“What?”
“I know. But it’s what we do for now. The grief … mania, I suppose, will pass eventually. He’ll go back to work; he’ll calm himself down. In the meantime, we hope the police make some headway. But you – you keep going, softly-softly, nothing major, nothing earth-shattering. Just little things.”
“Feed the crazy?”
“Ahhh, let’s not call it that.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Of course it is,” she snapped. “Our friend’s fiancé was just murdered. No one has any good ideas right now. Arden” – she sat back down and took my hand – “your job here is to keep him centred. You can let him work it all through in his mind. Let him process it in his own way.”
I nodded. That made a bit more sense.
“Every time he suggests going to … I don’t know, break into someone’s house to find evidence, you suggest maybe a nice walk instead to carefully plan it all out.”
I scoffed. Break into someone’s house, me? Never.
“And what do I do if that doesn’t work?”
“We’ll come up with some other plans to, sort of, fill his days.”
“I was hoping you’d have more suggestions,” I said.
“This isn’t exactly my forte. And I don’t see you having any ideas.”
“Well—” Oh. Actually. Maybe I did have one?
The next morning, I woke up bright and early and felt mildly better. Seeing friends, leaving the house, and long walks with Kenny. Maybe that was the key.
So, when Simon knocked on the door at around 9 a.m. I was ready for him.
In he walked without even waiting to say hello and began talking ten to the dozen about an idea he’d had.
“Okay, so how often do terrible things happen in Lilbury? Answer – not often.”
I gave him a look.
“So … semi-not often,” he said and walked around my kitchen fixing himself breakfast, while Kenny followed him. “Coffee?”
“That cupboard.”
“So, my idea was … well, several very bad things have happened here recently, right?”
“Like …”
“The Guy thing. And your article.”
“I’m not involved in this.”
“You are a little bit. Do you only have oat milk?” His head was in my fridge.
“I get bloated from cow’s milk.”
He sighed. “It’ll do, I suppose. Do you want some of this crumble, by the way? Someone brought it and it’s really good. I don’t suppose you have any cream?”
I shook my head as he cut me a slice of Mrs Bliss’ crumble. “There might be vanilla ice cream in the freezer.”
His eyes lit up like a kid’s. “I’m going to be the size of a house from all this,” he told me. I sat at the breakfast bar, trying to look calm as he foisted food on me and acted like a man possessed.
