Job 6:25
Thursday 1st November: They sat in the Hanlin's great oak panelled living room. Another three weeks and it would be Thanksgiving. The wind whistled through the eaves. It was evening. Father Seb, Angie Merill, Rick Bryer and Mike Hanlin were all drinking brutally chilled apple martinis, as had become their custom. Hanlin's wife Jane had supper on the go and had left them to their drinks. Marilyn Bryer had gone with her.
The white plastered ceiling roofed the broad windowed room, the whole of it framed in miniature rafters twisted into geometric shapes a century back by Italian craftsmen. The ceiling provided a chocolate box contrast to the sombre dark patina of the stained mahogany panelling that covered all that was not window or fireplace.
And the great hearth with its oak framed marble surround held a huge grate from which tongues of flame licked upwards from a fire in which yard long logs crackled in unending song. It was one of those fires you yearned to light even in summer just for the comfort of the thing, not so much for warmth as for reassurance in a bleak world.
And then the ornaments in ordered clutter, brass and brass and more brass, at the fireside and shelved on the walls. Burnished Arab coffee pots like soldiers marched in serried ranks around the room, the collection of a magpie orientalist.
Hanlin and Bryer had called them together. They had an agenda. Hanlin was talking. His shock of black hair made him look younger than his years. He lowered himself into his chair. His dog, Bart, padded across and Hanlin leaned over to pat the animal as he spoke. "The situation needs resolving. We can't have the streets of Springfield becoming like downtown Washington."
Angie Merill winced. She watched the reflection of firelight in the liquid in her glass.
"Sorry Angie. It must have been awful finding Bob like that."
Bryer interrupted. "Can we rewind on this Father Seb? When you were attacked in the street, knifed that time, that wasn't the first time you'd been attacked was it?"
"All right," Seb sighed. "I suppose it makes little difference now. He's dead after all. Yes, Bob Young stopped me one time. He was angry. Someone had told him I'd been talking to his wife the afternoon she died. I denied it."
"And he believed you?"
"He hit me."
Angie was astonished. The others seemed amused but the three words chilled her blood to ice. "You never told me that."
"No, I didn't." If anyone noticed the sheepish way he looked at her they said nothing.
Bryer interrupted. "So it could have been Bob Young that subsequently knifed you?"
"It crossed my mind. I don't think so though. The person who attacked me wore a hooded sweatshirt. If it had been Bob he'd not have concealed himself."
Hanlin broke in. "Bob thought you'd been having an affair with his wife?"
"I don't think so. Perhaps that I'd driven her to suicide. Or that I was withholding something. He really believed I'd been with her that day."
"Why?"
"Because, like I said, someone told him I'd been on the towpath with his wife."
"And you weren't?"
"That was me Seb was with," Angie said. "Baxter and I are having difficulties. I talked to Seb about it that afternoon."
"I see," said Hanlin. "So someone with a wish to make trouble tells Bob that Seb is with Bob's wife. Forgive me for this Angie but just to clear the air, could that have been Baxter?"
Angie laughed to mask the fact that what she really wanted to do was escape. But there was nowhere to flee.
She stood abruptly. She was silhouetted against the firelight as she shifted onto the balls of her feet and smoothed and straightened her skirt. "Oh, I don't doubt that Baxter could be possessive enough. But no. He was preoccupied at that time, with the trouble at Merill Manufacturing."
"So who killed Bob?"
"And why did Bob's wife kill herself?"
Hanlin grimaced. "We're getting nowhere". He signalled to Maria, setting her to work on another round of Apple Martinis, then turned back to look at Father Seb. There was too much beating about the bush going on. Hanlin made a concious decision to be laconic from here on in.
"Seb. Could't've been a woman that knifed you?"
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