Death of a Dormouse

by Reginald Hill

  ‘Well, girl, you’ll want to get Trent out of the way first, I expect,’ said the Welsh woman with a matter-of-factness that did not quite come off.

  ‘No,’ said Trudi, rather to her own surprise. ‘When we start on that, we may quarrel, and I’d rather get the non-quarrelling bit sorted out first. Jan, what happened back there at Hope House?’

  Janet looked at her with interest. Her dark intelligent eyes had rarely left Trudi’s face since they sat down. It was as if she was bent on showing she wasn’t going to flinch from the expected onslaught.

  ‘Where’ve you been, girl – on an assertiveness-training course, or something? All right, let’s do it that way. I’ve no idea what happened back there, and that’s the truth. All I know is I wanted to get in touch with you. I’d talked to Frank, see, and he’d said he’d been round to your place, looking for me. I realized you’d not said anything about who Trent was … Trudi, I know how it must seem to you, seeing that picture …’

  ‘Later, Jan, later!’ said Trudi vehemently. ‘The house!’

  ‘All right. I’ve been ringing off and on for a couple of days. No reply, until late this afternoon, when the phone was picked up. I spoke but no one answered. Then it was replaced. I went straight round there. I thought …’

  ‘You thought I might be doing my pill-spewing act again,’ suggested Trudi. ‘I think I’m past that now, Jan.’

  Again that interested, appraising look.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, girl. Anyway, I went round. No reply to my knocking. I wandered round the house. Nothing to be seen through the windows. Everything locked and barred. No sign of anyone at home. Yet I felt … watched.’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ said Trudi. ‘Didn’t you think it might just be me?’

  ‘I wondered about that. It was a possibility, of course. But I doubted if you’d have been able just to watch.’

  ‘Why not? A little mouse cowering beneath a stook of corn – isn’t that what you’d expect from me?’

  ‘Once perhaps. Not lately. Not now,’ said Janet. ‘Anyway, I told myself I was being stupid, probably I’d dialled the wrong number and got an answering machine that had gone wrong. The house was empty. I should go away and ring again tomorrow. I got in my car and drove round the corner.

  ‘There I stopped. I sat in the car for ages, wondering what the hell I was doing. Finally I thought, I’ll be getting arrested for kerb-crawling if I’m not careful! So I got out and walked back. I went into the gate of the house next door, the empty one that’s up for sale. I sneaked up the garden and found myself a spot where I could watch the side of Hope House. God knows how long I stood there, but it seemed an age and it was cold and wet, and I was beginning to think I should be certified, when I saw a movement. Just a shadow behind the bedroom window at the side. I stood and stared for another age, but nothing more. Then I heard the phone ring. At least I think I did, but my ears were straining so hard that I could probably have heard angels singing with a little more effort. But if it did ring, it stopped so quickly that it must have been answered. I waited. Then your taxi came. I heard it. I heard your footsteps up the drive. But I couldn’t be sure it was you, and I had to be sure before I yelled or anything. Then suddenly you started running and I knew it was you! You were in the porch like a startled rabbit! Through the glass I could see the inner door opening and someone standing there, and he grabbed your hair and I knew I’d been right and I should have yelled earlier, or gone down to the gate to intercept you, or rung the police, or anything!

  ‘Instead, I had to do the best I could. I picked up that bloody gnome and I hurled it through the porch window! Even as I did it, I thought this could kill Trudi!’

  ‘You missed me,’ said Trudi. ‘But I’ve still got glass in my hair.’

  ‘Sorry. But with a bit of luck that bastard who attacked you will still have concrete in his teeth! Then I grabbed you and ran. And here we are, Trudi, safe and sound. Here we are.’

  They sipped their drinks in silence. Another pair of hopeful toad-faces approached their table, but Janet fended them off with a ferocious glower. Trudi touched her hair. Her scalp was still tender from Usher’s assault. Who the hell was he? What did he want from her?

  Why wasn’t she at the police station, demanding that CID find the answers to these questions?

  One reason was here, sitting alongside her. Unfinished business that she did not know how to begin.

  She said, ‘You say you’ve spoken to Frank?’

