Not Safe After Dark

THE WRONG HANDS

‘Is everything in order?’ the old man asked, his scrawny fingers clutching the comforter like talons.

‘Seems to be,’ said Mitch.

Drawing up the will had been a simple enough task. Mr Garibaldi and his wife had the dubious distinction of outliving both their children, and there wasn’t much to leave.

‘Would you like to sign it now?’ he asked, holding out his Mont Blanc.

The old man clutched the pen the way a child holds a crayon and scribbled his illegible signature on the documents.

‘There… that’s done,’ said Mitch. He placed the papers in his briefcase.

Mr Garibaldi nodded. The movement brought on a spasm and such a coughing fit that Mitch thought the old man was going to die right there and then.

But he recovered. ‘Will you do me a favour?’ he croaked when he’d got his breath back.

Mitch frowned. ‘If I can.’

With one bent, shrivelled finger, Mr Garibaldi pointed to the floor under the window. ‘Pull the carpet back,’ he said.

Mitch stood up and looked.

‘Please,’ said Mr Garibaldi. ‘The carpet.’

Mitch walked over to the window and rolled back the carpet. Underneath was nothing but floorboards.

‘One of the boards is loose,’ said the old man. ‘The one directly in line with the wall socket. Lift it up.’

Mitch felt and, sure enough, part of the floorboard was loose. He lifted it easily with his fingernails. Underneath, wedged between the joists, lay a package wrapped in old newspaper.

‘That’s it,’ said the old man. ‘Take it out.’

Mitch did. It was heavier than he had expected.

‘Now put the board back and replace the carpet.’

After he had done as he was asked, Mitch carried the package over to the bed.

‘Open it,’ said Mr Garibaldi. ‘Go on, it won’t bite you.’

Slowly, Mitch unwrapped the newspaper. It was from 18 December 1947, he noticed, and the headline reported a blizzard dumping twenty-eight inches of snow on New York City the day before. Inside, he found a layer of oilcloth. When he had folded back that too, a gun gleamed up at him. It was old, he could tell that, but it looked in superb condition. He hefted it into his hand, felt its weight and balance, pointed it towards the wall as if to shoot.

‘Be careful,’ said the old man. ‘It’s loaded.’

Mitch looked at the gun again, then put it back on the oilcloth. His fingers were smudged with oil or grease, so he took a tissue from the bedside table and wiped them off as best he could.

‘What the hell are you doing with a loaded gun?’ he asked.

Mr Garibaldi sighed. ‘It’s a Luger,’ he said. ‘First World War, probably. Old, anyway. A friend gave it to me many years ago. A German friend. I’ve kept it ever since. Partly as a memento of him and partly for protection. You know what this city’s been getting like these past few years. I’ve maintained it, cleaned it, kept it loaded. Now I’m gonna die I want to hand it in. I don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands.’

Mitch set the Luger down on the bed. ‘Why tell me?’ he asked.

‘Because it’s unregistered and I’d like you to hand it over for me.’ He shook his head and coughed again. ‘I haven’t got long left. I don’t want no cops coming round here and giving me a hard time.’

‘They won’t give you a hard time.’ More like give you a medal for handing over an unregistered firearm, Mitch thought.

‘Maybe not. But…’ Mr Garibaldi grabbed Mitch’s wrist with his talon. The fingers felt cold and dry, like a reptile’s skin. Mitch tried to pull back a little, but the old man held on, pulled him closer and croaked, ‘Sophie doesn’t know. It would make her real angry to know we had a gun in the house the last fifty years and I kept it from her. I don’t want to end my days with my wife mad at me. Please, Mr Mitchell. It’s a small favour I ask.’

Mitch scratched the side of his eye. True enough, he thought, it was a small favour. And it might prove a profitable one, too. Old firearms were worth something to collectors, and Mitch knew a cop who had connections. All he had to say was that he had been entrusted this gun by a client, who had brought it to his office, that he had put it in the safe and called the police immediately. What could be wrong with that?

‘OK,’ he said, rewrapping the gun and slipping it in his briefcase along with the will. ‘I’ll do as you ask. Don’t worry. You rest now. Everything will be OK.’

