Free Death of a Salesperson by Robert Barnard

frequent twenty or thirty years ago. If a complaint to a shop or a ring to a plumber brought better service when you said ‘Mrs Jeremy Fortescue’, then why not say it? Janice knew her own mind, easily sorted out her moral priorities. She often chaired meetings of the Bridgehead Conservative Association and—young as she was—a lot of members thought of her as a bit of a tartar.
    It was as Deputy Chairman of the Association that she went to Matching, one spring in the late ’seventies. The occasion was the spring meeting of the Conservative Associationsof the South-West—not a terribly important meeting, but since the Chairman had another engagement Janice thought she’d like to go. Politics was about meeting people, wasn’t it, so it seemed silly not to seize the opportunity. Matching was a lovely old town, and she looked it up in the AA book and telephoned for a room in the best hotel. This wasn’t graft: she was paying for it herself. One did in the Bridgehead Conservative Association.
    When she arrived in Matching she felt pleased with herself for her decision, and walked from the station through the lovely old town on a wave of euphoria. When she caught a sight of the Prince Frederick, a little off from the town centre, on a little square that had once been the market, she was pleased with her choice of hotel: it was a cool, spacious, eighteenth-century establishment that seemed to exhale the atmosphere of a more leisurely era. She put down her little suitcase, just to take in the elegant expanse of its frontage. Then she took it up again and marched confidently up to Reception.
    â€˜I have a room booked for the night.’
    â€˜Yes, madam: what name?’
    â€˜Mrs Jeremy Fortescue.’
    â€˜Oh, yes, of course, madam. It’s 509. I have another key, just in case. Here we are. I do hope you’ll find everything to your satisfaction, madam.’
    Janice was hardly listening. She took the key, marched to the lift, and pressed the button for the fifth floor. How nice to be away for a time, and on one’s own. Springy of step, she marched down the corridor and opened the door of 509.
    â€˜Hel-lo. What can I do for you?’
    Janice had met her destiny, had had the encounter which her years of petty deceptions had been leading up to. Room 509 was in fact a most splendid suite, and he was standing by the door to the bathroom, glass in hand, close brown curly hair grown long over the collar, and dazzling whiteshirt open to the navel in a style that by now must have been second nature to him, so that to do up a few buttons would have seemed like being overdressed.
    â€˜Or could it be what would you care to do for me?’ he added, with a dangerous yet somehow nervous smile.
    â€˜Oh dear—how silly. Awfully sorry. I must have got the wrong room,’ said Janice, pink with embarrassment, backing away, and screwing her head round to look at the door.
    â€˜Hotel keys don’t usually open more than one room,’ Jeremy Fortescue pointed out. ‘What number is your key?’
    â€˜Five-oh-nine. Look, there must be some mistake—’
    â€˜Must be. But why rush to correct it? You haven’t told me your name.’
    â€˜Janice. Janice Fortescue.’
    â€˜Well, there you are.’
    â€˜Yes. I’m afraid so.’
    â€˜They thought you were my wife.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜At least you recognize me. That’s half the battle. Now what will you have to drink?’
    â€˜No, really. I ought to tell them—’
    â€˜All the time in the world. Now what will it be? Gin and tonic? Vodka and lime?’
    By this time he was very close to her. Closer than she would have liked. Or, to put it more accurately, too close for comfort. It was, really, a very exciting body: the shoulders certainly were broad, the chest wonderfully hairy, and the whole splendidly brown for an English April. And if his manner was the cheap