Death of a Dormouse

by Reginald Hill

  ‘I thought for a second you were being nasty there, but it’s not your style,’ she said. ‘Listen, want to know a secret? Something I’ve not even hinted at to all these so-called friends you’re so envious of? Here goes then. You’re right, I didn’t have to advertise for Frank exactly. But I did the next best thing. I met him through a dating agency, that’s how!’

  Trudi regarded her incredulously.

  ‘What’s up, girl? Cat got your tongue?’ mocked Janet. ‘Let me spell it out. Me with my hectic social life you so envy, I went along and filled in a form, and I paid my money, and I waited!’

  ‘Oh, Jan.’

  ‘What’s that mean, disapproval? Pity? I don’t accept either. It was the best move I ever made. I got just what I needed out of it. Frank. We’re going to be very happy.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Trudi. ‘I can see that.’

  She tried to speak brightly, approvingly, but didn’t feel that she succeeded. Janet glanced at her doubtfully, as if already regretting making the confidence.

  They drove on in silence. The car was now beginning the winding uphill climb which would take them over the Snake Pass and down into Sheffield.

  Behind them, the old blue pick-up drove in silence too.

  The house was cold and unwelcoming and smelled of damp. There was a scattering of mail on the hall floor, mostly junk. Trudi went through it as Janet busied herself lighting the central heating boiler and making a cup of tea.

  There were two letters from Austria, one from Astrid Fischer saying she had contacted Trent’s Viennese lawyers, but there was no record of a will or of any unrealized assets. She ended with affectionate good wishes and an offer to do anything else she could to help Trudi. The second letter was from the head office of Schiller-Reise. It expressed formal regret at the news of Trent’s death, so soon after the termination of his long and highly valued connection with Schiller-Reise. It made no mention of money, or the lack of it. And it was signed on behalf of Manfred Schiller, the firm’s founder and head.

  Janet read it and said, ‘Bastards! I thought you said this fellow Schiller liked Trent and made a fuss of you both.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Trudi. ‘But he’s ill. He probably doesn’t know anything about all this. Anyway, I never liked him and I don’t want favours.’

  ‘Pride is it, girl?’ murmured Janet. ‘You’ll learn.’

  There was also a letter from Mr Ashburton, the solicitor. Despairing of ever getting Trudi to his office, he had set out baldly the state of her affairs as he saw them. They were not good. In Trent’s current account, there was about four thousand pounds which, unless there were insurances, bank accounts, or realty so far undisclosed, was the sum total of her inheritance. Hope House was rented on a nine-month lease, he pointed out. At the end of that time she would have to find and pay for alternative accommodation. He ended by suggesting that her main hope of improving her situation probably lay in a compensation claim against the fertilizer company whose truck was involved in the accident. He looked forward to hearing from her.

  ‘I bet he does!’ said Janet. ‘Leech! Are there any insurances or other accounts?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Trudi. ‘Astrid looked through his papers.’

  Janet snorted her Celtic opinion of Teutonic interference and set about examining the contents of Trent’s personal files herself. In fact she soon had to admit that either Astrid or Trent himself had left everything in perfect order, except that everything meant nothing.

  ‘This is your life, girl,’ she joked finally, pointing at the papers neatly arranged on the dining room table.

  It was an unintentioned cruelty, but Trudi’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at the papers. Here was her life, traced in bank accounts. The Midland in Staines where they had lived after their marriage; Neue Bank Schmidt-Immermann of Zürich where they had moved after Trent left his job at Heathrow; Société Générate de Banque in Brussels where they had gone when he had stopped flying and started working full time for Schiller-Reise; and the Banco di Sancto Spirito in Milan where they had been when Herr Schiller summoned Trent back to be one of his close aides in Vienna.

  Janet had not noticed Trudi’s tears and she brushed them away furtively as her friend went on, ‘Everything’s in such perfect order there’s not a crack anywhere for a handful of loose change to slip into! See, account closed in Zürich, balance transferred to Brussels, and so on right through to Sheffield. Always about the same, taking inflation into account. Wasn’t much of a saver, your Trent, was he? Long as he had a few bob behind him, he clearly liked to spend the rest!’

