Peter Lovesey - Bloodhounds

She felt the blood rise and redden her cheeks. "How did you know?"

"Jess was talking about you. You just joined that coven she belongs to. The crime fiction people. What is it the Baskervilles?"

"The Bloodhounds. I wouldn't call it a coven, but how did you recognize me?"

"She said you might call in sometime."

"Yes, but of all the people in Bath…" An uncomfortable thought had come to her. Had Jessica told him about the kinds of clothes she wore? Was it so obvious that she dressed out of charity shops?

"We don't get all the people in Bath dropping in and asking for her by name. I know most of the regular clients here." He stepped from behind the desk and toward her with right hand extended. "I'm known as A.J., and don't ask what it stands for, because I don't much care for the name I was given." His hand was cool, the grip firm. "I'll put the kettle on, unless you want to sample the cheap sherry she keeps."

"No, really," said Shirley-Ann, telling herself that he couldn't be Barnaby, the husband, unless Jessica used the name he didn't care for-which wouldn't be very loyal.

"Really what?" said A.J. "Really tea or really sherry or really you're in a frightful hurry? — because that patently isn't true if you dropped in for a chat with Jess. Sweet discourse makes short days and nights, so the saying goes, and I know of no one it fits better than Jess. My God, wouldn't she be flattered to hear that from me, always accusing her of being a motormouth?"

He was leaving her in no doubt that he knew Jessica extremely well. Personally, if Shirley-Ann had owned a gallery she wouldn't have left an overbearing man like this in charge.

"All right," she said. "Tea will be nice if you really think she won't be long."

"Take a look around," he said, as he stepped toward the alcove where the kettle must have been kept. "See what strikes you as worth the asking price. Between you and me, we have a new exhibition coming up later this week. You should come to the preview if you want to buy."

She didn't care at all for that male assumption that women would do as they were told, so she went straight to a tall-backed Rennie Mackintosh chair and tested it for comfort, still wondering what A.J.'s role was in the business, and in Jessica's life.

When he appeared again and saw her in the chair he said, "Careful, that's where you're supposed to sit to write the check." He handed her the tea. It came in a white porcelain cup and saucer, and there were two tea leaves floating, as if to let her know that he hadn't used a teabag. "She'll be back any second. She can smell tea brewing a mile away."

He was talking like a husband, but Jessica had definitely said she was married to someone called Barnaby. How could you get A.J. from that? Shirley-Ann tried some guesswork of her own. "You look like a painter."

"How come?" he said. "Spots on my jeans-or did I leave a brush behind my ear? Yes, I paint figures."

"The clowns in the window?"

"Christ, no. That isn't my style at all. I do nudes, but very Bath Spa, very tasteful, heavily shadowed over the naughty bits. She' has three upstairs, if you're interested. They retail at between eight hundred and a thousand. Two years back I couldn't keep up with the demand, but everything went flat in the recession, including my nudes." He flashed the immaculate teeth. "Joke."

"So you combine painting with working in the gallery?"

"No. I don't work here. Just hold the fort for Jess on occasions. She's stuck with it all day, poor duck, so if I'm passing I look in and let her get some air. You're as hooked on crime as she is, I hear."

"Crime fiction," Shirley-Ann made clear.

"Jess buys books by the yard. You've got to find something if you're in here every day sitting on your butt. She doesn't get all that many callers. And about one in ten is seriously into art. Correction, One in twenty. Some people come in to ask the way to the nearest loo, for pity's sake. Or in the hope of making a killing with some faded print of The Stag at Bay that they picked up for a couple of quid in a car boot sale. Soul-destroying. But even that's better than no visitors at all. She can spend hours in here alone. Which is why she reads the Sara Paretskys and the Sue Graftons. The thickeared action whiles away the time."

Shirley-Ann found herself galloping to the defense of two of her favorite writers. "Thick-eared? That's just what they aren't. They're intelligent. They take on issues."

"Like feminism." He barely concealed a sneer. "Or should I say postfeminism?"

"You can't have read them. They say more about modern society-and more convincingly-than most of the so-called serious novels."

He laughed. "I was winding you up. And I haven't read them. Being an artist, I'm into graphic novels, told in pictures- what you would call comics for adults."

"Thick-eared."

"With a vengeance. But the artwork can be brilliant."

"And do you enjoy winding people up, as you put it?"

"Enormously."

"Women in particular?"

His lips twitched out of the smile that was forming. "You're about to accuse me of sexism, or something worse. Women are just as good as men at piss-taking, you know. No, I treat 'em all alike. A sucker is a sucker is a sucker."

"Is that what you took me for?"

He grinned. "Just testing."

In spite of bridling at almost everything he said, she was beginning to enjoy the exchanges. She wouldn't confide in a man like that except under extreme torture, but she found the argument stimulating. Men of his sort should be put to work like bowling machines in women's assertiveness classes.

The sparring went no further because Jessica burst in carrying a Waitrose bag full of groceries. On seeing Shirley-Ann, she put her hand to her blond hair and pushed it back from her forehead, but there was no need. Even after the hassle of shopping she looked ready to step onto the catwalk in the pale blue suit she was wearing. "Well, this is so terrific!" she exclaimed.

"I just dropped in as you suggested," said Shirley-Ann. She had got up too quickly from the chair, teacup in hand, and slopped some in the saucer. She would never be poised like Jessica.

"I'm so pleased you did."

A.J. added without the hint of a smile, "And we just agreed that Mickey Spillane is the greatest crime writer in the world."

"We did not!" protested Shirley-Ann.

"Or was it Peter Cheyney? Dames Don't Care."

Jessica said, "Give it a rest, A.J." Then, to Shirley-Ann, "He's full of crap. Do sit down."

"He's one of the New Men," said A.J. about himself. "He made the lady a superb cup of tea. Pot's still warm. Want one?"

"Warm is no good to me. Make a fresh pot." When they were alone, Jessica said to Shirley-Ann, "Sorry you had to find him in charge. He can be fun in small doses. I'll get rid of him, and then I can show you around in peace. He's extremely rude about all the work except his own."

"He kept me entertained. Does he really know anything about crime fiction?"

"A smattering. Just enough to irritate. You don't want to tell him too much about yourself. He's a dreadful tease, and he'll use anything he can discover."

"That doesn't surprise me at all."

When AJ. returned with the tea, Jessica thanked him for standing in for her and said she'd just seen a traffic warden starting to check the cars in Walcot Street.

"Did you make it up?" asked Shirley-Ann, after A.J. had dashed out.

She smiled. "He lives dangerously. Never buys a parking ticket. He'd do the same to me, only worse, much more bizarre. Probably tell me he saw a circus procession passing through and an elephant leaned against my car. And I'd fall for it, because the one time I disbelieve him you can be damned sure there will be a damned great jumbo sitting on my bonnet."

"He's an artist, he told me," Shirley-Ann said, keen to know more without probing too directly.