Mr Garibaldi smiled and seemed to sink into a deep sleep.

Mitch stood on the porch of the Garibaldi house and pulled on his sheepskin-lined gloves, glad to be out of the cloying atmosphere of the sickroom, even if it was minus ninety or something outside.

He was already wearing his heaviest overcoat over a suit and a wool scarf, but still he was freezing. It was one of those clear winter nights when the ice cracks underfoot and the breeze off the lake seems to numb you right to the bone. Reflected street lamps splintered in the broken mirror of the sidewalk, the colour of Mr Garibaldi’s jaundiced eyes.

Mitch pulled his coat tighter around his scarf and set off, cracking the iced-over puddles as he went. Here and there, the remains of last week’s snow had frozen into ruts, and he almost slipped and fell a couple of times on the uneven surface.

As he walked, he thought of old Garibaldi, with no more than a few weeks or days left to live. The old man must have been in pain sometimes, but he never complained. And he surely must be afraid of death? Maybe dying put things in perspective, Mitch thought. Maybe the mind, facing the eternal, icy darkness of death, had ways of dealing with its impending extinction, of discarding the dross, the petty and the useless.

Or perhaps not. Maybe the old man just lay there day after day running baseball statistics through his mind; or wishing he’d slept with his neighbour’s wife when he had the chance.

As Mitch walked up the short hill, he cursed the fact that you could never get a decent parking spot in these residential streets. He’d had to park in the lot behind the drug store, the next street over, and the quickest way there was through a dirt alley just about wide enough for a garbage truck to pass through.

It happened as he cut through the alley. And it happened so fast that, afterwards, he couldn’t be quite sure whether he felt the sharp blow to the back of his head before his feet slipped out from under him, or after.

When Mitch opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was the night sky. It looked like a black satin bed-sheet with some rich woman’s diamonds spilled all over it. There was no moon.

He felt frozen to the marrow. He didn’t know how long he had been lying there in the alley – long enough to die of exposure it felt like – but when he checked his watch, he saw he had only been out a little over five minutes. Not surprising no one had found him yet. Not here, on a night like this.

He lay on the frozen mud and took stock. Despite the cold, everything hurt – his elbow, which he had cracked trying to break his fall; his tailbone; his right shoulder; and, most of all, his head – and the pain was sharp and spiky, not at all numb like the rest of him. He reached around and touched the sore spot on the back of his head. His fingers came away sticky with blood.

He took a deep breath and tried to get to his feet, but he could only manage to slip and skitter around like a newborn deer, making himself even more dizzy. There was no purchase, nothing to grip. Snail-like, he slid himself along the ice towards the rickety fence. There, by reaching out and grabbing the wooden rails carefully, he was able to drag himself to his feet, picking up only a few splinters for his troubles.

At first, he wished he had stayed where he was. His head started to spin and he thought it was going to split open with pain. For a moment, he was sure he was going to fall again. He held on to the fence for dear life and vomited, the world swimming around his head. After that, he felt a little better. Maybe he wasn’t going to die.

The only light shone from a street lamp at the end of the alley, not really enough to search by, so Mitch used the plastic penlight attached to his key-ring to look for his briefcase. But it wasn’t there. Stepping carefully on the ribbed ice, still in pain and unsure of his balance, Mitch extended the area of his search in case the briefcase had skidded off somewhere on the ice when he fell. It was nowhere to be found.

Almost as an afterthought, as the horrible truth was beginning to dawn on him, he felt for his wallet. Gone. So he’d been mugged. The blow had come before the fall. And they’d taken his briefcase.

Then Mitch remembered the gun.

The next morning was a nightmare. Mitch had managed to get himself home from the alley without crashing the car, and after a long, hot bath, a tumbler of Scotch and four extra-strength Tylenol, he began to feel a little better. He seemed to remember his mother once saying you shouldn’t go to sleep after a bump on the head – he didn’t know why – but it didn’t stop him that night.

In the morning, he awoke aching all over.

When he had showered, taken more Tylenol and forced himself to eat some bran flakes, he poured a second cup of strong black coffee and sat down to think things out. None of his thoughts brought any comfort.