  ‘Four thousand’s more than a few bob,’ said Trudi defensively.

  ‘Try telling that to the butcher when you can’t pay his bills in six months’ time, my girl!’ said Janet derisively. ‘You’d better go and see this lawyer fellow, Mr Bloodsucker or whatever his name is. Ring him now. No, I’ll ring him and make sure he fits you in tomorrow morning, then I can go with you.’

  ‘You’re staying?’ said Trudi. She hadn’t dared mention it earlier.

  ‘Just tonight, girl. After that, you’re on your own,’ said Janet severely.

  They dined that night on tinned ham and half a bottle of Riesling which Janet had brought with her. Afterwards, though it was still early, Trudi announced, ‘I’m going to bed.’

  As she started up the stairs the phone rang. She turned and looked at it. Janet came out of the lounge but halted when she saw Trudi was still there. The phone rang on.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’

  With a sigh, Trudi stepped back down and picked up the receiver. Her reflection looked back at her from the gilded pier glass. The peeling frame no longer seemed to fit so well. This was a stranger setting out on a long and difficult journey.

  ‘Hello?’ she said, and listened.

  After a few moments she put the phone down.

  ‘Well?’ said Janet.

  ‘Nothing. Must have been a wrong number.’

  Trudi walked past her friend with great control and began once more to climb the stairs.

  To show anything more, to show her inward agitation to Janet, was impossible. Her reaction, whether of doubt or belief, would certainly be that her friend was not fit to be left alone. Eventually her irritated anxiety might even make her insist that Trudi should extend her stay in Oldham.

  That was what was really impossible, the shame and embarrassment of being carried back like a sick child to spoil Frank’s sense of relief and release.

  Only time would show whether it was more impossible than remaining here where the phone could ring and out of a great hollow silence like the space behind the stars a voice, faint as a false dawn yet in accents as familiar as day, could breathe, ‘Trudi … I’m watching you …’

  2

  ‘What about personal property, Mrs Adamson?’ said Ashburton. ‘Apart from the usual things like watches, cuff links, I mean. Did your husband collect stamps, for instance? Rare coins? Old china?’

  ‘No way!’ said Janet confidently. ‘But I’ll be going through everything with Mrs Adamson before I go back this afternoon.’

  Janet had done most of the answering but Ashburton had courteously persisted in directing his questions at Trudi.

  She felt stupid to be letting her friend answer for her, but her thoughts kept on drifting elsewhere. The truth was that it was not till here and now, listening to the little solicitor drily outlining her puny resources as he saw them, that she had really begun to understand the truth of her position. She had never thought of Trent and herself as wealthy, but she realized now this was because she had never had to think about such things at all. Not once from the start of their marriage had he ever denied her anything she wanted on the grounds of expense. Not that she had been extravagant, but as even the gentlest of streams where it finds no resistance will over time carve itself out a wide and wider bed, so her expenditure over the years had spread and never found a limit.

  Now it sounded as
if she was going to be penniless. This was a dawn knock she had never even imagined in her most fearful wakings. She felt panic fingering her throat and desperate to deny it she cut right across Mr Ashburton’s next sentence, saying, ‘He collected books.’

  ‘Books?’ echoed the solicitor.

  ‘Trent?’ exclaimed Janet.

  ‘Yes. Well, not books generally. George Orwell’s books.’

  ‘Orwell? What did Trent have to do with Orwell? I never saw him reading anything thicker than a newspaper, and then he was usually doing the crossword!’

  Her friend’s incredulity was easy to understand. Trent was not a bookish kind of man in any sense, but at some point during his RAF career when he had run out of crosswords to while away pre-sortie longueurs, he had picked up something of Orwell’s and been hooked.

  ‘I asked him once why he liked Orwell,’ said Trudi. ‘He said he was a man who understood the rottenness of things. I’m not sure what he meant.’

  Janet shook her head in disbelief, but Ashburton was not to be diverted from the point.

