The Stranger Came Read online

  The girl was new, of course, and couldn't know how unlikely that would be.

  'It's not a nice day,' Lucy said, looking around her. 'Not a day for shopping.’ She felt her hair and the wetness of her cheeks. 'I've been walking in the rain.’

  'You weren't coming to see me, were you? '

  'What reason – Anyway how could I expect to see you here?' Lucy looked around. It was a street she did not recognise.

  'Because I live near here. But, of course, you know that,' the girl was saying. Something about where she lived? Was she trying to suggest she knew where she lived?

  'But you do! I'm sorry. I mean, you were there with the Professor.’

  Lucy shook her head. 'With my husband?'

  Sophie Lindgren indicated, pointing along the street. 'There – just where the terrace goes up a level. That's the place. You can see the windows from here.’

  And Lucy remembered. The kitchen with the dripping tap; the cheap reproduction pinned to a wall; the stale smell of cigarettes. I went there with Maitland and we met – we met –

  'I could offer you a coffee,' Sophie Lindgren said. 'It's just across the road.’

  There was somewhere she needed to go, was supposed to go. She couldn't think because of the girl. Question after question.

  'A drink then? That might be better. You wouldn't want to get a chill.’

  'I don't think so.’

  'But you must! You've shivering. You'll make yourself ill.’

  It seemed there was to be no peace. 'My husband suggested we buy one of the flats. As an investment. But he's not really a businessman.’ She heard herself laughing and said, 'I think I should be going home.’

  There was a place opposite, however, one of those squalid little hotels, and the girl was insisting.

  'After all my dreaming,' Lucy said, 'it seems I've decided to cross the road.’

  As she went up the hotel steps, noise jerked her head round. On a whooping double note the police car sliding from a side-street posted its ominous clamour ahead. Arms folded the warden stood across the street watching them.

  The drink was very sweet. She didn't know what it was, and wondered if Sophie Lindgren had brought it without asking what she wanted. While she was thinking about that, the girl began to make sharp gasping sounds.

  'I'm trying to picture May Stewart's face,' she said, and her shoulders shook with the little noises that although strange were more like laughter than anything else.

  'Mrs Stewart?' The secretary at the Gregory and Rintoul Trust; it took Lucy a moment to place the name.

  'It's her car, you see,' the girl said. 'Her lovely little Fiat with the, what is it she calls it? Two-colour toning. It'll be its very first parking ticket; I should think so, wouldn't you? With her being so careful, you wouldn't believe how careful she is.’

  Perhaps she is drunk after all, Lucy thought. They had the lounge to themselves. Not even a man behind the bar; perhaps you rang a bell or something to fetch him out from wherever the music was clattering beyond the arch. 'You had Mrs Stewart's car?' It seemed so odd sitting alone with Sophie Lindgren. She really didn't want to be here.

  'I've been dashing all over the place these last few days making final arrangements about taking the patients to the theatre. I even went to Balinter, to the University. I saw Professor Ure.’

  'Oh, yes?' Lucy said vaguely. The table was scarred with small burns where cigarettes had been laid and the ash­trays were full – surely not from the previous night? Then since the girl seemed to be waiting for her to say something else went on, 'And are you free today?'

  'Oh, God, yes,' the girl said. 'I'm not cheating my employer. I'm not pretending to be ill. I'm free, if that's what you want to call it. I suppose you feel you have the right to ask that – I mean with being the Rintoul in Gregory and Rintoul.’

  Twisting her mouth sourly like that quite spoiled the girl's prettiness and, startled, Lucy almost told her so but held back not wanting to be unkind. Instead, edging the stale ashtray away, she murmured half to herself, 'How surprised my husband would be to see me here.’

  'He's been here,' the girl said. 'Sitting in that chair you're in now. But that was weeks ago, of course.’ And tossed her head as if putting back a fall of long hair from her face, the same gesture as that first meeting at Waverley Station, waiting for her brother only there was no brother, it was Maitland who came off the train. 'Did I tell you I've been arranging things?' she asked, leaning across the table. 'The theatre visit, things like that. I had to go and see Mr Chambers the lawyer. He's very protective of you.’

