J. Gregson - Die Happy

James smiled and said, ‘That reminds me. I think we’ll probably get our invitation for Glyndebourne again this year. Clive Morrison, who entertained us there last year, owes me a favour. I’ll give him a ring tomorrow, if I get the chance.’

It was not until she glanced at the clock that she saw the white foolscap envelope on the unit beneath it. James followed her gaze and said, ‘Oh, I forgot about that. It was behind the door when I got home. It’s addressed to you, without a stamp. It must have been delivered by hand.’ He went into the lounge dutifully as he had been told to do; a moment later she heard the sound of the television newsreader.

She inspected her printed name on the envelope, then slit open the end of it with the small kitchen knife beside it. It contained a single sheet of paper, neatly folded.

Her first reaction was surprise, not fear. Nothing remotely like this had happened to her before. You read about it in books, or heard other people talking about something similar. You never expected it to be part of your own experience, and when it occurred you could not quite believe it. For sixty seconds her mind raced, but she could not have said what she was thinking, what emotions were hammering in her head.

There were only twelve words on the sheet, but the print was large, black and uncompromising.

RESIGN NOW FROM THE FESTIVAL COMMITTEE IF YOU WISH TO REMAIN ALIVE

Peter Preston was nursing his wounds. That damned woman Dooks had no standards. If the citizens of Oldford had had any sense, they’d have put him in charge of the literary festival from the start and given him a free hand with budgets and speakers. But they hadn’t, and it was no surprise that they hadn’t. Provincial, that’s what they were, so you shouldn’t expect anything other than provincial attitudes.

He said as much to his wife, but she’d heard it all before. He shouldn’t have got involved if he was going to get upset like this, Edwina told him. She had lost count of the number of times before when she had had occasion to tell him that. A very conventional woman, Edwina. That was both her strength and her weakness.

‘I’ve a good mind to withdraw my support altogether,’ said Peter.

‘You mustn’t do that.’ She was assailed by visions of him around the house all day, increasingly fractious as he realized that he had lost all influence on the intelligentsia of the area. ‘You’d miss the festival if you weren’t involved.’

She was right, of course. Some small part of his inner self saw that quite clearly. ‘This place just doesn’t appreciate everything I’ve done for it over the years.’

‘I don’t know why you allow yourself to get so upset about these things. You should realize by now that you’re always going to be disappointed.’ Another of her hackneyed, predictable statements; he could have foretold it, word for word. Didn’t she realize that stuff like that would just infuriate him? For a surprising, delicious moment, he saw himself with his hands round her throat, squeezing the life out of her, watching her eyes dilate with terror as her string of cliches was stilled for ever.

It was a glorious vision, as fleeting as it was delightful. It left him shocked but delighted. It was another sign that he wasn’t as other men, when it came to the strength of his emotions. Another sign that his extra sensitivity meant that he felt things more keenly than the common run of men. Peter was wrong there, as he often was; his knowledge of human nature was nothing like as profound as he proclaimed it to be. He didn’t realize that all over Britain on any single night there were thousands of married men and thousands of married women who enjoyed delicious escapist moments as they envisaged choking the life out of a perpetually irritating spouse. He would have been astonished to know that even that conventional woman Edwina occasionally thought of him with his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling and those too-mobile lips stilled for ever.

Fortunately for the forces of law and order, only a tiny percentage of people ever transform thought into action. Any murderous move of that sort would certainly set Peter Preston apart from other men.

Christine Lambert chose her moment and her menu with great care. They had steak and their first Jersey Royal new potatoes of the year, with purple sprouting broccoli from their own garden. She had one glass of a very agreeable Merlot and John had two. They had cheesecake for dessert; she passed him a second helping without a word after his first longing glance at what was left. She sent him into the lounge to decide upon their television viewing for the night, whilst she cleared the dishes and prepared the coffee. She poured him a brandy to drink with his, then, after a moment’s consideration, set a second, token measure for herself beside it on the tray.

The feminists would have been tutting long ago, she thought. But she had her methods of achieving things, old-fashioned but generally effective. She looked at the tray and wondered if she was overdoing things, whether John might see through her obvious ploys. But men were credulous creatures, when your weapons were food and drink. That was surely a thought of which even the most modern woman could approve.

She asked him about his day and he talked to her a little about it, as he would never have done twenty years ago. When he asked her about her own day, she knew that this was the moment she had been waiting for. ‘I’ve been tying up a few things concerned with the literary festival. I like Marjorie Dooks. She says what she thinks and doesn’t say other things behind your back. She treads on a few toes, but she gets things done. And she’s not afraid of work herself. She doesn’t ask you to do things just because she doesn’t fancy them herself. She makes you feel as if you’re definitely the best person for the job.’

‘That’s good. I’ve had mixed reports about her, but nothing to contradict what you’ve just said.’ John Lambert contemplated the big globe of his brandy glass, rolled its contents pensively around inside it, and took an appreciative sip.

She marvelled anew at his policeman’s capacity for gathering information she did not think he would have. He took no obvious interest in local affairs, yet whenever anything came up, he invariably seemed to know far more than she would have expected. A CID trait, he said apologetically, whenever she remarked upon it. You kept your ears open to everything, including gossip and rumour, and filed it away for future reference. There was nothing sinister or complex about it; you just trained your memory to do these things.

Christine said as casually as she could, ‘It looks as though David Knight will be coming. Sue Charles has been using her influence.’

John Lambert gazed at his brandy and said, carefully neutral, ‘That’s good. He’s a big name in the crime-writing field. You’re doing well to get him here.’

‘Marjorie still wants to get you on the platform with him.’

He took an unhurried sip of the brandy, allowing himself a moment to savour its warmth in his throat and his chest. He tried not to sound sententious as he said, ‘I should have thought Sue Charles was the one to introduce him, as she’s done all the work to get him here. She might feel quite hurt if you brought in someone who doesn’t even know the man.’

‘I agree.’ Nervousness had made her agreement too prompt, too eager. ‘But Marjorie had a good idea. Maybe even a brilliant one. She thought if you were on the platform for the question and answer section, you’d be able to speak from the point of view of someone fighting real crime. Illustrate the differences between fact and fiction you’re always so anxious to point out when you catch me watching detective series on television.’