  ‘Yes. I gave him a day to cool off, then I rang. Whatever happened, we had to talk.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We talked. I told him I was sorry but what I did before we got married was no business of his. I told him that in any case, for what it was worth it could never happen again as the man was dead.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if the man’s dead? Yes, I’ve heard you use that argument before.’

  ‘When?’ demanded Janet.

  ‘When I told you about Astrid and Trent. It soothed your own conscience, did it?’

  ‘Not much,’ admitted Janet. ‘I’d met you again, and got to like you again, and in a way I was more worried about you finding out with Trent dead than I’d ever been while he was alive.’

  ‘Jan, tell me the lot, will you? Now. Leave nothing out. Let me be sure that when you stop, there’ll be no more to take me by surprise.’

  ‘All right,’ said the Welsh woman, suddenly brisk and businesslike. ‘Here goes. Down and dirty. Me and Trent first went to bed together when I was twenty. I was still doing my training course and I was on his plane and we got chatting and … well, that was it. We overnighted in Bonn I think it was, and he popped my cork. Oh yes, I mean it like I say. I was still a virgin, despite all those wild stories at school. Us girls from the valleys know all about long-term negotiation and all that! Well, after that, I thought I had it made, see. Young stewardess marries mature pilot, just like in the magazine stories. Only Trent didn’t seem inclined to take things further than the odd supersonic bang when our trips coincided. But I was young and naïve and kept my hopes up till the night I was daft enough to introduce you into the equation. After that there was nothing to do but bow out gracefully and look around for consolation.

  ‘And there was Alan. He had a lot of go in him, did Alan. And when he realized I wanted a husband as well as a lively date, well he was happy to go along with that too. I did want a husband, see. Not for me the gay life, really. Hubby, nice house, 2.4 nice kids, holidays on the Costa whatever, that suited me down to the ground. That wasn’t Alan’s idea, though. Fair dos, he gave me the framework all right, especially when we moved north. House, kids, comfortable life, package hols at good-class hotels, it was all there. Except that soon as I got pregnant first time, he was away wining and dining and dancing and banging! God knows how many, but the first one I found out about – that was really ironic! – was an Aer Lingus stewardess, a broth of a girl with nipples like shamrocks – I quote Alan’s own words. He saw no reason not to admit all when I accused him, in fact I think he got his rocks off telling me about them. Nevertheless we soldiered on – it’s marvellous how that framework I was telling you about can hold together a cracked marriage – and to tell the truth there were good times too. And there was always Trent.

  ‘He never lost contact with Alan, that was clear. I’d sometimes wondered if they had some little arrangement going at Heathrow – one or two things I noticed – everyone was at it, of course, and no one really minded, long as you didn’t get too greedy – but a pilot and a customs officer, they could really have a ball! Anyway, like I say, I bumped into Trent by accident in Manchester one day, and we had a drink, and one thing led to another, and we ended up in a hotel bedroom. Afterwards he mentioned he saw Alan from time to time but thought it best if neither of us mentioned we’d met. And after that, from time to time, I’d get a call and … well, I worked it out that he probably rang me when he was meeting with Alan, so he’d know it was safe to talk. It wasn’t all that o
ften, Trudi, believe me. Sometimes six, nine months would go by. Once it was a whole year …’

  ‘But you kept up a steady average?’ observed Trudi. ‘Let me see, twenty-five years at, say, one and a half times a year. Why, you almost did as well out of him as me!’

  ‘Yes, he said …’ She tailed off and then tried to resume on a different line, but Trudi was too quick.

  ‘You talked about me, did you? That was nice, as we were all such good old friends. What did he say?’

  ‘He said that you weren’t much interested, Trudi, that was all!’ burst out Janet. ‘He said that he doubted if you’d really be much bothered if you found out!’

  ‘And you believed him?’ said Trudi.

  ‘Oh no. I’m a woman, remember? That’s the kind of thing men say about their wives, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Trudi. ‘All those years, Jan.’

  She tried to speak flatly, but the simple words must have come out as a bitter reproach.

