Character Witnesses

8

Character Witnesses

Jill’s Narrative

    No, well, you tell yourself that you won’t get involved in other people’s messes, but— Yeah. The bloody Pohutukawa Bay Swimming Pool Murder was splashed all over the media, and Polly’s phone had been off the hook all night, and it was still off the hook. There was probably nothing wrong, but a man had been killed just down the hill… Well, term was over, exam marking, thank Christ, was over, and there was nothing else to do, was there? I got into the rust-bucket and headed its nose in the direction of the Bridge and points north.

    I could smell the bacon before I even reached the corner of the house. Unless this was one of the three days out of the year on which your average weight-conscious female let herself eat bacon, this meant she’d been suckered into feeding one of Them. Elementary, my dear Watson. I hesitated. But what the Hell, I’d come this far— I went round the corner of the house and over to the open back door. Right. I’d won that bet with myself, then: Browne. Sitting in front of a half-eaten plate of bacon and scrambled egg, while Polly was merely eating wholemeal toast.

    “Hullo,” I said cautiously.

    To which Polly replied kindly: “Come in, Jill, it’s all right, there are no detectives lurking in the woodwork.”

    I held my ground, you betcha irreplaceable collection of forty-fifth edition paperback Agatha Christies. “What about mad macho millionaires?”

    “You’d look bloody silly if he was in the next room! No! Come in!”

    Bravely I came in, though the place was still not Browne-less.

    “She looks fairly silly anyway,” he murmured. Thanks, Browne, a girl likes to be told.

    “Mm; are you recycling that dress, Jill? I thought it was only a beach dress.”

    I looked down proudly at me striped tent. “It’s good, isn’t it? –Yes, I am. I think it dates from the Sixties.”

    “You’d have been about fifteen, at the most,” deduced the brilliant Browne.

    “Yes: it’s definitely pre-Sergeant Pepper,” I agreed, sitting down. “Let me think… Mm: I associate it vaguely with Winchester Cathedral.”

    “Ecclesiastical, but unclear,” decided Roger.

    “Not ecclesiastical, you Oxonian oik: dithyrambic!”

    “Not in Winchester Cathedral!” he objected, shocked.

    Oh, dear, oh, dear. Deaf all his life as well as Oxonian, very sad. “‘Winn-chess-ter Ca-thee-dral, you’re getting me down, You stood and you watched as, my baby left home!’”

    Couldn’t be deaf, he’d clapped his hands over his ears.

    “It doesn’t sound much like that Dithyrambe à la Pompe Thingy-whatsit that we did in French III,” objected Dr Mitchell.

    “Ignore it,” I advised tersely, as the ivory Oxonian brow wrinkled.—Goes with the towers, yep.—“Oy! Illiterate!” I addressed my hostess. “Do I get some coffee?”

    “Isn’t that Ronsard?” croaked Roger incredulously.

    “I just told you to ignore it,” I sighed.

    “It might be that other joker,” said Polly knowingly, getting up.

    “You can certainly ignore that, she’s starting to do it on purpose!”

    At this an amused bass said from the back doorway: “Does it on purpose most of the time, doesn’t she?” I jumped and gasped. So did Browne, but this was not of much comfort, frankly.

    “Gidday: it’s Jill, isn’t it?” he said mildly, coming in. “—How’s it, Rog?”

    “Hullo, Jake,” I squeaked feebly.

    Roger had opened his mouth to reply to his polite enquiry but before he could utter Polly said: “Jake, do you remember a pop song about Winchester Cathedral?”

    Jake intoned immediately: “‘Winn-chess-ter Ca-thee-dral, you’re bringing me down, You stood and you watched while, my baby left town!’”

    “I thought it couldn’t be ‘home’, it doesn’t rhyme with ‘down’,” she said pleasedly.

    “‘It don’t even gotta rhine,’” muttered Roger to himself.

    “Woulda been around ’sixty-six—’sixty-seven,” added Jake.

    “Then I’d have been around fourteen-fifteen,” I conceded.

    “You must have had long legs, Jill,” said Polly on a weak note.

    “Not, however, as long as she has now,” noted Roger in a hollow voice.

    Nope, very true! So I stood up, smirking, and held out the skirts of the striped tent. It came to about five inches above me knees. Skinny, yes, and in this climate at that season, brown.

    “Tent dress, eh?” said Jake pleasedly. “Yeah, would date from around then, eh?”

    Our young companions gulped, and were reduced to silence.

