The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths Page B

parents think about that?’ Max was yet to meet these mythical beings. They had a house inHove, but Ruby didn’t live with them. She shared a flat with another girl. Max had never met her either. Now she shrugged. ‘I’m over eighteen.’
    Ethel was thirty, he thought, but that didn’t stop her being murdered.
    ‘I’ll try to help you find work,’ he said, ‘but promise me one thing. Promise me you’ll never answer an advertisement in
Variety
.’
    She laughed, not really listening, and the wind blew her dark hair around her head.
    ‘Promise me,’ he said and his tone made her look at him in surprise.
    ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If it means that much to you.’
    *
    Edgar really was late by the time that he left the station. He had been held up by a woman who claimed to remember a sinister man carrying a black box into the station. The man, who was apparently small and dark, bought a bunch of flowers from the woman’s stall. Edgar promised to look out for a murderous flower-loving midget and set off for Tony’s lodgings at one-thirty.
    He took the most direct route, along the seafront, but soon regretted this as the promenade was absolutely packed. It was a Saturday lunchtime in August and the world seemed to have come to Brighton for the day. Edgar pushed his way through the strolling, aimless bodies. He envied them. They knew nothing of murder or mutilation, these smiling, happy people. Families ate ice creams, lovers posed for photographs and an eccentricwith a billboard handed out leaflets prophesying the end of the world. As he forced his way through the crowds, Edgar found himself more and more in tune with the doomsayer: ‘The world will end in 1951. This is a FACT.’ He wondered why the man had fixed on 1951 instead of the neater 1950. It seemed oddly arbitrary, like Tony’s appointed meeting time. As he turned the corner by the Albion Hotel, another swarm of people seemed to be crossing the roundabout by the aquarium. The policemen directing the traffic had white helmets – a sure sign that it was summer – and they were having trouble clearing a space for cars. An open-top bus floundered amidst the sea of humanity. As Edgar watched, he saw a couple running across the road. They stood out, even amongst the throng. The man wore a cream-coloured suit – lighter and smarter than any other suit on the seafront – and the woman’s green dress fluttered against her legs. Max and Ruby, laughing, hand in hand. Edgar watched them until they passed under the archway welcoming visitors to the Palace Pier and were lost from view.
    For a moment he forgot his appointment as he stared after them. Ruby and Max. They worked together, there was no reason on earth why they shouldn’t be sauntering along in the sun together. He thought of Ruby walking beside him talking about that woman magician who could levitate tables. How far would Ruby go to further her career? Polite and considerate, that was how she had described Max. He certainly looked more than polite now, holding her hand, smiling down at her. He rememberedwhat Max had said that evening with Tony:
She’s not a permanent fixture. Just for this week
. Like Ethel, like all the other girls. Edgar stood so long that the man with the billboard was able to walk right up to him and thrust a leaflet into his hand. The world will END. We are all going to DIE.
    Edgar remembered Tony’s lodging house from Monday night. It was in a row of fisherman’s cottages leading up from the Steine. Tony might be destined for great things but, in terms of digs, he was still mid-way down the bill. The door was opened by a young girl – barely fifteen – who told him that Mr Mulholland’s room was upstairs. ‘Third on the left. But I don’t think he’s in. I haven’t seen him all day.’
    She seemed to have no objection to Edgar’s climbing the stairs and opening Tony’s door, which wasn’t locked. The room was small, just a single bed, a desk and a large wardrobe.