“Goodness,” said Carole. “Really?”
Then, before he could interrogate her about work at the Home Office and tell her how interesting that sounded, she pitched in. “Charming couple, the Forbeses.”
“Oh yes. Charming.”
“Have you known them long?”
“Quite a while. I’ve acted professionally for Graham since he first moved to the area. I did the conveyancing when he bought the house in Weldisham.”
Wow, that must have been exciting, thought Carole, because it was the reaction Barry Stillwell’s tone of voice demanded.
“It’s very gratifying,” he went on, “when clients become friends.”
“Yes, it must be. So have you continued to do all Graham’s legal work since then?”
“Oh yes. When you’ve got a good relationship with a client…” Barry Stillwell let out a thin chuckle. “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.”
“Broke,” Carole couldn’t help saying.
“Sorry?”
“I think the idiom is, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.””
“But that’s not correct English. The past participle of ‘break’ is ‘broken’.”
“Yes,” Carole agreed, wishing she hadn’t set off up this particular cul-de-sac.
“I’m very interested in grammar,” said Barry.
You bloody would be.
“It’s very interesting.”
“Yes.” She pressed on. “So did you do Graham’s divorce?”
“Sorry?”
“As a lawyer, did you act for Graham when he got divorced from his first wife?”
“Ah, see what you mean.”
Was she being hyper-sensitive to detect a slight hesitation in his manner? Maybe the abruptness of her questioning had thrown him.
“I’ve managed all the legal side of Graham’s life,” Barry concluded smugly.
Mario arrived with their starters. The restaurant owner himself oozed over with the Chianti Classico. There was much elaborate ceremonial with the corkscrew and with a peppermill like the bell-tower of a minor Italian cathedral. Barry Stillwell sniffed and sipped the wine as if it were the elixir of eternal life.
After a long, lip-licking pause, he pronounced himself satisfied.
Carole had to put up with an extensive questionnaire about the Home Office and how she liked living in Fethering, before she could get back to the subject that interested her: Weldisham, its inhabitants and their history. Common politeness meant her interrogation was unavoidable, but she got a bit sick of the way Barry kept punctuating the conversation with references to his late wife.
Carole didn’t lack respect for bereavement, but Barry Stillwell’s deployment of it seemed calculated. As if he was trying to prove what a caring man he was, as if the late wife (her name, it soon became apparent, had been Vivienne) had become part of an elaborate chat-up routine. Carole had a nasty feeling that, if he ever met someone he was really interested in, Barry would very quickly be into the patter of, “After Vivienne died, I never thought I could feel anything for another woman, but you’re bringing to life feelings I feared were long dead and buried.”
She hoped to God she was never cast in the role of the woman who had to hear that manifesto.
When Barry reached the end – or maybe it wasn’t the end – of a recollection about how lonely he’d been when he went on a Rotary Club exchange visit to Cologne just after Vivenne died, Carole seized the opportunity and leapt back in.
“Does Graham Forbes have any children?”
“What?” Barry was thrown by the sudden change of direction.
“From either marriage? I just wondered.”
“No, no, he doesn’t.” He still looked bewildered. “What about you, Carole? I know you said you were divorced, but do you have any children?”
“A son. Stephen.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t see him that often.”
“But surely you must? Surely he’s still living at home?”
It was Carole’s turn to look bewildered. Barry had a strange expectant expression on his face and she tried to work out what on earth it was meant to communicate. Not easy. She didn’t think she’d ever met anyone with whom she’d had less mental connection. In conversation with Barry Stillwell, everything needed to be interpreted and explained.
Suddenly she realized. What he’d said had been a compliment. Cumbersome, contrived and lateral, but nonetheless a compliment. Barry was suggesting that no one of her age could possibly have a child old enough to have left home. It was in the same vein as the ‘early retirement’ compliment.
“Stephen’s nearly thirty,” she said brusquely.
Barry looked thoughtfully pained. “Sadly, Vivienne and I were not blessed.”
“Sorry?”
“With the gift of offspring.” A melancholy sigh. “I’d like to have had children,” he simpered. “Still live in hope.”
Well, don’t look at me, Carole wanted to say. I’m well past my impregnate-by date.
? Death on the Downs ?
Twenty
“Still thinking about Graham Forbes,” she went on.
“You seem to keep thinking about him,” Barry Stillwell observed, with a winsome chuckle. “Should I be worried? Should I start thinking you’re more interested in him than you are in me?”
If only you knew…Carole couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so she came up with a chuckle of her own. Barry continued his. Oh no, she thought, he imagines we’re sharing a joke. He thinks we’re getting on well together.
She pressed on. “Did you know his first wife?”
“Yes, I did. Not well, because they didn’t spend a lot of time in Sussex while they were working abroad, but I did meet Sheila.” His face took on a pious expression. “Tragic, isn’t it, the way some bad marriages break up and the partners both survive…and then a marriage that does work can be suddenly ended by the cruel hand of fate…”
He was about to get on to Vivienne again. Carole was now convinced that these references were part of Barry’s seduction technique, though she wondered how well advised they were. A woman, though possibly impressed by the tenderness implied in these constant mentions of his late wife, would surely be warned off the possibility of a relationship with someone over whom the memory of Vivienne loomed so powerfully. The
Not, of course, that any of this concerned Carole. The evening had only confirmed her first adverse impressions. She’d rather have a relationship with Bill Sykes than with Barry Still well.
Before the sainted Vivienne had the chance to re-enter the conversation, Carole demanded, “So when did his first marriage end?”
Barry gave a prim smile. “Well, as it happens, I can give you an exact answer to that. Not that I was present when they did split up. Might have been difficult to engineer, because that happened when they were in Kuala Lumpur.” He snickered at his rather amusing remark. “But I did see them the weekend before they went off on that fateful trip.”
“Oh?”
“Graham wanted me to draw up a new lease for the house, because they were letting it again. So…always ready to mix business with pleasure…” He grinned an arch, man-of-the-world grin. “…I suggested we meet in the
