Sue’s husband and daughter had both been late home. Brian had been whisked off by two of his colleagues for a drink after school where, quite misunderstanding their requests that he should tell them all about the drama, he had bored them both rigid with a mercilessly detailed update of Slangwhang For Five Mute Voices.
Amanda, casually mentioning that she’d only been fast asleep while a murder was going on next door, that’s all, found her company, for the first time in her life, in great demand. The absolute superlative was when Haze Stitchley, who was well wicked and had her own gang, asked Mandy round after school for a takeaway and video (Vampire Sex Slaves).
Neither of them thought to ring Sue who, by the time they finally did arrive home, was frantic with worry. Mandy, smelling strongly of wine, was unrepentant. Brian, perhaps recalling his own moment of fear in the head’s office, felt guilty. Guilt made him bluster and shout. Neither wanted any supper, a delicious steamed onion pudding with ginger sauce, so Sue ate alone, forcing food down a throat closed tight with anger. Now she added a Cox’s pippin to Brian’s box and fitted a ripe banana around Mandy’s salad bowl.
Next door the television blared. Brian was laughing in the enforced, unnaturally loud way he had when he was not at all amused but desperate to take part in whatever Mandy was enjoying. Sue listened to them chortling away. Daddy and his little girl. She didn’t understand how they could. Not when someone living so close had just died. And in such a terrible manner.
With so much noise her head was splitting. Funny how the children at play school never affected her like this, no matter how much racket they kicked up. Sue wrapped herself in a shawl, stepped outside into the back yard and closed the door behind her. In the windless dark a blackbird chirruped, sounding as if he were in the old apple tree. The contrast between the sweetness of his song and the ugly cacophony in her sitting room made her want to weep.
Eventually it was turned off and Mandy came into the bathroom to clean her teeth. Sue could see her formless shape behind the thick, wavy glass. After she had spat her final spit Mandy slammed off and, moments later, Nirvana came blasting through her bedroom window. The blackbird gave up. Brian came out.
He said sternly, ‘We have to talk,’ and held the kitchen door open for her to enter. Feeling like a child reporting for punishment Sue went back inside.
Once there and seated Brian, wound up like a spring, seemed unable to get going. He drummed a little on the edge of the fridge and fiddled with the plastic letters, turning ‘Hello’ into ‘Holel’. Then he sucked the insides of his cheeks and played with his beard. Sue was familiar with this mood of evasive punchiness. It meant he was going to attack her but was not sure where best to begin. She began her calming routine. Inhale to a count of ten, exhale twelve, hands linked loosely in lap. Visualise landscape of tranquil beauty, e.g. the Bounty Bar island.
‘I couldn’t believe it. Just Simply Could Not Believe It.’
‘What’s that, Brian?’
‘Gerald was discovered first thing this morning? Correct me if I’m wrong.’
‘Yes. Poor Mrs Bundy found him.’ One of these days I will correct you and you’ll die of shock.
‘Something like ten o’clock?’
‘Around then.’ And so shall I, probably.
‘And ... And ...’ But it was no good, disbelief had become too much for Brian. He had to break off and wag his head about before being able to continue. ‘You actually let me know at three.’
‘I explained that—’ The island had white sands and curling, creamy ocean waves, all beneath a shimmering sky.
‘Five hours later!’
‘Yes. I was—’ Plus a beautiful bird of paradise with a furled rainbow tail.
‘But surely there’s a telephone here? I distinctly recall paying several extremely large bills.’
And who runs those up? ‘I didn’t get back from play school until one, Brian. The police came and explained what had happened and then the reporters arrived ...’ Sue’s voice quavered. A cloud hung over the brazen meridian. ‘They just pushed past.’
‘They wouldn’t have pushed past me,’ cried Brian, fiddling up Llohe. ‘Licensed manipulators of populist greed.’
‘I rang as soon as they’d gone but—’
‘But, but. But by then that Morse clone and his fascist sidekick were at the school acting as if they were in some cretinous telly series. God - I could have written better dialogue in my sleep.’
I didn’t think he was a fascist. I thought he was sweet. He’s got a little girl who would just love a picture of Hector.
‘They must have burned up the road getting there. Banking on us not having time to talk. Trying to trick me.’
‘Trick you, Brian?’ Momentarily Sue was so surprised she forgot her ironic counterpoint. ‘Trick you into what?’
‘Well ...’ Brian stared hard at his wife as if testing her ingenuousness. There was a long pause. The problem was a tricky one. How to find out what a person knows without asking them, in so many words, how much they know. Oh hell.
‘I mean - take for instance all those asinine questions. What time did we get home and go to bed? Did we go out again? Did we hear the car leave? I don’t know what you told them.’
‘That I went up around quarter to eleven, that I couldn’t get off to sleep and that I did hear the car leave.’ Sue looked up from her quietly folded hands. ‘What did you tell them, Brian?’
‘What d’you mean, you couldn’t sleep? You were well away when I came up. Snoring your head off.’
Sue, who always pretended to be well away whenever Brian was in the bedroom, lifted her wide, earth-mother shoulders in a resigned sort of way.
‘You didn’t say I’d gone out for a bit of a walk then?’
‘No. Did you?’
‘After I’d finished checking the homework. Round the Green. Just to blow—’ Brian restored the letters on the fridge to their most popularly accepted distribution. ‘God - that’s typical of you, that is. Bloody typical.’
Sue started to cry. Brian picked up the Guardian, came across a Make This The Year You Learn To Write advertisement and vented his wrath by cutting it out and sending it to Jeffrey Archer.
That night Midsomer Worthy was slow to settle. The Old Dun Cow was packed with professional journalists and morbid nosy parkers jostling for the locals’ attention. The air was shot through with sparkling dialogue along the lines of: I suppose, living here, you must have known him - Oh, sorry, what are you drinking by the way?
And not a manjack among the villagers was found wanting. Lowering doubles and triples at the speed of light, they told what they knew, then conjured from the ripe atmosphere what they did not. And although none of them got it even remotely right, the dead man would still have been astonished at the luxurious complexity of their imaginings. All left the hostelry at closing time, tired and emotional, aware of nothing so much as value given and a job well done.
Several of them staggered past Plover’s Rest which, though now sealed, still showed a police presence. And the pod was still there. Troy had gone home, but Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby was inside reading through information which had come in during the day, drinking coffee and waiting for the airport police at Heathrow to return his call. He was whacked and on the point of giving up when the telephone rang.
They were sorry for the delay. There had been several flights to Finland on the eighth but at this hour the relevant offices were locked so it had taken some time to raise the information he required. But they were now in a position to inform him that none of the flights in question had carried a passenger travelling under the name of Max Jennings.