Death of a Dormouse

by Reginald Hill

‘Trent left me four thousand pounds, nothing more. Don’t you recall how eager you were to help me go through his papers? God, I see it all now!’

  ‘No, Trudi, you are wrong, believe me. You of all people should know how secretive Trent was. Even if what you say about his plans to leave is true, do you think he would have let me know about his financial arrangements?’

  It was a telling argument. Trudi still had no real idea of the truth at the heart of all this business, but one thing she was certain of was that Trent would never let anyone else know the whole of it.

  Sensing that her visitor’s rage was on the ebb, Astrid said, ‘Trudi, please, whatever else you believe, believe I am glad to see you. You look so much better than last time. Dare I say it? So much younger. And so alive! Please, won’t you sit down and have a drink. Look, have you eaten? I can make us a little meal. Please, just for an hour. You can be angry with me for the rest of your life if you like, but let us have an hour together to sit and talk.’

  She took Trudi’s hands and drew her back into the room. Trudi did not, could not resist. It was like a seduction, she thought. Perhaps, having had Trent, Astrid now thought she would try his widow. How this horrifying idea should have popped into her head she did not know, but while the thought of any sexual contact with the younger woman had no appeal whatsoever, the prospect of a drink did.

  She heard herself saying with a ridiculous bourgeois politeness, ‘No, but you’re busy. I can see you’re packing.’

  ‘Oh, that. I’m going away tomorrow. A week’s ski-ing. But I don’t have to set off till lunch time. Please stay.’

  ‘All right,’ said Trudi, sitting down. ‘Just for a minute. I’ll have a schnapps.’

  She awoke the next morning to discover that she had missed breakfast. It had turned into a late night. They had drunk, then Astrid had scrambled some eggs to sober them up, then they had drunk some more. And they had talked. Trudi had got Astrid’s life story which seemed so littered with unhappy affairs that the liaison with Trent was reduced to one of a long series in which Astrid was the guaranteed loser. In return Astrid had received a blow-by-blow account of Trudi’s decline and resurrection since they had parted after the funeral. Astrid had been fascinated by every detail. Trudi had been flattered by such an interested and admiring audience, and though she could not remember all she had said, had a distinct impression that she had said all.

  Astrid had suggested they meet again for coffee the following morning before she set out on her ski-ing trip. Trudi had been drunkenly adamant that she was far too busy. Piqued by Astrid’s unconcealed scepticism, she had run through her proposed timetable, padding it out a little for the sake of emphasis. Now by sleeping in she found she was indeed going to be rushed, even assuming her proposed arrangements could be made. She should have made them in advance, she knew, but once she had decided to come to Vienna, it had seemed imperative to maintain the impetus and come at once.

  She dialled Werner’s number, unoptimistic that even the Austrian work-ethic would have him on call at weekends. But she had forgotten that those who serve the rich are expected to earn their fees by instant availability. No, said the weary receptionist who answered the phone, Dr Werner was not in his consulting rooms that morning, but if it was urgent, he could be contacted at his clinic near Kahlenbergerdorf. It was urgent, said Trudi. There was a long pause. Finally the girl came back on and said that the Herr Doktor would be pleased to see Frau Adamson if she could visit him at the clinic at three o’clock that afternoon.

  Happily, the antique shop dovetailed nicely with this. Herr Müller, the valuer, had just had an appointment cancelled and was able to meet Trudi at the repository in an hour’s time.

  The repository was a grey windowless building close to the Danube canal. A sad-faced man in a dusty white overall checked through an equally dusty ledger, then muttered something which Trudi did not catch.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.

  ‘He is here already,’ said the man surlily.

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Herr Adamson.’

  For a second Trudi felt her mind cloud like a glass of Pernod into which a drop of water had been trailed.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You mean Herr Müller.’

  But the sad-faced man had already turned away and was leading her without a backward glance through a graveyard of shrouded furniture.

  Their steps fell dully on the concrete floor. The walls gave back no echo. The only light fell in narrow columns from a series of small bulbs in long, black, cylindrical shades.

