Say Goodbye to the Boys by Mari Stead Jones Page A

therefore assume that the summons had been urgent, unexpected and important. Summoned by a familiar, I am led to conclude.’ He gave us a long silent spell to ensure that we thought about it. ‘Well – what d’you say?’
    â€˜If you say so,’ Emlyn said. ‘I mean – yes.’ He appealed to me. ‘You take over – the heat’s got me.’
    â€˜Nonsense,’ Amos said. ‘You are simply refusing to think. Mrs Ridetski had a key. She went in answer to a summons. The same key opened the garage door as well as the door to the lift contraption. She ascended.’ His mottled hands came up and pulled at an imaginary rope. ‘And there was someone waiting, someone who she had hurried to, confidently. Tell me – why have you not confessed to the murder of Miss Porterhouse?’
    â€˜I beg your pardon?’ Emlyn said.
    â€˜The Inspector will want to know. He will send for you before the day is out. The three of you. Marshall’s parent too. All the confessors. He will want to know why you made a special case of Lilian Ridetski. I trust you have your answers and your alibis?’
    â€˜Well, bugger me,’ Emlyn said lightly. ‘I should throw you off my ship. We’re suspects, are we?’
    â€˜Only because you have invited suspicion, you foolish, naive young men,’ Amos said before he went to sleep once more.
    At five that evening I was interviewed by Inspector Marks. At six, Emlyn. At seven Mash, and they kept him in for a long time. They had to throw MT out of the police station.
    â€˜OK,’ Emlyn said, ‘I know I’m to blame – but you don’t really care what they think in this shitty little town, do you?’
    â€˜It isn’t that,’ I said.
    â€˜Well – you never used to care. You didn’t give a fuck for anybody. You were famous for it.’
    â€˜Me? Famous? When?’
    â€˜At school. Ask anybody.’ We had given Mash an escort home and we were standing outside Emlyn’s house in the Crescent. Some women in the King’s Arms had actually pointed the finger at us. ‘Now look – what we’ll have to do is get this bugger caught. I mean, I’m like you. I don’t give a sod what the bloody town thinks. But what we’ll do is we’ll set a trap. He’s local all right and he’s gone off his nut, so once and for all, to stop all this harassing we’re getting because I made a bit of a balls of it, we’ll catch him, preferably in the act!’ He was facing me, standing on his toes, he eyes shining.
    â€˜Good night,’ I said. ‘You go to your bo–bo’s and read a comic. Count me out.’ I walked away from him.
    â€˜Philip,’ he called after me.
    â€˜Bollocks,’ I called back.
    That night Lilian’s shop was burgled. Nothing was taken, nothing much disturbed, except that someone stripped a length of wallpaper off one of the walls in Lilian’s bedroom. ‘Something there behind a picture on the wall,’ Laura said, her eyes quick and wide. ‘Fancy!’
    â€˜It’ll be an envelope,’ Emlyn told her with great assurance. ‘Brown manila. With plans for an atomic bomb!’
    â€˜Good heavens!’ Laura said, ‘how d’you know?’ Then she laughed. ‘You’re joking. Having me on.’
    Laura, perched on a stool outside the shop, swung out with her rolled up Daily Mirror and caught him across the ear. ‘Get away,’ she said, ‘clear off the both of you!’ Only be back to close the shop for her in case the maniac was lying in wait behind the bookshelves.
    â€˜Leave it open,’ I suggested. ‘Maybe he’ll pinch the stock.’
    â€˜I should be so lucky,’ she shouted after us.
    We wandered around the hall. ‘Isn’t this great?’ Emlyn said. ‘Messing about – just like when we were kids on those long summer holidays. I