Part 9 (2/2)

She put the phone down. 'Why didn't you say so?'

she demanded.

'What chance did you give me? And who the h.e.l.l are you, walking into my brother's house and belting people?'

She held at the ready the fearsome thing she'd hit me with, looking as if she thought I'd attack her in my turn, which I certainly felt like. In the last six days I'd been crunched by a horse, a mugger and a woman. All I needed was a toddler to amble up with a coup de grace.

I pressed the fingers of my right hand on my forehead and the palm against my mouth and considered the blackness of life in general.

'What's the matter with you?' she said after A pause.

I slid the hand away and drawled, 'Absolutely b.l.o.o.d.y nothing.'

'I only tapped you,' she said with criticism.

'Shall I give you a hefty clip with that thing so you can feel what it's like?'

'You're angry.' She sounded surprised.

'Dead right.'

I struggled up off the floor, straightened the fallen chair and sat on it. 'Who are you?' I repeated. But I knew who she was: the woman on the answering machine. The same voice. The cut-crystal accent. Darling, where are you? I love you.

'Did you ring his office?' I said. 'Are you Mrs WIlliams?'

She seemed to tremble and crumple inwardly and she walked past me to the window to stare out into the garden.

'Is he really dead?' she said.

'Yes.'

She was forty, I thought. Perhaps more. Nearly my height. In no way tiny or delicate. A woman of decision and power, sorely troubled.

She wore a leather-belted raincoat, though it hadn't rained for weeks, and plain black businesslike court shoes. Her hair, thick and dark, was combed smoothly back from her forehead to curl under on her collar, a cool groomed look achieved only by expert cutting.

There was no visible jewellery, little remaining lipstick, no trace of scent.

'How?' she said eventually.

I had a strong impulse to deny her the information, to punish her for her precipitous attack, to hurt her and get even. But there was no point in it, and I knew I would end up with more shame than satisfaction, so after a struggle I explained briefly about the scaffolding.

'Friday afternoon,' I said. 'He was unconscious at once. He died early on Sunday.'

She turned her head slowly to look at me directly.

'Are you Derek?' she said.

'Yes.'

'I'm Clarissa Williams'

Neither of us made any attempt to shake hands. It would have been incongruous, I thought.

'I came to fetch some things of mine,' she said. 'I didn't expect anyone to be here.'

It was an apology of sorts, I supposed: and if I had indeed been a burglar she would have saved the bric-abrac.

What things?' I asked.

She hesitated, but in the end said, 'A few letters, that's all.' Her gaze strayed to the answering machine and there was a definite tightening of muscles round her eyes.

'I played the messages,' I said.

'Oh G.o.d.'

'Why should it worry you?'

She had her reasons, it seemed, but she wasn't going to tell me what they were: or not then, at any rate.

'I want to wipe them off,' she said. 'It was one of the purposes of coming.'

She glanced at me, but I couldn't think of any urgent reason why she shouldn't, so I didn't say anything. Tentatively, as if asking my forbearance every step of the way, she walked jerkily to the machine, rewound the tape and pressed the record b.u.t.ton, recording silence over what had gone before. After a while she rewound the tape again and played it, and there were no desperate appeals any more.

'Did anyone else hear . . .?'

'I don't think so. Not unless the cleaner was in the habit of listening. She came today, I think.'

'Oh G.o.d.'

'You left no name.' Why the h.e.l.l was I rea.s.suring her, I wondered. I still had no strength in my fingers. I could still feel that awful blow like a shudder.

'Do you want a drink?' she said abruptly. 'I've had a dreadful day.' She went over to the tray of bottles and poured vodka into a heavy tumbler. 'What do you want?'

'Water,' I said. 'Make it a double.'

She tightened her mouth and put down the vodka bottle with a clink. 'Soda or tonic?' she asked starchily.

'Soda.'

She poured soda into a gla.s.s for me and tonic into her own, diluting the spirit by not very much. Ice was downstairs in the kitchen. No one mentioned it.

I noticed she'd left her lethal weapon Lying harmlessly beside the answering machine. Presumably I no longer represented any threat. As if avoiding personal contact, she set my soda water formally on the table beside me between the little stone bears and the chrysanthemums and drank deeply from her own gla.s.s.

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