Valentina: A Hauntingly Intelligent Psychological Thriller Read Online Free Page B

thought of Scousers as being like us Weegies – blowing their wages on a Friday night, looking a million dollars on a pittance, generous, sensitive, sometimes to the point of chippy. Murderous when crossed.
    “ Which bit of you is real then?” I said. “That your real voice for a start? Here’s me thinking you were ever so posh.”
    “ Well now, you shouldn’t always believe what you hear.” He looked down his nose at me in the cocky way he has. “I am ever so posh, I’ll have you know. My parents’ve got a bay window.”
    “ A bay window? Didn’t realise you came from aristocracy.”
    In the dense heat of the pub my cheeks burned. We had to shout to talk, push ourselves into an alcove by the door and it was wrong of me, I know, especially as Robbie hadn’t even got back from the bar yet, but I kind of wanted him and Jeanie to clear off. Terrible, but I felt that straight away and you can’t help how you feel can you? Valentina was always saying that. She was a great one for that.
    So we chatted away and that’s when I found out he was over at Heriot-Watt University studying for a Master’s in petroleum engineering.
    “ What’s an engineer doing in a panto?” I asked. “And if you stay in Edinburgh, how come you’re through in Glasgow? Don’t they have theatre groups where you stay?” My fifth question, I counted, and told myself to shut up.
    “ My girlfriend has a place here so I stay over and get the train back in the morning.”
    Girlfriend, I thought.
    Shit, I thought.
    Served me right.
    “ What are you anyway,” he was saying, “some sort of journalist?”
    “ Lucky guess, Sherlock. I’m here with Jeanie aren’t I, so ...” For the second time I was floundering, this time on account of the girlfriend grenade. But – good thing about being Scottish in these moments? You can pass off any flirting you might have engaged in by mistake as pure Gallic friendliness. And I guess he could do the same: that famous cheeky Scouse charm.
    “ So you’re a hack then, eh,” he said.
    “ What’s that supposed to mean?”
    He grinned – water off a duck’s back. “What d’you do then, go round digging in people’s bins? Doorstep the rich and famous?”
    I shook my head, as if he were a sad, sad man, which made him grin all the more. “I’m interested in the truth, if that’s what you mean.”
    “ Truth and justice and all that?”
    “ Aye. Truth and justice. You cannae keep a good journo from the truth.”
    “ And what’s your drink?” he asked.
    “ I’ll give you three guesses.”
    “ Let’s see. Heavy? Stella? Guinness?”
    “ Wrong.” It was my turn to put on the posh voice. “You’ll have to give me your first-born child now. Mine’s a white wine spritzer. You see, I’m considerably more sophisticated than you think.”
    There we were, then, being friendly. I found out he played keyboards, had become a Munro bagger since he moved north. I found out he’d met his girlfriend at uni, that she was reading Geology and came from Hampshire. She sounded clever, at home in the place her education had brought her to, since she’d always expected to get there. She sounded like she played a classical instrument, I thought, a cello or a harp or something like that. These things I imagined about her, along with flawless skin, killer body, cordon bleu cooking skills and wished her, only momentarily mind, involved in a fatal music-related accident – strangled by a cello string, maybe, or crushed to death by a massive harp.

 
     
    THREE
     
    Jeanie called me at my desk the day after the panto, having thoughtfully prepared a profile I never asked her for.
    “ OK, so he’s twenty-six.”
    “ Hmm, toy boy.” I turned to look at her – she was only across the office, on the features desk.
    She pulled her glasses to the end of her nose, gave me a big wink, her voice still close in my ear. “Shut up, you’re only a few years older.” She pushed her glasses back up her nose and ran her