Forests of the Night by David Stuart Davies Page B

second chance to show you that I can be a … a charming and attentive escort. Could we arrange another date?’
    â€˜I’m doing nothing this evening.’
    â€˜That’s funny … neither am I.’
    I couldn’t believe this cheesy dialogue. I felt that at any minute we would go into our song. Than it struck me that Eve might be setting me up to get her own back.
    â€˜Are you quite sure you’d like to meet up?’ I said earnestly.
    â€˜But not the cinema this time,’ she said with a stern note in her voice. No doubt she had visions of being abandoned again in the dark with a scowling woman ranting about her corns.
    â€˜How about Lyon’s Corner House, Piccadilly Circus, at eight this evening?’
    â€˜OK, but please be on time and promise not to run out on me once we’ve ordered a drink.’
    â€˜I promise.’
    â€˜In that case, I accept. I’ll see you at eight.’
    Before I could reply, she put the phone down.
    At first I felt happy and pleased and then a doubt crept in. What if she really was getting her own back? What if she had me going to Lyon’s and she didn’t show. Or worse, she turned up and poured a cup of coffee over me before beating a hasty retreat. Well, it was something I’d have to risk.
    I glanced at my watch. It was nearly five. I reckoned I’d time for a wash and shave … no a bath, even if it meant running the gauntlet of the cranky geyser in the bathroom down the corridor. I needed to smell sweet. And to look good, too, which meant slipping into my best suit – well, my other suit to be precise. Then I’d still have time to visit Peter in hospital, have a morale-boosting whisky somewhere and be five minutes early at Lyon’s Corner House for my date with the delicious Miss Kendal. Suddenly life felt a lot brighter than it had been as I’d viewed it a few hours ago.
    I’d just got myself into my dressing-gown, towel over my arm and toilet bag in my mitt when the doorbell rang. Who the hell…?
    If it was a client, I’d tell them to come back in office hours. With some irritation, I pulled open the door, looking no doubt like a dodgy bath attendant.
    My visitor was Leo Epstein.
    He didn’t bat an eyelid at my appearance. ‘I think we’d better have a talk,’ he said.

thirteen
    I’d never interviewed a visitor to my office in my dressing gown before and although I felt somewhat vulnerable and ridiculous, I attempted to adopt an air of nonchalance as I offered Leo Epstein a chair and, popping my towel and toilet bag on the filing cabinet, I took up my usual position behind my desk.
    Epstein looked nervous, quite different from the smooth, smug, silent fellow he had appeared the day before. Something had ruffled his oily feathers. I decided to play on this and I waited for him to start the ball rolling. With measured deliberation I extracted a cigarette from the packet and lit it, blowing the smoke sideways as I stared at my solicitor friend with interest.
    â€˜It’s about Pamela Palfrey,’ he said at last in a voice that was high and nervous.
    â€˜I thought it might be,’ I smiled, taking another drag on my cigarette.
    His hands fluttered to open his briefcase and he extracted a copy of that morning’s Daily Mirror. It was open at page four and the blurred picture of the dead girl stared out at me. ‘I recognized her picture in the paper this morning. A terrible business. Murdered.’
    I nodded.
    â€˜I wasn’t completely honest with you yesterday, I’m afraid,’ he said gazing at me from under hooded lids.
    â€˜Oh?’
    â€˜Yes.’ The eyes fluttered furiously with embarrassment. ‘I knew Pamela somewhat more … more intimately than I admitted.’
    â€˜You slept with her.’
    Leo Epstein looked shocked. His brown skin paled and his jaw dropped. The truth has this effect on some people, especially