Free Risking It All by Ann Granger Page B

Mrs Mackenzie) was opening it. The gap widened enough for me to glimpse a face again. Disconcertingly, it was at my chest level.
     
    ‘Yes?’ The person behind the door wasn’t a child. It was a woman’s voice, elderly but cool and confident. I’m not very tall. She must be unusually short, I thought.
     
    ‘Mrs Mackenzie?’ I found myself crouching to look her in the eye. I couldn’t see much more through the crack. ‘Your neighbour at twenty-six suggested I speak to you. I’m trying to trace a family called Wilde who lived here some years ago. Your neighbour thought you might remember them.’
     
    There was a silence. ‘Just give me a moment,’ she said.
     
    The door was pushed to again, but not completely. I heard faint sounds as of someone moving away, and then, surprising me, voices. Mrs Mackenzie wasn’t alone. Somehow I’d imagined a widow. But she was talking to a man. Not, I thought as I strained my ears, an old man. The male voice was fairly young.
     
    She came back. The chain rattled and fell down. The door was opened wide.
     
    Two people stood before me, Mrs Mackenzie directly in front, and the reason for the shuffling, thudding noise was revealed. At one time, I guessed, she must have been a beauty, a tallish, slender woman. Her hair, though grey, was still thick and swept back into a knot. But now she was doubled over, fixed in a permanent stoop, and supported herself with a special stick which allowed her to rest on the horizontal handle. Her knitted skirt and tunic top hung loose on her body like wrappings threatening to come adrift. But her face was lightly made-up and her eyes, locked with mine, didn’t waver. The body had crumpled with age or some progressive infirmity, but the mind within remained sharp.
     
    Perhaps the make-up had been applied because she had a visitor this afternoon, other than myself. Just behind her, in the large square hallway, stood a young man about my age, tall and solidly built, in a rugby jersey and jeans. He had a thick mop of curling fair hair and there was a slight resemblance between him and the woman. A son? I wasn’t sure.
     
    He met my gaze over Mrs Mackenzie’s shoulder and said, ‘Hi.’
     
    Mrs Mackenzie said, ‘The Wildes moved away at least ten years ago.’ Her eyes were studying me in a way which was neither unfriendly nor curious, either of which I’d have expected. If anything, she looked as if she was assessing me point by point. I felt I was getting marks out of ten for my speech, my blazer, my jeans, my hair, my general manner.
     
    She said, ‘The fact is, I do have an address for them but I’m not at all sure I could lay my hand on it at a moment’s notice. We exchange Christmas cards, that’s all. In any case, you’ll understand I’d hesitate to give it to you, just like that. Perhaps if you were to tell me who you were, I could get in touch with them on your behalf, once I’ve run the address to earth.’
     
    This was a tricky one and I hadn’t anticipated it. She was playing for time. If I let her contact the Wildes, I was done for. I had to get the address off her now and I didn’t believe she couldn’t find it. Sometimes only the truth will do. Not all the truth, in this case, but enough of it.
     
    ‘My name is Francesca Varady,’ I said. ‘I live in Camden so I’ve come quite a way today. My mother, Eva, is very ill. She used to know the Wildes about twelve years or so ago.’ I drew a deep breath and named the hospice at Egham. ‘That’s where she is, and if you’d like to phone them, you can check.’ I scrabbled in my pocket and pulled out the scrap of paper on which I’d written down the hospice details given me by Clarence Duke. ‘She doesn’t expect them to go and see her or anything. Basically, she’d just like to know how they are and make her goodbyes.’
     
    Mrs Mackenzie took the paper and studied it. She passed it to the young man, who read it and said, ‘I’ll call them if you want,