Troubled Deaths by Roderic Jeffries Page B

never went to see him before he died.’
    ‘Don’t you think that’s as well? I know people often do go out of a sense of duty, but when it’s a really serious illness and you can’t help at all, surely it’s better to stay away and remember the person as you last saw him, fit and well?’
    ‘Don’t you know how I last saw him?’ she demanded wildly.
    Caroline was shocked by the effect her words had had.
    ‘Hasn’t anyone told you? That’s a change for this place where that kind of news usually gets around in a flash because it’s all so hilarious.’
    She was hysterical and needed a sedative, thought Caroline.
    ‘I went to his place on Thursday because I thought that was when he’d asked me to lunch.’ Mabel walked over to the table with the brandy on it and picked up the bottle. ‘I swear I thought he said Thursday.’ She poured out a drink, drank, looked across the room at Caroline and then walked towards the kitchen.
    ‘I don’t want anything, thanks,’ said Caroline.
    Mabel ignored her and went into the kitchen, to return with a glass into which she poured a generous brandy. Then she crossed to a wooden chest from which she brought out a siphon. She added soda to the brandy before handing Caroline the glass. ‘I’d been looking forward so much to having lunch with him.’
    How could she so have failed to come to terms with life and herself? wondered Caroline. How could anyone so lumpy and awkward, so ill-equipped for romance, have remained as unthinkingly romantic as any schoolgirl?
    ‘I didn’t know so I went straight in because the front door was ajar. Well, we often do that out here, don’t we? We don’t always knock and wait. He’d got a friend, a woman. She . . .’ Mabel drank, finishing the brandy. She put the glass down. ‘They were . . .’ She poured herself another brandy. ‘She was naked and her hands . . . Oh God, it was terrible! I felt sick. And all he did was tell me I’d got the day wrong.’
    Life dealt her only jokers, thought Caroline. Or did she deal them to herself?
    ‘He kept on and on telling me it was all my fault because I’d got the day wrong.’
    ‘I suppose that really was to try and hide his embarrassment.’
    ‘But he didn’t apologize. Not once. And the woman was laughing at me.’
    That seemed very unlikely, in the circumstances.
    ‘It doesn’t matter what happened, though, I ought to have gone and seen him when he was ill. But I didn’t know he was so ill that he was dying.’ Tears suddenly spilled down her cheeks. ‘You’ve got to realize, I didn’t know he was dying.’
    Caroline met Anson at the back bar which overlooked the square in Puerto Llueso. He was dressed in dirty, paint-stained sweater, jeans, odd socks, and plimsolls.
    He studied her face and saw the lines of worry and said: ‘What the hell’s up, Carrie? Are you in trouble?’
    ‘Nothing’s the matter with me, but a lot’s wrong with Mabel. I went to see her earlier and can’t stop thinking about her.’
    Anson crossed to the bar and ordered a coffee and a brandy, returned to the table with the brandy. He cradled the glass in his hand. ‘Stop worrying so hard about other people, Carrie. You can’t carry everybody’s troubles on your shoulders.’
    ‘She was in such a state.’
    ‘She’s never in anything else.’
    ‘You might be a bit more sympathetic,’ she said indignantly.
    He shrugged his shoulders. ‘How can you sympathize with someone who never ever gets anything right? Look at her finding Geoffrey with some woman. She not only gets the day she’s invited totally wrong, she just barges into the house without waiting to see if she’s welcome. Anyone but her knows that Geoffrey spends more time horizontal than vertical.’
    ‘You can’t blame her for going inside. The front door was open and she was so certain she’d been invited for Thursday.’
    ‘An ounce of common sense would have told her to ring the bell and wait to see if he was occupied.’
    ‘I