A Delicate Truth A Novel

in the constabulary. Straight through the fucking right temple. Small hole on the right side and not much of his face at all on the other. That’s exit wounds for you. He didn’t miss. He wouldn’t, not Jeb. He was always a lovely shot. Won prizes, Jeb did.’
    ‘Yes, well, reliving it doesn’t bring him back, does it, Brigid?’ said Harry. ‘I think Toby here deserves a cup of tea, don’t you, Toby? Coming all this way for his friend, that’s what I call loyalty. And a piece of Danny’s shortbread that you made with him, Brigid.’
    ‘They couldn’t wait to cremate him either. Suicides jump the queue, Mr Bell, in case you should ever have the problem.’ She had flopped from the arm into the chair, and was thrusting her pelvis at him in some kind of sexual contempt. ‘I had the pleasure of washing his fucking van out, didn’t I? Soon as they’d had their way with it. “Here you are, Mrs Owens, it’s all yours now.” Nice polite people, mind you, in Somerset. Very courteous to a lady. Treated me like a colleague too. There was a couple from the Met there. Directing operations for their country brothers.’
    ‘Brigid didn’t phone me, not till dinner time, she wouldn’t,’ Harry explained. ‘I’d lessons back to back. She knew that, which was very considerate on your part, wasn’t it, Brigid? You can’t let fifty children run wild for two hours, can you?’
    ‘Lent me their fucking hose too, which was nice. You’d think cleaning it out would be part of the service, wouldn’t you? But not with the austerity, not in Somerset. “Now are you quite sure you’ve done all your forensics?” I asked them, “because I don’t want to be the one to wash away the clues, now.” “We’ve all theclues we need, thank you, Mrs Owens, and here’s a scrubbing brush for you, in case you need it.”’
    ‘You’re just upsetting yourself, Brigid,’ Harry warned from the kitchen alcove, filling a kettle and putting out pieces of shortbread.
    ‘I’m not upsetting Mr Bell, though, am I? Look at him. He’s a model of composure. I’m a woman playing catch-up on my dead husband, who is a dead stranger to me, you see, Mr Bell. Until three years ago I knew Jeb very well indeed, and so did Danny. The man we knew three years ago would not have killed himself with a fucking short-barrelled pistol, or a long-barrelled one for that matter. He’d never have left his son without a fucking father or his wife without a husband. Danny was the world to him. Even after Jeb turned bloody mad, it was Danny, Danny. Shall I tell you something about suicide that isn’t generally known, Mr Bell?’
    ‘Toby doesn’t need this, Brigid. I’m sure he’s a well-informed young gentleman who’s familiar with the psychology and suchlike. Am I not right, Toby?’
    ‘It’s fucking murder is what suicide is, Mr Bell. Never mind you murder yourself along with it. It’s other people you’re after killing. Three years ago I’d a great marriage going to the man of my dreams. I wasn’t bad myself, which he was good enough to comment on frequently. I’m a good fuck and he loved me full on, or so he said. Gave me every reason to believe him. I still do. I believe him. I love him. Always did. But I don’t believe the bastard who shot himself to kill us, and I don’t love him either. I hate him. Because if he did that, he is a bastard, I don’t care what the fucking cause was.’
    If he did that? Was the if delivered with greater force than she intended? Or was this merely Toby’s imagination?
    ‘And come to think of it, I don’t know what it was drove him round the fucking bend in the first place. I never did. He’d had abad mission. There’d been some wrong killing. That was my full ration. After that, I could sing for it. Maybe you and your friend Paul know. Maybe Jeb trusted your friend Paul the way he wouldn’t trust me, his fucking wife. Maybe the police know too. Maybe the whole fucking street knows, and me and Danny and Harry here are the only odd ones out.’
    ‘Going over it won’t help, Brigid,’ Harry said, unwrapping a packet of paper napkins. ‘It won’t help you , it won’t help Danny. And I don’t expect it will help Toby here. Will it, Toby?’ – passing him a cup of tea with a piece of sugared shortbread on the saucer, and a paper napkin.
    ‘I come out the fucking constabulary for Jeb, once we knew Danny was on his way. Lost my seniority pay and the promotion that was round the corner. We