Death of a Salesperson (26 page)

‘Don't be daft. A smile is a smile.'

‘No, it's not. Most people have many different ways of smiling. Not her, though. First time I noticed it I saw her smile at some old newspaper-seller who'd sold her the
Evening News.
Who'd bother to smile at some smelly old git like that? Then I'd take her to some Stock Exchange function, and she'd smile when I introduced her to my boss.'

‘Well?'

‘In exactly the same way.'

‘Well, why not? Shows she was friendly.'

‘Friendly! . . . Then I'd catch her at the window there, looking at the sunset, and the silly bitch would have the same smile, exactly the same smile, on her face. Who the hell smiles at sunset on the Thames Valley?'

‘She just liked sunsets, I suppose.'

‘But what really got me,
really
got me, was when I realized that when I came down to breakfast in the morning, or when I got home at night, she'd smile at me—
me
—in exactly the same way.'

‘What did you expect?'

‘Something different! Something special! Something to show that I was
the
person in her life. Special. Was she my girl, or was she not? I didn't take up with her to be treated exactly the same as a bloody setting sun!'

‘You could have told her. Talked it over with her.'

‘I wouldn't stoop so low.'

‘She looks awfully young. If you'd told her what was niggling you, you could have made her understand.'

‘It would have come to an argument. I couldn't have had that. I never argue with people. If she didn't understand
naturally
what I had a right to expect, she'd never understand at all.'

‘I think you're a pig. I suppose you got rid of her.'

‘That is pre
cise
ly what I did.'

‘Just threw her over.'

‘Not exactly, though it's an idea. Let's just say that I stopped her smiles altogether.'

Deborah had been getting restless for some minutes. That last remark of Miles, said with a cat-like smile on his handsome face, made her sit in silence for some moments. Then she reached for her tights and bra.

‘What did you mean, about stopping her smiles altogether?' she asked, in a voice that came out small and tight.

‘Just what I said. I made sure she never smiled at me or anyone else like that again. Ever.'

‘You don't mean you . . .
did
something to her?'

‘I should be so stupid! I'd have been the first one they came for, wouldn't I? Still, something had to be done, that was for sure. I couldn't have her talking about me to other men . . . laughing at me . . .'

Deborah had her skirt on now, and was reaching for her blouse.

‘What did you do?'

‘I've got friends . . . I was at a gala concert at the Festival Hall that night. Then at the reception afterwards . . . But they're good friends. I'd do the same for them . . . For quite a small consideration they did what had to be done. There was nothing to connect them with her, you see. They'd never met her . . . It all went off very smoothly.'

‘I don't believe this. This isn't happening.'

But she had got her handbag, and was turning to the chair where she had slung her coat. Miles shrugged, still with the same self-absorbed smile on his face.

‘As you like,' he said.

‘You wouldn't . . . have someone
killed . . .
just because they didn't give you the . . .
devotion
you wanted.'

‘I can't think of a more terrible failure, in someone
I
had chosen.'

She was at the door. Bravely she turned and said:

‘You'd have to be a
monster.'

‘Perhaps there is just a little element of the monster in me. But a frightfully handsome monster, don't you think? Why don't you come back, just for a while?'

Negligently, beautifully, he started up from the sofa. Deborah turned on her heels, wrenched open the door and fled, her high heels making a clap-clapping sound as she trundled herself down the stairs.

• • •

Miles lay back on the sofa, still smiling in self-contentment. An English degree at Oxford had been no sort of preparation for a career on the Stock Exchange, but he never regretted having been forced to read ‘My Last Duchess'. It had been invaluable in getting rid of girlfriends who had started becoming proprietorial.

Lazily, still smiling, he leant round and turned the snapshot of his sister and himself, taken at Henley, face down on the side table.

He'd never liked his sister's silly smile.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Death and the Chaste Apprentice

At Death's Door

The Skeleton in the Grass

The Cherry Blossom Corpse

Bodies

Political Suicide

Fête Fatale

Out of the Blackout

Corpse in a Gilded Cage

School for Murder

The Case of the Missing Brontë

A Little Local Murder

Death and the Princess

Death by Sheer Torture

Death in a Cold Climate

Death of a Perfect Mother

Death of a Literary Widow

Death of a Mystery Writer

Copyright © 1983, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989 by Robert Barnard

First American Edition, 1989

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Scribner

Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Cover designed by Christopher Lin

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Barnard, Robert.

Death of a salesperson/Robert Barnard.—1st

American ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-684-19088-5

ISBN: 978-1-4767-3731-7 (eBook)

I. Title.

PR6052.A665D455   1989   89-6264   CIP

823'.914—dc20