A Little Death Paperback - 2000

ADA

It was my birthday last week. Lovely flowers from Master Edmund, beautiful. He  always remembers, but Miss Georgina doesn't pay attention to those sorts of  things and I don't expect it. Anyway, birthdays aren't important when you get  to my age. But this afternoon when I was having my rest, I heard her go  thump-thump on the floor with the broom for me to go up there. I told her,  "Don't you go summoning me up here again in a hurry, my knees are poorly.'

She said, "Sit down, Greymalkin.' That's what she calls me at present, though I  don't know what it means. Six months ago she was calling me Brunhilde, and  before that it was something else just as daft. But I don't take any notice,

it's just her games. I took Master Edmund's chair next to hers in the window

where she sits all day and looks out. Then she says, "Really, Ada, you make  such a fuss about everything. I'm not asking you to charge into  the valley of death with the six hundred. I only asked you to come up because  I've got a present for you,' and she wallops down a box of chocolates on my  worst knee. The doctor says I'm diabetic now, so I can't have chocolates and

sweets, and she'd know that if she ever bothered to think, which she doesn't.  It was on the tip of my tongue to say, "Very nice, I don't think,' but I kept  mum, so of course she said, "Well, don't I deserve a thank you?'

"It's very kind of you, Miss Georgina, I'm sure.' That's typical, making me  look ungrateful like that.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with these blasted chocolates. They had to  go straight into the back of the cupboard, so I wouldn't be wanting to eat  them, and then of course I had to go and drop a tin of peas on my foot doing

that, so now that's something else that hurts along with the knee. I'll have a  sit-down and look out into the yard. It used to be a nice view from my little  kitchen when Master Edmund got me the tubs of flowers, but they didn't thrive;  there's not enough light for them down here.

Master Edmund calls us his two guardsmen. Me and Miss Georgina, he means. One  guards the front and the other the back. Although what there is to guard in  this basement I don't know.

Miss Georgina never goes outside any more. She stopped getting the people  coming up to her a long time ago, so it isn't that. I think she's lost interest  in what goes on, apart from the papers. As long she can have a read and do her  crossword, that's all she cares about, really. This wasn't the house where it  happened, of course, nothing like it, but we moved up here straight after,  while it was all still in the papers, and we did get the odd one or two  sniffing around. Not reporters, just normal people. I caught a couple of them  on the front porch once. Two women. I'd come out the basement door and I looked  up and there they were. Broad daylight and one of them was peering through the  letter-box. The other one's stood behind her, going, "Can you see anything,  then?' But that was nothing to what went before. Miss Georgina used to get  people shouting at her, nasty letters, all kinds of things. It was always women  who did it; you don't get men doing that sort of thing, do you?

It's all forgotten now, of course, but there was a terrible to-do about it at  the time. It's not surprising--Mr. James was rich, he knew a lot of  important people: politicians, in the world of business, that sort of people. A  cause celebre, that's what you'd call it. And Miss Georgina was  so lovely, they couldn't take enough pictures. I thought at the time, it's a

good job they never found out what happened to Miss Georgina's brother Freddie,  how he died, or goodness knows what sort of wicked things they'd have made up.  Because there were plenty who thought she'd got away with murder as it was,  without dragging all that into it as well. I thought there might be some  trouble with the neighbours when we moved here afterwards, but they're all nice  people, and Master Edmund is so well liked they have plenty of friends. If Miss  Georgina wants to see people, Master Edmund only has to telephone and they all  come to play bridge. I think Miss Georgina gets just as much of a kick from  hearing Master Edmund talking on that telephone as she does from the company:  "Doo telephone,' she says. "Dooo telephone, Edmund', and then she always has to  have the door open so she can hear him out in the hall. But it does make me  laugh; to see him touch that telephone, you'd think it was going to explode at  any moment. He picks it up and says, "Are you there?'--it sounds as if  he's shouting into the mouth of a cave. Sometimes, if she's talking to him and  she thinks he's not listening, she puts on a voice and says, "Are you  there?'

Miss Louisa comes here every week to see them. She's Lady Kellway, really, by  her marriage to Lord Kellway that's dead. Master Edmund's very fond of  her--his face lights up like Christmas whenever she comes. Miss  Georgina doesn't like it, but Miss Louisa's been a good friend to her and she  knows it, though she'd never admit it. Miss Louisa's daughter, Miss Caroline,  or Mrs. Cornford I should say, she comes to visit too, sometimes. He's  Cornford's pickles. They repeat on me, but of course I wouldn't ever say that  to Miss Caroline. But somebody must eat them, because he's got money coming in  hand over fist.

We were here all during the war, right on this spot. I said to Miss Georgina,  "Why don't you go as a paying guest?' because there was plenty in the country  taking them at the time. Well, she wouldn't hear of it. I told her, "Don't  worry, I'll be here to keep it nice for when you come back,' but would she  listen? Not on your nelly. Not that I was surprised, mind you. I might as well  be a lump of coal for all the notice she takes of me. "I'll sleep in my own bed  and if Hitler wants to bomb me, that's his look out.' That's what she said. Of  course, where Miss Georgina goes, Master Edmund goes, so there was me, sat down  here all alone, under the stairs, night after night, worried sick. One night

there was a huge bang right on top of us and all the plaster coming down, and I  thought that's done it, I only hope Master Edmund's got his teeth in. I  wouldn't like him to be found without his teeth in . . . and  then I heard this thin little voice: "Ada, Ada, where are you?' And I looked up  and there they were, covered in dust and plaster, and looking like ghosts,  Master Edmund in his pyjamas and tin hat, blood all over one arm, and her in a  satin nightgown and his old tweed coat with a shawl wrapped round. What a pair  they looked! But Master Edmund is a card, he made me laugh, even then. I'd done  some washing, and of course the rack had come down with the bang and it was all  over the floor. Master Edmund looked down and said, "Has the clotheshorse  bolted?'

It turned out the damage wasn't too much, it was the house behind us that got  the worst of it, and all we had was windows gone and a bit of mess, so it was  fixed up soon enough. Master Edmund and Miss Georgina'd been told over and over  to sleep downstairs--and that time the ARP man sat Miss Georgina down  and said, "You'll be stopping downstairs from now on, won't you?'

"Oh, yes,' she said. But I knew she wouldn't and sure enough, the next night:  back upstairs.

A former teacher and writer of children's history books, Wilson delivers a superb debut novel that's more literary fiction than genre mystery. With delicious stealth, Wilson reveals a chilling, amoral and degenerative murderer, whose true nature only becomes apparent to the reader in small, subtle increments

"This is a cunning book. It creeps up on the reader like someone pursuing a friend down a street with a view to patting them on the back and saying hello, but instead giving them a heart attack....fuel for real suspense."
-- Frances Fyfield

"A web of desire, violence and lost opportunity...masterfully captures the different voices of the three protagonists, and weaves their stories together."
-- The Times (London)

"Superb...this is an exciting debut."
-- The Times (London)

And look for Laura Wilson's second novel of british psychological suspense
Dying Voices
Coming soon from Bantam Books!