Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

‘You’d tell them that?’

‘The way they’ll see it is that the relationship was more important to you than to me. You became obsessed by jealousy because I was married to someone else. You couldn’t stand it any more. And you thought by killing my husband you could get both me and my money. After all, you did prepare his will, didn’t you? You knew all about his finances.’

Mitch shook his head.

‘I would like to thank you, though,’ Laura went on. ‘Without you, we had a good plan – a very good one – but with you we’ve got a perfect one.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you were right when you suggested I had a lover. I do. Oh, not you, not the one I’m handing over to the police, the one who became so obsessed with me that it unhinged him and he murdered my husband. No. I’ve been very careful with Jake. I met him on the Yucatan peninsula when Charles and I were on holiday there six months ago and Charles went down with Montezuma’s revenge. I know it sounds like a romantic cliché, but it was love at first sight. We hatched the plan very quickly and we knew we had to keep our relationship a total secret. Nobody must suspect a thing. So we never met after that vacation. There were no letters or postcards. The only contact we had was through public telephones.’

‘And what happens now?’

‘After a decent interval – after you’ve been tried and convicted of my husband’s murder – Jake and I will meet and eventually get married. We’ll sell up here, of course, and live abroad. Live in luxury. Oh, please don’t look so crestfallen, Mitch. Believe me, I am sorry. I didn’t know you were going to walk into my life with that irresistible little confession, now, did I? I figured I’d just ride it out, the cops’ suspicions and all. I mean they might suspect me, but they couldn’t prove anything. I was in Windsor staying with friends. They’ve checked. And now they’ve got you into the bargain…’ She shrugged. ‘Why would they bother with little old me? I just couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You’ll make a wonderful fall guy. But because I like you, Mitch, I’m at least giving you a little advance warning, aren’t I? The police will be looking for you, but you’ve still got time to make a break, leave town.’

‘What if I go to them, tell them everything you’ve told me?’

‘They’ll think you’re crazy. Which you are. Obsession does that to people. Makes them crazy.’

Mitch licked his lips. ‘Look, I’d have to leave everything behind. I don’t even have any cash on me. Laura, you don’t think you could-’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry, honey. No can do. Nothing personal.’

Mitch slumped back in the chair. ‘At least tell me one more thing. The gun. I still don’t understand how it came to be the one that killed your husband.’

She laughed, showing the sharp, white teeth. ‘Pure coincidence. It was beautiful. Jake happens to be…

… a burglar by profession, and a very good one. He has worked all over the States and Canada, and he’s never been caught. We thought that if I told him about the security system at the house, he could get around it cleverly and… Of course, he couldn’t bring his own gun here from Mexico, not by air, so he had to get one. He said that’s not too difficult when you move in the circles he does. The kind of bars where you can buy guns and other stolen goods are much the same anywhere, in much the same sort of neighbourhoods. And he’s done jobs up here before.

‘As luck would have it, he bought an old Luger off two inexperienced muggers. For a hundred bucks. I just couldn’t believe it when you came around with your story. There couldn’t be two old Lugers kicking around the neighbourhood at the same time, could there? I had to turn away from you and hold my sides, I was laughing so much. It made my eyes water. What unbelievable luck!’

‘I’m so glad you think so,’ said Mitch.

‘Anyway, when I told Jake, he agreed it was too good an opportunity to miss, so he came back up here, dug the gun up from where he had buried it, safe in its wrapping, and planted it in your garage. He hadn’t handled it without gloves on, and he thought the two young punks he bought it from had been too scared to touch it, so the odds were, after you told me your story, that your fingerprints would still be on it. As I said, even if they aren’t… It’s still perfect.’

Only tape hiss followed, and Detective Greg Hollins switched off the machine. ‘That it?’ he asked.

Mitch nodded. ‘I left. I thought I’d got enough.’

‘You did a good job. Jesus, you got more than enough. I was hoping she’d let something slip, but I didn’t expect a full confession and her accomplice’s name in the bargain.’

‘Thanks. I didn’t have a lot of choice, did I?’

The last two times Mitch had been to see Laura, he had been wearing a tiny but powerful voice-activated tape recorder sewn into the lining of his suit jacket. It had lain on the chair beside the bed when they made love, and he had tried to get her to admit she had a boyfriend, as Hollins had suspected. He had also been wearing it the night she told him the police were about to find the Luger in his garage.

The recorder was part of the deal. Why he got off with only a warning for not reporting the theft of an unregistered firearm.

‘What’ll happen to her now?’ he asked Hollins.

‘With any luck, both she and her boyfriend will do life,’ said Hollins. ‘But what do you care? After the way she treated you. She’s a user. She chewed you up and spat you out.’

Mitch sighed. ‘Yeah, I know…’ he said. ‘But it could have been worse, couldn’t it?’

‘How?’

‘I could’ve ended up married to her.’

Hollins stared at him for a moment, then he burst out laughing. ‘I’m glad you’ve got a sense of humour, Mitchell. You’ll need it, what’s coming your way next.’

Mitch shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘Hey, just a minute! We made a deal. You assured me there’d be no charges over the gun.’

Hollins nodded. ‘That’s right. We did make a deal. And I never go back on my word.’

Mitch shook his head. ‘Then I don’t understand. What are you talking about?’

‘Well, there’s this lady from the Law Society waiting outside, Mitchell. And she’d really like to talk to you.’

In our village,they were always known as the ‘Two Ladies of Rose Cottage’: Miss Eunice with the white hair, and Miss Teresa with the grey. Nobody really knew where they came from, or exactly how old they were, but the consensus held that they had met in India, America or South Africa and decided to return to the homeland to live out their days together. And in 1939 they were generally believed to be in or approaching their nineties.

Imagine our surprise, then, one fine day in September, when the police car pulled up outside Rose Cottage, and when, in a matter of hours, rumours began to spread throughout the village: rumours of human bones dug up in a distant garden; rumours of mutilation and dismemberment; rumours of murder.

Lyndgarth is the name of our village. It is situated in one of the most remote Yorkshire Dales, about twenty miles from Eastvale, the nearest large town. The village is no more than a group of limestone houses with slate roofs clustered around a bumpy, slanted green that always reminded me of a handkerchief flapping in the breeze. We have the usual amenities – grocer’s shop, butcher’s, newsagent’s, post office, school, a church, a chapel, three public houses – and proximity to some of the most beautiful countryside in the world.