Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(40)

In Rachel's case, had mother even considered giving daughter the benefit of her own experience, that experience would have been of little use in the present situation. What good was listening to the tales of a middle-aged—however successful—competitive dancer if competitive dancing was not what was on one's mind? If what was on one's mind was murder, then hearing a spirited account of an elimination competition danced to the manic measures of “The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” wouldn't be much of a help.

Rachel's mother, Connie, had on this very evening been deserted by her regular dancing partner—left at the metaphorical altar, which was disturbingly reminiscent of having been left at the real altar not once but twice by men too repugnant even to be named—and this desertion had taken place not twenty minutes before the competition. “His stomach,” Connie had announced bitterly upon arriving home with a small but nonetheless shining third place trophy on which two dancers contorted impossibly in bouffant skirt and form-fitting trousers. “He spent the evening in the loo doing his business and screaming about his flaming bowels. I'd've had first place if I hadn't had to dance with Seamus O'Callahan. Thinks he's Rudolph Bloody Valentino—”

Nureyev, Rachel corrected her silently.

“—and it's all I can do, isn't it, to keep him from squashing my feet to bits when he leaps about. Swing dancing is not about leaping, I keep telling him, don't I, Rache? But does that make a difference to Seamus O'C? Would that ever make a difference to a bloke who sweats like an overcooked turkey in the oven? Ha! Not bloody likely.”

Connie placed her trophy on one of the metal, designed-to-look-like-wood shelves of the unit fitted to the lounge wall. She fixed its position among the two dozen awards already displayed there. The smallest of them was a pewter shot glass engraved with a man and a woman at arm's length from each other and in full swing. The largest was a silver plated bowl—with FIRST PLACE SOUTHEND SWINGTIME scrolled on it—whose plating was wearing off from too much dedicated polishing.

Connie Winfield stepped back from the shelf and admired the latest addition to her collection. She looked a little the worse for wear after her hours on the dance floor. And the beginnings of a ruination that the exercise had wrought upon her fresh hair-do from Sea and Sand Unisex had been finished by the heat.

At the lounge door, Rachel watched her mother. She noted the love bite on her neck and wondered who had done the honours: Seamus O'Callahan or Connie's regular swing partner, a bloke called Jake Bottom, whom Rachel had found in the kitchen the morning after the night her mother had met him. “Couldn't get his car started,” Connie had whispered confidentially to Rachel when her daughter had stopped short at the sight of Jake's hairless and heretofore unknown chest at the breakfast table. “Slept on the sofa, Rache,” to which remark Jake had raised his head and winked lewdly.

Not that Rachel had needed that wink to put two and two together. Jake Bottom wasn't the first man who'd had engine trouble at their front door over the years.

“They're something, aren't they?” Connie asked in reference to her collection of trophies. “Never thought your mum could trip the bright fantastic—”

The light fantastic, Rachel corrected her silently.

“—like she does, did you?” Connie eyed her. “Why's your mug all pinched up, Rachel Lynn? You didn't forget to lock the shop, did you? Rache, if you've gone and caused us a break-in, I'll crack you a good one.”

“I locked up,” Rachel said. “I double-checked to make sure.”

“Then what's up? You look like you're sucking on sour plums. And why'n't you using that make-up I bought you? God knows, you can do something with what you've got if you'd only work at it, Rache.” Connie crossed to her and fussily rearranged her hair, doing what she always did with it: pulling it forward so that wings of black fell like a veil against a good part of her face. Stylish this way, Connie would tell her.

Rachel knew that there was no point to informing Connie that rearranging her hair would do little to improve her overall appearance. Her mother had gone twenty years pretending that there was nothing wrong with Rachel's face. She wasn't likely to change her tune now.

“Mum …”

“Connie,” her mother corrected her. She'd decided upon Rachel's twentieth birthday that she couldn't abide being the mother of a budding adult. “We look more like sisters anyway,” she'd said when she'd first informed Rachel that they were to be Connie and Rache from that moment forward.

“Connie,” Rachel said.

Connie smiled and patted her cheek. “Better,” she said. “But put some colour on, Rache. You've got perfect cheekbones. Women die for cheekbones like you've got. Why'n't you use them, for God's sake?”

Rachel trailed Connie into the kitchen. She was squatting before the tiny refrigerator. She brought out a Coke and an oversize rubber band that she kept inside a plastic bag. The rubber band—five inches wide and two feet long—she slapped onto the kitchen table. The Coke she poured into a glass, adding two sugar cubes as she always did and watching the bubbles rise from them in a froth. She carried this drink to the table as well and kicked off her shoes. She unzipped her dress, stepped out of it, stepped out of her petticoats, and sat on the floor in her underwear. She had the body of a woman half her forty-two years, and she liked to show it off if there was the slightest indication of a compliment—fulsome or otherwise, Connie wasn't picky—being tossed her way.