    “Well, solved the murder yet?” he asked, lips twitching. He sat down and added: “I’ll have a coffee, too, if it’s going, Pol. –By the way, that animal’s eating something disgusting over in that corner, didja know?”

    Yes, it was, but some of us had politely refrained from remarking on it. Or even looking at it.

    “Bacon,” said Polly placidly. “I’ll have to make another pot.”

    “You could do me some toast, too,” he noted, grabbing the last piece and spreading butter lavishly on it.

    I’d have screamed at the bugger but she merely replied on a suspicious note: “Have you had your breakfast?” Sounded just like old Aunty Emmy when one had got back from a very early game of tennis with Pudding-Face McGuinness from next-door and was downing a revivifying glass of milk: gave me quite a turn, actually. Or like Mum, back before the bloody car accident, when one was sliding out the door late for school with the homework hurriedly done in one’s room just before donning the crushed panama and rushing— Yeah. Motherly. Or possibly spousely. Never actually heard such an exchange between wee wifey and hubby, but that was probably what it’d sound like. Cor.

    Jake sighed. “I’ve spent two hours with the bloody cops, had a glass of orange juice and done twenny laps of the flaming pool, if ya call that breakfast!” He glanced at yours truly’s sagging jaw. “Not the patio pool, the indoor pool! Thought you varsity types were mentally with-it?”

    “Not before we’ve bummed a free cup of coffee off a colleague, we’re not. And definitely not before—” Looking at the watch: “Oh, Lor’; no wonder you lot are still having breakfast. I thought it’d take twice as long, but there was virtually nothing coming north, once I got over the Bridge. I came up the coast—you know, through Brown’s Bay and so on, but—”

    “Takes about twenny minutes—tops—from Brown’s Bay,” noted Jake.

    “Yes,” agreed Polly, putting bread in the toaster. “Would you like some breakfast, too, Jill?”

    “No, thanks; I had a large bowl of muesli before I left.”

    Jake began to eat his piece of toast. “Always get up at crack of dawn, do ya?” he asked genially.

    “No, and most particularly not out of term time! –No, but an Aryan idiot woke me well before cock-crow, demanding spare pup tents and stretchers to put in ’em.”

    “She means Gretchen, Jake,” Polly explained. “Putzi snores, Gerhard’s hardly had a wink of sleep since they got here. –Don’t look like that, they’re Gretchen’s visitors from Germany, I did tell you about them! They’ve all gone down to Rotorua.”

    “Aw—yeah,” he conceded weakly. “The other one.”

    “The other what?” I asked with extreme cordiality.

    “Lady from work,” the bugger replied with complete insouciance.

    “I see,” I croaked feebly.

    “Well, have ya?” he said with a twinkle.

    “Mm? Oh: the murder! No, we haven’t really mentioned that.”

    “No, and I don’t think Mike’s solved it, either,” said Polly, putting her coffee-pot on the heat, “because there doesn’t seem to be any evidence. And he certainly asked us some weird questions yesterday, didn’t he, Rog?”

    “I’m not surprised: according to Gretchen you were surrounded by bellowing Poles and Austrians at the time,” I noted.

    “She did know who he was!” discovered Polly.

    Oh, yes! I broke down and sniggered helplessly.

    “Ooh, help,” said Polly in awe. “She said the stupid police had left me alone all day in front of him!”

    Roger broke down and joined me in the helpless sniggers.

    “Solidarity, eh?” said Jake, grinning. “Good on ’er!” He got up and fetched the toast, then asking me kindly if “these two” had filled me in. Feebly I admitted they hadn’t really needed to, after the television news, but Polly had rung me yesterday.

    “I rang everybody,” she explained. “To stop them ringing me, mainly. Then I took the phone off the— Ooh, help!” she gasped. “Aunty Vi!” She rushed out to the passage. As she left the door open we could quite clearly hear her end of the conversation that ensued. Old Violet Macdonald evidently considered it a personal insult that Polly should have left her phone off the hook.

    “But weird people keep ringing me up, Aunty Vi!” cried Polly loudly. “…But I have rung Mum and— Oh. Um, well, couldn’t you ring Aunty Kay? Oh. … What? Yes, of course it’ll be safe for Mirry to stay at the university hostel again next year, it’s miles away, it’s in Puriri— What? –Sorry, I mean Pardon. …All right, I’ll ring her,” she said glumly, “but it won’t do any good: she won’t listen to me, she never— All right, Aunty Vi. …Yes. …Yes, I’ll definitely give you a ring tonight. …Yes, I promise. Bye-bye.”