He hadn’t gone to the cops. How could he, given what he had been carrying? Whichever way you looked at it, he had been in possession of an illegal, unregistered firearm when he was mugged. Even if the cops had been lenient, there was the Law Society to reckon with, and like most lawyers, Mitch feared the Law Society far more than he feared the police.

Maybe he could have sort of skipped over the gun in his account of the mugging. After all, he was pretty sure that it couldn’t be traced either to him or to Garibaldi. But what if the cops found the briefcase and the gun was still inside it? How could he explain that?

Would that be worse than if the briefcase turned up and the gun was gone? If the muggers took it, the chances were someone might get shot with it. Either way, it was a bad scenario for Mitch, and it was all his fault. Well, maybe fault was too strong a word – he couldn’t help getting mugged – but he still felt somehow responsible.

All he could do was hope that whoever took the gun would get rid of it, throw it in the lake, before anyone came to any harm.

Some hope.

Later that morning, Mitch remembered Garibaldi’s will. That had gone, too, along with the briefcase and the gun. And it would have to be replaced.

There’s only one true will – copies have no legal standing – and if you lose it you could have a hell of a mess on your hands. Luckily, he had Garibaldi’s will on his computer. All he had to do was print it out again and hope to hell the old guy hadn’t died during the night.

He hadn’t. Puzzled, but accepting Mitch’s excuse of a minor error he’d come across when proof-reading the document, Garibaldi signed again with a shaking hand.

‘Is the gun safe?’ he asked afterwards. ‘You’ve got it locked away in your safe?’

‘Yes,’ Mitch lied. ‘Yes, don’t worry, the gun’s perfectly safe.’

Every day Mitch scanned the paper from cover to cover for news of a shooting or a gun found abandoned somewhere. He even took to buying the Sun – which he normally wouldn’t even use as toilet paper up at the cottage – because it covered more lurid local crime than the Globe or the Star. Anything to do with firearms was certain to make it into the Sun.

But it wasn’t until three weeks and three days after the mugging – and two weeks after Mr Garibaldi’s death ‘peacefully, at home’ – that the item appeared. And it was big enough news to make the Globe and Mail.

Mr Charles McVie was shot dead in his home last night during the course of an apparent burglary. A police spokesperson says Mr McVie was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the groin, while interrupting a burglar at his Beaches mansion shortly after midnight last night. He died of his wounds three hours later at East General Hospital. Detective Greg Hollins, who has been assigned the case, declined to comment on whether the police are following any significant leads at the moment, but he did inform our reporter that preliminary tests indicate the bullet was most likely fired from an old 9mm semi-automatic weapon, such as a Luger, unusual and fairly rare these days. As yet, police have not been able to locate the gun. Mr McVie, 62, made his fortune in the construction business. His wife, Laura, who was staying overnight with friends in Windsor when the shooting occurred, had no comment when she was reached early this morning.

The newspaper shook in Mitch’s hands. It had happened. Somebody had died because of him. But while he felt guilt, he also felt fear. Was there really no way the police could tie the gun to him or Mr Garibaldi? Thank God the old man was dead, or he might hear about the shooting and his conscience might oblige him to come forward. Luckily, his widow, Sophie, knew nothing.

With luck, the Luger was in the deepest part of the lake for sure by now. Whether anyone else had touched it or not, Mitch knew damn well that he had, and that his greasy fingerprints weren’t only all over the grip and the barrel, but on the wrapping paper, too. The muggers had probably been wearing gloves when they robbed him – it was a cold night – and maybe they’d had the sense to keep them on when they saw what was in the briefcase.

Calm down, he told himself. Even if the cops did find his fingerprints on the gun, they had no way of knowing whose prints they were. Mitch had never been fingerprinted in his life, and the cops would have no reason to subject him to it now.

And they couldn’t connect Charles McVie to either Mr Garibaldi or to Mitch.

Except for one thing.

Mitch had drawn up McVie’s will two years ago, after his marriage to Laura, his second wife.

Mitch had known that Laura McVie was younger than her husband, but even that knowledge hadn’t prepared him for the woman who opened the door to him three days after Charles McVie’s funeral.

Black became her. Really became her, the way it set off her creamy complexion, long blonde hair, Kim Basinger lips and eyes the colour of a bluejay’s wing.

