She closed her notebook and set it on the table in front of her, then folded her hands in her lap. The expression she wore was soft, somehow. It had been a long time since anyone had looked at me in that way. In the village I was known, yes; meaning people knew that I existed. But beyond the moniker, the occasional half pint of shandy, and the early morning walk for the weekend newspaper, people didn’t know me that well. It wasn’t a criticism of them though; they did try to suck me into village life when I’d first bought the cottage. But the lack of neighbours had been part of the place’s appeal. Though the isolation wore thin now and then. During those times, I reminded myself that this was exactly what I’d wanted – until now.
‘You want to know what happened.’ ‘If I’m going to write about it, then…’ She petered out. ‘Of course.’ I topped up my cold tea with what was left of the milk. ‘He went missing for a short while, during which time there was a search. His body was discovered. There was a trial. The suspect was found not guilty. And now we’re here.’ She looked startled. ‘There are a lot of blanks in that.’ ‘Yes.’ I glanced away from her. The sensation of being seen, studied, suddenly made me uncomfortable. ‘I suppose that’s what the project is for, to fill in the blanks.’ ‘You said there was a trial, a suspect?’ ‘Quite a lengthy one. There was a lot about it in the papers at the time, too.’ I swallowed the beginnings of a laugh. ‘And occasionally for the anniversaries of it all.’ The media hadn’t been especially good at leaving my husband alone during the aftermath of his death, and they’d made a meal of him since. There were documentaries, whole fandoms, my solicitor had told me; with half of the clingers-on believing one conspiracy and half of them fabricating others. Everyone loved a mystery, though, and the unsolved murder of a middle-class man in rural England had given the bloodhounds a taste of something worth reporting – re-reporting. Prue grabbed the notebook again. I watched her slip easily back into professional mode. ‘Would it be okay for me to take your husband’s name?’ ‘Roger Miller.’ There was a long delay between my saying his name and her looking up. She hadn’t written anything down. And I imagined how, in the seconds that had passed, her brain must have connected the dots and formed a watercolour. She opened her mouth twice before anything emerged; first, just a noise before it could form fully as a word. The side of my mouth twitched but I did my utmost to level out the smile that was forming. I knew how it would look. Instead, I sat passive and waited for Prue to decide what happened next. ‘Roger Miller,’ she repeated then took another pause, and a breath so deep that I worried there’d hardly be enough air left in the garden for me. ‘Which must mean the suspect in the trial was–’ ‘Me.’
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