Fox Evil by Minette Walters

you. You expected Ailsa to be rowing with the Colonel. You were always asking me to find out the dirt on them."
    "Oh, for goodness' sake!" she countered crossly. "How many times do I have to tell you? She
called
him James. She said, 'No, James, I won't put up with this anymore.' Why would she do that if she was talking to somebody else?"
    Dick rubbed his eyes. He'd heard her say this a number of times, but the solicitor's remark about words out of context had unsettled him. "You told me the next day that you couldn't hear anything James said… well, maybe you didn't hear Ailsa too well either. I mean, it makes a hell of a difference if she was talking
about
him instead of
to
him. Maybe the I wasn't there… maybe she said, 'James won't put up with this anymore.' "
    "I know what I heard." Prue said stubbornly.
    "So you keep saying."
    "It's true."
    "All right… what about this punch you said he gave her? Why didn't the postmortem find any bruises?"
    "How would I know? Maybe she died before they could develop." Irritably, she pulled the coverlets over the beds and smoothed them flat. "What were you phoning James for, anyway? I thought we agreed to take Ailsa's side."
    Dick stared at the floor. "Since when?"
    "It was you who told me to go to the police."
    "I said you didn't have much choice. That's not an agreement to take a side." Another vigorous rub of his eyes. "The solicitor said there's a case against you for slander. According to him, you've been inciting people to call James a murderer."
    Prue was unimpressed. "Then why doesn't he sue? Eleanor Bartlett says that's the best evidence there is that he's guilty. You should hear what
she
says about him." Her eyes gleamed at some memory that amused her. "Plus if anyone's making abusive phone calls, it's her. I've been there when she's made one. She calls it 'smoking him out.' "
    Dick took stock of his wife for the first time in years. She was dumpier than the girl he'd married but a great deal more assertive. At twenty, she'd been mild-mannered and mousy. At fifty-four, she was a dragon. He hardly knew her now except as the woman who shared his bed. They hadn't had sex or talked about anything personal for years. He was out all day on the farm, and she was playing either golf or bridge with Eleanor and her snobbish friends. Evenings were passed in silence in front of the television, and he was always asleep before she came upstairs.
    She sighed impatiently at his shocked expression. "It's fair enough. Ailsa was Ellie's friend… mine, too. What did you expect us to do? Let James get away with it? If you'd shown a blind bit of interest in anything other than the farm, you'd know there's far more to the story than the nonsense verdict the coroner produced. James is a complete brute, and the only reason you're making a fuss now is because you've been listening to his solicitor… and he's
paid
to take his client's side. You're so
slow
sometimes."
    There was no arguing with that. Dick had always taken his time to think things through. What he blamed himself for was his indifference. "Ailsa can't have died that quickly," he protested. "You said the reason you didn't interfere was because she spoke to him after the punch. Okay, I'm no pathologist, but I'm pretty sure a person's circulation would have to stop immediately to prevent the damaged blood vessels leaking into the skin. Even then I wouldn't bet on it."
    "There's no point browbeating me, it's not going to change my mind," announced Prue with a return to irritability. "I expect the cold had something to do with it. I heard a door slam afterward, so James obviously locked her out and left her to die. If you're so interested, why don't you call the pathologist and talk to him? Though you probably won't get much joy. Eleanor says they're all in the funny-handshake brigade, which is why James hasn't been arrested."
    "That's ridiculous. Why do you take any notice of what that stupid woman says? And since when were either of you