  ‘Oh please, don’t … it didn’t mean anything … it just happened … it could’ve been anyone …’

  ‘Could it, Jan?’

  Janet paused, her mobile features went curiously still, she regarded Trudi quietly for a long moment, then she said, ‘No, you’re right. Honesty’s the game tonight. Every time I screwed Trent I paid you back for marrying him! How’s that for honest? It’s not all of it, by a long chalk, and put bluntly, it’s as false as anything else, but it’s part of the truth, I can see that. I’ve never really faced it before. I mean, you, Trudi, my little pet mouse, and he’d picked you over me! It was a shock I tell you. Oh, I put on the make-up and I smiled and said how marvellous! but old Pagliacci Evans was all broke up under the Max Factor. It was a slap in the face, see? It didn’t make any kind of sense! Oh I’m sorry, Trudi, that was all those years ago, I was young and daft and self-centred and I couldn’t understand …’

  ‘Couldn’t understand all my well-hidden attractions, you mean?’ said Trudi savagely. ‘And that photo of you and Trent, you didn’t look so young then, all droopy boobs and spare tyres, weren’t you? Had you started understanding by then or not? Tell me that!’

  ‘What big claws you’ve got suddenly, Trudi,’ said the Welsh woman softly. ‘No, I never started understanding. Never. Not that I didn’t …’

  She broke off, made a business of lighting a cigarette, looked irritatedly into her empty glass.

  ‘Fancy a refill, love?’

  She looked up at the smirkingly hopeful toad-face who was leaning over the table and said, ‘Right, thanks. G and T, treble. My friend will have the same. Ice and lemon, don’t forget.’

  Uncertain, the man retreated.

  Trudi said, ‘You were about to say, not that you didn’t ask Trent why he went for me. So. What did he answer?’

  ‘Trudi, this is daft. This is nothing to do with you and me, here and now. You’ve got trouble, and there’s no time to scratch around and dig up old graves!’

  ‘What did he say?’ insisted Trudi.

  And when Janet still hesitated, she added impatiently, ‘Oh come on. I’m not just picking at sores. Things have happened you don’t know about. I need to hear this, Jan, believe me!’

  ‘All right. Keep your hair on,’ said Janet. ‘There’s not much to hear, anyway. I asked him why once. Well, a lot of times actually. Why he chose you. But he only ever answered once. I mean, he usually said something like why not? or grunted, or told me to stop yacking. But this time, I think he was a bit pissed maybe, and he laughed, not very nicely I should say, and he turned to me and he said – these were his exact words as far as I can remember – “Listen, you Welsh witch, marriage with Trudi’s been worth more to me than ten lifetimes screwing you could ever have got near, now are you happy?” And he laughed again.’

  ‘What did you think he meant?’ said Trudi.

  ‘I don’t know,’ admitted Janet. ‘I think he was putting me down, that was part of it. But there was something else. I mean, he meant it, and all I could think was that he was saying that he really loved you, except that …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The way he laughed, it didn’t sound like that’s what he was saying,’ said Janet. ‘I’m sorry, Trudi, but you did ask.’

  ‘I know it,’ said Trudi.

  She was looking sideways at a thought like that fabled monster of the woods which you only see at first from the corner of your eye, flickering distantly between the tree trunks; but as you walk on, you realize that your paths are not parallel but convergent. She had seen it first in Jünger’s office that same morning, and here it was again, coming closer and closer.

  Trent hadn’t married her and then found out she was Schiller’s granddaughter.

  No. Trent – ambitious, opportunist, amoral Trent – had found out who she was and then married her.

  But this was not the total truth about the monster. There were other greater horrors of deed and feature which the flickering trees so far only allowed her to suspect, but which their final, inevitable meeting would fully reveal. Her mind was driving her inexorably towards that meeting. She tried to turn aside from it. Not here! Not now! There was too much to think of, too much to decide. Her mind would burst …

  ‘Look, push off, boyo. You want crumpet, you ring room service, why don’t you!’

  Janet’s voice, angry at yet another toad-face assault, brought her out of the gloomy forest of her thoughts. Gratefully she looked up, ready to reward the lecher with a consoling smile. But there was no lechery on the face that regarded her, only concern.

