Death of a Sunday Writer (16 page)

“I wouldn't dream of it. You're too smart for me. Listen, I'm calling about the job you did for me in Longborough. They want you to go back and find some documentary evidence that the woman you talked to is Brian Potter's aunt.”

“So there is a legacy.”

“I guess. Anyway, same terms. I can pay you for the last trip. They deposited in my account.”

“When?”

“I'd like a report as soon as you can.”

“All right. I'll have the answer in a couple of days.”

“Atagirl. How's that other thing going? That woman?”

“I'm still being paid. But I'm going to approach her and tell her what's going on.”

“And what's that?”

“I'll tell you later.”

“There goes the rent. Don't get too close until you're sure. See you.”

“Hang on.” Lucy had been thinking. “Could you
fax those English lawyers not to write to Mrs. Denton directly, but to use you as a mailing address?”

“I could ask them, but they'd want to know why. Why?”

“I think it would be nice if she got her mail privately. If her husband didn't see it.”

“Why?”

“You said there may be money involved.”

“What's the name of the game, Lucy?”

“She's the nearest relative, not her husband. If she gets any money she may want to spend it before he finds out. If you'd seen him you'd know what I mean.”

“You interfering?”

“I seem to be. Everywhere.”

“Okay. I don't see why not. I'll tell them I'll acknowledge receipt of any mail I get from them to be passed on to her. I'll tell them that in our opinion if he sees the money first then the intentions of the will could be frustrated. How's that? But be careful. We're not social workers, you know. We act on instructions.”

“I feel sorry for her.”

“I know. That's what I'm saying.”

Lucy spent the rest of the morning at the hairdresser in a general effort to look like a successful professional person. When she came back to her office, Nina was standing in the window, waiting to get together with her.

Lunch was a Greek salad and a bottle of Perrier. “What I really want,” Nina said. “Is spaghetti with clam sauce and bread and ice cream and a big glass of red wine.” She patted her tight haunch, sighing. “And a holiday. I've had one day off in the middle of August. That's it for the whole summer. How are you getting on with the sleuthing?”

Lucy told her about the missing boy in Longborough, then, in a rush, she told her the story, now beginning to sound ridiculous, of her suspicions about Trimble's death.

“There wasn't anyone in his office,” Nina said immediately. “I think he must have collapsed just before I saw him on the floor. Maybe fifteen minutes.”

“How do you know?”

“It's the kind of thing you notice, especially with that big mirror to reflect everything. I came in about a quarter to nine. When I switched on my light he went over and looked at himself in the mirror. I had someone on the phone then for about ten minutes, and when they had gone I got up on the desk because I didn't see him
around. Then I saw him.”

“You climbed up to fix the blind because you couldn't see him?”

“I thought he had gone out.”

Lucy waited for more. Nina blushed slightly. “When you get back, have a good look in the mirror without moving from the desk. Tell me what you see.”

“You,” Lucy said promptly. “Oh my. He was watching you?”

“I think so. If I got close to the window he would come close to the mirror. I thought for a long time he was just a vain little man — he was that, too — but he was often looking at me in the mirror. I should have shown him a little flesh.”

“The Lady of Shallott,” Lucy said.

“Who?”

Lucy explained. “‘The mirror cracked from side to side, The curse is come upon me cried, The Lady of Shallott.' I heard about it in that movie with Maggie Smith about the school-teacher in Edinburgh. It's about a girl who looked at life only as it was reflected in a mirror, and one day she looked directly out the window and the mirror cracked, and she died.” She giggled. “That's what happened. He looked at you without using the mirror one day and the sight was too much for him. Okay, let's leave him alone. I'm still not quite satisfied, but I've got another case to worry about.” And she told her friend all about the woman, ending by saying what she planned to do the following Thursday.

Nina listened, then said, “You don't know anything about her, do you? There are a lot of kinky people in Toronto. Be careful. Those two sound a little strange.”

“Now
you're
doing it. We've got kinky people in Longborough, too. They all come into the library. I can look after myself. I think she's terribly lonely.”

