Death of a Salesperson (2 page)

‘Excuse me, I wonder if you can help me. I'm looking for someone who knew Helen Harcourt when she was a student here.'

The woman turned and smiled.

‘Oh yes, I knew Helen.'

‘Well?'

‘As well as anyone here, I suppose. Those of us who'd reached the forties mark tended to get together between classes. Why?'

‘I'm her husband. Helen died in a road accident last week.'

‘Oh
dear.
How tragic. She was so gay and vital.'

‘Look, would you let me buy you lunch? Is there anywhere around here?'

‘I'll let you buy me lunch, but in the canteen. It's not too bad. I don't know what you want of me, but it can't be worth the price of a restaurant meal.'

Over two plates of shepherd's pie and peas Geoffrey put his cards on the table.

‘Since my wife died I've discovered things about her that I never knew before. I didn't know she had given up her course here, for example, and there are . . . other things. She had a life, for one day a week, of which I knew nothing. Please believe it's not anger or pique that makes me feel I have to know. You won't be betraying Helen in anything you tell me. I just want to find out how I failed her.'

The woman nodded.

‘I can understand that. But truly I know nothing that could “betray” her in any way. We weren't that kind of friends, and she was only here for a term and a half, you know.'

‘That's what I guessed. Why did she give it up? She seemed so enthusiastic at first.'

‘Oh, she was. We all were. But the teaching is not too good, and some of the subject areas seem just plain potty. I remember Helen once said to me that she wondered whether it
was
a subject at all . . . In fact, quite a lot of us wonder why we go on. Just to get a bit of paper at the end, I suppose.'

‘And that was the reason she stopped?'

‘I don't know the reason she stopped. But she was expressing boredom, and then one week she wasn't there. She never came again.'

‘I see. Tell me, did she have any special friends?'

‘Well, we're all quite good friends. The young ones tend to keep to themselves, but they're really quite
kind
to us . . . I see what you're getting at, of course . . . There was a man . . . Oh dear, what was his name? There was a Polytechnic party and dance, early in second term that year . . .'

‘Yes, I seem to remember. Helen took the car and drove back very late. I was asleep when she got back in.'

‘I'm sure it meant nothing special, but she danced a lot with this man. He gave up the course about the time she did, I think, which is why I can't remember his name. He was five or six years younger than Helen, but they seemed to find each other a lot of fun. His business had collapsed, but he was hoping for a job with ICI on the personnel side. This course was a sort of stop-gap. As far as I remember, he got the job and stopped coming.'

‘There's nothing else you can remember about him—about them—that might suggest—'

‘That they were having an affair? That is what we're talking about, isn't it? Oh dear, I
do
feel this is a betrayal . . . To an outsider it seemed so much more, at that stage, a matter of a shared sense of humour than an affair. I remember once, when we were all sitting talking in here, this man gave us a marvellous account, with miming and accents and all, of this hotel in Bloomsbury—the Durward, that was it—where they still do real old-fashioned teas, with dainty sandwiches and tea-cake and muffins. And they have dancing after dinner with a Palm Court Orchestra, and lots of faded elegance. I remember your wife laughing till she ached, and saying: “Just like
Bertram's Hotel.
I'd love to see it.” And this man promised to take her one day . . . What
was
his name?'

‘Would anybody else remember?'

‘They might do.' She looked around and darted to a table with three or four older students. ‘His name was Roger Michaels,' she said when she returned. ‘He'd owned a small toy factory, but the recession had closed it. And it was ICI he went to.' She leaned forward very earnestly. ‘You do realize I've no
evidence
—'

‘Oh, of course. It could be someone else entirely—someone she met on the train, for instance. It could be no one. By the way, what did he look like?'

‘Dapper. Well set up, but not tall. Lively, always darting here and there. Lots and lots of jokes.'

I've never been good on jokes, thought Geoffrey sadly. It seemed as though some great weight was pressing on his back, squeezing the breath out of him. How I failed her, he thought. He had known his wife had been kind, generous, considerate. Now he also knew she had craved colour, gaiety, laughter. How totally he had failed her.

