Edward shook his head.
‘Oh, you mean “where-where”? In a wood by Chittlehamholt Airfield. Where he was out walking.’
‘That’s definitely Devon,’ whispered Edward. He shook his head and pulled a face that said, if it happened in Devon in the last ten years – a GP shot dead with a crossbow – he would definitely know about it. But Kim reached across and put her hand on his knee.
‘Matty,’ she said. ‘That’s why you’ve got no memory of the time.’
Edward felt his heart sag, like a washing line suddenly overloaded with a wet rug and about to snap. He inhaled sharply, waiting for the feeling to pass. The three of them were silent for a moment. The death of Edward’s boy at the age of eleven would have been around that time. Edward had been signed off work for more than a year. The period was a blank. He nodded. Kim squeezed his knee gently.
Stevie continued. ‘It was a long way from here. The other side of Devon. The doctor lived in a village somewhere. He was out walking. He was shot. The weirdest thing is, a bloke in a plane saw him lying there.’
‘A plane?’ asked Kim. ‘Like, a commercial flight?’
‘A light aircraft. He landed and reported it straightaway, sothey timed the death really precisely. The reason I said you need to stay away from Wendy is that everyone thinks she did it. Can you believe I’m getting married, Edward?’
The change of subject was the equivalent of a hairpin bend in a racing car, and it left Edward breathless.
Edward tried to say, ‘Who to—?’ but no words came out.
‘Where’s your hearing aid?’ Stevie asked. ‘I’ve just saw you’re not wearing it. Have ye been healed?’
By now, unable to speak at all, Edward wrote on a napkin:Battery went.
‘Typical guy,’ Stevie said to Kim. ‘If he can’t speak, why would he need to hear anything?’ That made Kim roar with laughter. Edward smiled bleakly, feeling like the old guy, and shook his head at the unfairness. The hearing aid was in his pocket. He could still hear with his right ear, and he pointed at it now, making a thumbs up. He wrote on the napkin:Who’s the lucky guy?
‘Roddy. He has prospects, too.’
‘We are both so excited for you, Stevie,’ said Kim. She waited a beat, to see whether more needed to be said about Roddy. Then she added: ‘That’s probably why Wendy moved down here. The finger-pointing.’
Edward wrote a single word on a napkin.Alibi?
‘She was in a cinema watching some Marvel film and there’s no way she could have done it herself,’ answered Stevie. ‘That’s the mystery. They didn’t have problems in their relationship—’
‘That’s even more suspicious,’ put in Kim.
‘She bought the crossbow.’
‘What?’ Edward mouthed, eyes wide.
‘Yep,’ said Stevie.
Again, Edward wrote on the napkin:Where was the crossbow?
‘Could you write faster as my birthday is in August?’ Stevie said. Edward laughed. She replied, ‘Missing. She had a crossbow,for God’s sake, and it was gone from the house! So everyone assumed she used it to kill him. Basically she did it. Case closed. Stay well away. She’ll probably murder you next.’
Stevie wanted to be done with the explanations, Edward could tell. He remembered Wendy Wrigley’s immaculate appearance and now, in retrospect, saw her as she was – below the clear surface, a roaring ocean of silent distress. Her exterior was impeccable, as if Wendy Wrigley had used Photoshop to blanch her own sadness. The spotless jumper hid a bleeding heart. The lady was in trauma and he had not seen it. She was no killer.
Kim said, ‘Wait. Do I remember she wasn’t seen to mourn enough? Not reacting in the right way when your husband dies, that’s a crime these days.’
Stevie, as ever ahead on the detail, said: ‘There was a headline: “Mystery of Smirking Widow”. The papers took against her. The police made it clear they were sure it was her, they even said they were not looking—’
‘“For any other suspects in connection with the murder”.’ Kim completed the sentence, remembering now. ‘Brutal.’
‘Pardon my French,’ said Stevie, ‘but she fucking deserved it.’
Edward pushed his voice. ‘If she was in the cinema when it happened, it can’t have been her.’
Stevie looked out of the window, as if summoning facts from the sea. ‘The inquest could have gone for murder, but they couldn’t rule out an accident or even suicide. Total mystery. So it was an open verdict.’
