Death of a Dormouse

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Trudi, faintly bewildered. ‘I’ll certainly keep that in mind.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Werner.

  He pressed a button on his phone. A moment later Elvira appeared.

  ‘If you leave your address with Elvira, I will see you get a comprehensive certificate of health for Trent,’ he said. ‘Elvira will arrange for the car to drive you back to the city. No, I insist. Good luck, Mrs Adamson. I hope we will be in touch in the very near future.’

  He offered his hand. She took it. He held her hand for a moment with a pressure that felt significant.

  She followed the girl from the room, but after descending only half a dozen stairs she said, ‘My handbag. I must have left it.’

  Turning, she ran back to Werner’s office, knocked once and entered.

  The doctor was standing with her bag in his hand. It was open.

  ‘Oh, it is yours,’ he said. ‘I thought it must be. I was just checking.’

  He closed it with a snap and handed it over.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Trudi. ‘Goodbye again.’

  Downstairs the girl made a note of her address and then led her outside where the white Mercedes gleamed in the winter sunshine. The chauffeur, Dieter, already had the rear door open for her.

  ‘Goodbye, Frau Adamson,’ said Elvira. ‘And please accept my condolences on your sad loss. He was a fine man.’

  ‘You knew him?’ said Trudi.

  ‘I met him when he came to the clinic,’ said the girl. ‘Goodbye now. Auf Wiedersehen!’

  The car purred away towards the security gate which opened as it approached.

  Trudi sat in thoughtful silence for most of the journey but as they approached the centre of the city she leaned forward and said, ‘Have you been working long for the doctor, Dieter?’

  ‘A little while, madam.’

  ‘I see. I was wondering, what kind of conditions does he treat at the clinic?’

  The chauffeur laughed. ‘For the wealthy, any condition, madam.’

  He glanced in the mirror to see her reaction. Trudi smiled encouragingly.

  ‘But mainly I believe the clinic is for addiction, madam.’

  ‘Addiction?’

  ‘Tobacco, alcohol, drugs. They once treated a man who was addicted to Wagner, or so the nurses say.’

  He laughed again, but this time Trudi could not respond with a smile.

  4

  The phone was ringing as Trudi unlocked the door of Hope House. She snatched it up and said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘So you are back,’ said Janet. ‘I was getting worried.’

  ‘I’ve just got in this very second. I’ve not even shut the door. Hang on.’

  She banged the front door shut, went through into the lounge, lit the gas fire and returned to the phone.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘How are you? All right?’

  Trudi examined the question, examined her surroundings, examined herself.

  ‘Good Lord,’ she said, surprised. ‘How am I? I’m glad to be home! Who’d have ever imagined I’d get to thinking of Sheffield as home!’

  ‘Great,’ said Janet dismissively. ‘And how was Vienna?’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Don’t go all dormousey on me! Tell, tell!’

  ‘No,’ said Trudi firmly. ‘I’m tired and I’m grubby and I need to brood a bit. It’ll keep till Wednesday.’

  ‘Oh, hoity-toity! Couldn’t we meet earlier, tomorrow say?’

  ‘I work on Mondays now, remember?’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Janet, disappointed. ‘Nothing from the agency yet?’

  ‘No. And there’s no mail.’

  ‘I might have known they’d find you hard to place,’ said Janet, in revenge for her friend’s refusal to communicate. ‘What did you ask for? Robert Redford?’

  It was good to be back in touch with Janet’s sharp friendship, thought Trudi as she put the phone down. But it would do her no harm not to receive an instant breakdown of her friend’s affairs as they happened. Also, Trudi hadn’t been lying when she said she needed to brood a bit.

  But as she lay in bed, she found that it was Janet’s reminder of the Lewis Agency that stuck in her thoughts. That had been a mistake, she now acknowledged, an act of bravado. After her weekend in Vienna, she didn’t need to go out in pursuit of complications in her life. She put it top of her list of things to sort out, and as if in response to one firm decision, her body relaxed and she fell asleep.

