Apportionment of Blame Read Free

much of each other. Occasionally during holidays, at pubs or clubs, but nothing regular. After university I had gone to work in the City, while Joyce had taken up her first teaching job in the Midlands.
    â€œWhat do we do now?” Joyce asked.
    â€œLet’s start by going through what’s happened. Then, perhaps, we might come up with some way forward.”
    I thought for a moment. There was no need to think for long.
    â€œYou called me to tell me about Helen. I went to look at the scene of the accident, talked to people who live nearby, then I went to talk to the police.”
    â€œDo you still think it was an accident?”
    â€˜No. Probably not. It’s just an expression.”
    â€œAll right. Then what?”
    â€œThe police were not very helpful, clearly not impressed that an amateur sleuth was getting involved. But they did say there was no evidence there had been anyone other than Helen at the scene. No footprints or anything.”
    â€œBut the ground would have been frozen. It was very cold that night.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œThen?”
    â€œWell, everything else happened today. Someone brought a note telling me about the bench and the magnolia. I called you. You went to look and got bundled off by person or persons unknown.”
    â€œThere were two. I said.”
    â€œYes. You did. And we have to assume that the whole palaver of bundling you off and dumping you here, was to give us a warning.”
    â€œTo stop asking questions.”
    â€œYes. The point is, I’ve hardly asked any questions yet. And then only out near the accident. So how come a note arrived
    Joyce just sat and looked at me. What she saw was unlikely to fill her with confidence, as I was baffled.
    â€œThere has to be a link between the accident site and here,” I considered.
    â€œWell, I have no idea what that might be.’
    â€˜No. Neither do I.”
    For want of anything else to do I picked up our two coffee cups and took them to the corner sink to wash them out.
    â€œWas there anyone else in that garden when you were there?” I asked over my shoulder.
    She didn’t reply, so I turned to look at her. Her face was still as she stared forward and down, a thoughtful frown on her forehead.
    I realised, as I had realised many times before, how beautiful she was, and how much I wanted to help her solve the mystery which had all but broken her parents.
    â€œCan you remember anything?” I asked her cautiously.
    â€œI am trying to visualise the scene when I arrived,” she said.
    I waited, drying the cups and putting them back on a shelf.
    â€œThere was someone sitting on the seat by the steps. He would have been facing the magnolia tree.”
    â€œCan you remember what he looked like?”
    â€œI hardly saw him, except out of the corner of my eye as I came down the steps into the garden. My mind was focussed on the magnolia tree and the bench.”
    â€œAnybody else?”
    â€œThat’s what’s strange. The two who bundled me off came out of nowhere.”
    I sat down again, not taking my eyes from her face.
    â€œThey must have been waiting for ages for someone to turn up.”
    â€œAnd there’s something else,” I said as I suddenly realised. “The note implied that by looking under the bench, we would find out how Helen died.”
    â€œAssuming it referred to Helen.”
    â€œIt must do. I am not doing anything else related to someone’s death. And the note came here, to my office. But all that happened when you found the note was that you were bundled off. What does that tell us?”
    â€œI told you I never saw anyone other than the person sitting to the side of the steps. What happened to me came out of the blue. Perhaps they were saying what happened to me in the garden, happened to Helen by the railway line.”
    â€œAnd You’re next means it could happen to me as well.”
    â€œExactly!”
    â€œSo