‘Yes?’ she said, frowning slightly.

Mitch had put on his very best, most expensive suit, and he knew he looked sharp. He didn’t want her to think he was some ambulance-chaser come after her husband’s money.

As executor, Laura McVie was under no obligation to use the same lawyer who had prepared her husband’s will to handle his estate. Laura might have a lawyer of her own in mind. But Mitch did have the will, so there was every chance that if he presented himself well she would choose him to handle the estate too.

And there was much more money in estates – especially those as big as McVie’s – than there was in wills.

At least, Mitch thought, he wasn’t so hypocritical as to deny that he had mixed motives for visiting the widow. Didn’t everyone have mixed motives? He felt partly responsible for McVie’s death, of course, and a part of him genuinely wanted to offer the widow help.

After Mitch had introduced himself, Laura looked him over, plump lower lip fetchingly nipped between two sharp, white teeth, then she flashed him a smile and said, ‘Please come in, Mr Mitchell. I was wondering what to do about all that stuff. I really could use some help.’ Her voice was husky and low-pitched, with just a subtle hint of that submissive tone that can drive certain men wild.

Mitch followed her into the high-ceilinged hallway, watching the way her hips swayed under the mourning dress.

He was in. All right! He almost executed a little jig on the parquet floor.

The house was an enormous heap of stone overlooking the ravine. It had always reminded Mitch of an English vicarage, or what he assumed an English vicarage looked like from watching PBS. Inside, though, it was bright and spacious and filled with modern furniture – not an anti-macassar in sight. The paintings that hung on the white walls were all contemporary abstracts and geometric designs, no doubt originals and worth a small fortune in themselves. The stereo equipment was state-of-the-art, as were the large screen TV, VCR and DVD player.

Laura McVie sat on a white sofa and crossed her legs. The dress she wore was rather short for mourning, Mitch thought, though he wasn’t likely to complain about the four or five inches of smooth thigh it revealed. Especially as the lower part was sheathed in black silk stockings and the upper was bare and white.

She took a cigarette from a carved wooden box on the coffee table and lit it with a lighter that looked like a baseball. Mitch declined the offer to join her.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘It’s my only vice.’

‘Of course not.’ Mitch cleared his throat. ‘I just wanted to come and tell you how sorry I was to hear about the… the tragic accident. Your husband was-’

‘It wasn’t an accident, Mr Mitchell,’ she said calmly. ‘My husband was murdered. I believe we should face the truth clearly and not hide behind euphemisms, don’t you?’

‘Well, if you put it like that…’

She nodded. ‘You were saying about my husband?’

‘Well, I didn’t know him well, but I have done some legal work for him – specifically his will – and I am aware of his circumstances.’

‘My husband was very rich, Mr Mitchell.’

‘Exactly. I thought… well… there are some unscrupulous people out there, Mrs McVie.’

‘Please, call me Laura.’

‘Laura. There are some unscrupulous people out there, and I thought if there was anything I could do to help, perhaps give advice, take the burden off your hands…?’

‘What burden would that be, Mr Mitchell?’

Mitch sat forward and clasped his hands on his knees. ‘When someone dies, Mrs – Laura – there are always problems, legal wrangling and the like. Your husband’s affairs seem to be in good order, judging from his will, but that was made two years ago. I’d hate to see someone come and take advantage of you.’

‘Thank you,’ Laura said. ‘You’re so sweet. And why shouldn’t you handle the estate? Someone has to do it. I can’t.’

Mitch had the strangest feeling that something was going awry here. Laura McVie didn’t seem at all the person to be taken advantage of, yet she seemed to be swallowing his line of patter. That could only be, he decided, because it suited her, too. And why not? It would take a load off her mind.

‘That wasn’t the main reason I came, though,’ Mitch pressed on, feeling an irrational desire to explain himself. ‘I genuinely wanted to see if I could help in any way.’