    She came back into the kitchen looking glum. “She wants me to ring Aunty Kay.”

    “I’d do it, then,” recommended Jake.

    “Yes: do it, Polly!” I urged.

    “You just want to LISTEN!” she shouted.

    Kindly I overlooked Browne’s muffled sniggers, and pinched Jake’s last piece of toast. “True.” I buttered it lavishly. Since there was a pot of homemade marmalade on the table I took some of that, too.

    “Do it now; if you put it off it’ll get worse,” advised Jake.

     Scowling, Polly marched out to the passage again.

    This time her end of the conversation went more or less like this:

    “Hullo, Aunty Kay, it’s— No, but— But it’s—” The phone quacked loudly. “No, I never thought he— Aunty Vi’d say anything! …Sorry, Aunty Kay, I didn’t mean to shout. …Do you? …No, he couldn’t. Thanks, Aunty Kay.”—At this point she sounded perilously near tears, and Jake looked up in alarm.—“Yes, I’ll bear it in mind. …Yes, I promise. …I know. …Um—yes, righto. Bye-bye. –Hi, Mirry,” she said with relief. “Yeah, I’m all right. …Yes: you know, the cold one with the fishy eye that Aunty Kay tried to push Janet off onto. …No, fishier than ever!”—Here she giggled and Jake looked considerably relieved.—“I suppose so, if Mike’ll let me leave Puriri! …Ugh, that’s right, it’s your turn to come to us, isn’t it? Ugh, poor you!” she said with another giggle. “No-one seems to have a clue. …Yeah, of course she is, whadda you think? She did offer to come up, but I haven’t got a spare bed, and anyway, she doesn’t like to leave the cat overnight, thank goodness! …Yeah, righto. See ya!”

    She came back into the kitchen looking quite composed.

    I didn’t need to do me Sherlock Holmes impersonation, it was blindingly self-evident. “Let me guess. Your Aunty Kay, having failed with the depressed Janet—Is she the depressed one? No matter—is now about to push young Mirry off onto the fishy-eyed one.”

    “Mike,” agreed Polly.

    Oops! I choked.

    “That that little black-haired kid we saw up Puriri shops one day?” asked Jake with interest. Polly nodded and he said: “She’d be a bit young for him, wouldn’t she?”

    “Yes. She’s nineteen: she’s just done the first year of her B.A. But she’d be a bit human for him, too.”

    “Yeah. What was all that ‘thanks, Aunty Kay’ stuff?” he asked suspiciously.

    She swallowed. “She said she was sure you didn’t do it, and to ignore anything Aunty Vi said.”

    “Crikey, do I take a bow?”

    “I’m not sure, because the next thing she said,” said Polly, her eyes looking rather shiny, “was that if the dratted police arrest you I can come to them.”

    “Is this lack of faith in her own convictions or lack of faith in the ability of the EnZed Police?” I wondered.

    Roger cleared his throat. “If she’s the aunt I think she is, definitely the latter.”

    “Yes: Aunty Kay’s never been known to be swayed from any of her convictions,” Polly admitted. “On the other hand, don’t take a bow too soon, Jake, because she’s never been known to agree with anything Aunty Vi said, either.”

    “Right,” he agreed on a wry note.

    “On the other hand again, she did say—very grudgingly, mind you—that if anyone could solve it, Mike would.”

    “Yeah, yeah; don’t tell us the story of him working out it was the Dawson boys that were stealing those chooks at the age of three, I can’t take it again,” he sighed.

    “Ten, but same difference,” she said with her sunny smile.

    “Oh, so she’s told you that story, has she?” I said limply.

    “Yeah. You, too, eh?”

    “No, it was her mum told me, it’s one of her favourites.”

    “When was this?” asked Polly suspiciously.

    “That May hols you dragged me down there and it poured the entire two weeks we were there and your brother Bob came home with a foul cold and gave it to all of us except you and your dad. The two of you were out riding over the tops or something equally healthy and colloquial, and your mum and I were sharing sneezes and hot lemon drinks over the kitchen stove while she reminisced about the admirable childhood exploits of Bob and Mike.—‘Roland est proz et Oliver est sage.’—Of course at the time I thought Mike was only in the saga to throw Bob’s innate splendour into relief: but having had time to think it over,” I explained grimly, “I’m absolutely convinced that the idea was, if by any miraculous three hundred to one chance I didn’t happen to fall madly for the irresistible Bob, Mike could be in there as the next contender.”

