Read The Tax Inspector for Free Online

gathered across her stomach. Her bare upper arms fought with the sleeve holes of the waistcoat top. Everything about her body and her clothes spoke of tension. Her plump face reinforced the impression, but it did so as if she was someone sweet-tempered just woken from her sleep, irritable, yes, frowning, sure, but with a creamy complexion and pale, well-shaped, sensuous lips, and a natural calm that would return after her first cup of coffee. She had dense, natural straw-blonde hair set in a soft curl, and small intelligent eyes which stared out at Maria from behind the flyscreen door.
    Maria wondered if this was Mrs F. Catchprice. The abrupt way she opened the door and took Maria’s I.D. told her this was unlikely to be the taxpayer’s accountant.
    ‘I’m Maria Takis …’ She was interrupted by an old woman’s voice which came out of the darkness behind the flyscreen.
    ‘Is that Mortimer?’
    ‘It’s not Mort,’ said the big woman, shifting her gaze from the I.D. to Maria’s belly. She said it wearily, too quietly for anyone but Maria to hear.
    ‘Mortimer come in.’ The voice was distressed. ‘Let Mortimer come in. I need him here.’
    Rain drummed on the iron roof, spilled out of gutters, splashed out on to the landing around Maria’s feet. There was a noise like furniture falling over. The woman in cowboy boots turned her head and shouted back into the room behind her: ‘It’s not Mortimer … It … is … not Mort.’ She turned back to Maria and blew out some air and raised her eyebrows. ‘Sorry,’ she said. She scrutinized the I.D. card again. When she had read the front she opened it up and read the authorization. When she looked up her face had changed.
    ‘Look,’ she said, coming out into the rain, and partly closing the door behind her. Maria held out her umbrella.
    ‘Jack,’ the old woman called.
    ‘Look, Mrs Catchprice is very sick.’
    ‘Jack …’
    ‘I’m Cathy McPherson. I’m her daughter.’
    ‘Jack, Mort, help me.’
    Cathy McPherson turned and flung the door wide open. Maria had a view of a dog’s bowl, of a 2-metre-high stack of yellowing newspapers.
    ‘It’s not Jack,’ shrieked Cathy McPherson. ‘Look, look. Can you see? You stupid old woman. It’s the bloody Tax Department.’
    Maria could smell something sweet and alcoholic on Cathy McPherson’s breath. She could see the texture of her skin, which was not as good as it had looked through the flyscreen. She thought: if I was forty-five and I could afford boots like those, I’d be saving money for a facelift.
    ‘This is ugly,’ Cathy McPherson said. ‘I know it’s ugly. I’m sorry. You really have to talk to her?’
    ‘I have an appointment with her for ten o’clock.’
    ‘You’ll need someone to interpret,’ Cathy McPherson said. ‘If this involves me, I want to be there. Does it involve me?’
    ‘I really do need to talk to her. She is the public officer.’
    ‘She’s senile. Jack hasn’t lived here for twenty years.’
    Maria released the catch on her umbrella. ‘None the less she’s the public officer.’
    ‘She pisses in her bed.’
    Maria collapsed her umbrella and stood in front of Cathy McPherson with the rain falling on her head.
    ‘Suit yourself,’ Cathy McPherson opened the door. Maria followed her into a little annexe no bigger than a toilet. Dry dog food and Kitty Litter crunched beneath their feet. The air was spongy, wet with unpleasant smells.
    The door to the left led to a galley kitchen with hot-pink Laminex cupboards. There was a flagon of wine sitting on top of a washing machine. There were louvred windows with a view of the car yard. Ahead was the sitting-room. They reached it through a full length glass door with yellowed Venetian blinds. For a moment all Maria could see were rows of dolls in lacy dresses. They were ranked in spotlit shelves along one end of the room.
    ‘Who is it?’ Granny Catchprice asked from a position mid-way between Maria and the dolls.
    ‘My name is