It was still early afternoon when he got back to his car. He rather thought he had enough information to track down this Roger Michaels, but first there was something else he could try, to see if he was on the right scent. Helen's friend had been right when she said what they were talking about was an affair. The clothes were the clothes of a woman in love. But was Michaels the man? He drove to Bloomsbury, and once again drove round and round before he found a parking space. Then he marked time in Dillons and Foyles until it was four o'clock, and tea would be served at the Durward.

It was overpoweringly genteel, like Harrogate in the 'thirties. A pianist played Gershwin and Ivor Novello, quite softly, and the sandwiches and cakes nestled in lacy doylies on silver baskets. Only the staff were wrong: a heterogeneous collection of nationalities. Geoffrey was lucky: he had a genial, pot-bellied Cypriot with an East London accent. When he was half way through his tea he fished from his wallet the photograph of Helen, taken on holiday the year
before in Verona, and beckoned the waiter over. His first reaction was to shake his head.

‘No. No, I can't say I have . . . Wait! Wait a minute, though. I think that must be Mrs Rogers, so called. Yes—I'd bet my bottom . . . Mind you, she looks so different there. Quite dowdy, really, as if she'd tried to de-glamourize herself. Our Mrs Rogers . . . What is this all about, mate? Private detective, are you? I suppose it'll be the real Mrs Rogers, or whatever her name is.'

‘When are you off?'

‘I finish at six, thank Gawd.'

‘Care for a drink?'

‘I wouldn't say no.'

‘Meet you outside at six.'

Settled into the Jug and Bottle, just off the Tottenham Court Road, and after a tenner had passed between them, the waiter told Geoffrey all he knew.

‘Somehow I always had the suspicion they weren't married. I saw him sign the register when they first stayed the night here, and he didn't do it confident-like. What ho! I thought. Your name isn't Michael Rogers. Since then I've noticed he always pays cash, never cheque or credit card.'

‘But they register as husband and wife?'

‘ 'Course they do. What do you think? Mind you, it is a bit out of the usual run of liaisons. Because when you look close you realize she is older than him. Glamorous, very smart, altogether the superior article, but older. I put her down as a lady from the provinces—and I do
mean
a lady, and a well-heeled one—'aving a fling in London. Though it's more than that, too. You can see she is in love.'

The waiter, drinking deep, did not see Geoffrey flinch.

‘Do they come to the Durward every week?'

‘Oh yes, they have been doing. 'Cept in the holidays. I put it down to one or other of them having kiddies home from boarding-school.'

‘So they come every Thursday?'

‘That's right. Not last week, but it's probably half term or something. Yes, they come down and have tea in the Garden Room, same as you just done.'

‘What do they do in the evenings?'

‘Sometimes they have dinner at the Durward, and a dance afterwards. But Thursday nights is not very lively. Mostly they go out. Taxi called from the desk, then off to the Savoy or wherever. She in long dress, hair done, beautifully made-up. My God, she can look a stunner! I don't wonder he was taken.'

‘You said that she's in love. Is he?'

‘Oh, I think so. Not a doubt of it. At least until recently . . .'

‘There has been a change?'

‘Well, there has and there hasn't. On the surface everything has been the same. But they've got more serious. Had long conversations in low voices over the tea-table. Once I could see she was distressed—though
being
a lady, she was always the same to me if I came up to see if there was anything they wanted . . . He wasn't upset in quite that way, and I put the change down to him trying to wind up the affair—in the nicest possible way. Say what you like, that's what usually happens when the woman's the older one. Mind you, thinking back on it, he could have been telling her that his wife was suspicious, and they'd have to go careful for a bit.'

No, Geoffrey thought; he'd used her, and was giving her the brush-off. He was conceiving an intense dislike for this Roger Michaels, who worked for ICI and had this great store of jokes. What he felt—he told himself with the bleak honesty of someone whose emotional voltage was low—was not jealousy. Or not primarily jealousy. It was indignation on Helen's behalf. He saw her now as someone who had for years modified her personality to suit the grey, even life which her marriage had offered her, but who had had that other, more daring self waiting to spring out. And when it
had done, she had been used by a thoughtless or heartless man, and then thrown aside.

