Simon Brett - Murder Unprompted

He put the phone down and turned round to see the whole family looking at him, open-mouthed. Juliet stood half-way down the stairs, familiarly pale. Charles’s mind was working well, making connections fast. He felt confident.

‘Frances,’ he asked, ‘do you fancy a little trip?’

‘Where to?’

‘Somerset.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

Miles’s face contorted. ‘Oh really, Pop! It’s a hell of a long way. You can’t just do things like that, on a whim.’

‘Why not?’ Charles looked at Frances. ‘It’s your half-term, isn’t it? Be good to see some real countryside. We could stay in a nice hotel.’

‘But,’ objected Juliet, whose every holiday was planned at least six months in advance, ‘you haven’t booked anywhere!’

‘What do you say, Frances?’

‘All right.’

Good old Frances. She wasn’t where Juliet got it from either.

It was a nice hotel. On the edge of Exmoor. There was no problem booking. Indeed, after another bad summer for British tourism, they were welcomed with open arms.

They had a drink before dinner sitting in a bay window, watching dusk creep up on Dunkery Beacon. They talked a lot during dinner and then after a couple of brandies, went up to the bedroom.

It was a family room, with one double bed and one single. They sat down on the double one. Charles’s hand stroked the so-familiar contours of his wife’s shoulders.

‘This is another of your detective things, isn’t it, Charles?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. Tomorrow will, I hope, be a significant day.’

‘Dangerous?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose it might be. I hadn’t thought. Or it might just be nothing. Me barking up yet another wrong tree.’

Frances took his hand. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do it, Charles. I do worry about you, you know.’

He felt closer to her than he had for years, as he tried to explain. ‘It’s strange. When something like a murder happens, I just feel I have to sort out what really happened. I feel. .’ he struggled for the right word, ‘. . responsible.’

Frances laughed wryly. ‘Responsible for anonymous corpses, but when it comes to those close to you. .’

He felt suitably chastened. ‘I’m sorry, Frances.’ He looked out of the window at the clear night over Exmoor. ‘I was thinking about that today over lunch. About you and me, about. . you know, responsibility.’

‘Oh yes?’ It wasn’t quite cynical, but nearly.

‘And whether responsibility and truth are compatible. I’ve always found truth a problem. That’s really why I left you.’

‘I thought you left me for other women.’

‘In a way. But it was because I needed other women, and I needed to be truthful about it. I hated all the subterfuges, I hated lying to you. At the time it seemed more truthful to make a break; then at least the position was defined. If I had left you, then I wasn’t expected to be. .’

‘Responsible?’ Frances supplied.

‘I suppose so’

After London, the quiet of the country was almost tangible. ‘You know, Frances, I often wonder if we could get back together.’

‘So do I, Charles.’ She sighed. ‘But if it did happen, there are certain things I would demand.’

‘You could have truth. I’ve always tried to be truthful to you, Frances.’

‘And what about that other recurrent word. . responsible?’

‘Hmm.’

‘There’s still the matter of other women.’

‘Oh, there aren’t many of those now. Never have really been many who counted.’

‘No?’

‘No.’ He sighed. ‘Hasn’t been anyone for months, really, Frances. I don’t seem to feel the same urge to wander that I used to.’

‘All right, Charles,’ asked Frances softly, ‘when was the last one?’

Oh dear. He had genuinely forgotten about Dottie Banks until that moment. And he had promised Frances that he would always be truthful. ‘Well, last night, actually. But she didn’t mean anything.’

Charles spent the night in the single bed.

It must have taken a while from Taunton, Charles thought, as Frances drove them in the yellow Renault S along the route Lesley-Jane had described. How they ever found time to get there during Peter Hickton’s intensive rehearsals, he could not imagine.

But then he remembered that Lesley-Jane and Alex had both been in the company before work on The Hooded Owl began. Perhaps they had discovered and used their secret love-nest during the lazier days of the summer.

He glanced sideways at Frances. He thought it might be some time before he was looking for a love-nest again with her. His wife’s face was rigidly set, not with anger, which would have been easier to manage, but with hurt, which was almost impossible.

Damn Dottie Banks. And damn all the other Dottie Bankses in his life — all the quick irrelevant lays, who had a nasty habit of suddenly becoming relevant when he was with Frances.

Still, Dottie Banks had given him more than most of the others. She had sent him on the way to solving the mystery of her husband’s murder.

‘Not far along here,’ he said. ‘The North Molton road out of Withypool.’

‘What are you expecting to find, Charles?’

‘I don’t know. I just hope it isn’t another corpse.’

They drew up beside the stone-pillared farm gate which Lesley-Jane had described. Charles got out of the car. It was very muddy underfoot. Damn, he didn’t have any boots. Hardly surprising. He hadn’t expected a trip down to his daughter’s for lunch to end up in the middle of Exmoor.

‘Do I come too?’ asked Frances. She looked a little less resentful than earlier, and — dare he hope it? — even slightly anxious for him.

‘No, love. Stay in the car, if you don’t mind.’

‘All right. I have a book.’

‘What are you reading?’

‘ Re reading Anna Karenina .’

‘Oh well, that should keep you going for a little while.’

‘You bet.’

‘Funny, I find I’m rereading more books now. Going through my old favourites. Must be entering the last lap.’

‘Don’t be morbid, Charles.’

‘No.’ He outlined a tussock with the toe of his shoe. Now he was so close to a possible solution, he felt the urge to linger. It wasn’t exactly that he was afraid; he just didn’t want to leave Frances.

‘Off you go then.’

‘Yes. Yes. .’ He turned away and started trudging through the wet grass in the direction Lesley-Jane had specified.

The landscape was very empty. Charles could see why it had appealed to Alex Household. Humankind and human structures seemed a long way away. The hills rolled and folded into each other, hiding little patches of dead ground. The tall, tough grass that covered them ruffled and flattened with the wind, like a cat’s fur being stroked. Disgruntled sheep with strange dye markings cropped away at the grass, glowering at Charles as he passed. Anyone who wanted to feel at one with the earth, to shed the twentieth century and all its trappings, might think that here he had achieved his ambition.

No doubt in the summer, the area would be spotted with ardently rucksacked walkers, but it was now early November, and the recent rain and cold would have deterred all but the most perverse. Given shelter, someone might pass undetected in this landscape for some time.

But he’d need a lot of shelter to survive. The cold wind scoured Charles’s face and whipped his sodden trousers against his legs. He wished he had brought his overcoat.

He looked round, but the undulations seemed to have shifted, rolled into a new formation. He could not see the distinctive yellow of Frances’s car. Still, there was a little stream just beyond the mound to his left. That would give him his bearings again.