She was sliding her fingers through the tangle of his hair. “I don’t believe in moaning about bad luck. Perhaps it’s true that life is what you make it. I ought to grab what I can whilst there’s still time. I thought you…”
Her voice trailed away and he mumbled, “Go on.”
“No,” she said with a new briskness. “How stupid I am. I can tell the agony that you’ve been through these past few days and I mustn’t add to it. It’s time for me to go, before — well, never mind.”
She kissed him gently on the cheek. His eyes closed and he felt the tip of her tongue touch his skin, her body pressing against his. Then she withdrew.
“Goodnight, Harry.”
And as the door closed behind her, he was conscious of a sense of loss.
Chapter Twenty
He slept badly, the battered arm and rib-cage protesting each time he tried to turn over in his bed. Liz’s face kept appearing in his ruptured dreams. Not smiling, for once, but downcast with reproach.
It was a relief when early morning sun began to lighten the room through a chink in the curtains. His body was stiff and getting up was a slow and painful business, made no easier by the sense of guilt which hung around his neck like a weight.
He hated feeling that she was on his conscience. That if he had done more, she would not have died. And that he’d betrayed her by wanting to respond to the touch of Brenda’s lips. How bloody typical of Liz, he thought, at least she’s consistent. Unreasonable in death just as in life.
Stepping under the shower, he turned his thoughts to the woman from next door. What if he had asked her to stay? He didn’t doubt that she would have said yes. He didn’t love her, she could hardly love him, but did that matter? The jet of hot water stung him, but not as much as his anger with himself. Why shouldn’t he want a woman again?
Since Liz had left him, he had usually slept alone. His occasional affairs had offered no fulfilment. There had been a sociology student, doing a stint as a barmaid at the Dock Brief, who said she was in search of experience. A copper-haired solicitor called Sinead whom he had met at a seminar about developments in divorce law. A couple of drunken one-night stands with girls whose names he couldn’t even remember, picked up at parties thrown by people he hardly knew. None of them compared with Liz, none held for him more than a fleeting appeal.
Brenda Rixton was fifteen years older than any of them. A week ago the thought of her as a lover would never have crossed his mind. Yet Angie the singer, at much the same age, exuded sexuality. If he could fancy her, why not his neighbour? Brenda wasn’t a bad-looking woman.
As he dressed he gave his reflection in the mirror a grin. Perhaps that birthday last Wednesday had marked a change in his taste. He was getting on. Jim would say he was starting to grow up.
The doorbell summoned him. Brenda. He said hello, feeling faintly ridiculous. Minutes earlier he’d contemplated making love to this respectable lady. Now, seeing her neat, trim and middle-aged in her business suit, he was ready to let the fantasy fade.
“I thought I’d just see how you are before going in to work.”
“That’s kind of you, but I’m okay, thanks. A bit stiff, but nothing to make a fuss about. Er — won’t you come in for a moment?”
She stepped into the room. Was it his imagination, or did her hips swing more jauntily than he’d noticed in the past?
“At least it’s a fine start today. Though the forecast is bad.” She perched on the sofa’s arm, seemed to have difficulty in choosing her words. “Look, about last night, I hope you didn’t think…”
“Brenda, don’t worry. I was glad to see you. You’ve been very good to me. I’m an ungrateful-seeming sod, but I do appreciate it. Really.”
She smiled and shook her head. “No, you’re a kind man, though you try to pretend otherwise. I’m sorry about your wife. It takes time to get over something like that. But, remember, you can’t mourn forever. Eventually you need to make a fresh start.”
“Easier said than done.”
She stood up. “I won’t try to argue. Besides, I wouldn’t win. Look after yourself, though. Please.”
“I will,” he said. “Depend upon it.”
At the door she turned. “Harry, I am depending on it.” After her footsteps had died away down the corridor outside, he washed and dressed. Between mouthfuls of coffee, he dialled the Ensenada, his favourite restaurant in the city. Taking Brenda out for a meal tonight was the least he could do. Just a meal, though. Nothing else.
At such an early hour, he got straight through to Pino. The Ensenada’s proprietor was a voluble extrovert, one of the biggest gossips in town. As a source of hot news, he rivalled the Echo and he often said he loved good conversation (by which he meant talking to an appreciative audience) as much as haute cuisine. His florid condolences and exclamations about Liz’s death lasted for several minutes without a pause.
“And to think,” he announced in melodramatic style as Harry tried to speak, “that I was talking to her less than two — yes! — hours before the tragedy occurred.”
In the theatrical pause that followed, Harry demanded in a voice suddenly hoarse, “What do you mean?”
“Ah, you did not know?” Pino could scarcely conceal his pleasure at breaking an exclusive to the victim’s husband. “But she was dining with Mr. Edge. Your brother-in-law, is that not correct?”
Derek, of all people? Trying to conceal his amazement, Harry said, “When was this?”
Shorn of frills and flourishes, the answer was that Liz and Derek had been among Pino’s first customers on Thursday evening, arriving at half-six and leaving just before eight.
“And within hours — no, minutes even! — this terrible thing…” Pino’s shock-horror vocabulary temporarily failed him.
“Do the police know about this?”
It had somehow come to their attention, Pino admitted. Despite the fact that he had scarcely mentioned the matter, they had deemed it worthy of enquiry. But there was so little to tell. He had exchanged a few pleasantries with Mrs. Devlin. As always, she was in high spirits. Mr. Edge was perhaps a little more subdued, but then who would not be content to sit and listen to such a charming and delightful woman? It was an infamy, this crime, an outrage.
Harry eventually brought him down to earth and pressed for more information. But Pino had little more to tell. Amidst further expressions of sympathy, Harry booked a table for two for eight o’clock. Eventually, he managed to ring off and after a moment’s thought called the local office of Krikken and Company, the firm in which Derek was a partner.
“Mr. Edge is in a meeting, I’m afraid.” The switchboard operator chanted the phrase in ritual fashion. Harry recognised office code for “Piss off unless it’s an emergency” and persisted, hinting that a mega-buck deal hung on his being able to consult with Derek immediately. Money talked and after a flurry of resistance, he was put through to a secretary and finally the voice of the man himself came on to the line.
“Harry.” Derek Edge communicated in the two syllables a blend of obligatory sympathy for the recently bereaved and the tetchiness of an important professional man disturbed in the midst of complicated work.
“I need to see you straight away, Derek. It’s about Liz.”
His brother-in-law responded with a lot of dignified nonsense about having to consult his diary. Harry interrupted.
“I won’t waste your time, I promise. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
He rang off without waiting for a reply. He had always wanted to bully Derek, as a semi-civilised alternative to throttling the smugness out of him. But now he had to put aside petty dislikes and concentrate on learning why Maggie had never told him about her husband’s dinner with Liz.
He walked over to Krikken’s. The exercise might help ease the stiffness in his body that was a constant reminder of the brief ferocity of Monday night’s attack. The accountants occupied a building at the corner of Drury Lane which looked like an upturned egg box. In an entrance lobby big enough to hold a circus, a stainless steel plaque recorded that Krikken House was the registered office for a hundred or more companies. Most of the names included-words like “Investment”, “Offshore” and “Holdings”.
