Chapter 23 Just Desserts #2
Veronica was an enthusiastic guide, pleased to be able to share her extensive knowledge of the various rides in the amusement park.
The Hurricane, the Rotor, the Fly-O-Plane, the Caterpillar.
They were all terrifying in Flynn’s opinion, none more so than the Boomerang, where you whirled around a track in a kind of bucket and then at a certain point the bucket was flung off into a tunnel.
“Just as well we left Mrs. Betty with Mr. Rakowski,” Veronica said as they climbed into the chamber of the gravity-defying Rotor, before being spun round at speed, lifted off their feet and stuck to the wall of the chamber by the centrifugal force.
“Sentrywhat force? Big word. Not even going to ask what it means.”
—
They ate in the Pier Snack Bar—hamburgers, followed by doughnuts and a cup of tea. Veronica ate most of Flynn’s as well as her own. Then Flynn joined the queue for the roller coaster while Veronica went to find the Ladies.’ “Don’t want to wet my knickers on the Big Dipper.”
Flynn was focussed on getting his lighter to spark when he felt his hackles rise. The smell of lighter fluid gave way to freesia. He turned round and found Cynthia standing behind him.
“Cynthia?”
She took him by surprise by punching him playfully on the shoulder.
There would be a bruise, he thought. She didn’t know her own strength.
Or perhaps she did. She grinned at him and said, “Bet you weren’t expecting me, were you?
Can I have one?” she asked, indicating his cigarette.
She seemed a good deal less bashful than on previous acquaintance.
No blushing at all. He shook a cigarette out of the packet and lit it for her, alarmed by the wild look in those stunning eyes.
She moved closer to him, and he edged forward in the queue to get away from her. “Miss me, Flynn?”
“Well,” he said carefully, “I certainly wondered where you’d got to. And, you know, if you were all right after the horrible thing that happened.”
“Horrible? Yes, it was horrible. Poor Mummy. But you know…” She shrugged. “I suppose we all get the end we deserve.”
“That’s patently untrue.” (He was thinking of the men on the Railway rather than Mitzi.)
She squinted at him through a cloud of cigarette smoke. He could tell that she resented being disagreed with. He was finding her rather frightening. “Where did you go, Cynthia?” he said, trying to keep the conversation light.
“Paris, then Rome. With Daddy. He’s not really my father, do you know that? Uncle Giles was my father. And he’s dead and so is Daddy.”
“Daddy? You mean Archie? Archie’s dead?”
“He had a heart attack climbing the Spanish Steps.”
“That’s awful. I’m so sorry, Cynthia.”
“So now I’m an orphan.” She made a sad clown face and took a great drag on the cigarette.
Flynn shuffled forward a little further.
“I’ve missed you, Flynn. Dreadfully. And what we had.”
“What we had? What did we have, Cynthia?”
“For heaven’s sake—love, you can’t deny it.”
“I think maybe you’ve read too many romantic novels, Cynthia.”
“It wasn’t fiction. It was real. From the first time we looked at each other across the Parkinson showroom.
And that walk together over the Festival bridge—remember?
That was when I knew for sure that you felt the same.
It was like the film—Waterloo Bridge with Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh.
Our story could be called Festival Bridge. ”
“Cynthia, we don’t have a ‘story.’ We’ve never even exchanged so much as a handshake.” She was completely unhinged, he thought. He tried shuffling further away from her, but the people in front of him in the queue objected vociferously. “Oi, mate, keep in your place.”
“You’re going out with that girl from the Festival now, aren’t you?” Cynthia said sharply. “Margot whatshername. I thought your French girlfriend was betrayal enough.”
“Not my girlfriend.”
“She was a bitch,” Cynthia said in a low growl—but not so low that people weren’t beginning to pay attention to them. “She was Uncle Giles’s whore as well, did you know that?”
A horrible thought took root in Flynn’s brain. He spoke gently to Cynthia, as if she were an invalid. Or a rabid dog. “Cynthia—was it you who killed Delphine?”
What had Archie said? Shouldn’t have taken the gun with her.
Take a gun somewhere and you always end up using it, in my experience.
Jealousy, you know. Terrible thing in a female.
Flynn had thought he was referring to Mitzi, but Archie had meant Cynthia.
It was Cynthia who was the “good girl,” Cynthia he was intent on saving from hanging.
And it was for Cynthia that he had manipulated a cover-up that would have had Flynn hanging instead.
(How far would he go to save Veronica? Flynn wondered.
To the end. That was how far. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so harsh on Archie.)
Cynthia reached into her coat pocket and pulled something out. Flynn glimpsed the glint of metal. A spear-point blade, if he wasn’t mistaken. For stabbing, basically.
“You know, if I can’t have you, Flynn…” She was standing very close to him and staring at him. It was unnerving. He remembered what Hetty had said about Dangerfield’s eyes. They were blank, like a wolf looking at his prospective prey. It was the very opposite of love.
The Big Dipper was loading up now and Cynthia prodded him with the tip of the knife. He flinched and stumbled forward. He thought the man in front might punch him soon.