‘He couldn’t have been more wrong. Nigel Ackford was – is – a very junior solicitor.’ The correction was a complete giveaway. Carole had offered no indication of knowing the young man was dead, and Barry Stilwell was not about to tell her. ‘He’s not even, I believe, a very good solicitor, so I would have thought the chances of his ever becoming a Pillar of Sussex are as likely as mine are of going to bed with Nicole Kidman.’
The leer with which he accompanied this suggested that the loss was all Nicole Kidman’s.
‘Is it possible for bad solicitors to get jobs these days?’ asked Carole, all innocence.
‘Not a lot changes in the world,’ Barry replied sagely. ‘As ever, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. With the right contacts, even bad solicitors can still get taken on.’
‘So did Nigel Ackford know Donald Chew? Is that how it happened?’
‘No.’ The solicitor looked uncomfortable, but was saved from further explanation by the arrival of the starters. Or rather, of his starter. Carole, always a light luncher, had, in spite of her host’s blandishments, insisted that all she required was pasta con vongole as a main course.
As she watched the familiarity with which Barry tucked into his tonno e fagioli, she was even more convinced that he knew the whole menu intimately. She waited till he had chomped his first mouthful before asking, ‘So, is there anything else you can tell me about Nigel Ackford?’
‘No. Just know the name. Never met him.’
‘But I thought you both attended the Pillars of Sussex dinner at Hopwicke Country House Hotel earlier this week.’
The shock effect was very rewarding. Two beans and an arc of onion shot out onto Barry’s plate as he reached for his napkin. He wiped his mouth, and tried to curb his agitation, as he asked, ‘How do you know about that?’
‘Got a friend who was working there.’ Carole was enjoying juxtaposing the occasional truth with her lies.
‘Yes. Well, we were both there, but I didn’t meet Mr Ackford.’
‘There were only twenty of you. And I gathered he had to introduce himself formally to the whole group.’
‘Maybe. But I didn’t actually talk to him personally. Not on a one-to-one basis.’
She let the silence run, and he looked relieved, hoping she was about to change the subject. Dashing his hopes, she revealed she knew about Nigel Ackford’s death in the hotel. ‘Were you aware at the time of what had happened, Barry?’
He squirmed. ‘No. I had an early breakfast and left. Had to get into the office. I heard the news later.’
‘Someone phoned you?’
‘Yes.’
‘As no doubt they phoned round all the Pillars of Sussex?’
‘Presumably.’
‘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