Reginald Hill - The Price of Butcher

We got to the bathroom, she opened the door and stepped inside, I pushed in behind her, she turned in anger which became amazement as I rose up out of my chair and kissed her.

There followed a moment of shock and resistance on her part, and on mine of terror that she was going to start screaming rape and bring the nurses running.

And then she started kissing me back, only stopping because she was laughing so much. It was, she said, so totally unexpected, so totally unimaginable, that it was comic!

I knew then I was right. She was the one for me. Except, of course, there was no way in Daphne’s eyes that, in or out of my chair, I could be the one for her. And if Ess stuck two fingers up to Daph, it wasn’t just her who’d get cut off without a penny, it was dear brother Ted.

Teddy is not, as you yourself have observed, the sharpest knife in the box. Ess has looked after him all her life. Family loyalties are, I believe, God’s way of ensuring that even the most undeserving get a bit of unconditional love. If I wanted Esther, then Ted was part of the bargain.

We started meeting, or rather she and Emil started meeting, keeping well clear of the smart end of the resort where Daph was queening it up, and mucking down with the students at the Bengel bar where I encountered George Heywood and the lovely Charley. Things got better every time we met and I knew by the end of her holiday that, however things panned out, I had to follow her home. And God, who’s an old romantic at heart, wrote the perfect scenario!

Soon, despite all he did to try to extend his stay, it was time for Lester to return to Sandytown. By now we were best buddies and it seemed perfectly natural for me to head home to England with him, to the Yorkshire that I knew so well, and to settle close to the Avalon and get involved with its work.

I cannot describe with what joy I made the journey-or with what reluctance Lester made his!

I got myself settled in my cottage. It was as secure as I could make it. Sometimes Ess would come and visit me there, riding on Ted’s bike. Sometimes we would meet elsewhere at a distance and I would become Emil and we could manage whole weekends together. I was actually enjoying both my lives, but always I anticipated the day when I could be back on my own two feet permanently with Esther by my side.

That wasn’t going to happen while Daph was alive, but I swear to you, Andy, that not once did I contemplate doing anything to get rid of her! The thing was, I came to like her, to enjoy watching her at play! And I became quite a favorite of hers. She saw I was close to Lester and she thought she was clever enough to wheedle things out of me about how he felt about her, and what was going on with Pet Sheldon! But I think she recognized a fellow spirit in me too, someone who is not perhaps too scrupulous when it comes to finding the quickest way to getting what they want!

So to the day of the hog roast.

I was sitting in my chair, enjoying the champagne and watching the great storm bubbling up over the sea when Esther came up to me. I knew instantly something was wrong. In public she usually treated me as if I were a piece of furniture!

She was extremely agitated. Something dreadful had happened, she told me.

Teddy had killed Aunt Daphne!

I was, as you might say, gobsmacked. Esther told me she’d been wandering round the grounds and by chance she’d stumbled across the body in some long grass beyond the hog roast pit. I asked how she knew Ted was responsible. She showed me that fancy fake watch he wears and said she’d found it snagged on Daph’s dress. Also, earlier that day, Daph had shown Ted a new will in which he was disinherited and they’d had a furious row.

Now you and I, Andy, sensible chaps with one eye always fixed steadily on the realities of life, might have reckoned that when someone has just written you out of their will, that is the last time you should choose to kill them!

Ted, alas, has rarely let reason cloud his behavior, and neither Ess nor myself had the slightest problem to start with in accepting his guilt. Nor did his idiocy in leaving his watch at the scene of the crime strike us as anything but typical!

I asked where Ted was now. She said she didn’t know, she couldn’t find him. The storm was starting, everyone was heading for the house, so I said, “Show me the body.”

She took me there. There was no sign of Ollie Hollis at the hog roast, which struck me as odd. Seeing old Daphne lying there was truly upsetting. She had been so full of life, so vigorous for her age, such a dedicated goer! She didn’t deserve to end up like this. I was furious with Ted, but for Esther’s sake, I had to do my best to protect him.

Esther had removed the watch but God alone knew what other traces the idiot had left. I cast around for some way of obscuring them and also of misdirecting the investigation. It came to me in a flash what I had to do.

And so with Esther’s help, I hauled the roasting cage off the barbecue pit, got the pig out of it, and put poor Daphne in.

It really broke me up to heap this further indignity upon her. There were tears in my eyes and I have begged her spirit for forgiveness and understanding since. And, knowing as I do what she herself was capable of, I do not doubt I received it.

Esther was marvelous, doing everything I told her to. By the time we were done it was pouring down and we were both soaking and filthy and Ess had managed to burn her arm.

I told her to get back to the house, find something to change into, and get hold of Ted and do what she could to make sure he didn’t do anything else stupid.

I meanwhile headed for the lowest bit of the lawn where it was turning really boggy, tipped my chair over, and rolled around in the muck to provide a reason for my dishevelment. Then I lay there, trying to see into the future, and waiting patiently for the storm to abate.

After Pet Sheldon took charge of me, there was nothing for me to do but head for home and wait until Esther reported on further developments.

She came herself on the bike later that evening. What she told me was hard to take in. She’d found Ted getting dried off and changed in the house. He had denied any knowledge of Daph’s death. He said he’d gone down to the beach with the kids. Sid had gone too. After a while, seeing that there was plenty of supervision, they’d slipped away to the old cave halfway up the cliff where they’d been banging away at each other till the storm started.

A lover isn’t the best provider of an alibi, but as we know, it can be confirmed at least in part by Charley Heywood’s testimony. (Oh yes, of course I’ve had a look at Charley’s e-mails. Why not? If the brutal and licentious constabulary can pore and paw over them, why not I? And, though it was much harder, I even managed to slide beneath Ed Wield’s defenses and take a look at his interesting analysis of the witness statements. Perhaps happiness is making him careless!)

Myself, all I needed was Esther’s assurance of Ted’s innocence. No way he could deceive her about something like that.

Which left the interesting question-what had really happened?

And who was the clever bastard who had deposited Ted’s watch on the body?

I would have loved to come clean with you and Peter from the start, but knowing how ready you are, Andy, to put me at the center of all criminality, that would merely have set the investigation on a time-wasting false trail, and poor Peter had enough of those to follow already! No, I needed to stay free to pursue my own inquiries.