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Strike could hear the secretary’s deep voice, without being able to make out the words
“Excuseharried, and he left the table
A look of malicious amuselanced at each other again; then, somewhat to his surprise, Ursula asked Strike:
“Have you met Alison?”
“Briefly”
“You know they’re together?”
“Yes”
“It’s a bit pathetic, actually,” said Tansy “She’s with John, but she’s actually obsessed with Tony Have you met Tony?”
“No,” said Strike
“He’s one of the senior partners John’s uncle, you know?”
“Yes”
“Very attractive He wouldn’t go for Alison in a million years I suppose she’s settled for John as consolation prize”
The thought of Alison’s dooreat satisfaction
“This is all coossip at the office, is it?” asked Strike
“Oh, yah,” said Ursula, with relish “Cyprian says she’s absolutely e around Tony”
Her antipathy towards Strike seemed to have evaporated He was not surprised; he had met the phenomenon many times People liked to talk; there were very few exceptions; the question was how you made them do it Some, and Ursula was evidently one of theht; and then there were those whoA subsection of humanity would becoht be their own innocence, or soht be their collection of pre-war biscuit tins; or it ht, as in the case of Ursula May, be the hopeless passion of a plain secretary
Ursula atching Bristow through the ; he was standing on the pave hard into his ue properly loosened now, she said:
“I bet I knohat that’s about Conway Oates’s executors area fuss about how the firm handled his affairs He was the American financier, you know? Cyprian and Tony are in a real bait about it, s over John always gets the shitty end of the stick”
Her tone wasthan sympathetic
Bristow returned to the table, looking flustered
“Sorry, sorry, Alison just wanted to give es,” he said
The waiter came to collect their plates Strike was the only one who had cleared his When the waiter was out of earshot, Strike said:
“Tansy, the police disregarded your evidence because they didn’t think you could have heard what you claimed to have heard”
“Well they rong, weren’t they?” she snapped, her good huone in a trice “I did hear it”
“Through a closed ?”
“It was open,” she said,none of her companions’ eyes “It was stuffy, I opened one of the s on the way to get water”
Strike was sure that pressing her on the point would only lead to her refusing to answer any other questions
“They also allege that you’d taken cocaine”
Tansy made a little noise of impatience, a soft “cuh”
“Look,” she said, “I had so dinner, OK, and they found it in the bathroo boredoet through Benjy Dunne’s bloody anecdotes But I didn’t iine that voice upstairs A man was there, and he killed her He killed her,” repeated Tansy, glaring at Strike
“And where do you think he went afterwards?”
“I don’t know, do I? That’s what John’s paying you to find out He sneaked out somehow Maybe he climbed out the backMaybe he hid in the lift Maybe he went out through the car park downstairs I don’t bloody kno he got out, I just knoas there”
“We believe you,” interjected Bristow anxiously “We believe you, Tansy Coret a clear picture of how it all happened”
“The police did everything they could to discreditStrike “They got there too late, and he’d already gone, so of course they covered it up No one who hasn’t been through what I went through with the press can understand what it was like It was absolute bloody hell I went into the clinic just to get away froal, what the press are allowed to do in this country; and all for telling the truth, that’s the bloody joke I should’ve kept my mouth shut, shouldn’t I? I would have, if I’d knoas co”
She twisted her loose diaer
“Freddie was asleep in bed when Lula fell, wasn’t he?” Strike asked Tansy
“Yah, that’s right,” she said
Her hand slid up to her face and she smoothed nonexistent strands of hair off her forehead The waiter returned with ain, and Strike was forced to hold back his questions until they had ordered He was the only one to ask for pudding; all the rest had coffee
“When did Freddie get out of bed?” he asked Tansy, when the waiter had left
“What do you mean?”
“You say he was in bed when Lula fell; when did he get up?”
“When he heard h this was obvious “I woke him up, didn’t I?”
“He must have moved quickly”
“Why?”
“You said: ‘I ran out of the flat, past Freddie, and downstairs’ So he was already in the room before you ran out to tell Derrick what had happened?”
A missed beat
“That’s right,” she said, s her face
“So he went fro roo pretty much instantaneously, from what you said?”
Another infinitesimal pause
“Yah,” she said “Well—I don’t know I think I screamed—I screamed while I was frozen on the spot—for aout of the bedroom, and then I ran past him”
“Did you stop to tell him what you’d seen?”
“I can’t remember”
Bristow looked as though he was about to stage one of his untiain Strike held up a hand to forestall hiuessed, to leave the subject of her husband
“I’ve thought and thought about how the killer got in, and I’m sure he , because of Derrick Wilson leaving his desk and being in the bathrooht to have been bloody sacked for it, actually If you aska sneaky sleep in the back room I don’t kno the killer would have known the key code, but I’ot in”
“Do you think you’d be able to recognize the ?”
“I doubt it,” she said “It was just aunusual about it Iat hi upstairs, once before, fro Wilson had to throw hi to kick in Lula’s door I never understood what a girl with her looks was doing with someone like Duffield,” she added in parenthesis
“So the wine bottle into her glass, “but I can’t see the appeal He’s just skanky and horrible”
“It’s not even,” said Tansy, twisting the loose diaot money”