Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 114, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 697 & 698, September/October 1999

In Charity with Her Neighbour by David Williams

©1999 by David Williams

“ ‘In Charity With Her Neighbor’ is the nearest I’ve come to a Father Brown crime/parable,” said David Williams in his submission letter to EQMM, “hut the subject seemed appropriate with the Emperor of Japan good-will missioning all over the place.” (This was spring of 1998!) Mr. Williams’s critically acclaimed hooks featuring the Welsh policeman Inspector Parry may soon he seen on TV as they’ve recently been optioned.

“Choosing neighbours isn’t normally a proposition, Mrs. Rigby. In your situation, it’s pretty well impossible, you I being the existing resident,” the dapper, middle-aged Terence Snell explained with too much finality. Realising this, he compensated by adopting a look of profound concern — though frustration was what he was really feeling. “Naturally I’ll do everything I can to help you. But, really, my hands are tied,” he completed in the well-bred accent that was a little less contrived than the facial expression. Leaning forward over his desk in the manner of a benign clergyman, he brought his hands together in a prayerful kind of way.

As senior partner of Upshot and Snell, the larger of the two real-estate agencies in the thriving commuter village of Comer, Snell was always at pains to accommodate even the most eccentric wishes of the locals. He tried even harder with older locals, whose properties, in the natural order of things, were likely to come on the market sooner rather than later — whether at their owners’ instigation or that of their executors. And not to put a finer point on it, Phyllis Rigby was well over ninety.

“My late husband used to say that nothing is impossible until someone else has done it, Mr. Snell, by which time it’s too late,” the lady responded in a high, even voice, each consonant emerging with exquisite clarity.

The patrician Edith Rigby was a tall, slight, but prepossessing figure, still unbending, with a parched, weather-beaten face, alert, pale blue eyes, and steel-grey hair pulled back tightly into a bun that was presently sheltering under a narrow-brimmed, tip-tilted straw hat. The plucked eyebrows had been replaced with perfectly arched, auburn pencilling, and the thin mouth was just as clearly defined with bold red lipstick. She was wearing a calf-length, short-sleeved lilac silk dress with a pleated skirt, white cotton gloves, and court shoes to match. The dress was now hardly the height of fashion, but it had been three decades earlier when Mrs. Rigby had bought it — at Harrods.

“And your husband was right, Mrs. Rigby, as he so often was. What a brilliant man. And still sorely missed in the community.” Snell paused to allow the compliment to be savoured. “The success of this business confirms the very comment you’ve quoted,” he continued confidently, gazing with pride around his private office and absently smoothing a finger across his moustache, while still making up his mind how to cope with a delicate and, if he wasn’t careful, promisingly loss-making situation. “I’ve stopped counting the times we’ve been told by clients that we’ve achieved the impossible. But that’s why they retain us. To do what others can’t. Not surprisingly, we do twice the business of our competitors.”

“Indeed, Mr. Snell. Then I still fail to see why you can’t make sure that Richmount isn’t sold to a Japanese buyer. As I’ve said, if the opposite should happen, I’d never again be able to sleep in my bed at Foresters.”

In which case, dear lady, Snell mused silently, the best course would be for me to sell up for you, while you move to an expensive retirement home. His more realistic second thought was that if Mrs. Rigby was impelled to move, she’d hardly be likely to have him act for her if he’d been involved in the impelling. That was where the potential loss-making came in.

Richmount was the only property that shared a boundary with Foresters, Mrs. Rigby’s own house, which occupied a corner site on the internationally renowned Comer Golf Course Estate — one of the most exclusive residential areas in the English Home Counties.

Set high on its own sloping five acres, Richmount had just been expensively refurbished and enlarged, prior to its being offered for sale with vacant possession.

Mrs. Rigby’s Foresters was bounded by roads to the north and west, and by a woodland belt to the south. A smaller building than the neighbouring one, it occupied more land, but, in greater contrast, had been slowly decaying for the quarter of a century since the death of Mrs. Rigby’s spouse. When the place eventually changed hands, it would almost certainly be knocked down and rebuilt — but would fetch a handsome price all the same.

