Chapters (20)
“Look,” she said, “ I don’t like this. Perhaps I shouldn’t have talked to you. Duncan’s done nothing wrong, but I think I should have spoken to him first. You’d better go.”
Somewhere in the house, a long way off, a child was wailing that it was hungry.
“Yes,” George said. “ I’ll leave now. I’m sorry to have put you in a difficult position.”
She ignored the complaining child and walked with him to the front door and waited there until she was sure he had left the garden.
He walked back down the street to his car. A group of loud-voiced young people were sitting on the grass in the pub’s garden. At the car he paused. He looked again at the glossy brochure advertising the delights of Rashwood Hall Country Club. On an impulse he crossed the road to the public telephone box, feeling in his pocket for change as he went. He dialed the number written by hand on the brochure.
The phone was answered by a young woman with a West Country accent.
“Yes,” she said.
“Is Greg in?” George asked, his fingers were crossed behind his back.
“No,” she said. “He’s away this week.”
She was bright and chatty. She wasn’t the sort to read the newspaper or listen to the news, he thought. She didn’t even know Greg was dead.
“When are you expecting him back?” He tried to sound friendly, not really interested but enjoying a conversation with a young woman.
“Well,” she said, “you know what Greg’s like. The end of the week, he said.”
“He wanted some information,” George said. “Perhaps I’d better post it to him. Could you give me the address?”
She seemed suddenly different, not suspicious, but careful, like a child who has been warned not to give too much away. “ I think it might be best if you phoned again when he’s back,” she said.
“I’m in Bristol tonight,” he said, jovial, fatherly. “Perhaps I could drop it in.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it but pleased, too, that she had an excuse for putting him off. “There won’t be anyone here. I’m just on my way to work.”
“That’s a shame,” he said, “ having to work on a lovely evening like this.”
“Well, it’s not really work. Pleasure, really. I’m personal assistant to Brian Barnes of Squirrel Development. We’re entertaining some clients at Rashwood Hall.”
She giggled smugly. George wished her a pleasant evening and said he hoped Mr. Barnes appreciated her, then replaced the receiver. He went back over the road, then to the pub for a drink. He told himself that it was because he needed change for the other phone calls he still had to make, but it was more like a celebration.