for him,’ said the sergeant, perhaps in search of some consoling circumstance. ‘Old farmer working in the fields saw it all. Said the car went up like a bomb. Fractured the tank likely. And he seems to have been carrying some spare fuel in a jerry can in the boot. Probably for his scooter.’
‘Scooter?’
‘Aye. We found the remains of one of them foldaway motor-scooters in the boot. Didn’t you know he had one?’
‘No,’ said Trudi. ‘I didn’t know. Perhaps he hired it with the car.’
‘Aye. Mebbe. Well, one thing, Mrs Adamson, it must’ve been quick.’
In support of this assertion he educed the fact that identification had only been effectable through the number of the hired car and the name on the fireproof bracelet.
Realizing too late that these considerations were as likely to aggravate as to ease pain, the well-meaning sergeant hopped from the past to the future, pointing out that the police would be swift to establish the extent of the truck driver’s responsibility as soon as the man came out of hospital.
‘Shock; broke his collarbone and a few ribs falling out of his cab; and he got pretty badly scorched too. Well, he would. Like an inferno. Burnt the telegraph pole like a Yule log, brought all the wires down, you know. Sorry, luv. All I mean is, you’ll want to get your insurance company working on this. And your solicitor too, I shouldn’t wonder. You’ve got someone to help you with all this, have you? Someone to talk to? Friends?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Trudi, with dismissive certainty.
She thought of Janet in distant Spain. There was no one else to think of, but there was no way of contacting her even if she wanted to. It was bad enough working out who to contact in Vienna. Friends? She couldn’t think of anyone close enough to require a personal notification. Shyness, agoraphobia, call it what you will, but a woman who gives the impression that the end of any social occasion can’t come soon enough doesn’t attract friendship. Consciously or unconsciously, Trent had encouraged her isolation, rarely bringing people home, rarely involving her even in business entertainment. Herr Schiller, the head of the firm, was the only one of Trent’s senior colleagues she had met more than a couple of times socially. She had not much liked the old man, but he had seemed to take a benevolent interest in Trent’s career and for the sake of her husband she had put on her best social face. It seemed to have worked, for Trent had risen close to the top. But Schiller was old now, semi-retired and invalid, and it would be no kindness to contact him direct. In the end, she sent a telegram to Schiller-Reise’s head office and left it to them to pass on the news where and how they saw fit.
By the day of the funeral, there had been no response, and the vicar in the cemetery chapel was clearly disturbed to be faced by a congregation which, bearers apart, was divided evenly between the quick and the dead.
But before the service started, the door opened and a man came in. He had a narrow intelligent face which was hard to put an age on, particularly as the eye was diverted by his hair which in a woman would have been called beautiful, worn rather longer than was fashionable, and swept back in powerful waves of rich black, becomingly tinged with grey. His elegance was underlined by his clothes which were of such immaculate manufacture that the professional bearers shifted uneasily in their shabby mourning.
He came straight to Trudi, stooped over, took her hand and said in German, ‘My dear Mrs Adamson, what a tragedy! What a loss! Believe me, I am truly devastated.’
It was only at this point that Trudi recognized Franz Werner, her husband’s, though not her own, Viennese doctor. She hardly knew the man, certainly did not know his relationship with Trent went beyond the professional to the extent of flying eight hundred miles to catch his funeral.
This was explained to some extent as they followed the coffin out of the chapel. Perhaps aiming at a therapeutic distraction, he told her in a reverential whisper that he had been on the point of departing from Vienna to attend a conference in London when he had heard the news.
‘I admired your husband greatly. I am proud to think I was his friend as well as his physician. So I rearranged my schedule in order to be here.’
‘That was kind,’ said Trudi.
They were approaching the open grave.
‘We will talk later,’ said Werner.
What about? wondered Trudi, who was finding it very hard to believe that this brass-handled box contained her husband. Her husband. Who was he? What had he been? She concentrated hard upon his image but found that somehow her knowledge seemed to stop round about their wedding day. Up till then, there were plenty of people willing to fill in on Trent’s origins. East-ender, orphan, Barnardo boy who had grabbed with both hands the opportunity offered by the war to advance himself. He had made per ardua ad astra his own personal motto, his best man, an old RAF chum, had said at the reception. And he had finished his drunkenly risqué speech by saying, ‘One thing the boys always said about Trent, you might not trust him with your wallet or your wife, but by Christ, old Trent was the chap you wanted to fly with. He always came back!’
Well, old Trent wasn’t coming back this time.
As though in confirmation of her irreverent thought, the vicar was scattering earth on the coffin. She was not listening to his words and it took a slight pressure from Werner’s hand to tell her it was all over.
But not quite. As she turned away, she saw a bright red Fiat Panda, with a long pennant bearing the name of a hire firm streaming from its aerial, come rocketing through the cemetery gates. It halted on the narrow driveway and a long, slim, blonde woman in her thirties got out and came running towards Trudi.
She reached her, embraced her.
There were tears streaming down her face.
‘Oh Trudi, mein’ liebe Trudi! Es ist schrecklich, ganz schrecklich.’
‘Hello, Astrid,’ said Trudi Adamson.
Astrid Fischer had been Trent’s personal assistant during the whole of his time in Vienna. She was a striking woman, full of nervous energy. Her bright blonde hair was matched with smoky-blue eyes and the kind of skin which would stick at twenty-nine for at least another decade.
She was the only one of Trent’s colleagues Trudi knew at all well, apart from Manfred Schiller, the head of the firm, and even this closeness was only relative. But a couple of years earlier, perhaps in an attempt to rekindle her own almost extinct emotional fires, Trudi had gone through a period of intense jealousy concerning Astrid. There had been no material cause of it, she had never said anything to Trent, and the flame had died as rapidly as it ignited, dowsed by trust, indifference, or fear, she didn’t care to find out which. But jealousy’s the next best thing to friendship and for a moment she felt genuinely moved by the woman’s appearance.
Werner was shaking her hand.
‘I must go. Already I’m late,’ he said. ‘Again, my deepest sympathy.’
Astrid whispered, ‘Who’s he?’
‘Trent’s doctor. It was nice of him to come. I thought he would stay longer though.’
Astrid
