Whereas now you are a nonstop parrot, thought Elizabeth. But, she had to admit, a pretty one. Aloud she said, “You seem to have made a satisfactory transition to swandom.”
“I know. Isn’t it amazing? After Grandpa Benjie died and left me a fortune, one of the girls down at the library where I worked-her name was Claire, and she was the children’s librarian-anyway, Claire said, ‘If I were you, I’d take some of that money and become gorgeous.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Well, why not?’ Because in Minnesota, even though it’s cold for a lot of the year, we have gyms and health clubs, so there’s really no excuse not to exercise.” She looked appraisingly at Elizabeth. “I suppose you haven’t found any gyms yet in Edinburgh? Anyhow, I’d never bothered before, because I went to an all-girls’ college, and I was so shy and all, that there really didn’t seem to be any point in it. But about a year ago, after Grandpa Benjie left me his money, I could afford to quit my library job…”
By this time they had found the cafeteria, selected their tea and scones, and paid for them, found a table and settled in for elevenses, during the course of which Susan had recited her biography without pausing for breath. Three weeks, Elizabeth kept thinking. Three weeks. “Look at this passport picture,” said Susan triumphantly. “It stops them cold in customs.”
Dutifully, Elizabeth accepted the blue passport booklet, and turned to look at Susan’s photograph. “This is you?” she blurted out. Sure enough, the identification page said Susan Cohen, 420 North Fifth Street, Minneapolis, but the face that looked back from the passport was a round-faced woman with short mouse-brown hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses balanced on a Roman nose. Her protruding front teeth made her look like an intellectual beaver. Elizabeth could see why the photo gave the immigration people pause. The Susan Cohen who sat across the table from her wolfing down a scone bore little resemblance to the dumpling girl in the passport. “That’s quite a change,” she murmured, handing it back.
“I know. Isn’t money wonderful? I went to a dear old plastic surgeon in Long Beach. My doctor recommended him. He’s a friend of the family. I’ve always called him Uncle Bob, and he told me to go to this friend of his up the coast. Anyhow, I went to see him for a consultation. He took this computer thingamabob and scanned in a picture of me, and then he adjusted the machine to show me various changes that we could make. Noses, jawline, everything! Do you like this nose? It’s Katharine Hepburn’s. After that, I had my teeth fixed, and I went to one of those fat farms, and got a wardrobe consultant, and now I’m perfect.”
“How amusing for you,” said Elizabeth, who had heard that the Queen said that to people who were being completely obnoxious.
The sarcasm was lost on her table partner. “I suppose so,” said Susan. “If you can afford it, you ought to give it a try. I think they all did a nice job on me, but I’m not sure what to do next. It’s not like I want to be an actress or anything. And I don’t need a job. I mean, sometimes I say to myself: what’s the point? But you know what? People are nicer to you if you’re pretty. Isn’t that weird? It seems so unfair, doesn’t it?”
Elizabeth managed to get a nod in edgewise.
“Actually, I haven’t exactly turned into a party girl. I guess I was too old to learn to like it. What’s the point of talking to a bunch of boring strangers while you overeat? So I do my exercises and read my books and stay at home with my cats-there’s Dickens and Waldo and Wilkie and Trollope. Trollope is female, get it? I had her fixed, though. And as I said, I read a lot. I think people are much nicer in books than they are in person, don’t you?”
At least, thought Elizabeth, they are easier to shut up. Aloud she said, “Actually, in the books I usually read, the people are nowhere near as nice as those I meet in real life. I like true crime.”
Susan appeared less than thrilled by this revelation. “True crime? That’s pretty ghoulish. Sort of perverted, I mean. How did you get interested in that?”
“I am a forensic anthropologist,” Elizabeth reminded her in icy tones, “but actually, it all began a few years ago on an archaeological dig in Scotland. One of the other diggers was a crime buff and he sparked my interest.” She neglected to mention what fate befell this crime buff. Besides, the truth was that Elizabeth’s fervors were short-lived, lasting for approximately six months each. Having gone through her Brontë phase, her sea lion fixation, and her most recent (and to her loved ones particularly trying) royal flush, she was now occupying her intellect with murder most foul, until the next idée fixe happened along.
“In fact, I brought along a true crime book today. I kept it with me in case I had time to read.” She reached into her purse and brought out a copy of Death Takes A Holiday: A Murder Guide to Britain by Rowan Rover. “It covers old murder cases in just the areas we will visit on this tour.”
“Do you think the guide will take us to those?” asked Susan. “I hope not. I wanted to see things of real cultural importance, like Agatha Christie’s home, and the cathedral of Brother Cadfael, and-”
“But those aren’t real crimes!” Elizabeth protested.
“But they were set in real places,” said Susan with unshakable logic. “And they’re much more famous. Besides, those PBS Mystery! adaptations are always filmed on location. Wouldn’t it be great to visit a movie set?”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “I want to see the roof where Charles Bravo threw up the poison his wife gave him. And I thought that as long as I was here early, I’d use this book to find some other places of interest to the group-just in case the guide isn’t familiar with this text.”
“Lucky for you that I turned up, isn’t it?” said Susan. “Imagine being stuck here all day with that nasty reference book. I find it impossible to read in airports with all the noise and confusion.”
Elizabeth managed a feeble smile. “Lucky me,” she said.
Elsewhere in the airport Alice MacKenzie, her finger inserted in a cup of ice water, was debarking from a flight that had seemed to last six months. Under these circumstances, she bore a newfound indifference to the charms of Britain.
Alice was a gray-haired woman in her mid-fifties with a penchant for pantsuits and sensible shoes, and she was not the least bit embarrassed to enter Great Britain wearing a Dixie cup on her forefinger. It would be silly to value appearances more than comfort, in her oft-stated opinion.
Alice had boarded the plane many time zones earlier in southern California, full of excitement about the upcoming murder mystery tour of England. A retired teacher from San Diego, she was a mystery buff who combined a keen love of travel with an interest in the island origins of her MacKenzie ancestors. When she read about the tour in a local newspaper, it seemed the perfect combination of both her passions.
“Go,” said her second husband Richard, who was not retired. “I have enough work at the office for two people. Besides, as long as the sports channel doesn’t go on the fritz and the pizzeria doesn’t stop delivering, I can manage.”
So Alice had boarded the plane with last minute instructions about the houseplants and the cat, and promises to call each weekend to check on him and give him tour updates. Once the plane began to taxi down the runway, Alice relegated the cat, the houseplants, and Richard to a mental broom closet. She settled back happily with her guidebook to anticipate the coming adventure. She was going to keep a journal of the trip, so that she could relive it privately in the months to come. Perhaps she would write it up for her book club. She pictured herself guest speaker at one of the winter meetings, regaling her friends with details of her sojourn in England.