‘Why?’ she asked, blue eyes open wide. ‘Why should you? Mr Mitchell, I’ve come to learn that people do things for selfish motives. Self-interest rules. Always. I don’t believe in altruism. Nor did my husband. At least we were agreed on that.’ She turned aside, flicked some ash at the ashtray and missed. In contrast to everything else in the place, the tin ashtray looked as if it had been stolen from a lowlife bar. ‘So you want to help me?’ she said. ‘For a fee, of course.’

Mitch felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. The part of him that had desperately wanted to make amends for his part in Charles McVie’s death was being thwarted by the frankness and openness of the widow. Yes, he could use the money – of course he could – but that really wasn’t his only reason for being there, and he wanted her to know that. How could he explain that he really wasn’t such a bad guy?

‘There are expenses involved in settling an estate,’ Mitch went on. ‘Disbursements. Of course, there are. But I’m not here to cheat you.’

She smiled at him indulgently. ‘Of course not.’

Which definitely came across as, ‘As if you could.’

‘But if you’ll allow me to-’

She shifted her legs, showing more thigh. ‘Mr Mitchell,’ she said, ‘I’m getting the feeling that you really do have another reason for coming to see me. If it’s not that you’re after my husband’s money, then what are you after?’

Mitch swallowed. ‘I… I feel. You see, I-’

‘Come on, Mr Mitchell. You can tell me. You’ll feel better.’

The voice that had seemed so submissive when Mitch first heard it now became hypnotic, so warm, so trustworthy, so easy to answer. And he had to tell someone.

‘I feel partly responsible for your husband’s death,’ he said, looking into her eyes. ‘Oh, I’m not the burglar, I’m not the killer. But I think I inadvertently supplied the gun.’

Laura McVie looked puzzled. Now he had begun, Mitch saw no point in stopping. If he could only tell this woman the full story, he thought, then she would understand. Perhaps she would even be sympathetic towards him. Forgive him. So he told her.

When he had finished, Laura stood up abruptly and walked over to the picture-window with its view of a back garden as big as Central Park. Mitch sat where he was and looked at her from behind. Her legs were close together and her arms were crossed. She seemed to be turned in on herself. He couldn’t tell whether she was crying or not, but her shoulders seemed to be moving.

‘Well?’ he asked, after a while. ‘What do you think?’

She let the silence stretch a moment, then dropped her arms and turned around slowly. Her eyes did look moist with tears. ‘What do I think?’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I think that maybe if you’d reported the gun stolen the police would have searched for it and my husband wouldn’t have been murdered.’

‘But I would have been charged, disbarred.’

‘Mr Mitchell, surely that’s a small price to pay for someone’s life? I’m sorry. I think you’d better go. I can’t think straight right now.’

‘But I-’

‘Please, Mr Mitchell. Leave.’ She turned back to the window again and folded her arms, shaking.

Mitch got up off the sofa and headed for the door. He felt defeated, as if he had left something important unfinished, but there was nothing he could do about it. Only slink off with his tail between his legs feeling worse than when he had come. Why hadn’t he just told her he was after handling McVie’s estate. Money, pure and simple. Self-interest like that she would have understood.

Two days later, and still no developments reported in the McVie investigation, Laura phoned.

‘Mr Mitchell?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry about my behaviour the other day. I was upset, as you can imagine.’

‘I can understand that,’ Mitch said. ‘I don’t blame you. I don’t even know why I told you.’

‘I’m glad you did. I’ve had time to think about it since then, and I’m beginning to realize how terrible you must feel. I want you to understand that I don’t blame you. It’s not the gun that commits the crime, after all, is it? It’s the person who pulls the trigger. I’m sure if the burglar hadn’t got that one, he’d have got one somewhere else. Look, this is very awkward over the telephone, do you think you could come to the house?’

‘When?’

‘How about this evening. For dinner?’

‘Fine,’ said Mitch. ‘I’m really glad you can find it in your heart to forgive me.’

‘Eight o’clock?’

‘Eight it is.’

When he put down the phone, Mitch jumped to his feet, punched the air, shouted, ‘Yes!’

‘Dinner’ was catered by a local Italian restaurant, Laura McVie not being, in her own words, ‘much of a cook’. Two waiters delivered the food, served it discreetly, and took away the dirty dishes.