  ‘Mrs Adamson, I thought it was you. I just wanted to say hello, but … are you all right, Mrs Adamson? You don’t look well.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said, tears suddenly stinging her eyes. ‘Really, I’m fine, Mr Ashburton, fine. Won’t you sit down?’

  3

  ‘I was dining with friends, well, clients really. It was curious, something we were talking about made me think of you, and then as I casually glanced in here on my way out, there you were. At least, I thought it was you. Well, of course it is, isn’t it?’

  Mr Ashburton laughed. Clearly there had been seeds of jollity buried in his usual dusty dryness and whatever he had drunk that night had set them sprouting. Trudi found herself wondering if perhaps after all there might not have been something toad-faced in his ‘casual glance’. But no, she could not really see the little solicitor essaying a pick-up. She sensed something in him which would shy away from the sheer unpredictability of the venture. Jolly he might be, Jack the Lad he definitely wasn’t.

  ‘What made you think about me, Mr Ashburton?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, it was just that I got talking to my dinner companions about Mr Usher …’

  ‘Usher! What about him?’

  He looked taken aback by the fierceness of the interruption.

  ‘Your employer,’ he said, as though wanting to make sure they were talking about the same man. ‘You recall we spoke on the phone just before you left for Vienna – how was your trip, by the way?’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ said Trudi. God, she’d almost forgotten about the wrecking of Class-Glass and that sinister little cubbyhole with the one-way window. So much had happened in the last couple of days that hours seemed stretched into weeks.

  ‘I rang the police as you requested. They got in touch with me later and seemed naturally keen to speak with Mr Usher. I gave them the address and telephone number I had, but they got in touch with me again today to say that they still hadn’t been able to contact him. They were most persistent in their search for information, I must say. All I could say was that I first encountered him some four or five years ago when I acted for him in the purchase of some premises, a small warehouse in fact. That was when he told me his business was snapping up failing businesses and he often needed to store items he couldn’t dispose of immediately. Since then I’ve acted for him in one or two minor matters, but nothing of any size.’

  ‘What about the purchase of Class-Gla
ss?’

  ‘No indeed,’ said Ashburton vigorously. ‘And there’s an odd thing. I learned from the police that, far from buying it as a failing business, he’d set it up himself. Now isn’t that odd? It was this I was discussing with my friends this evening. In a most general way, you understand. Even in situations like this there is still a duty to client confidentiality.’

  He regarded them solemnly through his owlish glasses.

  Janet said, ‘I bet there is.’

  Jollity broke through again and he grinned unexpectedly. ‘I was surprised. They all seemed to know of Usher, but not much about him. I could feel a certain reserve in their comments, though whether this was out of suspicion of a not-quite-rightness or a feeling that he was not the kind of man it was safe to gossip about, I do not know. I must confess I myself had never had any such reservations. He was a client, straightforward in his dealings, prompt in his payments. I would not have recommended you to his employ else, Mrs Adamson, believe me.’

  He spoke so earnestly that Trudi found herself patting his hand and saying, ‘I do, Mr Ashburton, I do.’

  Something else occurred to her.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t by any chance Mr Usher that recommended you to my husband, was it?’

  He looked thoughtful, then nodded, beaming. ‘I believe it was, Mrs Adamson. I believe it was! Mention of your late husband puts me in mind of why I was trying to contact you in the first place. A small matter in connection with your compensation case …’

  ‘To hell with the whole business!’ exploded Trudi, amazing herself as much as the others. Taking a grip on herself, she said in a voice quiet with restraint, ‘What I mean is, I don’t think I care to pursue the case, Mr Ashburton. I’ve got other things on my mind. Besides, the way things look to me now, I should be paying that truck driver a reward, not suing him for compensation!’

  The statement came out flatly, without emphasis, and Ashburton regarded her in wide-eyed bewilderment. But Janet clearly detected the bitterness and the strain from which it arose. She shot an accusatory glance at the little solicitor who rose hastily and said, ‘Perhaps you would care to call at my office some time tomorrow, Mrs Adamson, so that we can discuss this in surroundings more conducive to … er …’