‘I’d have thought someone like you would have a boyfriend to come round and hear your lines.’
‘Him?’ Edie jeered. Brian felt a stab of disappointment that he had been proved right, tempered by a certain satisfaction at the scorn in her voice. ‘He’s useless.’
‘In what way?’
‘Every sodding way. He’s the original non-fattening centre. Know what I mean?’
Brian stared, uncomprehending. He was beginning to feel slightly zonked, what with the Thunderbirds, a surfeit of body warmth and the rampant excitement in his underwear. Certainly his brain must be addled because, for the life of him, he could not spot any causal link between an unsatisfactory suitor and a box of Maltesers. Unless she meant he never brought her any.
‘I bet your wife don’t have no problems in that department.’
Edie winked, but Brian missed it for his glance, having roamed across the curve of her belly and climbed that unbearably sexy ladder, had now come to rest on the thin, wraparound top, the damp sections of which were clinging very closely indeed.
‘That can’t be very comfortable.’ He spoke through stiff lips and, although nothing in her expression changed, he knew that some invisible barrier had been crossed. That he would no longer be able to get up and walk away. Even so he was completely unprepared for the speed of the next development.
‘You’re right,’ murmured Edie. ‘I’ll catch me death.’
Without taking her eyes off his face she pulled at the securing ties behind her back. The garment fell apart, revealing beautiful, blue veined, pearly-white breasts with raspberry tips. Brian stared, dumbstruck with exhilaration and fear. Then she leaned forward, uncoiled a tongue like a humming bird’s and slid it into his ear.
Brian panted and groaned. He felt so dizzy he thought he might lose consciousness.
‘Touch me Bri ... come on ... quick ...’
‘Ohhh ... Edie ...’
‘Give us your hand ...’
‘They’re so beautiful.’
‘Harder ... between your fingertips ... rub ...’
‘I’ve dreamed of this.’
‘Yeah. Me an all.’
‘I picture you, Edie, every time I’m having it.’
‘Naughty.’
‘Makes me ... you know ...’
‘He’s all wired up - arncha, Brian?’
‘Yes,’ cried Brian, not knowing what it meant but knowing that he was.
‘Fancy moving down a bit?’
‘Mmm.’
‘I saw you. Looking at my legs.’
‘Such pretty legs.’
‘Want to climb my little ladder, don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes ...’
‘Go on then.’
‘Eeny, meeny, miny ...’
‘You’re ever so good with your hands, aren’t you, Brian?’
‘No complaints so far.’
‘Shelves and that.’
‘Nnnnggghhh!’
‘Got to Mo have you?’
‘Ohh Edie.’ Suddenly her tights were round her ankles and her fingers were tugging at his shirt. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Taking this off. Fair’s fair.’
‘I’m ... a bit thin. Never had time to work out.’
‘Not thin down here though, are you, Brian?’
‘Yipes!’
‘Not thin where it matters.’
‘That hurt, actually.’
‘Now your jeans.’
‘Are you sure the door’s—’
‘Can’t screw with your jeans on.’ Edie canted up her skirt, then reached out and tickled his beard.
‘Don’t do that.’
‘What are all them bumps?’
‘Could we have the light off?’
‘More fun with it on.’
‘Nuff said.’
‘I don’t half want it, Brian.’
‘Um ... I’ve never been—I’ve never done—’
‘Well, now’s the time to start. That’s it. Oooh - lovely. Off you go then.’
And off Brian went but not, alas, for long. In what Denzil would have called a hare’s breath it was all over. They uncoupled with a sad squelch. Edie swung her legs sideways and rested on the edge of the settee. Brian hovered apologetically. On the wall the light carved out their silhouettes. Brian said, ‘Sorry. I’m afraid it was the excitement.’
‘What excitement?’
Then, as quickly as she had slithered out of her tights, she was dressed again and walking away. Brian sat gloomily down on the gummy vinyl and watched as Edie lifted up the egg-streaked plate in the armchair and retrieved a shiny packet of Rothman’s King Size together with a match folder. She put a cigarette in her mouth and flicked a match against her thumbnail.
‘Wanna fag?’
‘I don’t, thank you, Edie.’
Brian became uncomfortably aware of a broken spring sticking into his bottom. One side of him, closely adjacent to the fiercely glowing bars of the electric fire, was crackling nicely. The other goose-pimpled fast. Surreptitiously he watched Edie. Her cheeks were sucked into hollows by vigorous inhalation. Smoke poured from her nostrils. She was as totally and utterly separate from him as if their conjoining had never been. He had a terrible headache from the wine and was wondering if he might ask for a cup of tea. About to speak he realised that she was, in fact, speaking to him.
‘Sorry - I didn’t get that.’
‘I said me mum’ll be back any minute.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Brian nearly fell off the settee. He scrambled up, seizing his clothes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I am telling you.’
‘Come on ... come on ...’ He started swearing at his shirt, punching the flapping folds with his fist, searching for the armholes, finding them, ramming his arms in.
‘That’s inside out.’
‘Shit.’
‘More haste less speed, eh, Bri?’
He tore at the sleeves with fingers like huge, sweating sausages, pulled them through to the right side and buttoned the shirt up, skew-whiff.
‘You’ve got the wrong—’
‘Yes, I am aware of that. Thank you.’
She shrugged and, picking up a pair of tights from the pile on the armchair, went over to the settee and started mopping up the traces.
‘Where are my underpants?’ shouted Brian, only half to himself.
‘How should I know?’ She threw the tights over the back of the settee.
Brian gave up looking. He pulled on the He Man jeans, stuffing his slippery genitals inside. He got them safely past the zip only to catch them on the semi-upright prongs of a row of copper rivets. Tears sprang to his eyes and he howled in fury and distress.
‘Not your night, is it?’
Somehow he got into his windcheater. By now his mind had become swamped by images of gigantism. He saw Mrs Carter, muscles engorged with newly pumped blood, bestriding the threshold like a colossus, preventing his escape. Tossing him about the room like a shuttlecock. Eating him alive.
Edie was holding the door open. Drowning in appalled anticipation, Brian shot through and out into the freezing cold.
By twenty-two hundred hours the outside team had all returned to the station and debriefing began. Like many a Christmas morning it held quite a few unwelcome surprises as various items of information were offered that no one had expected to find in their stocking and did not quite know what to make of now they had.
Extensive and thorough questioning of prostitutes on the streets and around the clubs of Uxbridge had, so far, produced no lead on the blonde in the taxi. However, many of the girls did not show themselves until late evening, so enquiries would continue throughout the night and into the next day if necessary.
No luck either in finding the driver who had picked her up at Plover’s Rest and taken her wherever she wished to go. All freelance cabbies within a twelve-mile radius of the village had been followed up, as well as every one in Causton. Luck though, of a sort, with Hadleigh’s removal van.