‘I feel guilty about this,' said the waiter, standing up and patting his back pocket, ‘but a tenner's a tenner. I don't know what the lady who's paying you is like, but
my
pair are nice people. And
she
is a beautiful woman.'

I never knew I was married to a beautiful woman, thought Geoffrey sadly.

Next morning the great weight of failure, of lack of understanding, seemed as crushing as ever. Before breakfast he drove to his school. It was like a ghost school, though later, he knew, one of the secretaries would be coming in. He took the L to R volume of the London Telephone Directory from the office and drove home. He spoke to nobody. Still less, now, did he wish to have a heart-to-heart with anyone about his loss.

Michaels, fortunately, was not a common name. With the data he had on him Geoffrey could make a guess at the sort of area he might live in, and from the handful who had the initial R he struck gold with his second call. It was to the R. Michaels who lived in Grafton Avenue, Surbiton.

‘Could I speak to Mr Michaels, please?'

‘I'm afraid my husband is away at his job from Mondays to Fridays. Can I help?'

It was a hard, tight little voice, quite neutral in accent.

‘Perhaps you can. I'm with the
Economist
, and we're doing a survey of British toy manufacturers—'

‘Oh, my husband got out of that long ago. Nearly two years. He saw the way the wind was blowing. He's got a very good job with ICI now.'

‘Thank you. That tells me what I want to know. I shan't need to trouble you again.'

On an impulse, when he had put the phone down, he looked up the number for ICI and got on to the personnel department.

‘I'm sorry, but Mr Michaels isn't here at the moment,' a
cool, competent voice told him. ‘His main work is with our businesses in the North. He drives up there on Monday mornings, and he only comes in here on Fridays, though I believe he drives down on Thursday afternoon.'

When he had put the phone down, Geoffrey began wondering about Roger Michaels's arrangements with Helen. Did they meet somewhere, then go on to the Durward together? That seemed likely. Had he been expecting to meet her last Thursday, and would he be waiting again today? Or had he, as the waiter conjectured, broken it off—disguising it, perhaps, as a temporary break while his wife was suspicious, but in brutal reality ditching her?

By now he had made up his mind: at some time in the future he was going to have to have a talk with Roger Michaels.

But first he wanted to suss out the lie of the land, sniff out the character of his everyday life. He found Grafton Avenue easily in his
London A-Z.
There was nothing to prevent him driving there at once. Half term had still some days to run, and doubtless any problems that came up were referred to the Deputy Head. When he got to Surbiton he found that at least here parking was no problem. There didn't seem to be much else to be said for the place. He put the car in the next street and walked casually along Grafton Avenue. The Michaels's house was not very different from what he had expected: a standard detached house, probably built in the 'fifties, with a tiny, neat front garden, and no character whatsoever. The same was true of all the houses in the street: suburbia personified. The only relief from the architectural monotony was a small square of public garden on the opposite corner of the avenue. Geoffrey walked in it for a bit, his eye on Roger's house, but there was no sign of life.

Was Roger a pub man, he wondered? Yes, it did sound as if Roger was probably a pub man. Men with streams of jokes usually were. Two streets away Geoffrey could see the outlines of a 'thirties roadhouse, brewery-anonymous in
style. Could that be Roger Michaels's local? It seemed worth a try.

It was still a good half-hour before the lunch-time rush, and the landlord was ready for a leisurely gossip.

Thinking of moving round here, was he? Well, he always did say you couldn't find a nicer area. Lovely houses—well, he would have seen that. Nice people too, if it came to that—a very good
class
, if Geoffrey knew what he meant. What line of business was Geoffrey in himself? Schoolmastering?
Head
master! Well, he could practically guarantee he would fit in perfectly. Did he have any connections in this area?