“Thanks,” Corey said. “I appreciate that.”
“Ah — Canadian. Silly occupation for you to get into in this country unless you ditch that accent. A robber wants to be as anonymous as possible.” He grinned and the waxed moustache-ends moved up and back. “I could give you speech lessons if you like. I’m a TV producer — I work with actors.”
“I don’t think I’m going to do this any more.”
“Good. Then I’ve done one worthwhile thing today.” Hughes-Price gave a rueful smile. “I steal in a different way. I take money for producing a very mediocre situation comedy, season after season. They say the public wants it — but that’s no excuse for not doing better.”
“Perhaps you will.”
“At my age? I doubt it.” He sighed and looked at his watch. “The only credit I give myself is being clever enough to hire a young Pakistani actor. Nobody else was touching him. Now I can say I gave him his start.”
Corey watched Hughes-Price get up and move to the television set. “I’d better go now,” he said. He would have to be gone when May arrived.
“Hang on — get yourself together.” Jason pressed a switch and the television screen blossomed into the reds and greens of moving football jerseys as a martial theme introduced the game of the week. “Forgive me, I really am addicted. Do you follow football?”
“I like it,” Corey said.
“Then stay. It’s raining outside anyway.” Hughes-Price brought the bottle and refilled both their glasses. “My boy,” he said, “this is your lucky night. You happened to run into a man who instinctively understands you, who believes you can do better. Drink your drink. Cheers.”
Corey was staring, half stunned, at the screen when there was a sound from the front door. The ball had been going into the net but he could not have said for money what the score was.
“In here, dear,” Hughes-Price called. He winked at Corey. “My wife — she’s a nice lady. Relax.”
May Stanstead strode into the room, her red vinyl coat glistening with rain, a kerchief trailing in her hand. She glanced first at her husband, then looked at Corey very hard. “This is a friend,” Jason said, his eyes following the action on the screen. “He came to rob us but changed his mind. I don’t know his name.”
Corey said, “Hello.”
May smiled ferociously. “Hello, hello,” she said. She bent to the hearth and picked up the poker. Before Corey could move, she went to the chair where her husband was sitting and stood over him, the poker raised. Jason looked up at her, smiling, his eyes alight with excitement for the lively game. He saw what she was about to do and his face began to change. The poker came down across his head as he half rose, knees bent, to plunge forward on the carpet, prone. May stepped back and struck her husband another glancing blow on the back of the head.
“Hey, come on, wait!” Corey was up at last, catching her arm, twisting the poker from her gloved hands, holding it away from her. She looked at his battered leather gloves on the table beside his glass and smiled faintly.
“Yes, all right,” she said. She went to the television set and switched it off. Into the silence she said, “We are now back at square one.”
“Wherever we are, it isn’t square one.”
“Shut up. I don’t know what the hell you think you were doing. You were supposed to kill him and I find the two of you drinking and watching sports.” She said the last word with a vicious sibilant at either end.
“Because he wasn’t what you told me, May. Not what you described at all.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, oh. I know a decent guy when I meet him. And what was all that about getting rid of the wog? He said good things about him. He’s proud of discovering him.”
“You are insane!” May screamed. “If you’d killed him first thing you’d never have heard any of that! We would have been all right!”
“I’m insane? I love your logic, Miss Stanstead.” He set down the poker, picked up his gloves, and put them on. “I’m getting out of here.”
“That’s exactly right. And you’re taking those trophies with you. I’ll give you ten minutes and then I’ll call the police. It’s as if I’d just come in — everything as before.”
“No way. You did this, not me. I’m not involved.”
“You’re involved, Corey. You slept with me, he’s dead, and your fingerprints are on the poker. You couldn’t be more involved.”
Corey looked at the poker and considered wiping it clean. Then he thought again. “Right. I’ll tell the truth, exactly as it happened. I was going to kill him but I changed my mind.”
“That’s a laugh. Who do you think they’ll believe — you or me?”
Corey paused. Then he said, “I’ll take my chances. You’d be surprised how the truth has a way of sounding right.” He turned from her and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll do us both a favor. I’ll dial 999.”
As he left the room, May did not hesitate. She went to a cabinet, opened a lower drawer, reached inside and took out an automatic pistol. She checked the magazine expertly. Then she hurried down the corridor, arriving in the kitchen as Corey was beginning to dial.
“Put it down,” she said.
He saw the gun, put the phone back in the cradle, and stepped away from it.
“Now get out,” May said. “Leave the way you came.”
He moved toward the door, then stopped. “What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll look after myself. You’re the one who needs to worry.”
He shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, May.”
“Get stuffed,” she said.
Corey turned to the door and she shot him in the back, chest high. He hit the pine-panelled wall, knocking to the floor a colander and a sieve and a breadboard. She left every thing lying as she went to the telephone and dialed.
“Tony? You’ve got to come over. No, he’s not — he’s dead. I came in and there was a robber here. He’d already killed Jason. He tried to go out the back door and I shot him.” She began to cry real tears. “Come right now.”
Tony Bhajwa arrived within ten minutes, parking his yellow MG beside the Common and running up the long walk to the house. May let him in and closed the door, embracing him, receiving his kisses on her tear-stained cheeks.
“Come on,” he said softly. “You’re not alone now. Where are they?”
“Jason’s in there. The other one is in the kitchen.”
He followed her to the kitchen, slowly approached the body on the floor, and bent to look at the wound and listen for signs of life. “He’s dead, all right. Have you called the police?”
“I waited for you. I’ll call now.”
He went to her and she put her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against the fabric of his shirt. His dark, handsome face touched her golden hair. “What a shock for you, my love.”
“I’m all right now. I’m always all right with you.” She stepped back and gave him the teary smile of a child whose hurt has been kissed and made better. “It has a good side, Tony. Now we can be married.” She watched his reaction. “It’s horrible that Jason is dead, but it lets us be together.”
“I know.” He nodded, sensitive eyes frowning. “But poor Jason. He was good to me. I’m going to miss him.”
May shivered. “Time’s going by. I’d better call the police and get it over.”
As she dialed, Tony walked down the hall to the library. When May finished reporting the emergency and the address, she hurried after him and found him bending over Jason. He had turned her husband over onto his back and now had his ear close to Jason’s face. “He’s breathing,” he said. “Jason is alive.”
“What?”
“It’s slight but steady. Listen.”
May did not move. “He can’t be.”