  Eventually her guide halted alongside a bay in which some of the dust-sheets had been removed. Trudi recognized an Italian writing bureau which she had bought for Trent nearly twenty years ago. There was no sign of Müller or anyone else. The warehouseman grunted something, then began to remove the rest of the covers, his expression as unchangingly melancholic as if he were unveiling memorials of some savage war. Slowly Trudi saw the past emerge, familiar shapes rising as strange and sea-changed as salvage from an ancient wreck. Here she and Trent had sat together, from this table they had eaten, in this bed made love.

  Finally the job was done. The man nodded and left, his footsteps fading rapidly. Where on earth was Müller? wondered Trudi in irritation, an emotion almost welcome as it held at bay momentarily the distress she could feel gathering at this encounter with the past.

  Determinedly she began to check off the furniture against her own list, adding marks to show what she wished to sell and what she thought she would keep. There was little enough of the latter. She needed the money, and the expense of safe transport to England would be large. But something she ought to have. Surely even the dormouse did not leave its hibernatory nest without a sad backward glance?

  She settled for a wine table and a collection of porcelain figurines. The bureau would have been nice, but it was too large, and besides several amateurs of furniture had assured her it was a really excellent piece, a bargain at the price she’d paid, which at the time had seemed exorbitant! She ran her fingers over the inlay, then saw with annoyance that there were some tiny scratches around the lock. Those had not been there before. Angrily she glanced around, intending to summon the custodian to make complaint, but he was long gone. Delving into her handbag, she produced Trent’s key-fob and sorted out the bureau key. To her relief it turned easily, so at least the lock was not damaged. She pulled the lid of the bureau which formed the writing desk and began to unlock the small internal drawers revealed. They were empty as she had expected but when she slid open the conventional ‘secret’ inner drawer behind these, she saw it contained a few sheets of paper. She took them out.

  Behind her there was a noise, a soft footfall.

  Her mind said: Herr Müller, but the word scarcely articulated from her constricted throat was ‘Trent’.

  A hand plucked at the papers in her hand. She swung round, but saw no one. The air was full of a billowing greyness which descended upon her and enveloped her and crushed tightly around her with the strength of strong arms, forcing her to the floor. She tried to cry out but the greyness stifled her; she tried to struggle but the greyness constricted her. Or perhaps it was just her own terrors that paralysed her tongue and her limbs. Awareness of this possibility brought back strength. She wrestled wildly along the floor, crashing into pieces of furniture, till at last she was out of the constricting greyness and able to draw in deep breaths of the stuffy air and then let them out again in high, rhythmic shrieks as she saw crouching over her a broad, bright-eyed man with a turbulent black beard.

  ‘Please, please, Mrs Adamson,’ he said helplessly. ‘It is me, Herr Müller. We are to meet here. Please. Please.’

  Still shrieking, she became aware that beside him stood the sad-faced custodian. Slowly the shrieks became sobs, the sobs became deep body-racking breaths, as the two men untangled her from the huge dust-sheet which had been tossed over her head, and helped her into one of her own chairs.

  ‘What has happened? Wh
at has happened?’ asked Müller, who seemed beneath his fearsome appearance to be a mild-mannered and uncertain kind of man.

  ‘Didn’t you see? Didn’t you see anything?’ demanded Trudi.

  ‘No. The storeman was bringing me to where you were, and then we saw you rolling around on the floor entangled in this sheet.’

  ‘And no one else? You saw no one else?’

  The bearded head shook. The sad face did not respond. It seemed to be listening. Was that a distant door closing?

  ‘Herr Adamson,’ said the warehouseman. And nodded his head as if this assertion explained everything.

  3

  The warehouseman was not very helpful. ‘Dark, thickset,’ was the nearest he came to a description. But from his cubbyhole he produced what he clearly felt was his clinching argument, one of Trent’s business cards.

  Herr Müller suggested calling the police, but was clearly relieved when Trudi shook her head and said it must have been just someone’s silly joke. She left him to do the valuation by himself, arranging to contact the shop later. Just now all she wanted was to be out of that gloomy mausoleum into the bright winter air.

