Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

She took a cigarette from a carved wooden box on the coffee table and lit it with a lighter that looked like a baseball. Mitch declined the offer to join her.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘It’s my only vice.’

‘Of course not.’ Mitch cleared his throat. ‘I just wanted to come and tell you how sorry I was to hear about the… the tragic accident. Your husband was-’

‘It wasn’t an accident, Mr Mitchell,’ she said calmly. ‘My husband was murdered. I believe we should face the truth clearly and not hide behind euphemisms, don’t you?’

‘Well, if you put it like that…’

She nodded. ‘You were saying about my husband?’

‘Well, I didn’t know him well, but I have done some legal work for him – specifically his will – and I am aware of his circumstances.’

‘My husband was very rich, Mr Mitchell.’

‘Exactly. I thought… well… there are some unscrupulous people out there, Mrs McVie.’

‘Please, call me Laura.’

‘Laura. There are some unscrupulous people out there, and I thought if there was anything I could do to help, perhaps give advice, take the burden off your hands…?’

‘What burden would that be, Mr Mitchell?’

Mitch sat forward and clasped his hands on his knees. ‘When someone dies, Mrs – Laura – there are always problems, legal wrangling and the like. Your husband’s affairs seem to be in good order, judging from his will, but that was made two years ago. I’d hate to see someone come and take advantage of you.’

‘Thank you,’ Laura said. ‘You’re so sweet. And why shouldn’t you handle the estate? Someone has to do it. I can’t.’

Mitch had the strangest feeling that something was going awry here. Laura McVie didn’t seem at all the person to be taken advantage of, yet she seemed to be swallowing his line of patter. That could only be, he decided, because it suited her, too. And why not? It would take a load off her mind.

‘That wasn’t the main reason I came, though,’ Mitch pressed on, feeling an irrational desire to explain himself. ‘I genuinely wanted to see if I could help in any way.’

‘Why?’ she asked, blue eyes open wide. ‘Why should you? Mr Mitchell, I’ve come to learn that people do things for selfish motives. Self-interest rules. Always. I don’t believe in altruism. Nor did my husband. At least we were agreed on that.’ She turned aside, flicked some ash at the ashtray and missed. In contrast to everything else in the place, the tin ashtray looked as if it had been stolen from a lowlife bar. ‘So you want to help me?’ she said. ‘For a fee, of course.’

Mitch felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. The part of him that had desperately wanted to make amends for his part in Charles McVie’s death was being thwarted by the frankness and openness of the widow. Yes, he could use the money – of course he could – but that really wasn’t his only reason for being there, and he wanted her to know that. How could he explain that he really wasn’t such a bad guy?

‘There are expenses involved in settling an estate,’ Mitch went on. ‘Disbursements. Of course, there are. But I’m not here to cheat you.’

She smiled at him indulgently. ‘Of course not.’

Which definitely came across as, ‘ As if you could .’

‘But if you’ll allow me to-’

She shifted her legs, showing more thigh. ‘Mr Mitchell,’ she said, ‘I’m getting the feeling that you really do have another reason for coming to see me. If it’s not that you’re after my husband’s money, then what are you after?’

Mitch swallowed. ‘I… I feel. You see, I-’

‘Come on, Mr Mitchell. You can tell me. You’ll feel better.’

The voice that had seemed so submissive when Mitch first heard it now became hypnotic, so warm, so trustworthy, so easy to answer. And he had to tell someone.

‘I feel partly responsible for your husband’s death,’ he said, looking into her eyes. ‘Oh, I’m not the burglar, I’m not the killer. But I think I inadvertently supplied the gun.’

Laura McVie looked puzzled. Now he had begun, Mitch saw no point in stopping. If he could only tell this woman the full story, he thought, then she would understand. Perhaps she would even be sympathetic towards him. Forgive him. So he told her.

When he had finished, Laura stood up abruptly and walked over to the picture-window with its view of a back garden as big as Central Park. Mitch sat where he was and looked at her from behind. Her legs were close together and her arms were crossed. She seemed to be turned in on herself. He couldn’t tell whether she was crying or not, but her shoulders seemed to be moving.

‘Well?’ he asked, after a while. ‘What do you think?’

She let the silence stretch a moment, then dropped her arms and turned around slowly. Her eyes did look moist with tears. ‘What do I think?’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I think that maybe if you’d reported the gun stolen the police would have searched for it and my husband wouldn’t have been murdered.’

‘But I would have been charged, disbarred.’

‘Mr Mitchell, surely that’s a small price to pay for someone’s life? I’m sorry. I think you’d better go. I can’t think straight right now.’

‘But I-’

‘Please, Mr Mitchell. Leave.’ She turned back to the window again and folded her arms, shaking.

Mitch got up off the sofa and headed for the door. He felt defeated, as if he had left something important unfinished, but there was nothing he could do about it. Only slink off with his tail between his legs feeling worse than when he had come. Why hadn’t he just told her he was after handling McVie’s estate. Money, pure and simple. Self-interest like that she would have understood.

Two days later, and still no developments reported in the McVie investigation, Laura phoned.

‘Mr Mitchell?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry about my behaviour the other day. I was upset, as you can imagine.’

‘I can understand that,’ Mitch said. ‘I don’t blame you. I don’t even know why I told you.’

‘I’m glad you did. I’ve had time to think about it since then, and I’m beginning to realize how terrible you must feel. I want you to understand that I don’t blame you. It’s not the gun that commits the crime, after all, is it? It’s the person who pulls the trigger. I’m sure if the burglar hadn’t got that one, he’d have got one somewhere else. Look, this is very awkward over the telephone, do you think you could come to the house?’

‘When?’

‘How about this evening. For dinner?’

‘Fine,’ said Mitch. ‘I’m really glad you can find it in your heart to forgive me.’

‘Eight o’clock?’

‘Eight it is.’

When he put down the phone, Mitch jumped to his feet, punched the air, shouted, ‘Yes!’

‘Dinner’ was catered by a local Italian restaurant, Laura McVie not being, in her own words, ‘much of a cook’. Two waiters delivered the food, served it discreetly, and took away the dirty dishes.

Mostly, Mitch and Laura made small talk in the candlelight over the pasta and wine, and it wasn’t until the waiters had left and they were alone, relaxing on the sofa, each cradling a snifter of Courvoisier XO cognac, with mellow jazz playing in the background, that the conversation became more intimate.

Laura was still funereally clad, but tonight her dress, made of semi-transparent layers of black chiffon – more than enough for decency – fell well below knee height. There was still no disguising the curves, and the rustling sounds as she crossed her legs made Mitch more than a little hot under the collar.