The estate agent gave a sickly smile intended to imply the reassurance he couldn’t offer in words. “As I said, we’ve had more than a dozen prospective buyers looking at Richmount, Mrs. Rigby. Naturally a number have been well-to-do people from abroad. Directors of foreign companies working in this country. Comer deservedly gets the pick of such people, of course, being so close to London...” He had intended adding more from his standard sales patter about the attractions of the golf, the frequent train service to London, the relative closeness of the M40 motorway, Heathrow Airport, Windsor, Ascot, and even Oxford, all of them attractive features to a foreign buyer — information Mrs. Rigby knew as well as he did, which was one of the reasons she interrupted him.

“I am not troubled with the numbers of possible buyers, Mr. Rigby. I am deeply concerned that Godlock, my gardener, saw a...” She took a long breath... “a Japanese couple going over the house yesterday.” Mrs. Rigby clutched harder at her white leather handbag, as though there was a sudden and immediate danger of its being snatched from her.

Snell moved uncomfortably in his chair. He knew Godlock, a lazy, gossipy fellow, who was long past retirement age and who spent more time leaning on garden implements than using them, a shortcoming evidenced by the state of the Foresters garden, or what could be seen of it down the overgrown, crumbling driveway. “I believe there was a Japanese couple there yesterday,” he offered with calculated vagueness. “Also some Russians, and, the day before, an American, as well as two lots of prospective buyers from Hong Kong...”

“Only the Japanese concern me, Mr. Snell,” the lady broke in again impatiently. “As neighbours of that... of that specific nationality would certainly concern you, if you and your wife had spent three and a half years in Malayan prison camps from nineteen forty-two to nineteen forty-five, as my husband and I did.”

“Of course, that must have been a... a harrowing experience for you both,” the estate agent offered solemnly.

“Harrowing, Mr. Snell? Harrowing?” Mrs. Rigby repeated in a rising, scandalised voice. “It was hell on earth. An experience you can’t begin to understand if you didn’t go through it. An experience I relive vividly every time I set eyes on... on one of those people.”

“But nowadays, surely, there are any number of Japanese members of the golf club, Mrs. Rigby?”

“Whom I never see because my trees shield the house and grounds from a view of the course. I presently go about very little, and I’ve long since given up my club membership,” the lady explained shortly, then continued: “It’s the prospect of having a Japanese family living next door that fills me with horror. Yes, horror, Mr. Snell. Understand that and you will understand why I am here.” A slight tremble went through her body before she added, in a more rational voice: “I am willing to pay you.”

There was a moment’s silence while Snell dismally reflected on a further disappointment. “You mean if I arrange for the house not to be sold to a Japanese?”

“Certainly. We can call it a consultant’s fee. In cash, if you wish. A private arrangement between us.” Mrs. Rigby had outlined the somewhat discreditable terms of her offer with an indifference implying that while they were alien to her own standards they probably met Snell’s well enough — assuming he possessed standards.

All of which might have constituted a licence for her listener to print money for himself. In fairness, he’d have had scruples about meeting Mrs. Rigby’s request, at least in quite the blatant form in which she had put it. But there might have been a creative way around that — if only she had come to him sooner.

He shook his head. “But what you suggest wouldn’t be ethical. I’d never do such a thing.” Making virtue out of necessity was also part of Snell’s stock in trade. But there was no joy in his mouthing what amounted to cant on this occasion.

If only he hadn’t promised the property developers who had entrusted him with the sale of Richmount that he could get such a high price for the house. It had been so outrageously high that, despite his bragging, countless viewers had either been frightened off by it or had made offers well below it. The only potential buyer the asking price hadn’t fazed was the one who had agreed to accept it the day before, and who had already had his deposit notarised, which legally secured him the property.

The buyer’s name was Isamu Nakashima.

“I am quite sure, Sergeant, that the robbery was carried out by the person who moved into Richmount three months ago. Just like the other robbery here last month.”

“But Mrs. Rigby, because of your suspicions, we’ve interviewed Mr. Nakashima twice. Yesterday, and soon after the first robbery,” Detective Sergeant Holladay of the Thames Valley CID responded quietly. “It’s quite clear he had nothing to do with either burglary.”

“He has a wife and three children.”

“But they weren’t involved either, ma’am. I give you my word on that.”

