Night Music Read Free Page B

rang him, her voice tremulous and shocked, that he had made sure he had been with her when the doctor arrived to pronounce the old man dead. Laura had clung to him, believing he had returned because he didn’t want her to go through the ordeal alone, but some small part of him – not that he would admit this to anyone – hadn’t believed the old bugger could be gone. And that if Matt disappeared too swiftly he might spring up again and announce that he fancied ‘a little bit of a roast’.
    The service had ended. The little group of mourners went out into the darkening afternoon and clustered together, a few occasionally peering about to gauge what might happen next. It was plain that no one was going to accompany the old man to the graveyard.
    ‘I thought it was very civil of you and Mrs McCarthy to arrange Mr Pottisworth’s funeral.’ Mrs Linnet laid a featherlight hand on Matt’s arm.
    ‘Least we could do,’ he said. ‘Mr P was like family to us. Especially my wife. I’m sure she’s going to miss him.’
    ‘Not many could expect such generosity of spirit from their neighbours in their later years,’ said Mrs Linnet.
    ‘And who can say what prompts such acts? He was truly a lucky man.’
    Asad Suleyman was beside him, one of the few men in the locality who could make Matt feel short. Among other things. Matt looked up sharply at his words, but Asad’s face, as ever, was unreadable. ‘Well, you know Laura,’ he said. ‘Her side of the family likes to see things done properly. Very big on form, my wife.’
    ‘We were just wondering . . . Mr McCarthy . . . whether you were likely to be commiserating Mr Pottisworth’s life in any other way today . . .’ said Mrs Linnet, from under the brim of her felt hat. Behind her two other old women waited expectantly, handbags clutched to their chests.
    ‘Commis—? Of course. You’re all welcome, ladies. We want to give dear old Mr P a proper send-off, don’t we?’
    ‘What about you, Mr Suleyman? Will you have to get back to the shop?’
    ‘Oh, no.’ Henry Ross had appeared beside him. ‘Early closing on Wednesdays. You couldn’t have planned it better for us, Mr McCarthy. We’d love to – ah – commiserate.’
    ‘We’re all yours.’ Asad beamed.
    Nothing was going to spoil Matt’s day. ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘Well, all back to ours, and we can toast him. I’ll just go and tell the vicar. Ladies, if you wait by my car, I’ll give you a lift down.’
    The house that Matt McCarthy had built – or renovated, with his wife’s money – had once been the much-smaller coach house, sited on the edge of the woods, before the driveway had been split from that of the Spanish House. From the outside, it was in keeping with the architecture of the area, with its neo-Georgian façade, long, elegant windows and flinted frontage. Inside, however, it was more modern, with downlighting, a large, open-plan sitting room with laminate flooring and a games room in which Matt and his son had last played pool several years before.
    It gave on to open countryside, and the two houses were shielded from each other by woods. They were a mile and a half from the village of Little Barton with its pub, school and shop. But the long, winding driveway, which had once allowed easy passage from the nearest main road, was now an overgrown track, rutted and pitted with neglect, so Matt and his wife required sturdy four-wheel drives to leave their house without fear for the undersides of their vehicles. Occasionally Matt would drive the quarter-mile worst part of the track to pick up visitors; twice it had ripped exhausts from elegant, low-slung cars and Matt, who was no fool when it came to business relationships, did not like to start any meeting on an apologetic footing.
    Several times he had been tempted to fill in the drive with hardcore, but Laura had persuaded him it was tempting fate. ‘Do what you want when the house is ours,’ she had said. ‘There’s no