A Lovely Day to Die Read online

  Okay; so she gets me there. But then what? How does she play the next scene—the scene where she has to explain laughingly—and hoping that I will laugh too—that the whole thing has been a hoax? No wonder she’s getting cold feet about it, and is in no great hurry to come down and face me.

  But wait. Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong; perhaps I’m into the wrong scenario altogether. Maybe it’s the well-known game of “Emperor’s New Clothes” we are going to play. Maybe we are going to sidle hand in hand into her commonplace back garden, grey under the dying moon, where she clutches me in simulated terror:

  “Look, look!” she is going to whisper hoarsely, pointing at random across the sodden oblong of suburban lawn. “You see?—that huge thing by the hedge—sort of greenish-grey where the moonlight catches it? Gosh, it must be twelve feet across at least, wouldn’t you say? And that great sort of dome on top! Wait a second—your eyes aren’t accustomed to the light yet. It’s the queerest light I’ve ever seen, a sort of unearthly glow! Oh, and look now, John, just look—all those bluey lights flickering from the cabin windows! Those weren’t there before, I’ll swear! Oh, isn’t this exciting! Let’s get a bit closer.”

  One step, two steps across the damp grass, and then, “Watch out!” she’ll shriek. “Get back! Get back! The tentacles! Run, John, run! My God, they’re reaching right across the lawn! Get back inside! We must lock all the doors and windows!”

  Or something of the kind. I don’t know, actually, if Sheila watches this kind of programme, but they can’t be difficult to make up. And in any case, there’s another way she could play it, an easier way—much, much easier now I come to think of it. Yes, that’s the one she’ll choose:

  “John, oh John dear, if only you’d arrived just two minutes earlier! It’s gone! It’s just absolutely gone! I saw it with my own eyes, it rose straight off the lawn in a vertical take-off (or wouldn’t Sheila know about vertical take-offs?) and then it suddenly changed direction, almost at a right angle, and whooshed off northwards (or southwards, or whatever) at fantastic speed, and was out of sight in seconds! Look, I’ll show you where the grass is all flattened out, and stones have been knocked from the rockery …”

  And there, in the last of the goblin light, we’d lean down, heads together, pretending to examine these nonsensical traces of the thing.

  Smiling to myself, curious to guess what innocent irregularities of turf or flowerbed she was going to conjure up as evidence, I slipped round the side of the house, down the narrow cement-paved passageway where the dustbins are kept, and pushed open the gate that led into the back garden.

  *

  The whole lawn was a huge raw crater of upturned earth and clay, nearly three yards in diameter, the displaced soil heaped up round the rim into a sort of miniature rampart about two feet high. The floor of the thing, as I stood staring incredulously down into it, was shallow, and rough as a ploughed field.

  For long seconds I just stood there, rocked by a disbelief so intense that my thought processes were simply at a standstill. Whether such an upheaval could, or could not, have been produced by some extra-terrestrial object was simply beyond my power even to wonder.

  But presently, in response to some inbuilt, robot-like impulse of curiosity, I found myself stumbling in a dazed sort of way round and round the rim, back and forth across the moonlit clods, my eyes darting hither and thither, sharp as a hawk’s seeking God-alone-knows-what. Some sort of clue to the mystery, I suppose; but since I had no idea what sort of thing I was looking for, everything—but everything—seemed to fill me with dread. A sliver of glass in the moonlight, an odd-shaped stone, the edge of a rusty tin—each and all of these things had the power to set my heart thudding, my brain spinning. At this rate it wouldn’t be long before I began indeed to see the little green men dancing before my weary eyes, hear the tinny little Martian voices in my singing ears …

  *

  It seemed like hours, though I daresay it was really only a few minutes, before the police came. Within minutes one lot of them had dug up poor Brian’s body from the floor of the crater, while another lot had me in for questioning. Sheila must have phoned them as soon as she judged, from her vantage point at some darkened upper window, that my footprints must by now be just about everywhere in the wet clay. It must have been quite a laugh for her—me babbling on about a flying saucer, while all she had to do was to deny flatly the whole absurd rigmarole, and repeat her perfectly plausible story about having been roused from sleep by strange noises in the garden.