The clean-cut, sports-jacketed, thirty-two-year-old policeman shifted on the cushion under him in a vain attempt to flatten the lump pressing into his upper leg. He stole a further glance around the oak-panelled drawing room, which, like the rest of the house, he found eerie, stifling, and deeply oppressive.

The two were sitting in semi-darkness although it was broad daylight outside. This was because the threadbare brocade curtains at the three pairs of leaded windows were more than half closed. Holladay calculated that moving them might have risked their collapsing onto the furniture below, which included a delicate, inlaid escritoire horribly bleached after exposure there for too many summers. Everywhere there was blemish and decay. An antique chaise longue, under the window closest to him, and covered in what had once been a pink fabric, had the stuffing spewing from its innards in several places. Not that the couch had offered a place to sit, since it was in use as a depository for mounds of yellowing correspondence.

A sizeable, semicircular inlaid side table on Holladay’s right was crammed with precious ornaments, including a tall white porcelain bird on a branch, which the policeman was in dread of knocking over. There had been no room there to set anything down, nor was there any on the long low table in front of him, which was stacked haphazardly with more aging documents, books, and magazines with curled-up covers. This was why he was still holding the china cup and saucer he’d been handed. They were doubtless part of a once important set, but with the cup now so stained and cracked he had so far hesitated to put his lips to its contents. Thankfully, Mrs. Rigby had seemed not to notice his abstinence. She was sitting very straight in a parched leather winged chair that nearly matched the slightly less worn one he was occupying. He balanced the tea in one hand, with his notebook on his knee, and held both his elbows tightly against his sides.

“Mr. Nakashima is European Chief Executive of the Minato Corporation, Mrs. Rigby,” the sergeant continued. “It’s a huge outfit. His salary probably runs into... into half a million at least. I know your garden statues and your Georgian silver were extremely valuable, but really, he doesn’t need to steal things.” Mrs. Rigby gave a bitter smile. “Of course he doesn’t. That’s not the purpose of the robberies. Any fool can see that. Don’t you realise, he’s persecuting me? He wants me out of this house. He’ll never forgive me for trying to stop him owning Richmount. In the end, you know, I offered to buy it myself, but he wouldn’t give up his claim.”

Holladay frowned. He’d had it on good authority that the price had been too rich for the lady. “You know, I’m sure you’re wrong about Mr. Nakashima, ma’am,” he offered. “Incidentally, he told me he came here to see you. That was after the final row you had with him and his lawyer, at the estate agents.”

“He told you of that, did he? Hmph.”

“Yes. You know, he very much wanted to make things up afterwards.”

“Which he could have done by not buying the house.”

“Except he’d bought it already by then, ma’am.”

“So he and that fool Snell insist.”

“We gather that was true, Mrs. Rigby. Anyway, he wanted to be a good neighbour and all that, but...”

“But I refused to talk to him. I turned him away at the door. His wife too. She came later.” Recalling the episodes seemed to provide the speaker with a good deal of satisfaction.

“They have tried, ma’am.” He wondered why he was doing community liaison work when he was paid to investigate crime.

“Correction, Sergeant. They give the appearance of trying. You don’t understand the Oriental mind. He lost face when I told him he’d committed an unforgivable error in etiquette by challenging the intention and the veracity of an English widowed lady. Since I wouldn’t accept his apology, he has no alternative but to oust me from my home. He wants me out because the sight of me perpetuates his shame.”

“From what he and his wife have told me, I can’t believe...”

“What they’ve told you is balderdash, Sergeant,” Mrs. Rigby broke in. “You realise too that they simply constitute a... a vanguard. The Japanese abroad live in tightly knit groups. The Nakashimas are only the first to buy property on the Comer Estate. Others will follow. And the next house they plan to acquire is this one. But over my dead body.”

“With respect, ma’am, I’m sure that’s wrong. About their trying to get you out, I mean. Mr. Nakashima and his wife impressed on me how keen they are to meld into the community here. They’re already active members of the golf club, and the children will be going to local schools in September, after the holidays.”

“All a lot of humbug, Sergeant,” came the disdainful response. “And do you have any better theory than mine about who’s been burgling my house?”

“As a matter of fact, we do, ma’am, and that’s really why I’m here. You see, this property is so unprotected by present-day standards.”

“I have a burglar alarm,” she retorted with spirit.

