Death of a Dormouse

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.