for so long.”
“Not half as long as you will be if you don’t knock off the cheek, sonny,” said Burgess.
“Was it you who found the body?” Banks asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t be shy. Tell us about it,” Burgess prompted him.
“Nothing to tell, really. I just got back from my walk and decided to look in on Seth and see how he was doing. I helped him, you know. I was sort of an apprentice. When I opened the door-“
“The door was closed?” Burgess asked.
“Yes. But it wasn’t locked. Seth never locked it.”
“And what did you see?”
“You know what I saw. He was sprawled out on the bench, dead.”
“How did you know he was dead? Did you feel his heart?”
“No, of course I didn’t. I saw the blood. I called his name and he didn’t answer. I just knew.”
“Did you touch anything?” Banks asked.
“No. I ran in here and told the others.”
“Did you go near the typewriter?”
“Why should I? I didn’t even notice the bloody thing. All I saw was Seth, dead.”
It was hard to know whether or not he was telling the truth. The shock of what he’d seen made his responses vague and defensive.
“So you left everything just as you found it?” Banks said.
“Yes.”
“This afternoon, during the meeting,” Burgess asked, “did anyone leave the room for any length of time?”
“We all left at one time or another,” said Zoe. “You know, to go to the toilet, stretch our legs, whatever.”
“Was anyone gone for a long time?”
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“I don’t know. We were talking. I don’t remember.”
“So someone could have been away for, say, ten minutes?”
“I suppose so.”
“I know you were all busy playing at being concerned citizens,” Burgess said, “but surely one of you must have noticed if anyone was gone too long?”
“Look,” Rick cut in, “I thought you said it was suicide. What are you asking these questions for?”
“I said it looked like suicide,” Burgess answered coldly. “And I’ll ask whatever bloody questions I think necessary, without any comments from you, Leonardo, thank you very much.”
“Did any of you hear the typewriter at any time this afternoon?” Banks asked.
“No,” Zoe answered. “But we wouldn’t anyway. The walls are thick and the workshop’s right at the far end of the garden. Well … you’ve seen where it is.
We were all here in the front room. We could never even hear Seth sawing or using his drill from here.”
Banks glanced at Burgess. “Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of right now,” the superintendent said, subdued again after his exchange with Rick. “I don’t want any of you buggering off anywhere, hear me?” he added, wagging his finger and giving Paul a particularly menacing look. “There’ll be more questions when we’ve got the results of the postmortem tomorrow, so be available, all of you.”
Banks and Burgess left them to their grief. Down the valley side, the lights of Relton looked inviting in the chilly darkness.
“Pint?” Burgess suggested.
“Just what I had in mind,” said Banks. They got into the Cortina and bumped away down the track towards the Black Sheep.
II
The pillow felt like a cloud, the bed like cotton wool. Mara lay on her back, drifting, but not quite asleep. When she had 254
first heard the news, she had lost control completely. The tears seemed to spurt from her eyes, her heart began to beat wildly, and the breath clogged in her throat. But the doctor’s injection had taken care of all that, trading spasms and panic for clouds and cotton wool.
She could hear the muffled voices downstairs, as if from a great distance, and they made her think of those times when Seth and Liz Dale had stayed up late talking. How jealous she had been then, how insecure. But Liz was long gone, and Seth, they told her, was dead.
Dead. The thought didn’t register fully through the layers of sedative. She thought she should still be crying and gasping for breath, but instead her body felt as heavy as iron and she could hardly move. Her mind seemed to have
