Holly Lester Read Online Free

carefully – if a handbag got his face pushed against a wall what would a package this size do? – he saw no sign of Terry the Runt or his companion. He walked towards the front door and as he started up the steps it opened and an immense black woman stood in the doorway. She wore a white cotton dress, not unlike a nurse’s uniform, but it was partly covered by a vast blue blazer that accentuated the extraordinary width of her shoulders.
    She looked sharply at the bubble-wrapped picture. ‘I was not expecting a delivery.’
    â€˜Who said it’s for you?’ Though English, Billings had not spent fifteen years in New York for nothing. He added mildly, ‘Is this the Lesters’?’
    â€˜It is.’
    â€˜Then could you please tell Mrs Lester that James Billings is here with her painting?’
    The door closed in his face and he resisted the temptation to ring the bell. He heard the black woman’s voice, then a garbled reply. When the door swung open he saw the woman again in front of him but was surprised to find no one else nearby. Then he noticed the intercom on the wall.
    â€˜Follow me,’ the woman said curtly. He walked into the hall and followed her into the sitting room. ‘Sitting’ room was right, he decided, since he was faced by a dark sea of wooden chairs, lined in a semi-circle three rows deep.
    There were dozens of framed photographs on the walls, most of Harry Lester in a variety of poses with other people – James Callaghan, Michael Foot, some union leader Billings recognized from the Winter of Discontent years before, and a publican pulling a pint for a beaming Harry in his constituency up North. The only art work consisted of two framed posters: a Toulouse Lautrec, and Steinberg’s famous vision of the world from New York transported to Leeds. He was very surprised; where was the flair, the stylishness he associated with Holly Lester?
    â€˜There you are.’ He turned to find Holly in the doorway, dressed smartly in a scarlet blouse, black skirt, stockings, and black pumps. She spoke quickly, almost curtly. So this was business after all. ‘Come upstairs please.’ She turned around smartly and he followed her upstairs to a large room that ran across the front of the house, painted a light Wedgwood blue, ostensibly intended to duplicate the original Regency colour. The room had three sash windows, framed by Colefax and Fowler curtains he recognized from the Interior magazines Marla read. The floor was oak, and decorated with a mix of kilims and small Persian rugs.
    Here there were many paintings, mainly nineteenth-century oils, including a Seago and several landscapes he could only identify as Norwich School. The taste was faultless but utterly conventional, as if someone had been given, say, £25,000 and told to do a good job on the walls. Perhaps that was exactly what had happened, if Holly made as much money as the house (and McBain) implied. No snob, Billings saw nothing wrong with this – better to buy pictures as furniture than not buy them at all – but it did leave him baffled by her purchase of the Burgess.
    â€˜What a nice room,’ he said, thinking of its contrast with the pedestrian sitting room downstairs. She seemed to read his thoughts. ‘Downstairs is Harry’s room for meetings. This,’ she said hesitantly, as if recognizing its staid conventions, ‘is where we entertain.’ On a side table he saw two photographs in silver frames, one of the Lesters with Harold Pinter, another with John Mortimer, which suggested the kind of people they had to drinks.
    â€˜Your pictures are good, too,’ he said, picking the adjective carefully, ‘but I can’t quite see where the Burgess will go.’
    â€˜That’s what I thought. But I have another idea. Come with me.’
    Moving out into the hallway, they were confronted by a small boy, wearing Oshkosh dungarees. ‘Mummy,