  'I'm afraid I don't understand,' Lucy said.

  'Oh, he made a point of it. He's known you all your life. Something about christening robes.’

  'How strange' that he should unburden himself to her. An old man with a pretty girl. She had thought better of him. 'He was always a remote figure to me. And yet perhaps…someone you've known when you were young is always – you imagine somehow, even so much later, that they're going to protect you or certainly like you…Isn't that so?'

  'I wouldn't know,' Sophie Lindgren said. 'Maybe I knew different kinds of people when I was a child.’

  'You might be better prepared then.’

  'Prepared?'

  'For the things that happen…So perhaps I'm not so fortunate as you think.’

  'Should I be sorry for you?'

  The girl's impertinence made Lucy blink. 'Certainly not,' she said. 'In most people's terms I am fortunate. I have everything I want.’

  'Don't other people have a right to be happy too?' Sophie Lindgren asked.

  Self-evidently; and yet the girl was staring at her, fiercely, disconcertingly, waiting apparently for her to answer – as if it could possibly matter.

  'I'm afraid,' Lucy said, 'I'm really not feeling particularly well.’

  'It's just through the door – where we came in,' the girl told her.

  The basin in the lavatory had no plug, but was choked with a couple of inches of grey scummy liquid. She dribbled water on to her fingertips and rubbed them across her forehead and temples. The floor of the cubicle was wet, the air smelled, but she sat in the cramped little box for a long time, until it became impossible.

  It was no use. When she came out, Sophie Lindgren was there.

  'I was out on the street looking for you,' she said. 'I thought you'd gone.’

  'I should be going home.’

  'It's still early.’

  'I'm very tired.’ Too tired to resist.

  Sophie Lindgren crossed to her and set the glasses on the table. She sat down and raised her glass.

  'To happiness!' she said.

  Lucy sipped at her drink. It was sweet and cloying and sickly on the tongue, like medicine in the nursery when no matter how sugary its deception you knew they had wrapped bitterness inside.

  'I have to tell you. Tell you everything,' Sophie Lindgren said. 'Believe me I don't want to hurt you.’

  'Open your mouth, shut your eyes,' Lucy said. 'Like medicine.’

  'Even if I have to force you, you're going to listen. It's wrong that you shouldn't know the truth.’

  About what?

  'What possible truth could you know that would matter to me?'

  At the sour triumph of the other's smile, Lucy's breath stopped for fear.

  Yet when the girl started to speak, it was about nothing, she had spent an evening with Monty Norman – weeks ago.

  What was there to be afraid of in that?

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter 8

  Sophie Lindgren's Story

  'It's my impression the Professor's the one who decides. Was he the one who gave you the job, Sophie? Was that the way it was?'

  Though it was 'Sophie' and 'Monty' they were strangers still. As for the first names, he had insisted on them from the day a fortnight ago when he had started: 'Let's not have any of that Mr Norman stuff.’ She smiled to herself. May Stewart's use of his first name was scarce; unspontaneous, you might call it. No
doubt she felt threatened by him, even if it was still far from clear what he was actually there to do.

  'Have you made up your mind?' Norman set down a pint glass and the whisky tumbler he had held pinned by his little finger. 'I've been feeding from the bowls on the counter.’ In front of her he laid from his other fist a Martini and a packet of potato sticks. 'Funny place. Like drinking in a loo.’

  The walls were tiled from floor to ceiling. Although the predominant impression was of dark green, the decoration of individual tiles was ornate Victorian: flowers, ships, stars.

  'I love it.’

  'Do a lot of your drinking in loos?' he asked. 'It's like being in a theatre.’

  'A theatre loo.’

  'No, seriously, it makes me think of a stage set. I can't think what kind of play though.’

  Instead of pursuing the notion, he reached over and tore open the sticks packet. 'Have one.’

  'I'm not hungry.’

  'Keep you from getting hungry. End of the working day.’