  At Class-Glass the following morning, she found several letters from various countries. She typed out translations of each, drafted formal replies for those which needed no more and halfway through the morning was finished. She had brought her book, but it lay unopened on the desk as she twirled in her revolving chair and watched her face flash by in the mirror-studded wall. It would be amusing, she thought idly, to dance naked in such a room.

  Then she started in fear as she glimpsed another figure reflected behind her own and brought the chair to a halt.

  Stanley Usher was standing in the open doorway, smiling down at her. She felt herself blushing.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  ‘Morning,’ he replied, coming into the room. ‘And how are you? Better than me, I bet. I spent the weekend sailing, would you believe? In this weather. I must be mad. That chap got it right who said it was like standing under a cold shower, tearing up tenners! What about you? Do anything interesting?’

  The question was so casual as to be provocative.

  ‘Not much,’ said Trudi. ‘I was in Vienna. It was cold there too.’

  ‘Vienna? You mean, Vienna, Austria?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Good Lord. Holiday?’

  ‘Business,’ said Trudi. ‘I’ve put the mail in the tray there, all translated. And I’ve done the letters you left. Mr Usher, is there really going to be enough work here to occupy me for two days a week?’

  ‘Trying to talk yourself out of a job, Mrs Adamson? Let’s wait and see, shall we?’

  He stayed about an hour. As he left, Trudi said, ‘Would it be all right if I went early for lunch?’

  Usher’s saturnine face twisted into a grin.

  ‘If you can find the time, by all means!’

  At twelve o’clock she was climbing the stairs to the Lewis Agency. A night’s sleep had not diluted her resolution to sign off there. She could have done it by phone or by letter, but something in her required that she should from now on meet problems face to face.

  This new determination enabled her to pass people on the stairs with none of her previous embarrassment, and even the presence at the agency door of two workmen, who paused in their work of repairing the lock to grin cheerily at her, didn’t provoke a blush.

  Mrs Fielding greeted her with pre-emptive delight.

  ‘Mrs Adamson, how extraordinary, I was just writing to you. Sit down, please do. I’m so sorry not to have been in touch earlier, but really, there didn’t seem to be anyone suitable on our books. Then not an hour ago a gentleman came in who seemed to fit your requirements to a T. You’d almost think he’d been cut out to your pattern, if you’ll excuse the phrase! What’s more, you fit his requirement profile almost as closely. It’s quite amazing! Of course, there’s no guarantee that you’ll take to each other at all, but on paper it’s a perfect match, perfect!’

  She sounded so delighted that Trudi did not have the heart to reveal the true purpose of her visit. Instead she meekly accepted the duplicated sheet of details Mrs Fielding handed her and studied it.

  James Brewster Dacre was fifty-one years old, five feet ten and a half inches tall, weighing in at twelve stones six. Divorced. Income bracket C (Fifteen to twenty-five thousand pounds per annum). Company director. Non-smoker, non-churchgoer, fond of the theatre, reading, the countryside … Mrs Fielding was right, thought Trudi. On paper, he certainly fitted the bill.

  ‘You liked him?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ admitted
the woman. ‘He came across very well. A little reserved, not shy exactly, but certainly not pushy. I may be entirely wrong, but I felt he was the character type I would guess you were looking for. You have to get used to seeing behind the forms very quickly in this business. And when I’m wrong, I get told pretty quickly, and also pretty sharply sometimes, so I take pains to be right! What do you think?’

  ‘Well, on paper, he certainly looks to be the right type,’ admitted Trudi.

  ‘Would you like to meet him?’

  This was the moment to tell Mrs Fielding that she had changed her mind. Instead she found herself glancing at the office door, as if half fearful this paragon was going to be put on view this very minute.

  Mrs Fielding laughed and said, ‘I don’t mean now, Mrs Adamson. Think about it. The first move’s up to you, as I explained at our first interview. He’d like to hear from you. I showed him your details – no address or phone number, of course – and after a few questions, he said yes.’

