‘What did they say?’
‘Just that the poor young man had been found dead; so we would know the news before it came on to the radio or television.’
‘It hasn’t yet come on to either the radio or the television, has it?’
‘Has it not? I don’t know.’
‘No. Don’t you think that’s odd?’
‘What?’
‘Unexpected death in a public place like a hotel. You’d have thought the media’d be on to it by now.’
‘I hadn’t really thought about it.’
‘Unless of course someone was deliberately trying to suppress the news.’
He shrugged, suggesting that her conjecture was possibly true, but that he had far more important things in his life to worry about.
‘Who rang you?’ asked Carole. ‘Was it someone from the Pillars of Sussex who told you to keep quiet about the death?’
‘I really can’t remember. And I was just given the information, told about what had happened. I wasn’t told to keep quiet.’
‘But who was it who rang?’ Carole persisted. Her slight inhibition about being directly rude to the solicitor had long since vanished. She didn’t like the man. She’d never liked him. She didn’t care what he thought of her.
Barry Stilwell, however, was not to be drawn. For the next part of the lunch there was a distinct froideur between them. As he tucked into his saltimbocca à la Romana, he talked impersonally about local topics: the state of the beach at Worthing, the problem of vagrancy in Brighton, the prospects for the long-awaited by-pass at Arundel. And he resisted Carole’s every attempt to return the conversation to the subject of Nigel Ackford.
She thought at least she’d dampened his romantic ardour, but he reverted to flirtatious mode as he pressed her – unsuccessfully – to have a dessert and ordered tiramisu with cream for himself. (Did he eat like this every day? Why on earth didn’t he put on weight? Carole decided that Barry Stilwell had a metabolic thinness of spirit that denied his body the comfort of fat.)
She’d incautiously left her hand on the table again, and he picked it up as they waited for Mario to bring the coffee. ‘It really means a lot to me, seeing you again,’ he simpered. ‘You know I’ve always had a thing about you.’
Carole found this hard to believe. She was a thin, grey-haired woman in her mid-fifties. Even at her supposed peak, she had had little of the sultry temptress about her. Still, there was no accounting for tastes. Maybe Barry was just desperate. She found herself wondering what Pomme was like, and what kind of married life they shared. The speculation was distasteful, but it wouldn’t go away.
His hand was wrapped around hers like a slice of smoked salmon, but since she could not get free without overt rudeness, they stayed linked.
‘I’d like to think,’ Barry went on, ‘that there’s not such a gap before the next one.’
‘The next what?’
‘Meeting. Lunch. Whatever. I think it’s very sad we lost touch last time.’
‘Not that sad. You went off and got married.’ Which was a huge relief to me, she might have added.
‘Yes.’ He brought a boyish hangdog expression into his eyes. It didn’t suit him. ‘Who knows whether I’d have done that if I hadn’t lost touch with you?’
Oh, no. This was getting beyond a joke.
‘Anyway, I’ll ring you. We must meet again.’ The smoked salmon tightened around her hand.
‘Are you talking about another lunch?’
‘Some evenings are also possible,’ he said cautiously. ‘Pomme does line-dancing on Thursdays. And I’ve got the Rotary on Tuesday evenings.’
‘But you couldn’t take me to the Rotary. I thought that was an all-male organization.’
‘It is,’ he agreed. ‘Except for our ladies’ nights.’ Then, with a shameless wink, he went on, ‘I do, however, have some very good friends in the Rotary. They wouldn’t rat on a chap if he didn’t turn up to the odd meeting.’
Carole was flabbergasted. Their last encounter should have left Barry Stilwell in no doubt that she couldn’t stand him. Yet here he was coming on to her, unambiguously proposing they should have an affair. An affair whose logistics he seemed to have worked out in considerable detail.
Fortunately, Mario’s arrival with the coffee got her hand unwrapped from the smoked salmon. For the rest of their lunch she contrived to avoid making an illicit assignation with her host. At the end, she managed to escape with only the lightest brush of face-cloth across her cheek.
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