    Obligingly Roger collapsed in hysterics. The mad macho millionaire, however, was completely unmoved and in fact produced, in a very mild voice—indeed, one of the mildest voices I’d ever heard—a platitudinous “Sound like decent types, your family, Pol.” Either he was twice as thick as he looked, or the bugger was entirely deliberate!

    Whether or not Polly had spotted him—if there was anything to spot—she merely replied, taking the coffee-pot off the heat: “Yes, and I’m grateful to have a normal family like that.”

    “Ye-ah,” he replied slowly. “Well—yeah. Any of you types ever thought that murders don’t happen in normal families?”

    Polly stopped pouring coffee and turned to goggle at him. Roger just goggled at him. I was gobsmacked but finally produced faintly: “Father of three goes potty, shoots wife and kids before turning gun on self? Neighbours can’t understand it, they were such a nice family?”

    “That’s what I mean. That type’s subnormal: IQ well below ninety!” he said impatiently.

    “Um, Mike did say something similar to me… No, I can’t recall it, I was very tired,” said Roger apologetically. “—Thank you, Polly, just a small cup.”

    “Judging by the ones that don’t turn gun on self, and get on the telly—well, yes, subnormal,” I allowed somewhat limply. “—You can make mine a large one with three sugars, ta. Er, I never met Don Banks, to my knowledge, but Marjory’s worked for us up at Puriri Campus for years: I’d have said she was pretty normal. Or is that me and the rest of the neighbours, Jake?”

    “Eh? No! –No, wasn’t thinking that.”

    “Jack’s normal, too. Well, gay, but he’s just an ordinary boy,” ventured Polly. “And he’s out of his dad’s clutches now he’s doing his degree and flatting.”

    “Yeah. Not that, Pol.” He sugared his coffee carefully, frowning.

    Er... I  looked uncertainly from one to the other of them. Ruddy Browne was now keeping his head well down—typical! “Er, well, look for the subnormal?” I hazarded.

    “Aunty Kay’s convinced it was a nutter roaming the hillside,” reported Polly.

    “And old Vi’s convinced it was me, in case it hasn’t dawned on you types,” noted Jake, eying us sardonically.

     Ah, bon! This needed Method, and the little grey cells, mes chers amis! –Ever noticed how old Agatha didn’t actually know any French—well, above the Agatha of the Remove level? –Yeah. I fished in my handbag. “Right!”—producing a small notebook with a tiny pencil protruding from its spine.—Yes, I was aware that Browne was now looking horrified, but up his.—“That’s one Aunty Kay for nutter roaming the hillside, one Aunty Vi for J. Carrano. Any other takers?”

    “Put down one Chief Inspector for me, too,” said Jake sourly.

    “Jake!” protested Polly.

    “He’s just grilled me for another two hours, didn’t I say?”

    “He can’t believe you did it, that’s ridiculous!”

    “Well, maybe he can’t believe I did it, I dunno about that, but he certainly can’t believe I went out leaving the front door unlocked.”

    Eh? Me pencil quivered.

    “What?” gasped Roger.

    “Yes,” said Polly tranquilly. “It opens it up, doesn’t it? It could have been a sneak-thief—anyone.”

    Jake shrugged. “Yeah. Well, the door was unlocked, not open, but yeah. Not that anything was disturbed—and they’ve found old Don’s fingerprints on the lock inside, Collingwood reckons he coulda locked the door after him.” He looked at Roger’s face. “And don’t ask me what the fuck I was at, leaving me front door unlocked, all right? I was expecting Esmé and Don—thought I’d be back in no time.”

    “Yes,” he muttered, reddening.

    Glory! Polly was right: could’ve been anyone. Never mind: I licked my pencil. “Access through the rumoured side gate to your pool?”

    The three of them plus Jake’s gardener were the only ones with keys and none of them had lent them to anyone. Jake was intending to get one cut for Rod but hadn’t yet got around to it. The gardener had the alibi of the entire Takapuna R.S.A., the salubrious precincts of which he hadn’t left until at half-past one, when it closed (or, when the beer ran out), at which point, being incapable of even finding his car keys, let alone driving, he reeled round to his very angry mother-in-law’s house. Reluctant witnesses, the mother-in-law and her annoyed neighbours.

    “There’s over the fence, I suppose,” offered Roger.

    “I’ll start a new list,” I decided.

    “Yeah: put half the country on it. The half that’s fit enough to climb the fence,” advised Jake sourly.

    “Rod and Jack,” said Polly glumly.

    That did not go down well with the macho millionaire. “Yeah: good one: Jack’s X-ray eyes told him his ad was sitting down there in the dark by my pool, waiting to be pushed in—”

    “Don’t be silly. But they are the logical suspects.”

