The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress Read Online Free Page B

foot.
    He wondered if it had crossed Bloomfield’s mind to take a snapshot of his mother and father sprawled across the Thank­sgiving table.
    â€˜The word photography,’ he said, ‘is from the Greek. It means drawing from light.’
    Rose didn’t respond.
    Here’s our house in Maine . . . and me again . . . that’s me in love with you
, wailed the voice.
    Two blocks before they came to the freeway the camper was brought to a halt. An elderly woman, black fists punching the air, was being manhandled into a patrol car. He wound up the window to drown the screams spilling from her mouth.
    It took over three hours to reach the outskirts of Washing­ton. Having gone without his breakfast eggs he needed food. Stopping at a roadside diner near Gaithersburg he’d asked Rose to come with him, but she refused.
    When he got back behind the wheel he could tell she’d been smoking; he didn’t open the window because he liked the smell of tobacco.
    Most of the time Rose appeared to doze, until they passed the sign for Bethesda and she sat up and quite animatedly remarked that it was a name she remembered from scripture lessons at school. It intrigued him how often she mentioned things from her childhood. It struck him they were alike; the past had eclipsed the present.
    A sloping path bordered with cherry trees led up to the front porch of the Stanfords’ detached house. Rose didn’t immediately get out; she was fidgeting with her lip again.
    He said, ‘There was a famous architect called Stanford. He designed Madison Square Garden . . . in New York. He was murdered.’
    â€˜By his wife?’ she murmured.
    â€˜No,’ he retorted. ‘He was a womaniser, shot by an outraged husband. Women don’t kill.’
    Still she didn’t move. At last, opening the camper door, she surprised him by asking if he was coming with her.
    â€˜Best not,’ he said. ‘It’s right you see him on your own . . . at first.’
    Watching her go up the path, shoulders hunched against the rain, he felt guilty at not telling her the truth. As soon as he saw her enter the house he drove further down the street.
    Everything about Rose puzzled him: her manners, her background, most of all her link with Wheeler. Seeing that blurred photograph on her dusty bedside table had shaken him. Her story about meeting him in some remote coastal village in the north of England sixteen years ago simply didn’t make sense. What was he doing holed up in the back of beyond? Rose had no idea what sort of work he’d been doing; she’d never asked, she said, because she’d been taught it was rude to enquire what people did for a living.
    He’d consulted Jesse Shaefer who’d reluctantly hinted in a roundabout way that Wheeler’s stay in England might have had something to do with the Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey; he refused to elaborate further. Shaefer’s explanation was possibly near to the truth. Rose said Wheeler had frequently been absent—on holiday she thought—because he was sunburnt when everyone else was pale.
    His own first encounter with Wheeler had taken place seven years before, through Shaefer. It was at a reception to mark the appointment of the President’s brother as Attorney General. Wheeler wore a grey suit and classy brown shoes. When he crossed a room he glided rather than walked, head slightly inclined. Sometimes, when speaking, he shielded his eyes with his hand, the way people did when gazing into the distance. It wasn’t altogether contrived, simply that he was one of those fortunate people who made an impression. He was aware of it, for sure, but then who could blame him? Recogni­tion was something everyone craved, if only to prove they existed. During the following twelve months they had dined together on half a dozen occasions, Wheeler always picking up the cheque; at the climax of the year, complimentary tickets