Mostly, Mitch and Laura made small talk in the candlelight over the pasta and wine, and it wasn’t until the waiters had left and they were alone, relaxing on the sofa, each cradling a snifter of Courvoisier XO cognac, with mellow jazz playing in the background, that the conversation became more intimate.

Laura was still funereally clad, but tonight her dress, made of semi-transparent layers of black chiffon – more than enough for decency – fell well below knee height. There was still no disguising the curves, and the rustling sounds as she crossed her legs made Mitch more than a little hot under the collar.

Laura puckered her lips to light a cigarette. When she had blown the smoke out, she asked, ‘Are you married?’

Mitch shook his head.

‘Ever been?’

‘Nope.’

‘Just didn’t meet the right girl, is that it?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You’re not gay are you?’

He laughed. ‘What on earth made you think that?’

She rested her free hand on his and smiled. ‘Don’t worry. Nothing made me think it. Nothing in particular. Just checking, that’s all.’

‘No,’ Mitch said. ‘I’m not gay.’

‘More cognac?’

‘Sure.’ Mitch was already feeling a little tipsy, but he didn’t want to spoil the mood.

She fetched the bottle and poured them each a generous measure. ‘I didn’t really love Charles, you know,’ she said when she had settled down and smoothed her dress again. ‘I mean, I respected him, I even liked him, I just didn’t love him.’

‘Why did you marry him?’

Laura shrugged. ‘I don’t know really. He asked me. He was rich and seemed to live an exciting life. Travel. Parties. I got to meet all kinds of celebrities. We’d only been married two years, you know. And we’d only known one another a few weeks before we got married. We hadn’t even… you know. Anyway, I’m sorry he’s dead… in a way.’

‘What do you mean?’

Laura leaned forward and stubbed out her cigarette. Then she brushed back a long blonde tress and took another sip of cognac before answering. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘now that he’s dead, it’s all mine, isn’t it? I’d be a hypocrite and a fool if I said that didn’t appeal to me. All this wealth and no strings attached. No responsibilities.’

‘What responsibilities were there before?’

The left corner of her lips twitched in a smile. ‘Oh, you know. The usual wifely kind. Charles was never, well… let’s say he wasn’t a very passionate lover. He wanted me more as a showpiece than anything else. A trophy. Something to hang on his arm that looked good. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t mind. It was a small price to pay. And then we were forever having to entertain the most boring people. Business acquaintances. You know the sort of thing. Well, now that Charles is gone, I won’t have to do that any more, will I? I’ll be able to do what I want. Exactly what I want.’

Almost without Mitch knowing it, Laura had edged nearer towards him as she was speaking, and now she was so close he could smell the warm, acrid smoke and the cognac on her breath. He found it curiously intoxicating. Soon she was close enough to kiss.

She took hold of his hand and rested it on her breast. ‘It’s been a week since the funeral,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think it’s time I took off my widow’s weeds?’

When Mitch left Laura McVie’s house the following morning, he was beginning to think he might be on to a good thing. Why stop at being estate executor? he asked himself. He already knew that, under the terms of the will, Laura got everything – McVie had no children or other living relatives – and everything was somewhere in the region of five million dollars.

Even if he didn’t love her – and how could you tell if you loved someone after just one night? – he certainly felt passionately drawn to her. They got on well together, thought alike, and she was a wonderful lover. Mitch was no slouch, either. He could certainly make up for her late husband in that department.

He mustn’t rush it, though. Take things easy, see what develops… Maybe they could go away together for a while. Somewhere warm. And then… well… five million dollars.

Such were his thoughts as he turned the corner, just before the heavy hand settled on his shoulder and a deep voice whispered in his ear, ‘Detective Greg Hollins, Mr Mitchell. Homicide. I think it’s about time you and I had a long talk.’

Relieved to be let off with little more than a warning in exchange for cooperating with the police, Mitch turned up at Laura’s the next evening as arranged. This time they skipped the dinner and drinks preliminaries and headed straight for her bedroom.

Afterwards she lay with her head resting on his shoulder, smoking a cigarette.

‘My God,’ she said. ‘I missed this when I was married to Charles.’

‘Didn’t you have any lovers?’ Mitch asked.

‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘Oh, come on. I won’t be jealous. I promise. Tell me.’

