Christopher Fowler - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

“His mother lied about his alibi. Either she said she was awake when she was asleep or she knew he wasn’t at home when he said he was, when — when he. ”

“All right, love. It’s all right.” Wilf veered around the body and offered her his hands, though not quite close enough for her to touch. “How did you find that out?”

“She let it slip one day and he tried to shut her up.”

“Why couldn’t you have told the police?”

“I did.”

“You — oh, I get you.” He was silent while he dealt with this, and Claire took the opportunity to retrieve her glass, not to finish her drink but to place it out of danger on the sideboard. Gummer’s body seemed such a fixture of the room that she was practically unaware of blotting out her sense of it as she picked up the glass. The clunk of the tumbler on wood recalled Wilf from his thoughts, and he said almost pleadingly “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What would you have done?”

He stepped forward and took her hands at last. “What do you think? When the police didn’t listen, probably the same as you. Only I wouldn’t have done it here where it can’t be hidden.”

“It’s done now. It can’t be helped, and I don’t want it to be.”

“I wish to God you’d left it to me.” He stared around the room, so that she thought he was desperate for a change of subject until he said “What did you use?”

“The gin. The bottle, I mean. It did some good for a change.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

Nevertheless he relinquished one of her hands. Before she knew what he intended, he was hefting the bottle as though to convince himself it had been the weapon. “Don’t,” she protested, then saw her concern was misplaced. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Your fingerprints would be on it anyway.”

“So would yours.”

“What are you getting — ”

“Just listen while I think. We haven’t much time. The longer we wait before we call the police, the worse this is going to look.”

“Wilf, it can’t look any worse than it is.”

“Listen, will you. We can’t have you going to prison. You’d never survive.”

“I’ll have to do my best. When everyone knows the truth — ”

“Maybe they won’t. You used to think he was sniffing round you. Suppose that got out somehow? I know how lawyers think. They’ll twist anything they can.”

“He wasn’t interested in me. It was Laura.”

“You say that, but how can you prove it in court? Your instincts are enough for you, I know that, for me too if I even need to tell you. But they won’t be enough if his mother sticks to her story, and if your lawyer tried to break her down too much think how that would look, them harassing an old woman with nobody left in the world.”

“All right, you’ve shown me how wrong I am,” Claire said, feeling not far short of betrayed. “Any suggestions?”

“More than a suggestion.”

He reached out and drew his hand down her cheek in a slow caress as he used to when they hadn’t long been married, then patted her face before sidling around her into the hall. She had no idea of his intentions until he unhooked the phone. “Wilf — ”

“It’s all right. I’m going to make it all right. Hello.” Though he was gazing so hard at her it stopped her in the doorway, the last word wasn’t addressed to her. “Detective Inspector Bairns, please.”

“Wilf, wait a minute. Ring off before he can tell who you are. Don’t stay anything till we’ve — ”

“Inspector? It’s Wilfred Maynard. I’ve killed the man who took our daughter from us.”

Claire grabbed the doorframe as her knees began to shake. She would have snatched the phone from him if it hadn’t been too late. Instead she sent herself into the room as soon as she felt safe to walk. She could hardly believe it, but she was hoping she hadn’t killed Gummer after all. She fastened her fingertips on the wrist of the sprawled empty flesh. She held it longer than made sense, she even said a prayer, but it was no use. The lump of flesh and muscle was already growing cold, and there wasn’t the faintest stirring of life within.

“I’ll be staying here, Inspector. I give you my word. I wouldn’t have called you otherwise,” she heard Wilf say. She walked on her unwieldy brittle legs into the hall in time to see him hang the receiver. “Wilf,” she pleaded, “what have you done?”

“Saved as much that we’ve got as I could. I know I can take prison better than you can. Quick now, before they come. Help me get my tale straight. How did you bring him here? Was he just passing or what?”

She thought of refusing to answer so that Wilf couldn’t prepare a story, but the possibility that their last few minutes together might be wasted in arguing was unbearable. “I called him at home.”

“Will Mrs Gummer know?”

“He said she’d be wondering where he’d got to.”

“You hadn’t long come in from gardening, had you? Did anyone see him arrive?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Just say he stopped when he saw you gardening and you invited him in. And when you’d both had a drink you accused him over Laura, and I came home just in time to hear him say what?”

“I don’t know. Wilf — ”

“ ‘You can’t prove anything.’ That’s as good as a confession, isn’t it, or it was for me at any rate. He was shouting, so he didn’t hear me, because I let myself in quietly to find out what the row was. How many times did you hit him?”

“Do you have to be so calculating about it? I feel as if I’m already in court.”

“I have to know, don’t I? How many times?”

“It just took the once.”

“That’s fine, Claire. Really it is.” He offered her his hands again, and finding no response, let them sink. “It’ll be manslaughter. I heard Laura’s name and him saying you couldn’t prove it, and that was enough. There was a moment when I lost control, and then it was done and there was no turning back. That’s how it must have been for you, am I right? They’ll believe me because that’s how these things happen.”

He must be trying to live through her experience, but she felt no less alone. “Do they, Wilf?”

“Wait, I’ve got it. They’ll believe me because I couldn’t have had any other reason to kill him. It’s not as though I could have imagined anything was going on between you two, even if you did imagine he fancied you.”

Even in the midst of their situation, that felt cruel to her. “Thank you, Wilf.”

“I have to say it, haven’t I? Otherwise they might get the wrong idea. Look, there’s a good chance the court will be lenient, and if it isn’t I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a public outcry. And I can’t imagine I’ll have too bad a time of it in jail. It’s his kind that suffer the worst in there, not the ones who’ve dealt with them.”

“You sound as though you’re looking forward to being locked up.”

“What a thing to say, Claire. How could anyone feel like that?”

As she’d spoken she’d known the remark was absurd, yet his need to persuade her it was made it seem less so. “Why would I want anything that’s going to take me away from you?” he said.

Claire had a sense of hearing words that didn’t quite go with the movements of his mouth. No, not with those — with his thoughts. Before she could ponder this, she heard several cars braking sharply outside the house, and a rapid slamming of at least six doors. “Here they are,” Wilf said.

The latch of the gate clicked, and then it sounded as though not much less than an army marched up the path. The doorbell rang once, twice. The Maynards looked at each other with a deference that felt to Claire like prolonging the last moment of their marriage as it had been. Then Wilf moved to open the door.