Free Naked Cruelty by Colleen McCullough Page B

Curzon Close and put his black Porsche away in its garage. Having seen for himself that the electric door came fully down, he walked not toward his house but to a spot on the kerb where a gap in the trees permitted a view of the night sky. So wonderful! Yet not, he acknowledged, in the same league as southern hemisphere skies, free from humanity’s lights and displaying the whole gauzy panoply of the Milky Way. After he gained his basic science degree it had been a struggle: did he pursue astrophysics, or particle physics?
    Tonight he had felt like taking Helen to the Motown Café for a drink and dance, but she hadn’t wanted to; this wretched detective’s job of hers had eaten into her leisure a little. But if he star-gazed for a few minutes in peace and quiet, he would forgive her. He always did forgive her.
    â€œStar-gazing, Kurt?” a voice asked.
    Oh no! The Warburtons.
    â€œHaving been underground or indoors all day and evening, the rising winter stars are better than a glass of Moët,” he said, keeping the annoyance out of his answer. If the Warburtons thought they were getting under one’s skin, they’d never leave.
    â€œNo walking tonight?”
    â€œAt this hour? No, a Walkers’ meeting. Why not join, Robbie?”
    Came a whinny of laughter, curiously amplified; Gordie was there too—when was he not?
    â€œDah-ling!” Gordie exclaimed, coming to stand under the lamp. “So much Teutonic seriousness! Robbie and I would be as much use to the Gentleman Walkers as Dame Margot Fonteyn.”
    Kurt couldn’t help his lip, which lifted in contempt. “You are correct,” he said, his voice betraying only the slightest trace of an accent. “I will contact Dame Margot tomorrow.”
    â€œNo Helen?” Robbie asked maliciously.
    â€œHelen is in the police. Tonight she is on duty.”
    â€œOh, my!” said Gordie. “A face that could launch a thousand ships, blue blood, and a mind in the Holloman sewers.”
    When they bunched into fists it could be seen that Kurt’s hands were big; they bunched. “Retract that, you slimy worm, or I will insert Robbie’s head all the way up your arse.”
    The twins backed away in a scuttle, only half afraid because that was their nature: pull the cat’s tail and get out of the way of its claws. “Silly!” Robbie cried. “If your English were more locally colloquial, you’d realize what he said was a clever pun.”
    â€œIn a pig’s eye it was,” said Kurt, demonstrating just how colloquial he could get. He turned on his heel and walked off.
    The twins watched him go, looking at each other in glee.
    â€œHe’s so thin-skinned,” Robbie said, putting his arm around Gordie’s waist and turning toward their house.
    â€œPrussians were never my favorite people,” Gordie said.
    â€œHow many have you met, sweetest?”
    â€œKurt.”
    â€œThey say he’s loaded. Oh, and that face! It’s to die for. Why didn’t Mother Nature give us Kurt’s face?”
    â€œOur face is fine, it suits our style,” said Gordie. “We have plasticity ! Kurt has the face of a marble statue.”
    â€œTrue, true. They say his papa has an enormous factory.”
    â€œWhich little bird twittered that?” Gordie demanded.
    â€œBabs, the waitress in Joey’s diner.”
    â€œIs there anything Babs doesn’t know?”
    â€œThe identity of the fellow WRHM and HN are calling the Dodo.”
    â€œA putrid fowl.” Gordie shuddered.
    They walked together through their red-lacquered front door and divested themselves of their jackets: a dark grey one for Robbie and an ecru one for Gordie.
    â€œDark—light—dark—light—dark—light,” Gordie chanted, skipping nimbly from a black tile to a white one on the tesselated floor, a caricature of an over-sized child.
    â€œStick to the white,”