She jerked away, stubbed out the cigarette on the bedside ashtray, and said, ‘You’re just like the police. Do you know that? You’ve got a filthy mind.’

‘Hey,’ said Mitch. ‘It’s me. Mitch. OK?’

‘Still… They think I did it, you know.’

‘Did what?’

‘Killed Charles.’

‘I thought you had an alibi.’

‘I do, idiot. They think the burglary was just a cover. They think I hired someone to kill him.’

‘Did you?’

‘See what I mean? Just like the cops, with your filthy, suspicious mind.’

‘What makes you think they suspect you?’

‘The way they talked, the way they questioned me. I think they’re watching me.’

‘You’re just being paranoid, Laura. You’re upset. They always suspect someone in the family at first. It’s routine. Most killings are family affairs. You’ll see, pretty soon they’ll drop it.’

‘Do you really think so?’

‘Sure I do. Just you wait and see.’

And moments later they were making love again.

Laura seemed a little distracted when she let him in the next night. At first he thought she had something on the stove, but then he remembered she didn’t cook.

She was on the telephone, as it turned out. And she hung up the receiver just as he walked into the living room.

‘Who was that?’ he asked. ‘Not reporters, I hope?’

‘No,’ she said, arms crossed, facing him, an unreadable expression on her face.

‘Who, then?’

Laura just stood there. ‘They’ve found the gun,’ she said finally.

‘They’ve what? Where?’

‘In your garage, under an old tarpaulin.’

‘I don’t understand. What are you talking about? When?’

She looked at her watch. ‘About now.’

‘How?’

Laura shrugged. ‘Anonymous tip. You’d better sit down, Mitch.’

Mitch collapsed on the sofa.

‘Drink?’

‘A large one.’

Laura brought him a large tumbler of Scotch and sat in the armchair opposite him.

‘What’s all this about?’ he asked, after the whisky had warmed his insides. ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying. How could they find the gun in my garage? I told you what happened to it.’

‘I know you did,’ said Laura. ‘And I’m telling you where it ended up. You’re really not very bright, are you, Mitch? How do you think it got there?’

‘Someone must have put it there.’

‘Right.’

‘One of the muggers? But…?’

‘What does it matter? What matters is that it will probably have your fingerprints on it. Or the wrapping will. All those greasy smudges. And even if it doesn’t, how are you going to explain its presence in your garage?’

‘But why would the cops think I killed Charles?’

‘We had a relationship. We were lovers. Like I told you, I’m certain they’ve been watching me, and they can’t fail to have noticed that you’ve stayed overnight on more than one occasion.’

‘But that’s absurd. I hadn’t even met you before your husband’s death.’

‘Hadn’t you?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t you remember, honey, all those times we met in secret, made love cramped in the back of your car because we didn’t even dare be seen signing in under false names in the Have-a-Nap Motel or wherever? We had to keep our relationship very, very secret. Don’t you remember?’

‘You’d tell them that?’

‘The way they’ll see it is that the relationship was more important to you than to me. You became obsessed by jealousy because I was married to someone else. You couldn’t stand it any more. And you thought by killing my husband you could get both me and my money. After all, you did prepare his will, didn’t you? You knew all about his finances.’

Mitch shook his head.

‘I would like to thank you, though,’ Laura went on. ‘Without you, we had a good plan – a very good one – but with you we’ve got a perfect one.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you were right when you suggested I had a lover. I do. Oh, not you, not the one I’m handing over to the police, the one who became so obsessed with me that it unhinged him and he murdered my husband. No. I’ve been very careful with Jake. I met him on the Yucatan peninsula when Charles and I were on holiday there six months ago and Charles went down with Montezuma’s revenge. I know it sounds like a romantic cliché, but it was love at first sight. We hatched the plan very quickly and we knew we had to keep our relationship a total secret. Nobody must suspect a thing. So we never met after that vacation. There were no letters or postcards. The only contact we had was through public telephones.’

‘And what happens now?’