    “Logical! The kid’s as harmless as his mother is!” he shouted.

    “I don’t think he did it any more than you do, Jake,” Polly said calmly. “But he has got more of a motive than most people; and he and Rod are both athletic enough; and they were just up the way.”

    “Look, just don’t do your analytical bit on young Rod and Jack, do ya mind?” he said loudly. “These are real people, not a bloody academic puzzle we’re talking about! –Or don’t they seem real to you, just because they’re not physically within sight at this precise moment?”

    Ouch! Browne was also writhing and red-faced, but this wasn’t of much consolation.

    “I’m sorry, Jake,” she said in a strangled voice.

    He sighed. “No, I am. I said meself the other day it could have been anyone, if they were driven to it.”

    “Yes,” said Polly sadly.

    There was a short silence, during which I was able to wish fervently I hadn’t come and to have a large bet with myself that Browne was bitterly regretting he’d chosen this morning to bum a hot brekkie off Polly. Then Roger—presumably because there were no angels present—rushed in with: “What about keys to the house?”

    “The front door wasn’t locked, you idiot,” I sighed.

    “No. Though if old Don locked it after him, the contenders are me, Polly, Daph Green, and the security firm,” said Jake heavily. “Wanna make something of it?”

    Roger was very red but he said valiantly: “Well, someone did it, Jake.”

    “Yes,” I admitted glumly.

    “Daph is a nice, normal suburban housewife!” cried Polly angrily.

    “What’s her husband like?” asked Roger.

    “He’s a bloody decent type,” replied Jake heavily.

    “So are they all, all decent types,” I noted sepulchrally.

    He glared, but admitted: “All right, you’re not wrong. Tim Green’s an electrician—self-employed. Doing quite well for himself, far’s I know.”

    “Yes,” said Polly with a bitter look directed at us two hapless colleagues wot had only thought we were being supportive. Well—slight motive of free hot brekkie in the case of one, yeah. “There’s lots of work up here on the Coast: loads of new development going on, and of course the place is crawling with retirees who can’t fix so much as a fuse.”

    “Then why does Daphne have to work?” asked bloody Browne: as usual, if the head wasn’t down the foot was in the mouth.

    “Look, shut up! They’re building up the business, they’ve got a mortgage and a young family, and they DID NOT MURDER DON BANKS!”

    After the echoes had ceased ringing and Roger and I had more or less ceased going very red and avoiding everybody’s eyes Jake agreed mildly: “No, I don’t think so, either. The mortgage’ll be held by the bank, before you types start, not by old Don.”

    “That stuff you gave me on the phone about Banks being a loan shark: was that for real, Polly?” I croaked.

    She sighed. “Yes; why would I make it up? –You sound like Philip Marlowe, what’s all this ‘for real’ stuff?” she added with an attempt at a smile.

    “Been re-reading some of my Yank police procedurals. –What some people might call Yank academic puzzles,” I added airily.

    Jake smiled a little. “All right, you can be Philip Marlowe, and Rog, here, can be— What’s an English one?” he asked unashamedly.

    “Something Oxonian: Inspector Morse,” I decided.

    “Ji-ill!” cried Polly. “He’s not in the least like him! And I loathe those books!”

    “Look, you’re scaring the cat!” put in Jake pleasedly, as Grey slunk out the back door.

    “The Inspector Morse novels,” Polly explained, “are set in Oxford, you see, Jake.”

    He began misguidedly: “In that case Rog had better be—”

    “No! Morse is a horrible, cold, null personality with no redeeming features except he likes music! And he does flaming crossword puzzles!”

    “I won’t mention The Times crossword, then,” I noted. “Or helping out certain persons with same in the faculty staffroom after they’ve struggled with it for a week.”

    Roger grinned a sheepish grin.

    “Never mind, Rog,” said Jake kindly. “You better be that poncy one with the eyeglass, instead.”

    Gulp! “Lord Peter Wimsey?” I whispered.

    “He did go to Oxford. And Rog has got the accent,” allowed Polly.

    “I wasn’t at Balliol! And most certainly not at Balliol before the War!” he objected.

    “The First War,” I agreed.

    “He wasn’t that old, was he?” said Polly on a weak note.

    “That old, been everywhere, done everything, knows everything—”

    “Thank God, you don’t like him either!” discovered Roger.

    At this point I found I was grinning all over my face. “Has she been shoving D.L.S. down your throat?”