  ‘You say, collected? First editions, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know. I expect so.’

  ‘They should be worth a little,’ said the solicitor, making a note. ‘Now, is there anything belonging to you still in Vienna?’

  ‘Only our furniture,’ said Trudi. ‘The move happened so quickly, we just put it in store.’

  ‘Aha. Valuable, would you say? Antique, perhaps?’

  ‘There are some nice pieces. I liked to buy nice things and Trent …’

  Her voice broke. Janet looked indignantly at Ashburton. He went smoothly on. ‘Then it seems that we must look to the courts for any substantial increment to your income. On the surface we have a good case. Stationary car, speeding truck, an independent witness. Unfortunately there has been a development. The witness, Mr Harold Brightshaw of Six Mile Farm near Grindleford, Derbyshire, has had a stroke. He is an old man, almost eighty, and it is possible he will not recover. He made a statement of course, but there is a vast difference between a statement in the hand and a witness in the box.’

  ‘What about the truck driver?’ demanded Janet.

  ‘Still in hospital. The police have not yet decided what to charge him with. In any case, he will certainly not be keen to give evidence against himself, and his firm can afford excellent legal advice.’

  ‘They can afford excellent damages too, then!’ exploded Janet.

  ‘No doubt. But litigation is costly, Mrs Adamson. As things stand, I would recommend looking for an out-of-court settlement.’

  ‘Would you?’ said Janet. ‘Mrs Adamson doesn’t actually need to instruct you in this matter, does she?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said the solicitor, unoffended. ‘Mrs Adamson?’

  He regarded her with the alertness of a sparrow waiting for a crumb. He was in many ways a slightly ridiculous figure, but she sensed in him a sparrow’s strength and tenacity too.

  ‘How did you come to act for my husband?’ she asked.

  ‘I was recommended, I believe.’

  That decided Trudi. No one made recommendations lightly to Trent.

  On the way back, Janet said, ‘Are you sure about that little creep, girl? He looks as if a good belch would blow him away.’

  ‘I like him,’ said Trudi. She felt quite proud of her certitude, but her pretensions to self-reliance quickly evaporated as they started going through Trent’s things and she recognized there was no way she could have done this without Janet’s presence.

  Janet knew someone who ran a nearly new shop in Manchester and she offered to take Trent’s clothes and also a large proportion of Trudi’s which were untake-inable.

  ‘Pity he didn’t spend more on the life cover and less on the mohair,’ observed Janet as they sorted out the suits. ‘Hello, this is a bit out of character, though. Gardening clothes, is it?’

  She held up an anonymous brown Terylene suit which bore the label of a down-market chain store. She went through the pockets swiftly and efficiently.

  ‘Keys,’ she said, producing a ring. ‘Spares by the look of ’em. Bright and shiny. Small change. Two pounds sixty p. But hello! This is better.’

  ‘This’ was a wallet.

  ‘Fifty quid in notes. Handy. And a couple of bankers’ cards. Better chop those up when you’ve a moment.’

  She laid the money on the dressing table and tossed the keys and wallet into the shoe box which contained items like watches, cuff links, etcetera.

  ‘Now. What else? Shoes. Plenty of those. We’ll give ’em to Oxfam. Hand made by the look of them. Strange to think some poor sod out in the bush will probably end up with more than a year’s income on his feet. Now, what’s that leave?’

  ‘There’s the books,’ said Trudi.

  She led the way downstairs into the lounge. The Orwell volumes were in a glass-fronted cabinet. Janet peered at them dubiously.

  ‘Can’t imagine that lot being worth much.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Trudi. ‘That last night he was talking about having them valued. He said there was a dealer in Manchester he’d heard about and he might take them across when he drove me over to see you. He was very keen for me to see you again.’

  ‘Was he now?’ said Janet neutrally. ‘At least it shows he really was hard up if he was thinking of selling. Shall we take a look?’

  She tried the door. It was locked.