  ‘That was big of him.’

  ‘No. Just cautious. Like yourself,’ reproved Mrs Fielding. ‘Anyway, there’s his telephone number. Whatever you decide, could you let me know in forty-eight hours, so I know whether to keep you both in circulation or put you on hold.’

  By now it was far easier to take the number and promise to get in touch than to announce her decision to withdraw.

  Mrs Fielding accompanied her to the outer door.

  ‘Why are you changing the lock?’ wondered Trudi.

  ‘We had a break-in over the weekend,’ said Mrs Fielding. ‘Most distressing. No need to worry, our filing cabinets are secure. But they took some stamps, the petty cash box and my little transistor.’

  ‘How awful,’ said Trudi.

  The workmen stood aside to let her pass. One of them smiled and said, ‘All right then, luv?’

  Trudi found herself smiling back at him.

  ‘Grand,’ she heard herself saying like a native. ‘And how are you, luv?’

  That night she found herself seriously considering what to do about James Brewster Dacre. The real question seemed to be, what would be the greater act of independence from Janet – to make contact, or to withdraw?

  Better still, she told herself savagely, would be to do what she herself wanted. But choice, like self-knowledge, was never so simple.

  She diverted her mind to a simpler or at least more concrete problem. Money. She was still some way from being destitute but it came as a surprise to her how rapidly even a relatively frugal existence ate away at cash. When the house lease ran out, she could foresee real problems. There was the money from the furniture sale to come, but on past performance, that would not go far. The only consoling thought was that she had not yet disposed of Trent’s watches and other bits and pieces which Janet had stored in the shoe box against a rainy day. Any sentimental value they possessed had been considerably diminished by the discovery of Trent’s affair with Astrid. Not even the Orwell first editions could feel complacent about their future now, she told herself bitterly.

  But first things first. She was mad to have things so attractive to any casual burglar lying around the house. She ought at least to have them inventoried and valued. She went in search of the shoe box.

  There were two watches, one a Rolex and the other a gold Cartier. Cuff links, also gold. Another set, diamond studded. An ornamental ingot, 24-carat, on a fine chain. He had liked his gold, had Trent, she thought. All this must be worth a few bob, she told herself hopefully.

  Her eye fell on the wallet they’d found in the cheap jacket. She opened it. Janet had removed the money it contained, she recalled, but there were still the credit cards which she ought to have destroyed.

  She took them out and got a pair of nail scissors and prepared to cut them in half.

  Then she paused in simple puzzlement.

  The plastic oblongs were not in fact credit cards but a cheque card and a cash card from the same national bank.

  But it was not this unremarkable discovery that stayed her hand. It was the name of the card holder, clearly printed on each of the cards.

  Not Trent Adamson, but Eric Blair.

  Eric Blair.

  She sat for many minutes studying the cards like a tarot reader who sees a future she does not care to foretell.

  Eric Blair. The name somehow was familiar. A business friend of Trent’s perhaps? She was almost certain she had heard him mention it. But that still didn’t explain why he had the cards. In this imitation-leather wallet. In that awful Terylene suit.

  Hypotheses were forming and collapsing in her mind like the crazy snow shapes whipped up by a blizzard. She felt a strong urge to ring Janet, but fought against it. What she needed was a distraction from these whirling thoughts, not an extra ringmaster to keep them galloping round.

  The phone was in her hand. There was, she realized, in all the world only one other number she had any reason to dial.

  She did it so unconsciously that she started in shock when a voice said in her ear, ‘Dacre here. Hello!’

  The line was not good. Through the crackles, the voice sounded level and featureless.

  ‘Mr Dacre? Mr James Brewster Dacre?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Mrs Adamson. Trudi Adamson.’

  ‘Ah yes, Mrs Adamson.’