“But you’ve told us you never switch it on, ma’am.”

The lady lifted her chin. “That’s because the wretched thing keeps going wrong. The bell sets itself off for no reason.” This time her words sounded more defensive than convincing.

“That’s possibly because it’s old and, er... cumbersome to operate, ma’am. They’re much more...” he stopped himself from saying foolproof... “much more reliable these days.”

“So they should be. I’m charged a fortune by the alarm company when they come to reset the thing. That’s after it’s gone off of its own accord.”

The sergeant tutted in apparent sympathy before continuing. “I notice a lot of your boundary-road fencing is broken down, ma’am, and you don’t have a gate to the main drive anymore.”

“That collapsed with age. In any case, at my time of life, it’s far too much bother to open a heavy gate every time I take the car out.”

“You could have an electric gate fitted, ma’am. It would stop any vehicle getting onto the property. That puts off a lot of intruders, not having the means of a quick getaway handy, and having to carry the loot any distance.”

“An electric gate would be far too expensive.”

“The fact remains, ma’am, and without wanting to alarm you in any way, we believe this property may now be well known to a specialist bunch of thieves. The first haul was valuable garden sculpture...”

“On which my husband was an expert as well as a collector.”

“Indeed, ma’am? Pretty valuable stuff these days, I expect. The second burglary was antique silver.”

“Yes. And they only took the best. Like my Georgian tea service. Which is why I’m sorry we’re taking tea from an aluminum pot.” She nodded at the object which was placed at a drunken angle on a long footstool in front of her. Beside the teapot, and poised quite as unevenly, was a sugar bowl, a slop basin, and a saucer of sliced lemon sections, mostly in unmatching china. The thieves had relieved her of her silver tray as well, and she had baulked at using a plastic one from the kitchen for formal entertaining, even for formally entertaining a policeman. In truth, it was a long time since she had offered hospitality to anyone else.

“Excellent tea all the same, ma’am,” he said after closing his eyes and risking a gulp of it. “And I gather you have a fine collection of pictures. Well, I can see that from here. Plus a collection of carved ivories.”

“They were others of my husband’s interests.”

“Is that right?”

“And all impossible to insure these days, Sergeant, except at ridiculous premiums. So far, I’ve been offered derisory sums from the insurance company for my losses. I’m challenging, of course.”

“My point, ma’am, is that there may well be more burglary attempts. A lot of professional thieves these days are experts. They take just the things they know have a high value, which they can dispose of quickly through crooked dealers. And they sell information to each other as well. The thieves who took the silver will have noted the other good stuff you have. They may even have taken photos of it, to pass on to mates or dealers who specialise in pictures, ivories...”

“So Mr. Nakashima is able to organise an orchestrated stripping of my possessions,” she broke in. “Which will probably end up in their attempting to murder me in my bed. I was asleep during the first two raids. Well, let them try me again, and see what they get.” The sentence was punctuated by a stiffening of the finely boned jaw.

“It’s very unlikely you’ll be assaulted by the sort of thieves I’m describing, ma’am. And, I repeat, I’m sure Mr. Nakashima isn’t involved.”

“I was never burgled before he and his family moved in.” Holladay accepted that the last remark was as lacking in logic as it was impossible to refute. “I gather you don’t have anyone living in, ma’am?” he said slowly, trying a new tack. “A housekeeper or a companion?”

“Certainly not. The inconvenience would be unbearable and the cost prohibitive. As it is, I have a daily woman who breaks practically everything she touches. To have someone like her living in the house would ruin me, and cause me great anguish into the bargain.” She drank from her cup. “Godlock, my gardener, is here three days every week. The break-ins don’t occur in the daytime, no doubt for that reason. But at night, thieves naturally assume everyone in the house would be asleep, and they’d be right. So what would be the point of filling the place with costly staff? And all because of a vendetta against me.”

“But you can still do a lot about improving security here, ma’am,” the sergeant insisted, purposely not rising to the bait of her last comment.

There was silence for a moment until Mrs. Rigby offered: “I understand, Sergeant. And I promise I’ll look into it.” Her tone had become both peremptory and dismissive. She also seemed very tired.

