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

legs as good as Carmel’s and better than Lowri’s and Patricia’s. He didn’t think she seemed content, but he would not expect that, being over there in Wales with someone. Well, she would not of turned up now if she was content there, would she? Did him over there know she’d come?
    Manse regarded as definitely possible a rug screw in front of the Hughes today, although decorators worked on the stairwell and now and then went into the kitchen to make tea. They had no need to come into the drawing room. Manse did not want dungarees and that sort of thing in the drawing room, anyway, regardless of whether he was screwing Syb on the rug. Shale would never regard himself as snobby, but he believed in decorum. Obviously an artist, when he worked on a picture, might wear dungarees, because of the splatter. But art hanging in the drawing room of an ex-rectory needed respect.
    â€˜Which one wouldn’t leave, Manse?’
    â€˜They all get attached to the place, you know. It’s understandable, maybe – the conservatory and high ceilings.’
    â€˜I damn well don’t like it.’
    â€˜No. Awkward. Unpleasant.’
    â€˜Proprietorial. A woman who carries on like that shows she believes she has entitlements.’
    Manse said: ‘I hate being forced into measures. The locks. Against the grain. And yet what else?’
    â€˜Her clothes and so on – did you have to put them outside?’
    â€˜Unpleasant.’
    â€˜And the children?’
    â€˜What, Syb?’
    â€˜Do they become fond of these people or, say, of one of them more than the others? These are still my damn children, you know. Oh, yes. These women, if they’ve captured the children by cleverness, subtlety, deviousness, well, they’ve captured you as well, haven’t they?’
    Increasingly it seemed to Manse that only by making love to her in here could he hope to ease her bad anxieties and jealousies and help her cut down on the ‘damns’. Women lived for these glowing little signs. If a woman drove here from Wales, this showed a true itch. And Mansel felt the start of a throb come on as he watched Syb there, very solemn and bullyboy in his personal chair. No, that was wrong – ‘bullyboy’ – not just because it should be bully
girl
, but because he could tell that, really, she looked for love and longed to give love. Ivor didn’t rate no longer? He found he could think the name now because he must be a failure instead of a menace. Kidology – that’s all the dim bits of anger in Syb added up to. Her pride would not let her act sweet, not yet. ‘It’s a sort of “welcome home” message,’ he said.
    â€˜What is?’
    â€˜The redecoration and new stair carpet.’
    â€˜Who for – this welcome home?’ she said.
    â€˜Have a guess, Syb.’
    â€˜Well, which is due on rotation here – Patricia, Lowri or Carmel? But you’ve kicked one of them out and I imagine won’t let her back in. So, you’re down to two, or have you recruited a damn replacement?’
    Manse could see, of course, that she knew he did not mean one of them girls. He would not be redecorating and getting new stair carpet for a sleep-with lodger. And if it
was
for one of them he would never say so to Syb because he’d realize it must hurt. He could feel the hope and satisfaction in her now as he smiled to show he did notswallow her bluff – the way she pretended that she thought the only women he cared for were Lowri, Carmel and Patricia, or two of them because one had turned difficult. Oh, yes, she had undoubted picked up he meant her, Syb, when he spoke about them refurbishments and who they was in honour of.
    Naturally, she could not pick up they was not really to do with
any
woman – not Sybil, nor Lowri nor Patricia nor Carmel – but only with Chandor and his sodding staff, and the disgusting mess they made of an