  She drew out one of the sticks. Apart from their own the tables were unoccupied. At the shorter of the bar's counters, round the corner out of view came the muttering of men's voices. The barman leaned with his hands on the counter; head bowed as if praying for custom.

  'Back to the question,' he said. 'What brought you to work there? Bright ambitious girl like you. It's only a clerking job, isn't it?'

  'Actually, I replaced two part-timers. So there's plenty to do.’

  'But you've "actually” got a degree, haven't you?'

  'For what it's worth.’

  'From – what do you call it?'

  'Balinter.’

  'There you are then. Same place as the Professor's at. You could do better than clerking.’

  'It's only an ordinary degree. People who graduated same time as me don't have a job at all yet.’

  'What time would that be?' Then before she could answer, he said abruptly, 'You're spoiling it.’

  She did not understand till he pointed at the potato stick she was turning in her fingers. She dropped it in the ashtray. 'I'm not hungry.’

  'Nobody'll get it now,' he said with a frown. 'You were saying when you graduated?'

  'Just in June.’ It seemed to her that made it more plausible that she should be working for the Trust. 'I started in September.’

  'So you'd done a bit of looking first – over the summer?'

  She hesitated. 'I gave myself a holiday first.’

  'So you weren't too worried.’ He drew out a bundle of the potato sticks and held them out to her. She shook her head in refusal. 'About getting a job, I mean.’ He tilted his head and the sticks slid between his lips.

  'I'd promised myself a holiday.’

  'You knew something would turn up.’

  'I suppose so.’

  'Did the Professor say there'd be a job for you?'

  'There was an advertisement – I applied.’

  Taking more of the sticks, he turned the bag towards her. She shook her head.

  'Still, with being at the same university, knowing him, it can't have done your chances any harm.’

  'I was in one of his classes. It would be a bit grand to say I knew him.’

  'You and me both.’ Monty Norman looked at her in triumph. 'Sorry?'

  'Both of us got our jobs through the Professor. It gives us something in common. Makes us allies.’ He smiled. 'You should share these with me, one bite. Make us blood brothers – like the Red Indians.’

  Irritated, this time she pushed the packet back across the table to him. He looked at it, chewing his lip. 'What do you make of the Stewart woman then?'

  'May,' she reminded him with a touch of malice.

  'Her. She's not easy to be jolly with.’

  The phrase made her laugh. 'She's all right. She regards the Trust as “Good Works.” That's why she does it – I'm sure she could get more money somewhere else.’ Realising that might be tactless, she hurried on. 'She may not be very lively, but she does her job well.’

  'You think so?'

  She looked at him in surprise. 'Don't you?'

  He poured potato sticks into his palm. 'Sure you don't want a taste of one of these?'

  'Positive.’

  'You have a lot of will-power,' he said thoughtfully.

  'Because I won't have a potato stick?'

  'Right.’ He chewed with a crunching sound. A fleck of dry crumbs showed at one corner of his mouth.

  'They're just not the kind of thing I enjoy.’

  'You're stubborn,' he said. 'It doesn't embarrass you to be stubborn.’

  'If you think it's important.’ On impulse, she picked one of the sticks from his palm and ate it. 'I'm not on a diet or anything.’

  'Now I'm not sure who's won,' he complained.

  For a moment she imagined he was serious and then decided to appreciate his sense of humour and laugh.

  'Of course, as far as judging May's work,' he reflected, 'like you say, you haven't been there long yourself.’

  'She's efficient. It doesn't take long to tell that.’

  'You like her.’

  'Well, I don't not like her.’

  'And the Professor?'

  'I don't know whether he's efficient. Ask May!'

  'No. I meant, do you like him?'

  'Do we have to talk shop? We're not in the office now.’

  ..’.Fine. Something else to drink?'

  'I'll get them.’

  But he took the money from her hand. 'You sit and relax. I'll bring them.’

  'Fine,' she said, borrowing the word from him. Accepting his invitation for a drink had seemed simpler than refusing. But quite apart from the legitimate reasons for disliking him – above all that Maitland had complicated things so horribly by sticking him into a room in the flat – he got on her nerves unreasonably.

