The Fallen Curtain by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page A

feet. I’m quite sure, Hugo, you’ll look back on all this when you’re a successful accountant and thank God you and Frasers parted company.”
    And that ought to be that. They had put him through their inquisition and now perhaps they would let him eat this overcooked mess that passed for dinner in peace. At last they would talk of something else, not leave it to him who had been making the running all the evening.
    But instead of conversation, there was a deep silence. No one seemed to have anything to say. And although Duncan, working manfully at his chicken wing, racked his brains for a topic, he could think of nothing. Their house, his flat, the workpeople at Frasers, his car, the cost of living, her job, Hugo’s course, Christmas past, summer to come, all these subjects must inevitably lead by a direct route back to Hugo’s dismissal. And Duncan saw with irritable despair that
all
subjects would lead to it because he was he and they were they and the dismissal lay between them like an unavoidable spectre at their dismal feast. From time to time he lifted his eyes from his plate, hoping that she would respond to that famous smile of his, that smile that was growing stiff with insincere use, but each time he looked at her he saw that she was staring fixedly at him, eating hardly anything, her expression concentrated,dispassionate, and somehow dogged. And her eyes had lost their kingfisher flash. They were dull and dead like smoky glass.
    So they hadn’t had enough then, she and her subdued, morose husband? They wanted to see him abject, not merely referring with open frankness to the dismissal as he had done, but explaining it, apologising. Well, they should have his explanation. There was no escape. Carefully, he placed his knife and fork side by side on his empty plate. Precisely, but very politely, he refused his hostess’s offer of more. He took a deep breath as he often did at the beginning of a board meeting, as he had so very often done at those board meetings when Hugo Crouch pressed insistently for staff rises.
    “My dear Elizabeth,” he began, “my dear Hugo, I know why you asked me here tonight and what you’ve been hinting at ever since I arrived. And because I want to enjoy your very delightful company without any more awkwardness, I’m going to do here and now what you very obviously want me to do—that is, explain just how it happened that I suggested Hugo would be happier away from Frasers.”
    Elizabeth said, “Now, Duncan, listen…”
    “You can say your piece in a moment, Elizabeth. Perhaps you’ll be surprised when I say
I am entirely to blame for what happened.
Yes, I admit it, the fault was all mine.” He lifted one hand to silence Hugo who was shaking his head vehemently. “No, Hugo, let me finish. As I said, the fault was mine. I made an error of judgment. Oh, yes, I did. I should have been a better judge of men. I should have been able to see when I promoted you that you weren’t up to the job. I blame myself for not understanding—well, your limitations.”
    They were silent. They didn’t look at him or at each other.
    “We men in responsible positions,” he said, “are to blame when the men we appoint can’t rise to the heights we envisage for them. We lack vision, that’s all. I take the whole burden of it on my shoulders, you see. So shall we forgive and forget?”
    He had seldom seen people look so embarrassed, so shamefaced. It just went to show that they were no match forhim. His statement had been the last thing they had expected and it was unanswerable. He handed her his plate with its little graveyard of chicken bones among the potato skins and as she took it he saw a look of baulked fury cross her face.
    “Well, Elizabeth,” he said, unable to resist, “am I forgiven?”
    “It’s too late now. It’s past,” she said in a very cold, stony voice. “It’s too late for any of this.”
    “I’m sorry if I haven’t given you the explanation you wanted, my