The sergeant left a few minutes later, fairly certain he’d achieved nothing by the visit, just as he was too objective a policeman entirely to place all the onus for that on the old lady. Of course she was being stubborn. He understood her ingrained prejudice against her new neighbours without at all condoning it, and he blamed himself for not being able to persuade her that at her age, and with her relative affluence, the mere cost of home protection should not be the prime consideration. The fact remained, she was a relic of a golden age when gates were ornamental, when front doors, like garages, could be left unlocked, and when a burglar alarm was so unnecessary as to be considered a social-climbing affectation. He had a grandmother nearly as old as Mrs. Rigby who was quite as obstinate, and even more careful with her money — though she had a good deal less of it than the owner of Foresters. The principle was the same, though. They’d both survived the rigours of life in general and of wars in particular with their own ideals intact, and were resentful of the current calamitous drop in moral attitudes.

Nor did Holladay really believe what he had told her about burglars being non-violent, because some were, and some weren’t. If she chose to confront one, or more likely two, it was a toss-up how she’d be treated. That was what bothered him most.

It was midnight on Friday, over a week later. Isamu Nakashima was leaning on the balustrade of the balcony to his upper-floor, west-facing study at Richmount. He was wearing an evening dress shirt and trousers, the shirt open at the neck. He had come outside, before turning in, to savour the stillness of the moonlit night and the tranquillity of the country. His wife Michiko had gone straight to bed with a headache on their return from a formal dinner in London an hour before. There had been some paperwork waiting which he’d needed to look over before sending a brief fax to Tokyo. To avoid disturbing Michiko, he was going to sleep in his dressing room.

Everything was as good as it could be for the forty-eight-year-old Mr. Nakashima. The Minato Corporation in Europe was doing well under his management. Michiko and the children, already attuned to life in the UK before they had moved to Comer from the London apartment, were settling down well in the new environment. He was sure rural life was better for the whole family than living in town. As for himself, his golf handicap had come down, he had taken up tennis again, and he swam regularly in the Richmount pool. Nor did he resent the extra weekday travelling. The company headquarters were in northwest London, and to avoid the worst traffic, he needed to leave the house at six, getting back usually around eight at the earliest. But he had a company driver and now did the bulk of his reading in the car. It was all worth it to have the weekends here.

The single local problem, well, the single permanent vexation in Mr. Nakashima’s life was Mrs. Rigby, and it irritated him that he still hadn’t been able to dismiss it from his consciousness. He actually worried about Mrs. Rigby as much as if she had been his own mother who had died three years before.

Mr. Nakashima looked across Richmount’s manicured lawns and borders toward the tree-lined boundary with Foresters, the moon making shadows on the scene like the sun in daytime. He gave an impatient sigh. If only that cantankerous, magnificent, stubborn, splendid old British Empire survivor would see sense. Apart from anything else, at her age, and living alone, she badly needed caring neighbours. And the Nakashimas were ready to be just that. He well understood the root of her problem, but the past was past, and she was denying herself a better present. It wasn’t good for her to be alone. He’d gathered from the police sergeant and from older golf-club members that she had no children or other family, and it didn’t seem that she had many friends left alive either. In all the weeks they had been neighbours, no member of the family had ever noticed anyone visit the house except tradesmen — never once seen a private car turn into the drive.

But it was while that last thought was still in Mr. Nakashima’s mind that a private car did turn into the unobstructed gateway of Foresters. The fleeting look he got of it suggested it might be a four-wheel-drive vehicle: The reflection from side windows meant it couldn’t be a van, but it was too high to be a salon car. Curiously, he hadn’t heard it approach along the road. Apart from the trees and vegetation that broke up the view, the vehicle was travelling without lights and creeping forward slowly, with no sound of the engine revving. But Mr. Nakashima had sharp eyesight, and he followed the progress between the trees until the moving object disappeared where the drive swung toward the house front.

Two minutes later the strongly built Japanese was himself moving fast on foot up the Foresters drive, a heavy-duty, rubberised flashlight in one hand and a metal golf club in the other. He had delayed only to pull on trainers and to instruct his bleary-eyed wife to call the police.