  She took a taxi to the Drei Hacken in Singerstrasse. It was very crowded but that was what she wanted. Seated at a table with two young men and three girls who didn’t even give her a second glance, she felt safe. She ordered goulash and ein Viertel. After the Viertel she felt safer and now for the first time she turned her attention to the scrap of paper which was all that remained after the other sheets had been torn from her grip.

  If she had been expecting a clue, she was disappointed. It was evidently part of a sheet on which, at some time, Trent had been scribbling details of some new or intended acquisitions for his collection of Orwelliana. In his distinctive hand he had scribbled ‘1984 ISBN 55 68342106 BE’.

  So what had the attack been all about? Could it really have been a ‘silly joke’? But even silly jokes had some point.

  She ate her lunch, had another drink, gave up puzzling. It didn’t help. Life was too short for puzzles. Half a litre of wine reduced things to basics. It seemed a waste of time travelling out to Kahlenbergerdorf to see Werner. Better to go back to the hotel, have a sleep, eat a quiet dinner, sleep again, rise, pack and go home.

  But where was home? That house in Sheffield? Even that was not to be hers for long.

  It occurred to her that high among the basics the wine had reduced things to was money. What she wanted from Werner was a clean certificate of health for Trent, to support her compensation case.

  She ordered a black coffee and then went to check the times of trains to Kahlenbergerdorf.

  Kahlenbergerdorf was an attractive old village in the Wienerwald to the north of the city. Trudi had been there before and had dined in the restaurant on the Kahlenberg itself, which at nearly five hundred metres is the highest of the hills in the Vienna woods and affords magnificent views over the town. But she had never heard of the Kahlenberg Klinik.

  Alighting from the train, she asked directions of the village stationmaster. To her dismay he told her the clinic was in fact a good five miles beyond the village and she was just computing the likely cost of a taxi when a tall young man dressed not unlike an ss officer without the insignia walked up to her, clicked his heels and said, ‘Frau Adamson?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I am Dieter, Dr Werner’s driver. Will you come this way, please?’

  He led her out of the station and opened the door of a gleaming white Mercedes with a flourish which, like his heel-clicking, contained an element of unpindownable mockery. But the suspicion of mockery was preferable to the expense of a taxi-cab! she told herself as she climbed in.

  They headed in the direction of the Kahlenberg for a while but then they turned off the main road on to a minor road, then off that on to a forest track which ran between close-crowding, narrow-trunked trees. Another turn, and they came to a halt before a high security gate. Some unseen eye must have assessed their admissibility, for after a couple of seconds the gate swung open and they drove in.

  The driveway curved upwards towards what had probably been a nineteenth-century hunting lodge which now rested patriarchally amidst a circle of lower, modern buildings, all concrete and glass, and joined to the older edifice by covered ways.

  The car stopped in front of the Lodge and the chauffeur helped her out.

  ‘Reception is through the main door, madam,’ he said with his mocking formality.

  ‘Thank you, Dieter,’ said Trudi.

  ‘Thank you, madam.’

  She went up the shallow flight of steps and pushed open the door of the Lodge. It is possible to smell wealth, and life with Trent had given Trudi a good nose for it. This place had the opulent feel of a very good, very expensive, old-fashioned hotel. Clearly a lot of money had been spent on refurbishment, but not at the expense of character.

  There was nothing so vulgar as a reception desk, but a smiling young woman in an elegant dark suit came forward to greet her.

  ‘Is it Frau Adamson? Hello. How good to see you. I’m Elvira Altenberg. Have you had a good journey? Would you like to tidy up in the ladies’ room? No? In that case, let’s go straight up. The doctor is expecting you.’

  She led Trudi up an ornately carved flight of stairs into a wide high room whose velvet draped windows had a spectacular view south towards the city. There was a desk here, but big enough and old enough and polished enough and empty enough to be far from vulgar. Behind it sat Werner.

  He stood up as Trudi entered. He fitted the setting perfectly, exuding rich confidence and charm as if he were being paid by the ounce.

