Under My Skin Read Online Free Page A

They were still locked. Someone who had a key to one could well have the key to others, but if I had been doing something naughty in the steam room I would hardly have stuck around for a leisurely swim afterward. I dug out my flashlight to check the time. Ten to two. Even if I did wake her, it was unlikely Carol Waverley would feel like getting up to search the premises in the middle of the night. I decided to leave her to her beauty sleep and hit her early.

    As it happened she didn’t feel much like searching then either. “Oh, I don’t think we need to worry.”
    “Why? D’ you know who it was?”
    “Yes, I think so. I think it was one of the beauticians.”
    “Which one?”
    “Er … Patricia Mason. From your description it sounds like her.”
    “Is it allowed, the staff using the pool?”
    “Not strictly, no. But it does happen.”
    “And what if it was more than a swim?”
    “Well, I’m pretty certain it wasn’t, though of course I’ll check. Thanks. I’m grateful for you telling me so promptly.”
    Liar, I thought. Nobody can be grateful for being woken at 6:30 A.M. —I certainly wasn’t when the alarm went off in my ear after less than four hours’ sleep. And I wasn’t that certain that she would check either. Interesting.
    Half an hour later I was the second one down for breakfast.By then I was so hungry that I could have eaten anything. I almost did. I was on my way to the buffet table with its tempting choice of bran or grapefruit when the woman ahead of me started screaming. Food deprivation and hysteria—an interesting medical phenomenon. I pushed past her. There, in pride of place in the center of the table, stood an enormous bowl of yogurt. “Live,” I believe, is the technical term. In this case it was a precise use of language. I watched fascinated as its thick white surface heaved and squirmed with a mass of drowning blind maggots.
    For a moment nobody did anything. Then I picked up a napkin and flung it over the bowl. Next to me the woman’s screams had transmuted into panicky, yelping little hiccups. “Don’t worry,” I said calmly. “They’re protein. Very low in calories.”
    Sabotage. It comes in all shapes and flavors.

Chapter 3
    O f course nobody felt much like eating after that. Indeed, my breakfast companion felt more like going home. Don’t blame her really. I sat in reception with a cup of Red Zinger pretending to read a magazine, while Carol Waverley placated and charmed her over the bill. I thought on balance it was probably better that way. At least if she went, there was more chance she could keep it quiet.
    “So?” I said, after she had waved her good-bye. “Do you want to give me the records of the kitchen staff?”
    She gave a desperate little shrug. “The supervisor says they laid out the cold table at a quarter to seven, then all the girls went back to prepare the hot meal in the kitchen. Anybody else could have walked into the dining room during that time.”
    Down the snake back to square one. Time to start getting to know some of the anybodies.

    By lunchtime I had done aerobics in the pool, a round in the gym, fifteen minutes in the steam room, a sojourn in a peat-colored peat bath, and half an hour under the glorious G5. I’d also met Mary, Karen, Flosie, Nicole, and Martha. None of them smelled of fish bait, but between them I learned more than a person should ever need to know about the beauty business: how it took anything from one year to three to get your diploma, and how, once qualified, many girls chose the health farms first because you couldmake the salary stretch longer and it was good experience before moving on to London or the big wide world.
    They were all living in. Flosie was straight out of college, Nicole and Karen on their second job, and Mary, lilting and shy, just over from Ireland. The accommodation wasn’t bad. They either had their own room or shared, and there were communal kitchens. Half a dozen girls had cars, so there