    “Yes. Well, they’re damned well written, aren’t they? Literate. And obviously damned well researched. But the omniscient Wimsey certainly stuck in my craw.”

    “He isn’t! Well, maybe he is,” conceded Polly. “But he’s sweet!” She glared at us.

    Roger made a circlet with finger and thumb and put it up to his eye—he’s not all bad—and I collapsed in helpless sniggers.

    “That’s it, then!” said Jake with a laugh. “And Polly can be Miss Marple.”

    “Fluffy and feminine and with a mind like a steel trap,” I croaked. “How very appropriate.”

    “That right? Only female tec I know the name of,” he admitted cheerfully. “Dunno if you lot have noticed, but so far we’ve agreed it coulda been anyone. And before anyone starts spouting any more garbage about the Greens, if they were in strife Daph would’ve come to me for a loan. She's known me for years, for Pete’s sake! And the same goes for young Rod, in spades, if ruddy Jerzy Jablonski was in debt again. Not that he’d have come to me himself, the stiff-necked old—” He fell silent, scowling.

    I cleared my throat cautiously. “Does anybody know who actually was in debt to Don Banks, supposing he was actually a loan shark?”

    “Talk about a mind like a steel trap!” retorted Polly bitterly.

    Me jaw had gone all saggy, but I didn’t have to utter because the macho millionaire, who was clearly not nearly as thick as he looked, immediately pounced.

    “Right! Spit it out. And I can see you know, too, Rog, so anything she just happens to leave out in that innocent way of hers you can fucking well contribute! Goddit?”

    They had got it; they were both as red as tomatoes, but they came clean.

    It was the gay pair who ran the Chez Basil in The Arcade up in Puriri. I had eaten there: provided you selected carefully the nosh wasn’t too bad. Put it like this: Gary, the younger, blond one who was the chef, could actually cook but most of his clientèle didn't require that. The older, dark, plump one with the bald spot and the pout, Basil, was the maître d’ and the financial brain behind the establishment. Not that “brain” was the word, it appeared. Polly had known Basil for ages: he’d been one of the occupants of the very mixed flat she’d been in when she started her degree—the mixed flat that had incensed old Violet Macdonald: that one. Don Banks was the Chez Basil’s landlord, in addition to having made them a hefty loan at extortionate interest—never mind the liberated Eighties, what financial institution wanted to lend cash dough to a pair of gays wanting to set up a wee nosh nook? The unlamented Banks had intended calling in the loan and not renewing the lease, but he’d apparently been planning to sell the whole of The Arcade, he wasn’t just victimising them. That was, if Polly and Roger had got the details right. Basil had come down to Polly’s place and bawled all over her. Browne had just happened to be there.

    “Look,” began the financial wizard in our midst, “if they’ve got a lease—”

    “They have, Jake. I admit Basil was in hysterics, but, um, he is that type,” said Roger uncomfortably. “It isn’t that urgent, they’ve got until the end of January.”

    It was my turn to rush in where angels wouldn’t. “And what happens at the end of January?”

    “Their lease runs out and Don Banks throws them out of The Arcade,” said Polly. “Only I suppose he can’t, now.”

    There was a short and sticky silence.

    Jake scratched his chin. “I had heard that Don was selling out of The Arcade, yeah. Jim Forrest was saying he was finally selling him his half-share in Forrest Furnishings. Jim was over the moon: been trying to buy the little bastard out for years. He’ll’ve been raising the capital for his bloody marina scheme.”

    I hadn’t heard of this last and Browne was looking as blank as he always did when anything financial was involved, but Polly was nodding, so it must have made sense to someone. “I see; so it wasn’t plain spite,” I ventured.

    “No,” agreed Jake. “Not ole Don’s style: no money in spite, Jill. Had they managed to pay off any of the capital, Polly? And what rate of interest was ’e charging?”

    She looked at him blankly. “I don’t know. Anyway, isn’t the point that they had tried to raise a new loan and couldn’t?”

    “I’d say so,” I agreed.

    “Yeah, well, that puts them well in the picture, doesn’t it?” said the macho millionaire grimly.

    “No!” cried Polly crossly, very flushed.

    I had to agree. “I’d say it does—only if we’re treating this whole thing as an academic puzzle, of course.”

    “Someone did it, Polly,” croaked Roger. “And—and it was Tuesday: that’s the night the restaurant’s closed.” He swallowed loudly.

    Jake got up. “That settles it. I’m ringing Collingwood.”

    “No!” cried Polly in anguish. “They’re my friends!”