  Clever. But not (I am hoping and trusting) quite clever enough. She had overlooked one thing: that it would have been quite beyond the power of any one man to have dug earthworks on this sort of scale in just the couple of hours that had elapsed between the time the Harpers left our house after playing Scrabble and the time the police found me silhouetted against the moon on top of Brian’s grave.

  Of course, I realise that Sheila didn’t know about our Scrabble evening; but this was the sort of thing she should have checked up on, as well as on the time of the moon rising.

  Because she, of all people, should have known what a job it was shifting all that clay; known all too well that it would have taken at least two people, working right through the dark from nightfall until the moon rose, to get the job finished; and one of them, at least, would have had to be pretty muscular.

  I’ll be interested, when the thing gets into the papers, to learn which of all those shoulders that Sheila wept on turned out to be that strong.

  THE LUCK OF THE DEVIL

  WHEN I INVITED Lucy to come over for a drink and to tell me all about it, I must say it hadn’t occurred to me that it would take up the whole of my evening: not to mention all that happened during the night. I am a busy woman, and if I had had the slightest inkling of what I was letting myself in for, I would have got out of it somehow. “Not just now,” I would have said, as soothingly as I could. “I’d love to help in any way I can, Lucy, of course … but not just now … Come and tell me all about it some other time …” Or words to that effect.

  But of course, at this stage, I didn’t know exactly what “it” was going to turn out to be. It sounded, you see, such an ordinary—not to say hackneyed—situation: just one more marriage on the rocks; one more disillusioned, embittered wife washed up on the shoals of middle-age, while her (equally middle-aged) husband waltzes off, paunch and all, with a little blonde typist half his age.

  It’s happening all the time. The only surprising thing, in this particular case, was that it should be happening to Lucy. For Lucy had always hitherto seemed to be one of Life’s winners. She was the one who landed an exciting job on a glossy magazine before she was twenty: who spent the next few years swanning around the world covering fashion shows in places like Biarritz and Helsinki; and who finally met on holiday a handsome and dashing Romeo who turned out not only to have honourable intentions but also a substantial and steadily-rising income derived from his unassailable position in Daddy’s successful wine-importing business.

  She’d always been like this, even at school. That spring when we were all madly pretending to have ’flu so as to escape the dreaded geography test, Lucy was the one who actually had a temperature and quite a high one, too. That sort of thing. No great brilliance, you understand, and no special talents either at lessons or at games: nor was she specially hard-working. Just lucky. The Luck of the Devil, we used to call it, green with envy, whenever she managed to get herself into, or out of, something, exactly as she desired. I’d always assumed, I suppose, that she would go on being lucky: that Luck was something you are either born with or not, and that it will last a lifetime.

  And so this was why I was surprised, as well as slightly dismayed (for it is always a bit disconcerting when an old friend suddenly acts out of character) when Lucy’s voice, muzzy with tears, came to me over the phone just after I’d got in from work, begging me to let her come over right away. “Something awful has happened, Jennifer!” she gulped “Hu
go has left me! I must come and talk to you!”

  I forget exactly what I said: made sympathetic noises, I suppose, and voiced suitable concern, culminating (well, how could an old friend do less?) in an invitation to come round immediately.

  Mind you, it wasn’t madly convenient. I had a lot to do that evening. I, too, now have an exciting job on a glossy magazine—but in my case it has come after twenty years of hard and determined effort, starting as a switchboard girl; it didn’t just fall into my lap as it did into Lucy’s. I have a very responsible position these days, with important deadlines to meet, and it commonly happens that I have to bring work home with me to finish in the evening.

