wouldn’t, either, if he resumed them, instead of Syb, but it seemed more important for a wife not to have to put up with that sort of trouble, he didn’t know why. When women took part in their wedding ceremony and made the promises, they would not expect their home to get a deado left on the stairs and all the art cleared.
    Shale thought she looked excellent today and at Severalponds, no greying yet – or terrific dye – her skin youngish, eyes dark, full of fight, yet also friendly, her