Under My Skin by Sarah Dunant Page B

to have a separate line for the fax, so I can talk and read at the same time.
    I lay and watched it chuntering its way over the machine and onto the floor. The minute it stopped the phone rang.
    “You haven’t broken the portable already, have you?”
    “No. It’s switched off.”
    “Good. Cos I’ll want it back when you leave. I presume you’ve written your letter of resignation?”
    “What?”
    “Well, you’re no longer at Castle Dean and you’re not at the office. And this is 11:33 A.M. on a working day. Do you want me to send on your P forty-five?”
    “Sod off, Frank. I worked all weekend. And how the hell do you know I’m not at Castle Dean anymore?”
    “Because I’ve just spoken to them, that’s how. If you remember, Hannah, employees are supposed to call in every two to three days with a progress report. That is what we decided.”
    For “we” read Frank. And for “employees” read me. He has these brainstorms sometimes. They usually don’t lastlong. Truth was I was going to leave a message on the office answering machine yesterday, but then I’d got my head caught between a couple of overweight thighs and everything else had been wiped from the back memory. “What’s your problem, Frank? You got nothing better to do on a Monday morning than whine?”
    “Au contraire, my little frog bait. As of 9:30 I’ve got a custody snatch case in Madrid and a tasty computer fraud job in Newcastle, both jumping up and down on my desk calling for volunteers.”
    Madrid versus Newcastle. No prizes for which one I was being offered. Computer fraud in Geordie country, eh? More macho than tracking down women whose fat has been sucked out from the wrong bit of them, certainly, but in my experience regional detecting is like local radio—it’s a liability having a London accent. “Sorry, Frank. I’m afraid I’ve already got a job.”
    “Oh? Have you formed your own company, or is this strictly moonlighting?”
    “Frank! It would bloody well serve you right if I had. I haven’t noticed my name going up on the door yet, despite all those promises.”
    Comfort and Wolfe: there was a time when I used to play with the sound of the words, like teenagers testing out rock stars’ surnames in place of their own. Fantasy. Good fun as long as you know that’s all it is. Of course it’ll never happen. I know Frank. He doesn’t want to lose the pleasure of bossing me around. And if I’m honest with myself, I’m not that keen on becoming the kind of person who runs the business rather than just does it.
    To placate him I told him a bit about the job and asked his advice. He was sulky but not unhelpful. He pointed out the obvious connection of the handwriting, though said in his experience anonymous-letter writers could go to untold lengths to disguise themselves, using left hands instead ofright, or even holding the pen with their toes. He also found the fact that Olivia Marchant had kept everything from her husband a bit odd. But then that’s Frank for you. As he never fails to mention, he probably wouldn’t have employed me in the first place if he could have got a man cheaper. It is, of course, bluster. I tell you for nothing if I were in a tight spot and was offered a choice between Cat Woman and Frank Comfort I’d ditch my feminism any day.
    I went back to the fax and all the little Castle Deanies who’d plumped for surgical self-improvement as a way of spending even more money. It wasn’t that long a list and on the second page in I found her—Muriel Rankin, or Mrs. Pear Shape with the slasher past. Forty-eight last year, she had spent ten days at Castle Dean in a super-deluxe room with all the trimmings. Ten days—she wouldn’t have come away with much change out of two grand. I checked out her occupation. She didn’t have one. Her husband did, though. He was the owner of a fleet of garages. No encouragement to walk, I suppose. Which is why she had such trouble with her thighs. And still did,