  However, one has one’s priorities; and surely an old and established friendship comes pretty high among them? So, albeit with a sigh, I tidied away my papers, got out the drinks, and turned up the gas fire as high as it would go. A bit of real glowing warmth, I always think, means a lot when you are miserable, and I wanted to make the place look as welcoming as I could at such short notice. I’m not a very assiduous housewife, and living alone as I do I’m inclined to let things go a bit when the pressure of work builds up, and so I have to admit that the flat wasn’t looking its best that day; it was untidy, and not particularly well dusted. Still, with the centre light off in the living-room, and the fire purring away at the top of its bent, and the glasses and bottles sparkling on the low table, I flattered myself that it didn’t look too bad. Good enough, anyway, for an evening of tears and grievances and marital recriminations.

  *

  I don’t know if it was the gin, or whether Lucy has always talked in clichés and I’d never noticed it before—but I have to admit that I was almost shocked by the sheer banality of her discourse that evening.

  “The best years of my life ..!” she sobbed; and “Casting me aside like an old glove!”

  I hoped (I told her) that she wasn’t talking like this to Hugo, for these were hardly the sort of phrases to lure back to her side an errant husband currently basking in the sort of undiluted flattery that a brand-new mistress can so effortlessly provide.

  Lucy repudiated the idea with scorn.

  “Talk like that to Hugo? As if I would! What do you take me for! Naturally, I pretend I don’t care! I’ve told him I don’t care a damn what he does or doesn’t do! I’ve told him he can go to bed with every woman in London, and it doesn’t matter to me a scrap! I just don’t care ..!”

  This was a bit more like the Lucy I’d always known. It was good to see her eyes sparking with the old battlelight instead of awash with uncharacteristic tears. But all the same, I wasn’t sure that this was good tactics, either. To make a man believe that you don’t care at all ..?

  We discussed in depth the pros and cons of this “don’t care” stance; and this naturally led us on to the consideration of the various other ploys open to the betrayed wife.

  What about tit-for-tat? Find a lover yourself, and see how he likes that?

  Lucy shook her head violently.

  “Oh, Jennifer, I couldn’t! How could I? Don’t you realise I’m over forty, and I’ve never … I mean … Oh, I just couldn’t! Besides, I still love Hugo. I love him! In spite of everything … in spite of how he’s treated me … I do still love him! I really do!”

  This, of course, complicated matters. It meant that there was a whole range of well-established ways in which she couldn’t get her own back, like getting after him with her solicitor, or going to his boss (in this case, his father) behind his back. You can’t do this sort of thing to a man you still love, no matter what sort of a rat he has proved himself to be.

  We were left, then, with the more subtle, more civilized techniques: I tried to draw her attention to some of them.

  What about getting in touch with Her, for example? Going to see her, talking to her, woman-to-woman, about the damage she is doing, ruining three lives, etc. etc ..?

  See her? Lucy was outraged. Never would she so demean herself as even to find out the creature’s address, never mind setting foot in the place! “Some filthy bed-sitter off the Fulham Road, I wouldn’t be surprised!” she spat. “Filthy sheets … mounds of unwashed crockery … a stink of rancid fat and decaying vegetables ..!” and when I interrupted her, mildly, to suggest that the well-heeled and somewhat fastidious Hugo would never tolerate such a set-up for one moment, she simply burst into tears all over again.

  “That’s what’s so awful, Jennifer! She’s changed him! I just don’t feel I know him any more—what he might do and what he mightn’t. It’s as if she’s cast an evil spell over him … turned him into a different person! That’s the most dreadful thing about the whole business—what it’s doing to him, as a person! Dragging him down … ruining him! She’s just using him, Jennifer, I know she is! She doesn’t care a damn about him really; she’s just an evil, scheming little gold-digger, and when she’s sucked him dry and ruined his marriage, she’ll … Oh, Jennifer, if I could only make him see what she is really like … what she is really after ..!”

  She paused; and I assumed (wrongly, as it turned out) that this was my cue, as an old friend, to offer my intervention.

