The Hanging in the Hotel. Simon Brett

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СКАЧАТЬ death had something to do with one of them.’

      She crossed to an old bureau, and from its crowded surface produced the guest list she had retrieved from her apron before leaving Hopwicke House, and handed it across.

      ‘Any of these names mean anything to you?’

      ‘There’s one I know,’ said Carole.

Chapter Eleven

      ‘Hello. Could I speak to Barry Stilwell, please?’

      There was a slight delay, during which Carole visualized the solicitor. Thin. Thin face. Lips thin almost to the point of absence. And so eternally pin-striped that she had idly wondered whether his flesh was pin-striped too. Fortunately, she had never been put in the position of verifying that speculation – though not for want of trying on Barry Stilwell’s part. The recollection of his face-flannel kisses could still send an involuntary shudder through her body.

      ‘Well, well, well, Carole. This is a voice from the past. An unexpected bonus in my boring day.’

      ‘Good to talk to you again too, Barry,’ she lied.

      ‘To what do I owe this? Business or pleasure?’

      Well, it wasn’t really business. She was neither getting a divorce, nor moving house, nor sorting out a will, and those were the three areas of limited expertise from which Barry Stilwell, as a solicitor, made a very good living.

      ‘Can we have a third category?’ asked Carole. ‘It’s not business, it’s not pleasure. It’s really, I suppose, brain-picking.’

      He sounded disappointed at that, but was still eager to meet. An unexpected cancellation (oh yes?) meant he was actually free for lunch that day. Could Carole make it? Wonderful. Why not go back to the Italian in Worthing? Yes, Mario’s. ‘Of happy memory?’

      Carole’s memories of dinner with Barry Stilwell at Mario’s weren’t particularly happy. As she put the phone down, she wondered if the solicitor had once again misinterpreted her interest in him. Surely not, though. When they’d last met, he’d been a widower. Now he was remarried to the widow of a fellow Rotarian. Surely he wouldn’t be looking for other female company, would he?

      Oh yes, he would. The enthusiastic – though dry – kiss he placed on her lips when he greeted her, the hand in the small of her back guiding her to their table, the grin of masculine complicity to Mario as they sat down, all suggested that perhaps Barry Stilwell wasn’t totally fulfilled in his new marriage.

      Carole reckoned the best deterrent was to bring up the subject of his wife straight away. ‘Congratulations. I heard you had remarried, but I don’t know any of the details.’

      ‘Oh, thank you,’ he said dismissively. ‘Now tell me about yourself. What have you been up to during this age since we last met? We mustn’t leave it so long next time,’ he added, with a chilly squeeze of her hand.

      Removing her hand from the table, Carole persisted, ‘I don’t even know your wife’s name.’

      ‘Pomme.’

      ‘Pomme?’

      ‘Pomme.’

      They were in danger of sounding like an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. ‘It’s French for apple,’ Barry elucidated unnecessarily.

      ‘Yes. I know that. So where did you meet?’

      ‘At a Rotarian event,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Her late husband was a past president, like me.’

      ‘Oh?’ Carole hoped she sounded impressed. She was trying to.

      ‘But enough of—’

      ‘And does Pomme have children?’

      ‘Yes. Three. They’re all grown up now.’ Barry Stilwell was keen to dispel the hovering shadow of his wife from their dining table.

      ‘So how do you like being a stepfather?’

      ‘Well, it’s . . . well, it’s fine. I don’t really see a lot of them.’

      ‘Because, of course, you didn’t have any children with –’ damn, the name had gone completely ‘– with your first wife.’

      ‘No. Vivienne and I were not blessed.’

      Thank you for the name check, thought Carole, as she went on, ‘So how’s married life second time around?’

      ‘Fine.’ The word was as thin as his lips. ‘And what about you? Any new men on your horizon?’

      ‘No.’ As she thought about it, Carole realized how little she regretted the fact. She liked the slightly antiseptic exclusivity of High Tor. A man’s presence would only impinge on her privacy. That was one of the reasons why her skirmish with Ted Crisp couldn’t have lasted. But she was not about to mention that to Barry Stilwell.

      ‘So I’m in with a chance?’ he responded with misplaced roguishness.

      ‘You’re married, Barry.’

      ‘Yes, but—’

      Fortunately the appearance of Mario, flourishing menus the size of billboards, cut short the predictable litany about some men really liking women, his wife being very understanding and how, given the diminishing time available to them, people of their age should live life to the full.

      The routine had been stalled once. Carole was determined not to give him another chance to run it before the end of the meal.

      Exactly as he had on their last tryst at the restaurant, Barry Stilwell made much of ordering, indulging in a lot of coy consultation with Mario as to the quality of the day’s specials. Since the owner – as he would – said that everything on the menu was wonderful, this seemed a rather pointless ritual. But it was an essential part of the Stilwell restaurant protocol.

      So was his elaborate tasting of the Italian Chardonnay he had persuaded Carole to share. ‘I enjoy my wine,’ he volunteered, as if she might be interested. ‘Never drink spirits – I don’t like the taste. But I do enjoy my wine.’

      She’d told him if he ordered a bottle he’d have to drink the bulk of it, as she was driving, but the prospect did not seem to worry him. She got the impression he drank most lunchtimes, probably in the same restaurant, to ease the tedium of an afternoon of divorces, wills and conveyancing. And she would have put money on the fact that the lunch bills were somehow claimed as legitimate expenses. She wondered how her consultation with him would be described when it was put through the firm’s books.

      About time, though, that she defined the real purpose of their meeting. ‘I always remember you saying, Barry, that your local connections were pretty good.’

      He beamed, taking this as an undiluted compliment. ‘I think I could be said to know my way around the West Sussex network, yes.’

      ‘So you know everything about your fellow solicitors here in Worthing?’

      ‘Oh СКАЧАТЬ