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eciding to follow up with a brisk, cool shower to wash her hair. As she resurfaced, the water in her ears hummed, and she groaned as she realised that it was the telephone ringing in the kitchen. She debated leaving it, but then considered that in view of the upheavals that had occurred it might be wise to answer it.
Her damp body wrapped in the plush white towelling designer robe that had been a birthday present from her luxury-loving parents in New York, Anya padded into the kitchen, releasing her waist-length hair from its top-knot and blotting at the dripping mass with a towel, half hoping the electronic burr would stop before she got there, but the caller was persistent—rather ominously so, she feared.
Taking a deep breath, she picked up the receiver in a tense grip.
‘Anya? For God’s sake, what took you so long to answer? How far away could you be in that tiny little shoebox you call a house? Why on earth don’t you get a cell-phone like mine, or at least a cordless that you can carry around with you?’
Anya’s fingers relaxed at the sound of the irritated greeting. ‘Kate? Good heavens, I was just thinking about you,’ she said, sternly censoring the last few minutes of her bath.
‘Were you, sweetie? I hope that means that you’ve got some good news for me at long last.’
She might have known that her cousin wouldn’t ring for just a chat. ‘Well, uh—’
But Kate hadn’t finished. ‘You know, I wouldn’t have to phone if you would just use your computer more often—you know I’m constantly bouncing all over the place and sometimes don’t pick up my snail mail for weeks. Didn’t you read the e-mail I sent you last week?’
Typical of Kate to expect a rapid reply when she herself was notorious for her time-lagged answers.
‘Actually, I’ve been away—’
‘Just a moment!’ Anya heard a hand cover the mouthpiece at the other end and quietly resumed mopping her hair, squeezing out the shaped layers which framed her face before rolling up the sodden length in the towel and securing it round her head. She could hear echoing noises and a muffled conversation in French being carried on at the other end, with a good peppering of Gallic expletives.
‘Sorry, Annie,’ Kate came back on, ‘but I’m at Charles de Gaulle on my way to New York and some petty tyrant is trying to tell me that one of my bags is overweight for the baggage handlers. If the hotel chauffeur could handle it why not them? Are they all wimps? Why do I fly business class if not to avoid stupid hassles like this?’
Anya waited patiently, knowing it was pointless to offer either advice or sympathy, for it would undoubtedly be taken as criticism or unwelcome interference. Just as pointless to remind Kate how much she disliked being called ‘Annie’.
She stretched the telephone cord to enable her to reach the fridge and take out the bottle of white wine lying on the bottom shelf. She had the feeling she might need a glass before the conversation was through.
‘So, have you managed to get yourself invited over to the old homestead, yet?’ Kate returned abruptly to the purpose of her call when she had vented enough of her spleen.
‘Well, no, not really—’ Anya didn’t think she could count last night’s gate-crashing episode.
‘Why not, for God’s sake? You’ve been in Riverview for four months; you must be part of the local scenery by now. Can’t you casually wander over and say you want to look around the place you used to visit as a kid…maybe spin a sob story about a pilgrimage to The Pines in memory of your dear, departed Aunty Mary and Uncle Fred?’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ said Anya, irritated by the flippancy of the last remark. She couldn’t imagine any sufficiently casual way to go knocking on Scott Tyler’s door. Especially now!
She extracted the cork from the bottle with a sharp tug. ‘It isn’t that simple. I told you—Mr Tyler and I don’t get on very well…’
That had to be the most masterly understatement of all time.
‘I know you did.’ Kate had been oddly complacent about the fact, emboldened rather than discouraged. ‘He’s too rough around the edges for someone like you. He’d eat you up in a minute. But you’re doing this for me, not for him. It’s not as if I ask you for many favours, sweetie…’
Nor I of you, thought Anya with a rare stab of bitterness, pouring a healthy slug of wine into her glass.
Kate had been disparaging when a pained Martha and Charles Adams had passed on the news that their daughter had taken the backward career-step of moving to a ‘down-market’ school and had bought some kind of ‘tumbledown’ cottage in Riverview. But a month ago she had rung up out of the blue, telling Anya that since she was conveniently to hand, perhaps she wouldn’t mind acting for her on a matter of great personal delicacy.
Anya’s extreme reluctance on learning what the favour entailed had been tantamount to an outright refusal, but Kate had never been one to let such trifles get in her way.
Kate had been staying at The Pines while the sale was being finalised and when she had left for the last time—in a mad rush because of an unexpected offer of a series of concerts in eastern Europe, she’d said, to excuse her forgetfulness—she had overlooked the bundle of personal belongings and keepsakes which she had temporarily moved up to a corner of the attic, out of the way of the commercial cleaners who had been buffing up the house for its new owner. Now a New Zealand magazine writer had begun work on an in-depth cover article about Kate and was sniffing around for interesting revelations, and Kate wanted to retrieve the journals and papers she had left behind, preferably without alerting anyone to the fact that they existed.
‘Anyway, even if I did manage to get myself invited for a look around the house—I’d be unlikely to be allowed to poke around on my own, would I?’ Anya protested.
‘You’re a history freak—attics are history. There was loads of other boring old junk up there. You could ask to see it because you’re writing something about the early inhabitants of the area—appeal to his civic pride. Or, better still, do it when there are too many other people around for anyone to notice what you’re up to,’ advised Kate. ‘Doesn’t Scott Tyler ever throw parties?’
Anya shuddered and took a hasty sip of wine. ‘Of course he does—but I’m not on his guest list. We don’t move in the same social circles, Kate—’
‘You make it sound like the Royal Enclosure at Ascot.’ Kate said scathingly. ‘He’s a lawyer, not the Prince of Wales. Stop being so defeatist. Try dating someone who is on his guest list. I’m not asking you to steal anything from him, you know. Just retrieve a few measly papers. Those journals and letters are mine—they’re in my handwriting, for goodness’ sake—’
‘So why don’t you simply call him yourself and explain you want your trunk back, instead of dragging me into it?’ snapped Anya.