    He gave her a hard look. “Thought young Rod and Jack were ya friends? Thought I was, too? How come it’s all right for us to be dropped in it—come to think of it Rog, here’s, probably in it up to his neck, too, he hasn’t got an alibi, far’s I can make out—so how come it’s all right for us to be right in it, and not that pair of gays?”

    “I never dropped the rest of you in it,” said Polly on a sulky note, “and I’m not going to be responsible for getting Baz and Gary into trouble.”

    “No, I am,” he returned grimly.

    “Puts you in your place nicely,” I noted before I could stop myself.

    “Yes. Jake,” she said tightly, “if you repeat what we’ve just told you to Mike, I’ll deny every word of it.”

    Jake reddened angrily.

    “Don’t look at me,” I warned hurriedly as his eye fell on my innocent form. “I wasn’t here.”

    “No, that’d be about your level, wouldn’t it?” he snapped. “Look, a man’s been killed, or have you all forgotten that small point?”

    Er—yeah. I pointed out weakly: “Revenge won’t bring him back, Jake.”

    “Revenge! What about common justice?” he shouted.

    Polly swallowed. “But what if Baz and Gary didn’t have anything to do with it?”

    “Then the police will have to find that out, won’t they?”

    “Didn’t Polly’s Aunty Kay just suggest the amount of faith to be placed in the ability of the EnZed Police?” I recalled.

    “That ISN’T FUNNY!” bellowed Jake at the top of his lungs.

    Oh, God. “No. Sorry.”

    “You never saw the body: if ya had, maybe you’d take this a bit more seriously!” he said on a bitter note.

    Polly got up and came up very close to his side. “She’s dealing with it in the only way she can, Jake. We all are, I suppose. Jill has to talk about it, um, academically, if you like; to distance it: it’s helping her to handle it.”

    He gave her a sour look and said: “You, too, I suppose.”

    “Yes. And Rog. We’re all like that. And you were making jokes the other day and distancing it a bit yourself, weren’t you?”

    “Yeah. All right, I was.” He passed his hand over his face and said: “I’ve gotta call the cops, I can’t not do it. I dunno if you can put one of your psychological interpretations on that, or not. But you’re not gonna stop me.”

    “No. You’re right, anyway,” said Polly with a sigh: “if everybody else is in it, then it’s only fair. And I suppose we do have to have some sort of faith in the system.”

    “I don’t think—” The doughty Browne broke off.

    “What?” demanded Jake in a hard voice.

    “I don’t really know him, of course,” he said uncomfortably, “but Mike Collingwood doesn’t strike me as the sort of policeman who’d arrest an innocent person merely for the sake of making an arrest.”

    “No,” agreed Jake. “Let’s hope not, anyway.” He went out on this, shutting the passage door behind him.

    There was an ’orrid silence in Polly’s neat little knotty-pine kitchen.

    Finally I said sheepishly: “Sorry, Polly.”

    “No, it’s all right: he did understand, he’s not stupid. And don’t mind him shouting: he’s got a very quick temper, but it all blows over in a flash. And he’s very upset because of it being his pool, it’s his responsibility thing, you see.”

    “He can’t blame himself, surely?” objected Roger.

    “He is blaming himself,” replied Polly with the utmost serenity.

    “But— Surely! All he did was go out leaving the door unlocked for Mr Banks, and, er, the patio lights off, apparently.”

    “Yes. And he got back a lot later than he thought he would, of course.”

    “Where was he?” I asked baldly.

    “I can’t tell you, because it involves someone else’s problems. But he’s got an unbreakable alibi for the whole time.”

    Yeah? It took a real effort to refrain from asking if the famous Mike Collingwood agreed with her on that one. I got up. “I think I’d better go.” I glanced at the closed passage door. “Or will that be interpreted as the rank cowardice of us academic types that can’t handle reality?”

    “Probably,” agreed Polly. “But why should you worry?” She smiled and added: “I would go, if I was you: being interrogated by Mike is horrendously boring.”

    “Thought he was a man?” I returned mildly, going over to the back door. “So long, Wimsey.”

    “Jill’s going, Rog!” said Polly loudly.

    He came to with a jump. “Oh—yes. ’Bye, then, Jill.”

    “I’ll came out to the car with you,” said Polly.

    Outside I glanced cautiously at the side windows of the sitting-room but they were safely shut. “You know, that was admirable, in its way.”

    Polly smiled a little. “Yes, I could see your opinion of him going up by leaps and bounds, under the red face and the foot in the mouth.”

    “Hah, hah,” I managed feebly.

