Chapter 9 #3
“There’s a phone on this table. It connects to the main house. Just pick it up and you can ask for your meals.”
“Or someone could ring me from the main house and I’ll come across,” Emma said.
Cynthia frowned. “Iris does not want you to be disturbed too much, and Iris gets what Iris wants. She rules the roost here. So I’ll leave you to it then.”
“Are there matches to light the fire?” Emma asked. “It’s cold in here.”
“I expect you’ll find a box beside the stove in the kitchen,” Cynthia said. And with that she walked out, leaving Emma staring after her.
Emma found the matches and got the fire going.
On further inspection she found an electric fire in the bedroom and also one in the main room.
She plugged this latter one in and waited for the wood fire to heat up.
She suspected that Cynthia had been asked to light the fire ahead of time but had chosen not to.
She probably wanted to make Emma so uncomfortable that she’d leave.
In the bedroom Emma unpacked the clothes she had brought with her, then changed from her pantsuit into more comfortable sweatpants.
Then she laid out her hairbrush and cosmetics on the chest of drawers, and took her sponge bag through to the bathroom.
By this time the fire was crackling merrily.
Emma put a big log on it and went over to examine the paper parcel sitting on the desk.
It had to be the manuscript, but it was thinner than she had expected.
She undid the brown paper and saw the title on the folder.
The Wild Girl, in what Emma assumed was Iris’s own aggressive handwriting.
In spite of herself she felt a shiver of excitement.
All her life she had lived for books, and now she was about to read a book in its early stages of creation by one of the greatest authors in the world.
She hardly dared to touch it. She would have liked to take it over to curl up on the sofa near the fire, but it seemed sacrilege to move it.
As she pulled out the chair to sit at the desk she noticed a low bookcase along the far wall and saw it contained Iris’s books.
She remembered David suggesting that she read through the series to get the feel of Inspector Melrose.
Emma pulled one out and went over to the sofa with it, switching on the standard lamp beside it to give her more light.
In a Dark Place: An Inspector Melrose Mystery, she read on a dated and rather lurid cover. She opened it at random:
The alleyway was narrow, dark and slick from evening rain.
Melrose’s footsteps echoed from the brick walls on either side.
It smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and dog urine.
From above his head somewhere came the sound of a woman sobbing.
Probably the alleged victim. God, he hated these sorts of cases.
He had no idea how to handle weeping women.
Why didn’t they hire more female officers for cases like this?
A woman would know what to say, how to comfort.
He’d only stare at her distraught face, tears running down cheeks that were often bruised or swollen, and feel helpless and angry and useless.
And then there was her assailant, either grovelling in a corner—“I didn’t mean it.
I just lost my cool.”—or standing defiant, fists at the ready, saying, “She shouldn’t have pushed me so far. She had it coming.”
Melrose had no qualms about how to handle him.
Emma put the book down hurriedly. There was no way she could write this sort of stuff.
She’d have to get into the head of a tough Scottish policeman, one who probably didn’t think too much of women.
And yet Iris had just expressed an opinion about the way women were treated by men that echoed Emma’s own.
She got up, returned the book to its place on the shelf and went back to the desk.
The thought of working her way through Iris’s shelf of books before she tackled the manuscript was not an appealing one, and frankly she was really curious now to see the new manuscript.
Perhaps she’d know after one or two pages that the task was not for her.
Then she toyed with this thought. Was that what she wanted?
To leave this place, go back to the safety of the flat and her job at Barlow and Barlow?
“Don’t be a bloody fool,” she said out loud.
Wasn’t this what she’d dreamed of? Her own little cottage and a chance to write again?
She’d been given the chance to do something exciting, something that might lead to establishing her own career in some way.
And she was being paid decently for the time she spent reading and researching.
Her job in London would be waiting for her when she finished.
She had nothing to lose and a lot to gain.
She opened the folder, turned to the title page, neatly typed and centred.
The Wild Girl: Inspector Melrose’s First Case
By Iris Blackburn
Trembling a little with excitement, she turned the page.