  ‘Mrs Adamson, how nice to see you again. Sit down please. Will you have a drink? A coffee? No? Thank you, Elvira.’

  The smiling girl withdrew. Werner nodded encouragingly at Trudi.

  ‘I never thanked you properly for coming to Trent’s funeral,’ she said. ‘As you probably noticed, without you there would have been few mourners.’

  ‘I had to come,’ he said, ‘Such a shock, such a loss.’

  ‘Yes. Were you surprised when he decided to leave Vienna, by the way?’

  ‘Why, yes, I was,’ said Werner. ‘One never likes to lose a friend.’

  ‘You don’t recall when he told you he was moving, do you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ laughed Werner. ‘My memory isn’t so good. Is it important?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I was just rambling on,’ apologized Trudi.

  ‘Of course. Forgive me. I did not mean to cut you off. I am delighted to sit all day and talk of poor Trent.’

  Trudi shook her head, as much to clear it as in denial.

  ‘What I would really like to ask you, Doctor, is about the state of Trent’s health.’

  ‘That’s easy. It was excellent. He was in tip-top condition for a man of his age. But pardon me, why do you ask?’

  Trudi explained. Werner listened carefully.

  ‘Interesting. But such things can mean nothing. An autopsy on any of us might show as much. I am very happy, Frau Adamson, to give you a certificate confirming that Trent was in the best of health, in no danger of not surviving his full natural span. That may be important in deciding the amount of compensation. Forgive me for asking, but it’s important to you, this compensation?’

  ‘Oh yes. I need the money,’ said Trudi. ‘Also I like justice, Dr Werner. Now forgive me for asking, but I didn’t realize you and Trent were so close.’

  ‘We became friends over the years. The attraction of opposites, perhaps.’ He smiled, letting her fill in the oppositions: the smooth, sophisticated, artistic man-about-town; the sturdy, physical, opportunist man of action.

  ‘Also, he let me in on one or two business deals. He had a sharp eye for commercial growth, your husband!’ laughed Werner.

  ‘Did he? I wish he’d planted his seeds more accessibly,’ said Trudi bitterly. ‘Did he ever talk to you about his plans for the future, Doctor?’

  ‘No. I was surprised when h
e said he was going back to England, but Trent was not a man to let you know more than he wanted.’

  The telephone, which was one of two objects allowed to rest on the dark oak desk (the other was an orchid in a crystal vase), rang.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Werner.

  He picked up the receiver, listened, said, ‘I understand,’ and replaced it.

  ‘Mrs Adamson,’ he said. ‘It is none of my business, but I am puzzled by the implications of what you say. Am I right in inferring that you yourself had no idea what Trent was planning, and that you have found he left you unprovided for?’

  ‘You’re right in every respect, Doctor. I had no idea; he did leave me unprovided; and it is none of your business.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry. Except I must say, I am sure Trent would not intend this. The accident must have happened at the worst of times for him. He was too careful and too sharp a man not to have put money aside. Perhaps an account, or an investment, you did not know about and which has not yet come to light?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Trudi. ‘We checked most carefully through his old bank records. If there’d been anything, I’m sure we’d have found it.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Myself and a friend. And, of course, Mr Ashburton, my solicitor.’

  ‘Good, good. It is wise to seek help.’

  He was fondling the petals of an orchid. It was the gentlest of movements but Trudi guessed that in a man of his sang-froid it amounted to a nervous fiddling.

  ‘Mrs Adamson,’ he said. ‘Forgive me if once more I seem to trespass where it is not my business, but I speak now as a doctor. You surprise me. You are different from what I expected. Yes, I know we only ever met a couple of times, but Trent did tell me something of your medical history. Don’t be surprised. It was purely out of his concern for you, of course.’

  ‘Of course. So you expected a pliant neurotic, Doctor?’

  ‘No. But clearly there has been a change. Perhaps more than you yourself realize. It’s a traumatic experience, grief. It can modify personality. And it can impair judgment. The post-bereavement period is a time for taking great care. What I’m saying is, I was Trent’s friend and his doctor. If you ever want my help or advice in either capacity, do not hesitate to ask.’