Simon Brett - Murder Unprompted

‘This made us, in certain respects, incompatible.’ Dottie Banks emphasised the obvious by placing her hand on Charles’s thigh.

‘Ah. Well. Yes. I can see that.’

Her fingertips started to move gently up and down. He felt it would soon be the moment to make a move, and her behaviour left him in little doubt as to what sort of move it should be. Indeed, the only question seemed to be whether he should even bother to make a move, or just let her do everything for him.

But, even then, the nagging thought in his mind would not go away. ‘Dottie, about Micky’s death. .’

‘Uhuh.’ She was now leaning over towards him and breathing very close to his ear. He could feel the hard outline of her breasts against his upper arm.

‘Did you think there was anything odd about it?’

‘Odd?’ she murmured. ‘Well, no odder than any other murder that takes place on stage during the first night of a new play, when the leading actor is shot dead by his understudy.’

‘No, I just thought you, knowing Micky so well, might have. .’

‘Uhuh.’ She shook her head, which wobbled the ear she was now nibbling in a way that he found extremely stimulating.

But he still sat still, puzzling, the scene of the murder running like an old movie in his mind.

‘Did you come here,’ mumbled Dottie, very close, ‘to ask me fatuous questions the police have already been through a hundred times, or for other reasons?’

‘For other reasons,’ he assured her, though deep down he wasn’t certain.

‘Well then,’ she said, ‘are you paralysed?’

His hands, sliding from her hair to her neck and down inside the filmy black blouse, denied the imputation. And, after the two of them had slipped down on to the expensive and discreet rug, the rest of his body also demonstrated its unimpaired mobility.

They moved from the rug to the king-size bed for a second demonstration, after which they lay entwined.

Charles was beginning to wonder whether he actually liked Dottie or not. Her intimacy seemed completely impersonal, and he did rather like being appreciated for himself.

Also, his best efforts did not seem sufficient to her. She didn’t say anything, but the way she toyed with him suggested she wanted him to be demonstrating all day like a vacuum cleaner salesman.

At last she realised that, for a little while, her ambitions were vain. She lay back.

‘You know you asked if there was anything I thought odd about Micky’s death.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, there was one thing. One tiny thing. So tiny I’ve only just thought of it.’

‘What?’

‘Well, you know when you spend a lot of time with someone, you get used to how they speak, their mannerisms and so on. .’

‘Yes.’

‘Just before Micky died, he said something I’ve never heard him say before.’

‘What was that?’

‘He said, “Oh Lord!” I’ve never heard him say that before. “Oh God,” yes. “Oh Christ,” many times. But not “Oh Lord”.’

‘Good Lord!’

‘No “ Oh Lord!”’

‘No, I mean just “Good Lord!” you know, “Good Lord!”’

‘Hmm?’

‘Never mind. Look, Micky never said “Oh Lord!”, but Alex Household was always saying it.’

‘Oh, was he? Oh well, that explains it.’

‘How?’

‘Alex Household must have said it just before he shot the gun; Micky heard it over the deaf-aid and just repeated it.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

Dottie’s hands were once again busying themselves. ‘Hmm. I don’t know, Dottie. I keep wishing there was another solution to this murder.’

‘How can there be? Alex Household shot Micky. That’s the only possible solution.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Charles conceded, disgruntled. ‘I have to admit, it’s the best I can come up with.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’

But Dottie was no longer talking about the murder.

After the third demonstration, Charles said he’d better go, and Dottie, recognising that she’d had all she was getting, took a sleeping pill and let him.

In the taxi back to Hereford Road, Charles felt despicable. Sex without any element of love, or even affection, always had that effect on him.

But this time it seemed worse. It was her taking the sleeping pill that had cone it. It had reduced him to the same level, just another anonymous treatment that her body had required.

Frances represented many things for Charles, amongst them a kind of fixed moral standard in his life. To ring her the following morning seemed, therefore, not just a good, but even a right idea. Like going to confession (though he had no intention of confessing anything), a bracing moral scour-out.

‘Charles. Well, are you coming or not? You’ve left it late enough.’

‘Left what late enough?’

‘Charles, you remember — Juliet and Miles invited you down for lunch.’

‘Oh yes, of course.’

‘You hadn’t forgotten, had you?’

‘Oh no, I. . er. . um.’

‘Well, are you going to come or not?’

‘Um. I hadn’t really thought. I. . er. .’

‘I will be leaving in an hour, Charles. If you’re here when I go, you will be coming. If you’re not, I will be going on my own.’

‘Yes, well, of course I — ’

‘Goodbye, Charles.’

Yes, he would go. After the moral squalor of the night before, he needed the redemption of playing at being the respectable husband, father and grandfather. A nice, straight day with the family — that seemed morally appropriate. Though a day with his son-in-law, Miles, could take on certain qualities of a penance.

‘Thing is, Pop, you see, that when Mums sells the house, she’s going to have a bit of cash in hand.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Good God, at what point had Frances lapsed low enough to let Miles call her ‘Mums’?

And this is where she’s really going to feel the benefit of having someone in the family who knows about insurance.’ Miles took his mother-in-law’s hand confidently. ‘Aren’t you, Mums?’ To Charles’s amazement, she didn’t flinch. ‘Now, I’ve got a really exciting little annuity scheme worked out which I think will be just the ticket.’

Charles looked across at Miles Taylerson with his customary disbelief. Anyone who could get excited by an annuity scheme must belong to a different species from his own. And yet Miles appeared to have the same complement of arms and legs as he did, the same disposition of eyes, nose and mouth. Maybe, Charles reflected, his son-in-law was the result of some cloning experiment, by which creatures from another planet had created something that looked like a human being, but lacked the essential circuitry of humanity. Maybe one day Miles’s head would flip open like a kitchen bin to reveal a tangle of wires and transistors.

‘You haven’t thought any more about insurance, have you, Pop?’

‘No, I think I can honestly say that I haven’t.’ And come to that, what’s this ‘more’? his mind continued silently. It is one of my proudest boasts that I have never thought about insurance and I am convinced that, even under torture, I could resist the temptation.

‘I was just thinking that now’s a good time. Now you’re getting regular money from this West End show, it’d be a good opportunity to put a little aside each week — it needn’t be much, but you’d be amazed how it accumulates.’

‘Thank you. I’m sure if ever the occasion arises when I want advice on insurance, you’re the first person I’ll come to.’ Charles thought that wasn’t bad. It was the nearest he had ever got to saying something to his son-in-law that was neither untrue nor offensive.

Miles seemed to appreciate it, too. He sat back with a satisfied grin and looked contentedly around the open-plan hygienic nonentity of his executive sitting room in his executive house on an executive estate in Pangbourne.