A Range Rover was parked outside the house, facing down the driveway. Its tailgate was open and Mr. Nakashima could see one large and one small framed oil painting lying on some sheeting inside. As he expected, the front door to the house opened to his touch. Stepping inside, he stood still for a moment, eyes closed, acclimatising to the nearly pitch darkness. Soon he could make out a hall with a broad staircase at the rear that seemed to descend directly into a large drawing room, with only an open archway between the two. Then, better able to distinguish obstacles in his path, he moved silently under the arch and into the room that was only a fraction better lit than the hallway.

Two figures with their backs to him, one standing on a chair, were lifting another picture from the wall. As they both turned about, with the heavy frame held between them, Mr. Nakashima switched on his torch, quickly shining the powerful, piercing beam in the eyes of both men in turn. They reacted like dazzled hares.

“Armed police. Freeze,” thundered the Japanese in an accent and tone indistinguishable from native English, delivered with convincing inbred authority. “Put the picture against the wall. Now, both of you, on the floor, facedown, arms and legs spread. Do it!”

To his relief, his orders were obeyed to the letter — for the few seconds that elapsed before the scene changed dramatically.

“He’s not police. He’s by himself. We can take him.” The voice had emanated from the middle of the staircase.

Mr. Nakashima swung the torch beam in the direction of the new threat, as, with a deep-throated roar, he launched himself up the steps, golf club poised. But when he and his quarry were two treads apart, the whole area was suddenly flooded with light, and Mrs. Rigby was revealed standing stalwart and imperious above the top step. She was in an ankle-length housecoat, her arms outstretched, with both hands determinedly clasping a service revolver.

Taken off guard by the lights, Mr. Nakashima mistimed the flailing with his makeshift weapon, allowing the third burglar — now solely concerned with escape — to duck and attempt to plunge past him. Except the man tripped over his would-be assailant’s foot and grabbed at his shirt to prevent his own fall. The increased momentum carried both figures down the stairs together. To a fresh observer, it just could have seemed that the two were allies who had become accidentally entangled during a hasty flight.

Mrs. Rigby was not only a fresh observer, but also a prejudiced one. “Rob a defenceless woman, would you! Well, take what you deserve. Japanese scum,” she cried shrilly, and started shooting. The first two bullets, both aimed at Mr. Nakashima, missed him, the second lodging in his assailant’s left buttock as he attempted to rise from the foot of the stairs. But the plucky lady’s targeting — or luck — improved with practice, despite the way the gun bucked in her hand with every shot. The third bullet hit her friendly neighbour in the right shoulder as he too was scrambling to his feet.

“Mrs. Rigby, it’s me, Nakashima. Stop shooting,” he cried as she aimed at him again.

“I know who it is, you swine. You and your hired underlings,” she cried with maniacal intensity, before the gun exploded again. Mrs. Rigby was on a high. This time the bullet narrowly missed Mr. Nakashima’s head, ricocheted off a now reverberating copper gong suspended below the stairwell before it homed in the right calf of one of the other two burglars who were now racing for the door. All four of Mrs. Rigby’s unwelcome callers were now trying to quit the premises — Mr. Nakashima, mentally as well as physically wounded by her actions, with as much alacrity as the criminals.

It was the leading and so far unscathed burglar who threw open the front door — and promptly hurled himself into the arms of a burly uniformed policeman.

It was nine o’clock in the morning when Mr. Nakashima, patched up and discharged from hospital, had presented himself on the doorstep of Foresters, alongside Sergeant Holladay. Mrs. Rigby had already been interviewed — and rehearsed — by the sergeant, before he had gone to fetch her neighbour.

The drawing room, in which they were now seated, had been very little changed by the night’s drama. If anything, its appearance was neater following the attentions of the policemen and women who had descended on the place to collect evidence, and who, before their departure, had tidied up some of the owner’s private chaos, believing it might have been made by themselves — or the intruders. Certainly there was more daylight flooding into the room than there had been on the sergeant’s previous visit, though the now wide-open window drapes looked even more perilously poised.

“Sergeant Holladay has explained all the circumstances to me, Mr. Nakashima. I’m... I’m much obliged to you. Intervening in the way you did was very brave,” Mrs. Rigby uttered slowly and precisely, as if each word was being reluctantly squeezed from her body like the last slivers of toothpaste from an as good as spent tube.

