No need to worry about letting her guard down with Brian, she felt, and that was a comfort. With him she could always relax, perhaps because he seemed vulnerable himself. Guy didn’t think much of him, of course, though she’d never understood why. He looked so young, with that light-coloured hair and his skin like a boy’s, much younger than he probably was.
‘We’ve been so busy today, you wouldn’t believe!’ he said as he dropped the ice into her gin, then cut a sliver of lemon. ‘Ten minutes ago you’d not have got in through the door, we were so packed. Thinning out now, though.’ He opened a bottle of tonic and set it on the bar in front of her, next to her glass. Lowering his voice, he added: ‘See that girl talking to the feller with the beard? Far side o’ the fruit machine? She was asking for you earlier.’
‘Don’t know her.’ She tasted her gin, letting it trickle smoothly down her throat, actually sensing her tensions begin to ease. ‘Do you?’
‘Can’t be sure. So many come in here. She knew your name, yours and Guy’s. Asked for Guy Archer’s wife. Someone had told her you often come in here.’
‘Huh.’
Dorothea eyed the girl suspiciously. A narrow face with thin, mean lips. Round, metal-framed National Health glasses. Frizzy light hair too, which didn’t help.
She took an immediate dislike to her.
‘Hard to believe she’s one of Guy’s girl friends.’
‘Does Guy have girl friends?’ Brian enquired guilelessly. ‘I’m surprised he has time.’
He was beginning to rinse the beer glasses and his back was turned to her, so she could not see his face as he spoke. Just as well, she thought, as she took another gulp at her drink.
‘I was at that hospital at five o’clock this morning,’ she started to tell him, dismissing the girl from her mind. ‘That was the second time. They’d already sent me home to get some sleep once, then they phoned and wanted me back. He’d taken a turn for the worse, they said. Well, I knew what that meant. But he pulled through. Guy’s tougher than you’d think.’
‘Must have been awful for you.’
‘I don’t know what I feel, honestly I don’t.’
She was holding her glass with both hands, staring into it and rolling it between her palms while she talked.
‘I hate insects.’ The bubbles still rose through what little drink was left in the glass. She drained it. ‘I’ve always hated insects, and I imagine the feeling’s mutual. They’ve had a go at me often enough. Give me another drink, Brian, love. Today I’ve earned it.’
‘And everyone’s sure it was beetles?’
He dried his hands on a tatty piece of towelling and reached for her glass.
‘What else?’ she shrugged.
She watched Janet from the food bar — a short, thin woman getting on for fifty — bustling around collecting up the dirty plates from wherever the customers had left them: on the tables, on window ledges, perched on top of the fruit machine, even under the chairs. With a heavy pile in her hands she paused to enquire if Dorothea wanted anything before they closed up.
‘Oh, I don’t think I could face eating. What is there?’
‘Not a lot. Salads are finished, so is the quiche. We did have shepherd’s pie, but that’s gone. Of course there’s bangers… and sandwiches.. cheese…’
That first gin was already warning her that she’d better get something inside her, appetite or not. Cups of tea apart, she’d had practically nothing for twenty-four hours. Heaving herself off the stool, she went across to the food bar to see what was left. Perhaps a couple of cold bangers, she thought at first, but the sight of the three remaining sausages lying on a lettuce leaf like fat, brown slugs made her stomach turn. i’ll have a ploughman’s,’ she told Janet. ‘And don’t stint the Branston.’
The girl with the frizzy hair was looking in her direction, she noticed. Then the man she was with made some remark and she laughed. Getting up, she came over to the food bar clutching her bag. Right, Dorothea thought. Opening gambit. Tackle her directly.
‘They say at the bar you were asking for me.’
The girl seemed taken aback; then she produced a smile like a curling leaf. ‘Oh, you must be Mrs Archer?’ ‘What of it?’
‘I’m Tessa Brownley, from the Gazette.’
Christ, a journalist! Dorothea thought contemptuously. That was just about the last thing she needed right now.
Reluctantly she agreed to answer a few questions. At least the Gazette was only a local weekly, not one of the nationals. Not that there was ever much in it: three or four pages of weddings, funerals and borough council scandals, and the rest was all advertisements.
She carried her plate over to a vacant table, fetched her drink from the bar and settled down to eat, taking her rime. ‘Right,’ she said, her mouth full. ‘What d’you want to know?’
The questions, as she’d expected, were unoriginal.
How old was Guy, how long had they been married, how many children did they have, where did they live and how long for — all the usual family stuff. Why, she wanted to know, had he gone into the derelict school in the first place? Had he known about the tramp?
‘You’d better ask him that,’ Dorothea grunted, spreading pickle on her cheese. ‘I’ve no idea.’
She noticed with distaste that the journalist girl’s own lunch consisted of two of those disgusting sausages, which she gnawed as she scribbled the answers in her notebook.
‘I tried to interview him this morning but the hospital wouldn’t let me in.’
‘Wouldn’t have done you any good. He wasn’t conscious this morning. Can’t you journalists leave a sick man alone?’
‘Mrs Archer, believe me, we’re all terribly sorry about what happened.’
‘Are you? I’m not even sure I know what happened. Suppose you tell me.’
The girl hesitated. ‘Are you serious?’ she asked.
‘Of course I’m bloody serious! They say he was bitten by beetles, I ask you! What kind of beetles do that to a person? He’s had an emergency operation, two blood transfusions, the doctor’s still not certain if he’s going to live or die, and I’m expected to believe it was beetles. I came—’ Her throat dried on her. She gulped down the rest of her drink. ‘I came past the school where it happened. They’ve burned it down. Destroyed the evidence. Do you know why? Because I bloody don’t.’
‘You suspect they’re trying to cover up?’
‘Listen, Miss… whatever your name is…’
‘Tessa.’
‘The police never let on, or didn’t you know that? Why set fire to the place if there’s nothing to hide?’
‘I’ve just been talking to a man who was there,’ Tessa announced crisply. She put down her half-eaten sausage and wiped her fingers. ‘Let’s have him over. I’ll introduce you.’
The young bearded man came across to join them. He was, she explained, a carpenter working for the borough council and could tell her far more than anyone else. In fact, that morning he’d been there when they took the decision to burn the school down.
‘My name’s Tony,’ he said, shaking hands with her. He pulled over a chair and sat down. ‘What d’you want to know?’
‘You’re sure you’re allowed to talk about it?’ Dorothea demanded suspiciously.
‘No one told me not to.’
Though she had no reason to doubt his word, she listened with some scepticism as he described the extent of the damage to the building caused by the infestation. She’d heard all about death-watch beetles, she said, but they didn’t feed on people as well, surely?