  A surreptitious check on her change suggested he had paid for almost that entire round also.

  'I wanted a double,' he said, as if reading her mind. 'I let myself be old-fashioned and paid for it.’ He closed his fists and, grinning at her, mimed a boxer defending himself. 'We can call it a draw.’

  As she was puzzling over what on earth he was talking about, she heard the unmistakable voice of Viv Law. In the last few minutes the bar had begun to fill, and most of this change she now saw had been caused by the arrival of a group of about a dozen people. In the centre of them a thin woman in her early fifties was patting with yellow fingers at wisps of hair drawn out in untidy strands.

  'That's Viv Law just come in,' she said. 'At the table behind you.’

  'Who?'

  'Viv Law. She's a journalist. She does work on occasion to help out at the Trust. The “Good Works” thing again. I doubt if she gets paid. Of course, she's a friend of Professor Ure's.’

  'For someone who hasn't been there long, you have it all taped,' he said admiringly.

  You'd be surprised how much I know, she thought. About Viv Law, for example. I know why she left the magazine she helped to start; I know how much she loved her father and why she was at odds with her mother; I know why she turned down that advertising job in London. I know – a number of things, but not how to explain that I know any of them.

  But while she was puzzling over that, Sophie found a sharp narrow-eyed gaze fixing her and then the older woman was on her feet and approaching. 'Aren't you with the Gregory and Rintoul?'

  The question was abrupt, with an edge to it that sounded unfriendly.

  Something else I know, Sophie remembered. Viv Law has a hell of a temper.

  'I've seen you there – May Stewart introduced us. I don't remember your name.’

  'I thought journalists never forgot a name,' Monty Norman said with a smile.

  'You're thinking of fucking politicians,' Viv Law said, and turning back to Sophie went on, 'I've just come from the Trust office. I had something to hand in.’

  'I could take it,' Sophie said helpfully. 'I'll give it to May in the morning. If that would hel
p?'

  'Oh, I saw May. I'd phoned her I was bringing it in. Only it turns out there's a little problem. It's not needed. Who is this shit Norman who's fucking the place up?'

  Her voice went up another notch and the group stopped even pretending not to listen. It was clear they knew Viv gave good value.

  'I'm that shit Norman.’

  'Yes. I thought you might be.’

  'What's your problem?'

  'I'm a busy woman,' Viv Law said with an unpleasantly reasonable air. 'I don't like to have my time wasted.’

  'You don't have to be a woman to feel that,' Norman said.

  'I knew I wasn't going to like you.’

  'If there's been some kind of mistake,' Sophie tried to intervene, not for Norman's sake but for the Trust's or rather for Maitland's since it was what he might have wished her to do.

  'Not by me, love. I was asked to do that circular. You know, to the welfare clubs? For the Christmas appeal.’

  'Well?' Norman asked, but both women had caught his involuntary flicker of response. If he didn't know before, Sophie thought, he does now what this is about. She, however, was still in the dark.

  'I took them to the post yesterday,' she soothed.

  'They've gone off in good time.’

  'Too fucking good. That's what I was taking in today – the day I was asked to bring it in – the copy for it. I spent last night on it. It's only amateurs think you can do these things in five minutes. And that's what you've sent out, love – an amateur's piece of bloody silly-clever.’

  'I wrote the letter,' Monty Norman said. 'That's part of my job. Nobody told me you'd been asked.’

  'Don't give me that crap! May Stewart told you.’

  Sophie was startled by a glance at her of pure malevolence from him. Did he blame her for witnessing this?

  Next moment he was smiling. 'Let's not argue,' he said, 'whether she did or not. Mostly she does her job splendidly. I've no desire to cause trouble for her. I don't think I made such a bad job of the letter – but I'd be glad of your help with the next one.’

  'I'm a professional,' Viv Law said. 'Maitland Ure asked me to do something. A date came with it. All right, I get it done and I get it done on time. But the other side of that is that I don't get messed about.’