“You think.”

“I'm sure. I went through a bit of that with my husband.”

Nina waited.

“Didn't I tell you about Geoffrey?'

“This the one who sprayed you with Readiwhip? Sorry. I'm joking. But I can feel a big revelation coming on, and you should count ten before you tell me. No, you haven't told me about Geoffrey or about anyone else.”

So Lucy told her all about Geoffrey and why she left him, and how she knew all about being a prisoner, and thus how it was that she recognised poor Mrs. Lindberg's condition. “She's managed to get free for a night a week. He was probably afraid to stop her for fear she would leave him. But the poor woman doesn't know what to do with herself, it's obvious. Just being let out for an airing won't be enough for long. And it's the wrong way. If it's what I think it is, she has to leave him. He's a creep.”

Nina moved a piece of lettuce round her plate, picking up the dressing. “You don't think he could be telling the truth?”

“No way. He made that up to keep me quiet.”

Her friend chewed and sipped for a few moments. Then, “Lucy,” she began. “You know how it is with cars. You tell someone you're having some trouble with your car and she knows right away what it is because she had the same trouble last week, so she tells you to get new shock absorbers or something, but the thing is, there's lots of kinds of trouble that sound alike and when you get to the garage you find out that your carburettor is full of ice
or something. You know? People who have a disease can detect it everywhere. I don't mean you may not be right, but be careful.”

“You think I may be jumping the gun?”

“It's possible. Don't get too close until you're sure.” She patted Lucy's hand. “And after Geoffrey? You're unattached now? I'll never get a better chance to slip that in.”

“Yes. Sort of. No. I don't know.” And she told her about The Trog.

“Wow! Librarian from Longborough in love nest with... What is he? What does he do?”

Lucy had seen the question coming, but not quickly enough. Several seconds passed. “I don't know,” she feinted. Then saw that this was the best way of dodging. Suddenly, Ben Tranter's lies sounded ridiculous and Lucy did not want to get into it.

“Stop me when I'm being too personal. You don't know? What does he say he does?”

Lucy had had time now, time to construct what seemed like an artful strategy to avoid Nina's questions. “That's the problem. I only know what he says he does, but I'm not sure I believe it.”

“You
are
in the right profession, aren't you? What does he say he does?”

“A mining engineer. He comes to Longborough when he's finished a mission — an exploration. He goes all over the world, looking for minerals and stuff.”

“But you think he may be lying?”

“Some of the stories have been a bit strange. Like when he comes back from Northern Quebec in March with a suntan.” She was through the rapids now.

“Is he married, do you know?”

“I've never asked. If he is, he's not happily married,” Lucy said, sure that this would sidetrack Nina.

Nina laughed. “That's nice. And he's got a nice thing going with you. Bed and breakfast and you, all for thirty-five dollars? Does he get fresh orange juice for that?” Nina was erupting with giggles.

“Plus tax.” This was the right tack. A little modest librarianly bragging and Nina would forget to return to Ben's lies.

Nina lectured the air as if she was quoting, “He's good company, a great lay, and he leaves thirty-five dollars under the pillow. What do I care if he parts his hair in the middle?”

“If he what?”

“I'm adapting something an old friend used to say about her local boy-friend when she went teaching in rural Manitoba. In those days a centre parting on a man was the sign of a rube.”

“Ben's bald.”

“That's it!” Nina cried. “Freud could tell you all about the attraction of bald-headed men.”

“Oh, stop it. I'm sorry I told you. So I don't know much about him, but I'm sure he'll tell me if I don't fuss. In the meantime...”

“Don't mind me. It's a lovely story and I won't tell a soul. A year, you say? Don't worry about it. That's enough time to know he's not weird in all the wrong ways. Strange, yes, but not weird.” Nina supressed a further fit. “Listen, if I could find someone like that...”

“It's not the sex.” Lucy lowered her voice.

“Not
just
the sex.”

