‘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-Glass?’
‘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 …’
‘She’ll be there,’ promised Janet when it became clear Trudi was not about to answer.
Ashburton retreated, his face marmoset-like with concern. Janet said, ‘Trudi, I don’t know what’s happening, but this time we’ve got to go to the police.’
‘No!’ said Trudi. ‘I’ve been to the police. I didn’t care for it.’
It was a silly response to a sensible suggestion, but sense and silliness seemed to have been so mixed up in her life that she could only play it by ear, and ‘no’ to the police sounded pretty right.
‘You haven’t got some daft notion that Trent’s still alive and you’re protecting him, have you?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure? That “No” lacked the punch of your new emphatic style.’
Trudi smiled wearily.
‘Snarling wears you out,’ she said. ‘That’s why lions spend most of their time sleeping, I suppose.’
‘Is it? So now you’re a dor-lion instead of a dormouse?’
‘Maybe. But I’ll emphasize my belief in Trent’s death if you like. I believe it so much that I’m going to get married again, and you know I’d never dare risk bigamy.’
‘Trudi! You mean that chap I met, whatsisname …?’
‘Yes, whatsisname,’ said Trudi.
She stood up. She felt a strong need to be away from here, to be moving towards James. What if he came back and didn’t run his answering machine but went straight to bed? She resolved to be sitting on his doorstep when he got back from Manchester.
Janet was rising too. Gently Trudi pushed her back into her seat.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m on my own now, till I get to James, that is. That’s where I’m going now, so no need to worry. And don’t look so glum. It’s not goodbye. I’ll be in touch.’
‘You mean you’ve forgiven me?’ said Janet, half satirical, half sincere.
‘Not on your life, but I’ll need to see you again to make you squirm some more, won’t I?’
Trudi regarded her friend seriously as she spoke. Then slowly she let her tight lips relax and stretch into the broadest of grins.
‘Cow!’ said Janet, her face rubbery with relief. ‘Look, ring me, promise? At home. Frank and I are getting back together again, I think, even though he’s a bit tiresome with his besmirched-honour act. Whatever, I think the old sod can be relied on to pass a message. Trudi, you’ll take care?’
‘You can bet on it,’ said Trudi.
She headed for the door, sailing like a bride beneath an arch of toad-faced leers.
In the hotel foyer, the receptionist repeated the word taxi as though savouring a neologism.
‘I could ring,’ she said. ‘But if you walk towards the City Hall, you’ll likely pick up one a lot quicker.’
Would the same advice have been offered if I’d been wearing my silver lamé evening gown and a tiara, wondered Trudi.
Very probably! she answered herself. This was after all South Yorkshire.
To her surprise, the thought was almost affectionate.
The rain had stopped, though the air was still misty and damp. Headlights swam through it like bathyscaphes exploring the ocean bed. She waved at a couple of taxi shapes but they drifted by, occupied or preoccupied. A third was at least more positive and accelerated away at her wave, but a pair of headlights behind swung into the kerb alongside her. It was not a traditional taxi, but she was used to a mixture of London cabs and ordinary limousines with hackney licences, and had her hand on the door handle before suspicion rang a bell.
Then it was too late. The door was open and her wrist was seized.
Stanley Usher, a strip of plaster across his brow and an unpleasant smile across his face, said, ‘Come on in, Mrs Adamson. I’ve got someone who’s very keen to talk to you.’
He jerked her inside as she began to scream. She felt the blow to the stomach which turned the scream into a choking gasp for breath.
But the blow to the head which turned the hazy street lights to darkness she never felt at all.