Death of a Dormouse

‘Hello, Astrid,’ said Trudi Adamson.

3 (#ulink_e641cb2a-c8b1-5a98-aff3-1eb42cdb0cf9)

Astrid Fischer had been Trent’s personal assistant during the whole of his time in Vienna. She was a striking woman, full of nervous energy. Her bright blonde hair was matched with smoky-blue eyes and the kind of skin which would stick at twenty-nine for at least another decade.

She was the only one of Trent’s colleagues Trudi knew at all well, apart from Manfred Schiller, the head of the firm, and even this closeness was only relative. But a couple of years earlier, perhaps in an attempt to rekindle her own almost extinct emotional fires, Trudi had gone through a period of intense jealousy concerning Astrid. There had been no material cause of it, she had never said anything to Trent, and the flame had died as rapidly as it ignited, dowsed by trust, indifference, or fear, she didn’t care to find out which. But jealousy’s the next best thing to friendship and for a moment she felt genuinely moved by the woman’s appearance.

Werner was shaking her hand.

‘I must go. Already I’m late,’ he said. ‘Again, my deepest sympathy.’

Astrid whispered, ‘Who’s he?’

‘Trent’s doctor. It was nice of him to come. I thought he would stay longer though.’

Astrid seemed to take this as an invitation and accompanied Trudi back to Hope House. Trudi did not mind. In fact she found herself almost pleased at last to have a partner in mourning.

They sat in the kitchen whose gaudy surfaces best reflected the brittle blank of Trudi’s feelings, and drank whisky.

‘I wasn’t really awake when he left that morning, you know. He kissed me goodbye. He didn’t always, sometimes but not always. He said he’d try not to be late. Then he was gone. I heard the car. I didn’t go out to wave or anything. We were past all that. And that was the last I saw of him, alive or dead.’

‘Alive or …’ Astrid hesitated delicately.

‘I never saw him. He was burnt …’

She felt her voice tremble like a rail at the approach of a train. But it was a long way away. She took a deep breath and described the accident as it had been described to her.

‘I don’t even know what he was doing there!’ she concluded.

‘Why he stopped, you mean?’

‘Presumably he stopped to read his map, stretch his legs, something. No, I mean I don’t know why he was driving around Derbyshire. I don’t even know what we were doing in Sheffield. Why did Schiller-Reise send him here, Astrid?’

The girl was regarding her uneasily and Trudi, guessing at the cause of her unease, said, ‘It’s all right. I can talk about him. Really.’

‘It’s not that. No. Trudi, you clearly do not know, but Schiller-Reise did not send Trent here. No. He had handed in his resignation only a week before he left the country. Trudi, he was no longer working for the company!’

Trudi was dumbfounded.

Astrid said, ‘You knew nothing of this?’

She shook her head slowly and the movement brought back her voice. ‘No. We rarely talked about his job. He didn’t want to … or perhaps I didn’t want … but we didn’t talk … The move was sudden, but then we’d made sudden moves before. When we came to Vienna from Milan, that was quick. Well, this was even quicker, but not so quick that … though it’s true when I saw where he’d brought me, I thought of the other places we’d lived, the apartments, the cities, and compared with this …’

Her gesture took in the room, the house, the suburb, the city.

Oh God! she suddenly thought. I’m a widow and I’m complaining about the domestic arrangements.

She said quite sharply, ‘Astrid, if Trent had left Schiller-Reise, what are you doing here?’

Astrid said, ‘I was on holiday in London. I had to ring the firm on a personal matter. When I heard of Trent’s death, I was dumbstruck! I asked about the funeral. They knew when it was, but didn’t seem to know if anyone was going from the company. This made me very angry. It was not a proper way to act. If Herr Schiller had still been in charge … but I’m sure you must have worked out that if Herr Schiller had still been in charge, probably Trent would not have left.’

Trudi shook her head.

‘I didn’t realize Herr Schiller was no longer in charge,’ she said.

‘It’s not official. Technically while he’s still alive … but he’s a very sick man, you knew that?’

‘I know he had a stroke just after we came to Vienna and spent a lot of time at his house in the Wachau. The last time I saw him was there, about six months ago. He looked ill, yes, but still alert.’

‘He’s deteriorated greatly in the last couple of months,’ said Astrid. ‘A second stroke. You didn’t know?’

‘No,’ said Trudi, with an indifference not caused solely by her circumstances. Even if her own troubles didn’t exist, she would probably have felt little sympathy for the old man. She had never liked him, despite the many kindnesses he showered on her as Trent’s wife. Something about the dry voice, the coldness of his skin when he took her hand, the way in which the rarely blinking pale blue eyes never left her face, as though searching for something there that she did not have to give; in short, a sense of a cruelty mingled with his kindness had always repelled her, and she sometimes thought he sensed it though she did her best to keep it hidden.

‘No. I did not know. Trent and I agreed that it was best if he could relax at home and not talk of office matters.’

That was one way of explaining one area of non-communication.

‘Yes. I see,’ said Astrid unconvincingly. ‘In that case, well it’s none of my business, so forgive me for asking, but have you any idea how you stand financially?’

Trudi said in surprise, ‘I don’t know. I’ve not thought. I’ve no idea how much or little there may be.’

‘What I mean is, well, since you do not know about Trent leaving his job, you may be relying on a pension from Schiller-Reise. If Herr Schiller had still been in charge … well, he always seemed very fond of you, Trudi, and I’m sure he wouldn’t have … but it’s the accountants in control now, and I don’t think there will be anything coming …’

She tailed away, embarrassed.

Trudi said brightly, ‘I’m sure Trent made other arrangements. I haven’t looked through his papers yet. Everything will be sorted out eventually, you’ll see. Have some more whisky. You’ll stay the night, of course?’

She tried to make it sound like a casual invitation rather than a plea. This talk of money, or the lack of it, had sent a chill of unease through her which she hadn’t felt before.

‘Of course. You mustn’t be alone …’

‘Don’t let that bother you,’ said Trudi coldly. ‘Please yourself whether you go or stay. It’s not as if we were ever friends or anything … you needn’t feel …’

To her horror she realized she was weeping unrestrainedly, and there were tears too on the perfect skin of Astrid’s cheeks. Now the younger woman took the older in her arms and they wept together. Then they drank some more whisky and wept some more.

When Trudi at last went to bed, she was slightly drunk and the springs of grief felt dried up. She felt as if she had undergone some cleansing, cathartic experience and she would wake in the morning light, calm and resolved and able to cope boldly with the new life that stretched before her.

Instead she woke into a drowning darkness. Gasping for breath, she scrabbled for the bedside lamp, missed it, caught it, knocked it to the floor. Sobbing in panic, she half fell, half crawled out of bed and staggered across the suddenly alien room, crashing into pieces of furniture she could not identify, towards the thick-draped window.

Light! She had to have light! She reached the curtains, flung them apart. Light filtered in, turgid, grey, scarcely able to put an edge on the luxuriant foliage of the neglected garden, but for a moment refreshing and soothing to her desperate soul.

Then she saw him, halfway down the garden, concealed at first by stillness but, once spotted, unmistakable, a solid living presence amidst this rampant vegetation, his face raised towards her window, pale, death-pale in the cloud-strained luminescence from a wild night sky.

She screamed: ‘Trent!’

She tried to raise the window. It was locked. Her strengthless fingers wrestled with the catch. All the time she could hear her voice as though emanating from some separate electronic source in the ceiling screaming, ‘Trent! Trent! Trent!’

The catch moved. But suddenly there was light in the room, bouncing back off the glass and turning the light beyond the window into perfect darkness.