“No. I don't want to be unfair to Geoffrey. Ben isn't a better performer, the way they talk about it now.
Sometimes he's so tired we hardly bother, or if we do, we might as well not. You know what I mean?”

Nina, quaking, said, “I know
exactly
what you mean. But Geoffrey was never tired? You started this. I have to know.”

“No, never. He took much longer, too, and even when he was finished it stayed up for ages. I asked him once if it had a bone in it, like bears have. Just joking, you know. But he got angry and told me to behave myself. He was very embarrassed. Are many men like that? Afterwards?”

Nina said, “Not in my experience. Oh hell, I don't know what to ask next. How will you know he's coming if you're not there? This Trog, I mean.”

“I go home most nights, and I have an answering machine.”

“Charge him forty and buy a fax machine. When did you see him last?”

“Not since I came to Toronto. But he's often away for months, looking for uranium or something.”

“Don't make it too hard to find you. He sounds too good to be true. It would be a pity if he disappeared before you found out who he is. Now, back to work.” Nina scrabbled for money to pay her share of the bill.

“The fact is, now we've come this far, I wouldn't mind if he disappeared.”

Nina's search for coins stopped. “Not mind?”

Lucy framed a perfectly truthful observation that was also consistent with what she had told Nina. “Oh, I'd mind a bit. But it wasn't him, you see, it was the idea of him. And me saying yes. I'm glad I'm not all tangled up with him, because if he goes away it will still have happened, and now I can move on, do you see? In a way, the
less I know about him the better, and I don't think I will mind if he doesn't come back. I said it wasn't the sex. Well, it wasn't even him. Anybody would've done, though it would have to have been someone like him. But now that I've had it, I may not need it any more. And anyway, I've met someone else.” And she told Nina about Johnny Comstock.

She had not fully digested the experience herself yet, but she knew that Nina would have to know at some point because Lucy desperately needed a confidant, and now would do as well as any other time. She hoped Johnny might ask her to go with him to Kentucky or Florida and she would need advice not on what to say (she would go all right), but on how to carry herself. She had no difficulty with the morality, but the manners might be a problem. “My God.” Nina stopped making preparations to leave. “A few minutes ago I was beginning to feel it was my duty to tell you what was going on. At that point you sounded to me like the most naive woman of your age I've ever run into, so I was going to tell you, as a woman of the world, that that Trog of yours is obviously a Grade-A bullshit artist who is probably bragging to all of his pals what a sweet deal he's got up in Longborough, how his car broke down one night and he got into this bed and breakfast run by this lady who he thought looked like she ran the Longborough Women's Auxiliary but after a couple of bottles of wine she turned into... that is, when he asked her, it turned out she was Molly Bloom and now he goes back up for bed and breakfast about twice a month, and they always have dinner first. What was he doing, by the way, with two bottles of wine on his way down from Labrador? They have a liquor store up there on the site? Sounds to
me like he carries wine with him, so he would always be ready, like kids in high school with the condoms in their wallets. Hold on, Lucy. I
was
going to say all this, but it's obvious to me now, that while it's all true, what he didn't realise is that while
he
was grinning to himself in the bathroom mirror,
you
were doing the same thing in the bedroom. And now he's done his job and we're moving on to who? Johnny Comstock, horse-trainer. Tall?”

“Yes.”

“Lean.”

“Yes”

“Sun-tanned?”

“Yes.”

“Gay, maybe?”

And now Lucy felt a blush spreading into her hair, because to answer the question she would have to acknowledge the evenings she had spent in his tiny coach-house apartment in the Annex (his main home was a farm near Uxbridge where he kept the horses not in hard training). After their first night in his apartment, there had been no point in her going home any more, either to Trimble's ugly little pad or to her house in Longborough. Johnny's apartment was no more than a pad, either, if she understood the term rightly, but it was a nice pad. These days he picked her up every evening for dinner, which they ate early, and then went back there. He had to get up at five, so by ten o'clock they had made love, he was asleep, and she was reading behind a screen at the other end of the room. In the morning he was gone before she woke up.