  Trudi went on as though her friend had not spoken. ‘And later that night, or rather early in the morning, I came downstairs. Trent had been sleeping badly since we came here. He often got up during the night and usually I pretended to be asleep. This time I came downstairs myself after a while and he was sitting with one of his books on his lap. Perhaps he was worried about money and thinking of selling. All he said was that he couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Are you going to unlock this thing or not?’ said Janet brusquely, attempting to interrupt the growing melancholy of the mood.

  ‘No!’ said Trudi with sudden spirit. ‘I’m not. I’ve got nothing of Trent’s that’s really personal except these books. I haven’t even got a photograph. He hated having his picture taken. So I’m not going to part with the books unless I have to.’

  Her spurt of independence was short-lived, and when the time came for Janet to leave she was hard put to conceal the depth of her panic.

  ‘Chin up girl,’ said Janet, trying to be businesslike. ‘I’m just at the end of the phone. And we’ll meet every week on Wednesdays like we arranged. I’ll drive over in the morning, it’s only a step.’

  Trudi clasped her tearfully and said, ‘Oh Jan, thank you, thanks for everything.’

  Alone in the house, she waited for the tears to flow freely. To her surprise they didn’t. Now she realized how excellent Janet’s psychology was in arranging a regular meeting. Wednesday was already feeling like an oasis, distant but reachable. Anything vaguer and she would have felt totally adrift.

  Curiously, the first week ran by quickly and easily. She spoke with Janet on the phone nearly every night, going over her progress through the timetable which she and her friend had worked out. Interviews at the DHSS and at a job centre were large single features, brisk morning walks and the pursuit of a diet which would build her up without fattening her up were part of the regular pattern which was aimed at holding her life together. The officials at the DHSS made it quite clear that she was entitled to nothing until she became destitute; her interviewer at the job centre was not sanguine at the prospect of finding work for a middle-aged typist who had not been employed for twenty-five years. Not even Trudi’s claim to have fluent German and French and passable Dutch and Italian impressed him. ‘Not much call up here,’ he said dismissively.

  Time passed. So did her money and there was still no sign of a job. Soon it was November. But it was not till the tinsel glitter of Christmas began to brighten the shops that she realized how quickly the weeks had gone. It had been high summer when Trent was killed. She
had been a widow for nearly four months.

  This awareness of the passing of time was not sudden, but it was significant. It brought new pain which made her realize how much she had been flying, to use Trent’s phrase, on automatic pilot. It also brought her new life into sharper focus in all kinds of ways.

  Not the least significant of these was the certainty that she was being watched.

  She glimpsed him twice, once reflected in a shop window, and the second, confirming time when she suddenly turned in mid-stride and retraced her steps and saw him plunge into a shop doorway.

  He was youngish, balding slightly, with a blond moustache. After that she did not see him again. Her previous indifference to her surroundings must have made him careless till he learnt his lesson.

  But she knew he was still there.

  She told Janet about him at their next Wednesday meeting, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  ‘You don’t believe me!’ she said.

  ‘Yes, of course I do, girl. I mean, I believe you believe you. But listen, in your state you’ll get ideas … I mean, well, take me, good old solid-state-nerve-circuit me. After Alan’s death, the police asked a lot of questions and some guys from his department came round and I began to feel pretty persecuted I tell you! So I went down there and gave them a row. Christ, they must have wondered what had hit them! Anyway, I must have got a lot of tension out of my system ’cos I went away feeling really good. Only thing was, as time went by, I stopped feeling good and started feeling really stupid! Now the very memory of it makes me blush. What I mean is, if insensitive old me can get neurotic …’

  ‘Then it’s not surprising that little me who’s halfway there to start with should be positively paranoiac, is that what you mean?’

  Janet was taken aback by the vehemence of the response.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, girl, that’s not what I mean …’

  Trudi, suddenly enjoying her insurgency, said briskly, ‘By the way, I may have got a job.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mr Ashburton rang this morning. Despite what you said about him, he’s really been most helpful. He wants to see me. Something about the case. But he also said he had a client who might be able to use a typist with good linguistic skills.’