  “Look, Lucy,” I began, “Would you like me to have a word with Hugo? I might be able to …”

  She shook her head, hopelessly. “It’s sweet of you, Jennifer, but it would be no good. Absolutely none. He’s besotted—I told you. He’d only be furious with you for ‘interfering’—that’s what he’d call it. Besides, I don’t know where he is. I mean, I know he’s with her, of course, but I don’t know where. I told you, I don’t know her address, I have no intention of ever knowing it …”

  And so on and so on. By midnight, I found myself exhausted and—more to the point—with absolutely nothing more to say. We had said everything—both of us—which can possibly be said in this distressing though all too commonplace situation, and all I wanted to do was go to bed. It now transpired that Lucy hadn’t come in her car—as I had naturally assumed was the case; after all, they are a two-car—indeed a three-car—family. Normally, she drives everywhere, wouldn’t dream of using public transport.

  Still, there it was. The trains and buses would all be finished now. She would have to stay the night.

  Not too ungraciously, I hope, I made up a bed for her in the spare room. I switched on the electric blanket, brought her a hot milky drink with a few biscuits, and laid out a couple of light novels in case she couldn’t sleep. Then, thankfully, I retired to my own room—though not forgetting, first, to say “And let me know if you want anything”, as a good hostess is in honour bound to do.

  A good hostess, yes; but you’d have to be a saintly hostess indeed to contemplate with equanimity the possibility that your guest might actually want something at this sort of hour; and want it, too, just twenty minutes after you’ve settled down in your own bed and are just sinking into your first and deepest sleep.

  It was a scuffling sound that roused me—a rustling of paper—a clinking. Still half asleep, I switched on my bedside light, and there, across the room from me, stood Lucy, wrapped in the flowered housecoat I’d lent her, and rummaging about in the top drawer of my chest of drawers.

  “Oh, Jennifer, I’m so sorry,” she apologised, “I didn’t mean to wake you. I just wanted some sort of sleeping pill—I know you have some. I’m so sorry … I thought I’d be able to find them without disturbing you …”

  How she could have thought any such thing, I couldn’t imagine, because there was no way she could know where I kept them. Actually, they were in the bathroom. Grimly, I crawled out of bed and led her thither. I could feel my hostess-manners slipping badly, but I did my best to control my irritation while I sought out the bottle and shook out one of the long blue pills into her outstretched hand.

  “Oh—Jennifer—please! Couldn’t I have another? One won’t be enough, it really won’t. You’ve no idea, these last few nights, how I’ve …”

  “They’re pretty strong,” I said repressively. “You shouldn’t really
have more than one … Oh, all right!” I finished, as the thought of standing there, arguing, swept over me in a tidal wave of exhaustion—“Take it … There you are!” and I tipped out a second one.

  It was only after I’d got into bed, and had been lying there for several minutes trying to relax, that it occurred to me that I might be unwittingly conniving at some silly suicide gesture. Maybe the whole performance—messing noisily about in that drawer, pretending she didn’t want to wake me—had simply been a clumsy trick for getting me to reveal where the bottle was kept? Maybe I should go and check that she was all right?

  Maybe hell! I’d had enough: I was exhausted. Already I could feel sleep beginning to overtake me, wave after delicious wave …

  And then—wouldn’t you know it?—barely half an hour later the telephone rang. Dragging myself from deep sleep, I lifted the receiver and—again, wouldn’t you know it?—it wasn’t for me.

  That’s the sort of night it was, that night when Lucy came to stay.

  *

  It wasn’t until the next day that I heard the news—on the radio, at the office. All the girls heard it, though of course for them there was nothing all that special about it—this wine-importer chap, Hugo something-or-other—found dead in bed with a fractured skull.

  Busy though we were, I had to tell them I didn’t feel well and must go home immediately. I could see they were taken aback—I don’t normally let the job down like that, but what else could I do? I’d left Lucy very sound asleep when I went out in the morning, and I was desperately anxious that she shouldn’t be alone when the police came. There were a lot of lies I was going to have to tell, and I wanted to get them in quickly before they started trying to break down Lucy’s alibi. Yes, I was going to say, she was here in my house last night. Yes, she was sleeping heavily all the time: I had myself given her two full-strength barbiturate tablets soon after midnight, and naturally they’d knocked her out completely for hours. Yes, I’d looked into her room a couple of times during the night, just to check she was all right …