    “He has got principles.” Her eyes twinkled. “Alongside the numbered account in Zurich!”

    “Yeah. Look, what the Hell was all that about people not seeming real to you if they’re out of sight?”

    Polly went very red.

    “Christ, don’t tell me— Polly, what in God’s name have you said to the poor jerk?”

    “Jake isn’t a poor jerk, he’s a very capable person! And I only told him the truth!”

    Gulp! “About you?”

    “Yes. Well, not the lurid details, don’t be a clot! You know I don’t believe in that sort of thing. No, just how I feel.”

    What? Christ! “Polly, not about His Macho Highness himself not seeming all that real to you when he’s not—?” The demented female was nodding. “You raving idiot,” I said weakly. “If ever there was anything calculated to destroy the frail male ego!”

    “I had to tell him,” she said on a defiant note.

    Sigh. “No, you didn’t. And don’t pout like that, I’m not one of your millions of male fans!”

    “Shut up,” said Polly with a reluctant smile. “Anyway, I did have to tell him, I felt very strongly I did. –I thought I explained to you ages ago that I don’t want to rôle-play with him?”

    “Yes. But not rôle-playing is one thing, and letting on that— Look, you female freak, hasn’t it dawned that it was crisis behaviour?”

    She was genuinely blank. “What?”

    “Coming out with all this ‘not-real’ piffle. People go potty in situations of great stress, or hadn’t you noticed?”

    “Well, yes. Only it isn’t a situation of great stress for me, I hardly knew Don B—”

    “Polly,” I sighed, “there’s been a violent death just down the hill there, and your boyfriend is in it up to his ears—he’s practically been hanged for it already in the Press. Of course it’s a stressful situation for you, how can it not be?”

    “I don’t feel it is. Anyway, what I said to Jake has got nothing to do with Don Banks’s death.”

    “Of course it has!”

    “Ssh!” she hissed, glancing cautiously at the house. She went over to the turning circle.

    I staggered after her and leaned on my battered Holden. “If you’d just listen for a minute—”

    “I am listening,” she said heavily.

    I hesitated. It wasn’t gonna do any good whatever I said, but I didn’t want to put her back up. Oh, well. “I think you’re… tidying up the loose ends in your life, if—if you like to put it that way.”

    She stared at me.

    “Very well, don’t put it like that,” I conceded weakly. “But this thing with Jake’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it? It’s been dragging on for well over a year, now, and— Well, you know all that better than I do. And then, along comes this murder—”

    “‘Stressful situation’,” said Polly with distaste.

    “Mm. The jargon is immaterial. And you react in a way that’s typical of people’s behaviour in—ah—”

    “‘Life crises’?”

    “Yes,” I agreed grimly. “They try to impose order and coherence on what’s left to them by tidying up loose ends frantically. Usually managing only to hurt themselves and everybody around them like Hell. –Which may be the point, how would I know, I’m only a miserable pedagogical hack. But what I’m trying to say is, that’s what you seem to be doing: tidying up. And hurting people. And before you say anything, it’s often the people closest to them that people do hurt—tidy out of their lives, even.”

    “Possibly that proves their lives don’t really need those people,” said Polly sulkily.

    “Possibly it does. Is that what you feel?”

    “No.” She glared at the ruts of the turning circle.

    “No, I didn’t think it was. So just watch the mouth before you shove your great boot in it again.”

    “All right, Dr Freud,” she said heavily. “I’ll try.”

    Oh, Lor’. I did debate saying: “If he dumps you you’ve only got yourself to blame,” but didn’t: it was pretty clear that she already knew that. Instead I merely said, spotting the big grey cat slinking up to us, belly lowered: “Grab that bloody animal, for God’s sake; I don’t want to be responsible for another violent death.”

    “He probably only wants to sit on your bonnet,” she said with a smile.

    “In that case you’d definitely better grab him, or I will be responsible for another violent death!”

    With this I got into the heap, and Polly picked the big grey cat up.

    He peered placidly over her arm with huge yellowish eyes; Polly rested her chin on his scalp and her huge greenish eyes peered placidly over his head. Ugh! I was abruptly visited by a sick awareness, not merely of the impermanence of the flesh, or even of the organic vulnerability of all flesh, but of these plus the organic link between the young woman and the cat. I managed to call: “Ring me!” and headed off down the bumpy track.

    Since I had the windows down, I quite clearly heard Polly give a sudden laugh and call: “Too much reality, Jill!”, but believe you me, I ignored that completely. Completely. Mitchell was impossible.