A Death to Remember Read Free Page A

wife’s missing, and everybody knows he knows that his wife’s been having it away with her accountant...so, what’ll they think?’ He nodded out of the window. ‘The first thing they’d do would be to start dragging that pool out there.’
    ‘ Don’t talk so stupid.’
    His voice had been breaking with emotion, and I had to shout at him. But really I needed silence, to absorb what he’d said.
    Michael Orton, my wife’s husband of a year, and he’d been playing around the whole of that time...Lord, but it was lovely, or tragic. I had to have silence in order to decide which.
    ‘ What’s so stupid about it?’ he demanded. ‘Once you’ve been inside, they’ve got you pegged.’
    ‘ I don’t believe that.’
    ‘ The first thing they’d do...’
    ‘ She’d be frightened of you,’ I told him, seeing now the man who could be capable of smashing my head in with a spanner. This Tony Clayton looked capable of anything.
    ‘ You see!’ he shouted. ‘You, now!’
    ‘ And why not me?’ I demanded. ‘Why should you expect sympathy and understanding from me? What the hell do I care if your wife leaves you because she’s terrified of you! She knows what you did to me. I’d be scared, in her shoes. I bet she couldn’t get away fast enough...’
    He reached forward and grabbed my arm and thrust his face close, and for one moment I thought he was going to attack me again. But it was pain I saw in his eyes. Entreaty.
    ‘ It wasn’t me,’ he said, his voice thick. ‘And you know it.’
    ‘ I don’t know anything.’
    ‘ I didn’t beat your head in, you fool, and if you’d just tell somebody the truth...’
    I looked down at his hand, and rather to my surprise he released me. I couldn’t see what he was getting at, what he wanted from me.
    ‘ I can’t remember that last day,’ I told him. ‘Certainly nothing of the attack on me. But the police say they caught you standing over me, stuff from the briefcase scattered everywhere...’
    ‘ So you think it was me?’
    ‘ Yes, I think it was you.’
    ‘B ut you didn’t come looking for me, with a couple of hired thugs at your shoulders.’
    ‘ The thought didn’t occur to me.’
    He grinned sloppily. ‘You see. It didn’t occur to you. And you know why not? Because you know . Mate, don’t shake your head at me. You know damn well it wasn’t me bashed your head in.’
    I couldn’t follow his logic, but he stood back, as though displaying himself for my consideration. It was quite true that I felt no certainty about him, but there was no memory that assisted me one way or the other. Yet his confidence was infective. He knew he was innocent. You could see it. And he was so completely guileless that I couldn’t help smiling at him.
    ‘ I wish you could prove it,’ I told him.
    For some reason he sensed this as a victory, because he leaned forward and gave me a small thump on the shoulder with his fist. ‘You see.’
    What I saw was that he seemed to feel some bond between us, sealed by the assault on me. He felt us both to have been victims, and that this entitled him to my friendship and assistance.
    ‘ So what do you want from me?’ I asked quietly, probing.
    ‘ I want you to find my wife.’
    ‘B ut I can’t possibly...’
    ‘ You’ve got the experience, going round asking questions, making enquiries. You could do it.’
    He was looking at me with raised eyebrows, his eyes wide with innocence. And yet he seemed to be poised, waiting on each word.
    ‘ Not your books, then?’ I asked cautiously.
    ‘ Those too. Find my missus, and she’ll tell you about the books...’
    And about why the garage had done so well in his absence? That must have been galling to him.
    ‘ I can try.’
    ‘ Good man.’
    ‘B ut promising nothing.’
    ‘ You’ll know where to ask around.’
    But that was something he could do himself, and he’d know her haunts and habits better than me. I was not a detective. But there was a glint in his eye as he watched