‘After a decent interval – after you’ve been tried and convicted of my husband’s murder – Jake and I will meet and eventually get married. We’ll sell up here, of course, and live abroad. Live in luxury. Oh, please don’t look so crestfallen, Mitch. Believe me, I am sorry. I didn’t know you were going to walk into my life with that irresistible little confession, now, did I? I figured I’d just ride it out, the cops’ suspicions and all. I mean they might suspect me, but they couldn’t prove anything. I was in Windsor staying with friends. They’ve checked. And now they’ve got you into the bargain…’ She shrugged. ‘Why would they bother with little old me? I just couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You’ll make a wonderful fall guy. But because I like you, Mitch, I’m at least giving you a little advance warning, aren’t I? The police will be looking for you, but you’ve still got time to make a break, leave town.’

‘What if I go to them, tell them everything you’ve told me?’

‘They’ll think you’re crazy. Which you are. Obsession does that to people. Makes them crazy.’

Mitch licked his lips. ‘Look, I’d have to leave everything behind. I don’t even have any cash on me. Laura, you don’t think you could-’

She shook her head. ‘Sorry, honey. No can do. Nothing personal.’

Mitch slumped back in the chair. ‘At least tell me one more thing. The gun. I still don’t understand how it came to be the one that killed your husband.’

She laughed, showing the sharp, white teeth. ‘Pure coincidence. It was beautiful. Jake happens to be…

… a burglar by profession, and a very good one. He has worked all over the States and Canada, and he’s never been caught. We thought that if I told him about the security system at the house, he could get around it cleverly and… Of course, he couldn’t bring his own gun here from Mexico, not by air, so he had to get one. He said that’s not too difficult when you move in the circles he does. The kind of bars where you can buy guns and other stolen goods are much the same anywhere, in much the same sort of neighbourhoods. And he’s done jobs up here before.

‘As luck would have it, he bought an old Luger off two inexperienced muggers. For a hundred bucks. I just couldn’t believe it when you came around with your story. There couldn’t be two old Lugers kicking around the neighbourhood at the same time, could there? I had to turn away from you and hold my sides, I was laughing so much. It made my eyes water. What unbelievable luck!’

‘I’m so glad you think so,’ said Mitch.

‘Anyway, when I told Jake, he agreed it was too good an opportunity to miss, so he came back up here, dug the gun up from where he had buried it, safe in its wrapping, and planted it in your garage. He hadn’t handled it without gloves on, and he thought the two young punks he bought it from had been too scared to touch it, so the odds were, after you told me your story, that your fingerprints would still be on it. As I said, even if they aren’t… It’s still perfect.’

Only tape hiss followed, and Detective Greg Hollins switched off the machine. ‘That it?’ he asked.

Mitch nodded. ‘I left. I thought I’d got enough.’

‘You did a good job. Jesus, you got more than enough. I was hoping she’d let something slip, but I didn’t expect a full confession and her accomplice’s name in the bargain.’

‘Thanks. I didn’t have a lot of choice, did I?’

The last two times Mitch had been to see Laura, he had been wearing a tiny but powerful voice-activated tape recorder sewn into the lining of his suit jacket. It had lain on the chair beside the bed when they made love, and he had tried to get her to admit she had a boyfriend, as Hollins had suspected. He had also been wearing it the night she told him the police were about to find the Luger in his garage.

The recorder was part of the deal. Why he got off with only a warning for not reporting the theft of an unregistered firearm.

‘What’ll happen to her now?’ he asked Hollins.

‘With any luck, both she and her boyfriend will do life,’ said Hollins. ‘But what do you care? After the way she treated you. She’s a user. She chewed you up and spat you out.’

Mitch sighed. ‘Yeah, I know…’ he said. ‘But it could have been worse, couldn’t it?’

‘How?’

‘I could’ve ended up married to her.’

Hollins stared at him for a moment, then he burst out laughing. ‘I’m glad you’ve got a sense of humour, Mitchell. You’ll need it, what’s coming your way next.’

Mitch shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘Hey, just a minute! We made a deal. You assured me there’d be no charges over the gun.’

Hollins nodded. ‘That’s right. We did make a deal. And I never go back on my word.’

Mitch shook his head. ‘Then I don’t understand. What are you talking about?’

‘Well, there’s this lady from the Law Society waiting outside, Mitchell. And she’d really like to talk to you.’