  A pause. Time now for a long, subtly probing conversation, then a decision. But Trudi found she had no art for subtle probing on the telephone.

  She said bluntly, ‘Shall we meet?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Where? When?’

  ‘Twelve thirty tomorrow. The Crucible bar,’ said Trudi, recalling Janet’s advice.

  ‘I’ll be there,’ said the voice. ‘Goodbye now, Mrs Adamson.’

  The receiver was replaced. Trudi banged hers down as if in an effort to pip him at the post. She reckoned that in terms of businesslike brusqueness she was at least level on points.

  It occurred to her that they had not arranged any recognition signals. So what? she told herself. I probably won’t turn up anyway!

  She went to bed.

  5

  It was going to be Trent.

  Sleep had come hard the previous night. Distraction from one worry had simply given her another. Now at last the two had combined and the solution was simple. Trent who had become Eric Blair could just as easily have become James Brewster Dacre. Wasn’t the profile of requirements she had given Mrs Fielding a simple blueprint of Trent? Then there had been the break-in. Trent had been there, read her file, smiled that bleak, knowing, humourless smile. It all fitted. In her sleep she could flee him, escape into wakingness. Now he had found a way to follow her. Good old Trent! He always came back!

  She drank her vodka. It was the second in ten minutes. She had arrived early to give him the test of identifying her, but looking around, it did not seem a problem. There were only young people here today, lively, extrovert, casually dressed, all familiar with each other. Her age, her dress, her loneness, must make her stand out like a creature from another world!

  It was a good image if Trent did appear. Takes a one to know a one. The outstretched hand, the cold touch, and then she would be away to whatever shadowy world Trent now travelled in.

  She finished her vodka and stood up. She had tasted freedom and no one, not even a ghost, was going to lull her back into that long coma from which she had woken with such pain.

  ‘Mrs Adamson?’ said a voice.

  She looked round. A well-made man with heavy, rather watchful features and a slightly unruly sweep of grizzled brown hair was addressing her.

  ‘I hope I’m not late,’ he said. ‘I’m James Dacre.’

  He held out his hand. She took it. His clasp was warm, dry and firm. Build apart, he looked nothing like Trent.

  She laughed in nervous relief, saw what an odd response this must appear, pulled herself together and said, ‘Yes. Trudi Adamson. How do you do?’

  He said, ‘Let me get you a drink.’

  She said, ‘Thanks
but, would you mind, I think I’d rather walk. If that’s all right?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, standing back to let her past.

  She glanced at the bar as she left. No one was paying them the slightest attention and the average age of the customers suddenly seemed to have risen by ten years. Perhaps it was foolish to have exchanged its comfort and warmth for these cold streets, but as they walked in silence for a while, the instinctive wisdom of her decision made itself felt. There is a companionableness about walking side by side that makes conversation unnecessary until it comes naturally, and then it is the easier between strangers because it is not face to face.

  ‘Have you lived in Sheffield long?’ he asked.

  ‘Not long. We’d more or less just arrived when my husband died.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was a car accident.’

  ‘Yes. Mrs Fielding told me. It must have been dreadful.’

  ‘What about you?’

  It was a question interpretable in many ways, but she did nothing to make it specific.

  ‘Not long,’ he said. ‘I’m from the North Riding originally, but I’ve worked abroad most of my life. I got divorced last year. It fizzled out. No recriminations, well, not many. And I thought I’d come back to settle.’

  ‘But not in the north?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I went up there, but the roots are all broken except for a few ancients who want to talk about the even more ancient who’ve been long dead. But I thought I’d stay in Yorkshire, give it a try.’

  ‘Any children?’ asked Trudi.

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Chance or choice?’ he asked, adding, ‘Chance, in our case,’ as though to make easier the first positive step towards an exchange beyond the merely informational.

  ‘Choice,’ she said, not meaning to lie but recognizing the lie as she spoke it. The choice had been Trent’s, not hers. She had merely reflected it, as usual.