“Anyone else would have done the same, Mrs. Rigby,” the recipient of this tribute replied politely, twice bowing his head energetically as he spoke. The lady’s gratitude was being accepted with more grace than had been entirely discernible in its offering.

Holladay cleared his throat loudly, at the same time fixing Mrs. Rigby with an expectant lift of one eyebrow. This was a reminder that her planned performance was not yet completed.

She met the sergeant’s gaze stolidly and smoothed her skirt across her legs with both hands. “I am also very sorry indeed for... for shooting you, Mr. Nakashima. Shooting you in error. It was unforgivable on my part,” she added, her voice even more strained than before.

“Think nothing of it, Mrs. Rigby. In the circumstances, it was a natural mistake. It’s only a flesh wound.” The speaker had again punctuated his responses with courteous inflections of his head.

“And Mr. Nakashima and his lawyer have told us they won’t be bringing charges against you, ma’am, for assault with a deadly weapon,” the policeman interposed, with heavy emphasis on his last words. For the old lady’s benefit, he had been anxious to have the reprieve on record, and unchallenged. As for the two wounded criminals, they were slightly more incapacitated than Mr. Nakashima, but unlikely to test any judge’s sense of common justice by attempting to sue their nonagenarian burgled victim. They had also been made aware that their abjurance in this might earn some mitigation in the matter of their own defenceless wrong-doing.

There remained the fact that the gun had been unregistered as well as unregisterable: Private possession of such firearms was no longer permitted under British law. Even so, the sergeant believed that, in the circumstances, Mrs. Rigby would be let off with a fine and a warning, not the customary jail sentence.

Mrs. Rigby did not verbally acknowledge the news of her alleged good fortune, which, in any case, she regarded merely as her just desert. Any words of gratitude in this context would accordingly have stuck in her throat. Instead, she emulated her neighbour’s bowing, but, in her case, with a not very low bow, performed only the once — and stiffly.

“My wife, Michiko, hopes you’re recovered from the ordeal, Mrs. Rigby. If there’s anything we can do—”

“Please thank your wife for her enquiry. There’s nothing...” she’d interrupted too soon, and had hesitated because the sergeant had pointedly cleared his throat again. “But if there is anything, I’ll let you know,” she completed.

There was a moment’s uncomfortable silence before Mrs. Rigby, brought up to know it was a hostess’s duty to bridge such awkward impasses, enquired, “I understand your home is in Kyoto, Mr. Nakashima? I’m told that is a very historic, sacred city. Is your wife from there too?”

The businessman smiled. “Not from Kyoto, no. Michiko’s parents both came from two hundred miles west of Kyoto. From... from Hiroshima,” he completed quietly.

“Indeed.” There was a briefer but decidedly more pregnant silence before Mrs. Rigby asked, this time as if the answer concerned her a little more, “They were not in Hiroshima at... at the end of the war?”

“They lived there, yes, but it happened they were away when the bomb was dropped. They were on their honeymoon.” He gave a wan smile. “Their own parents were not so lucky. They all died.”

Mrs. Rigby blinked several times. “That was truly devastating for your parents.” This was delivered as a statement, not as a question.

“I gather it was. Heartbreaking.” Mr. Nakashima looked steadily into the lady’s eyes. “But that’s a long time ago. Before Michiko and I were born. All is now...”

Before he could use the word on his lips, Mrs. Rigby provided it, and again with great certainty: “Forgiven,” she said.

“Exactly, Mrs. Rigby.” His face and voice livened as he added, “Today we are all good neighbours with our old adversaries, of course.”

“Of course.” If either of her hearers was expecting an utterance more handsome, he was disappointed. At this point, actions were more expressive than words for Mrs. Rigby, who now looked about in her most majesterial manner. It was as though she intended ordering a servant to do something, then, since there wasn’t a servant, she enquired, “Would either of you care for coffee? It would be no trouble.”

Both men refused politely and got up to leave. As she offered her hand to her neighbour with no evident hesitation, Mrs. Rigby said: “I shall write to your wife directly, Mr. Nakashima, and invite her to come here with the children for tea on Tuesday. My garden is wilder than yours, but children enjoy that, don’t they?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rigby, I’m sure they’ll all be delighted.”

The sergeant smiled to himself. He hoped there was an uncracked tea set for treaty-signing occasions.