Fatlands Read Online Free Page B

affair.’
    â€˜Is he better than Jason Donovan?’
    She snorted her disgust. Then said, rather eagerly, ‘He’s the school gardener.’
    â€˜Very Lady Chatterley.’ I had a thought. ‘You know Lady Chatterley?’
    â€˜Of course,’she sighed. ‘I read it when I was ten.’
    â€˜Fine. So, do they meet in the potting shed?’
    â€˜He’s got a room. In town. She goes there on Saturdays.’
    â€˜Ah yes, the morning off.’
    â€˜She has multiple orgasms.’
    â€˜Lucky her. How about him?’
    â€˜He does, too.’
    â€˜Well, that’s all right, then.’
    There was a slight pause. ‘You don’t disapprove?’
    â€˜No, I don’t think so.’
    â€˜Her father would.’
    â€˜No doubt.’
    â€˜But then he still thinks of her as a child.’
    â€˜Yes, well, he would, wouldn’t he?’
    She looked at me sharply to check whether or not I was laughing at her. I must have passed the test. ‘So you don’t think she’s too young, then?’
    â€˜I don’t know. How old is she?’
    â€˜Thirteen.’
    I glanced over at her. ‘You want a serious answer?’
    She hesitated, then nodded.
    I smiled. ‘For me it would have been. In fact I know it would have scared the hell out of me. But maybe for her it’s all right. Sort of depends on how he treats her, really.’
    â€˜Oh, he’s nice to her. Well, most of the time.’
    â€˜Then it’s probably good preparation for the rest of her life.’
    She fell silent. I wondered what I’d just been told. Another sign whizzed past me on the left. London, twenty miles. I looked at my watch. 9.55. The day stretched ahead of us.
    â€˜You’d better take the M25,’she said suddenly. ‘It’ll get us into town quicker.’
    I shot her a glance. ‘You want to drive or can I stay at the wheel?’She grinned. ‘Fine. You got somewhere in particular in mind?’
    â€˜Yeah, Knightsbridge.’
    I shrugged. ‘I’ve got the time if you’ve got the money.’
    In answer she unzipped her money belt and flashed me a thick wad of notes. There must have been four, five hundredpounds there. I wondered, not for the first time, just how much money someone was paying her father to find a cure for cancer. Maybe the story about the wife and the custody snatch was just a front. Maybe the real reason he needed a private eye was to make sure his daughter didn’t get mugged with the family fortune.
    â€˜It’s a lot of money, Mattie,’I said softly.
    â€˜Yeah, well, it’s my birthday, remember.’And not for the first time she sounded older then her years.

CHAPTER THREE S.H.O.P.P.I.N.G.
    S
omehow we ended up in Harrods. Not what I expected. Given the service station transformation I had her down more as a Joseph kind of girl. But the little black and grey numbers left her cold—she didn’t even get as far as looking at the price tags—while around the corner the castle of fairy lights beckoned. One of the seven wonders of the consumerist world.
    I had a spiel about Harrods. It went down well with paranoid Americans—a potent story of Western capitalism now owned by the Middle East. A history of our time. Except I didn’t think Mattie would be interested. We started in the food hall. Her suggestion. We bought chocolate and almond croissants from the pastry bar and ate them out of the bag with our fingers. Mattie had two. I was impressed. For a fourteen-year-old she seemed enviably oblivious to the evils of carbohydrates. Then we took the lift up to Way In, Harrods’boutique answer to youth culture.
    It was so dark in there it took me a while to realize there was nothing worth buying. Mattie flicked idly through the rails. She seemed ill at ease, but when I asked her if she was looking for anything in particular she treated me like a salesgirl, a distinct touch