Free Every Contact Leaves A Trace by Elanor Dymott Page B

happened, or at other things that had happened to them at other times in quite unrelated ways.
    Some of them surprised me by their visits, being people I’d barely met, so that I became confused, I think, about who I knew and who I didn’t. On the Saturday afternoon, the day after I was released, I had a fairly long conversation with a woman who showed up in the hotel, only to discover partway through that she was a reporter, rather than a friend of Rachel’s. Richard and Lucinda checked into the hotel just after this and they took it upon themselves from that point on to be my representatives, taking charge of me utterly and telling me to speak to nobody but them. Richard, whose anger on my behalf seemed a little disproportionate, and somehow misplaced, stayed downstairs in the lobby to discuss with the hotel manager the security arrangements he said would be necessary for the remainder of my stay , and Lucinda came with me to my room. She apologised for Richard’s temper. ‘He was really very fond of her you know, whatever he might have said about her.’ She carried on talking for a while, saying something about Richard having found out that he hadn’t made Silk again and it really bothering him even though it would have been unheard of at his age, and that he’d even been talking of doing a rush job on the New York Bar exams and ‘getting the hell out of here’ for a couple of years. And then she realised I wasn’t really listening and she came and sat by me on the bed and held me for a time, and she cried and said that I would too, eventually.
    When Richard reappeared and announced he was taking me out for a walk Lucinda went to lie down, having told me not to worry, I wouldn’t be on my own for a single second now that they were there. That evening, after the three of us had finished our room-service dinner and they’d left me to myself, I saw that Richard had forgotten his newspaper. I picked it up intending to go after them and give it back to him but then I noticed there was a book underneath it,
On Death and Dying
, or
On Grief and Grieving
, or something like that, and I realised they’d done it deliberately. They stayed in the hotel with me until I went back to London the following Tuesday and I was glad of it, although I have yet to read their book.
    And then there was Evie. Not having managed to get hold of her on the Thursday night when I’d called her from the police station, I’d been allowed to try her again as soon as I’d woken the following morning. When she answered her mobile it turned out she was in Oxford already. ‘Just for the weekend,’ she said. ‘Fundraiser at the Ashmolean. Terrible bore. Godawful guests. Godawful wine. There we are.’ And then she surprised me by saying that Rachel had known this. They’d talked on Thursday morning and discovered the coincidence. She’d even invited us for cocktails at Browns before our dinner at Worcester that evening, but Rachel had left a message saying she’d checked with me and I didn’t want to. ‘How is she anyway? She sounded in an awful mood when she rang yesterday. Will you have tea with me today do you think? Is that why you’re calling? You don’t both have to come you know.’
    And then I told her. She said nothing, nothing at all. I listened to her silence for a time and then I said that when it came to my release I would need her to bring me some clothes and some shoes, and I listed for her all of the things she would have to do. She still hadn’t spoken by the time I said goodbye, and I put down the phone without being entirely sure whether she was still there. She had appeared at the police station later on though, almost as soon as I’d been told I was to be released on bail. I hadn’t expected her to do as other people might have, to come forward and embrace me or even to take my hand in hers, but I suppose I had thought she would at least look at me. Instead, when the door was closed behind her she stayed where