Doyle was annoyed with himself. He'd been given a week's leave and he'd spent the first couple of days asleep. He didn't seem to be able to wake up. Bodie was spending his week with a girlfriend down on the south coast. He'd boasted that they'd be lucky to see outside of the hotel bedroom, if his plans went well. Doyle smiled. If Bodie were as tired as he was, his prophecy was probably true - but for the wrong reason. An unconscious boyfriend would be a new experience for the girl! Day three saw Doyle at least half awake and he was able to shop and get some damp winter air on his lungs. So when the end of the week was approaching he was feeling much better and less frustrated with himself. His doorbell rang as he was thinking about lunch. He frowned. It was the internal buzzer, not the communal street bell. Perhaps a resident of the block had forgotten to lock it behind them - again. Doyle peered through the peep-hole, half expecting Bodie. An elderly face peered back blankly. Doyle recognised him as a neighbour from upstairs. He opened the door. The first thing he couldn't help noticing, even if he'd still been half asleep, was a large amount of blood on the man's shirt. Since he was standing up and conscious, Doyle guessed the blood belonged to someone else.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," the man said with remarkable calmness, "but I've just killed my wife."
Doyle stared at him for a few moments trying to take it in.
The neighbour continued, "I think I remember someone here telling me that you were a policeman."
"Come in, come in," Doyle managed, standing to one side to let the man in. He led him to the kitchen - later, he was to wonder why not the living room. He sat his neighbour down, wondering how to start off.
"I'm Ray Doyle." It sounded a good opening.
The man shook his hand, introducing himself at Jack Statt. Doyle got up and made tea for them both. The man sat quietly watching Doyle moving round his kitchen. He found it soothing. Doyle had worked out that the man was almost certainly in some state of shock. Once the tea was served, he then sat opposite and asked gently what had happened.
"You may want to check, Mr Doyle, but I'm sure she's dead. Flat 37." He fished in his pocket and handed over his door key. There was a lot of blood on his hand and it was shaking - the only sign of distress or tension Doyle could see. He slowly took the key from him. Instead of going straight upstairs, he diverted into the bedroom for a spare blanket and wrapped up his visitor before he left.
"I won't be long Mr Statt."
And he wasn't. He let himself into the unfamiliar flat. It was a similar layout to his own. There was a long corridor from the front door with rooms off. He peered into each one in turn. It wasn't until he reached the kitchen at the far end that he saw what Mr Statt was referring to. It was a bloodbath. Doyle didn't need to enter the crime scene to check that the woman was dead. She'd succumbed to a frenzied knife attack. He couldn't readily see the murder weapon but he didn't need to. Both kitchen chairs were knocked over, the kitchen table was slightly askew and a mug of tea had been spilt across the lino. Doyle took it all in with a professional eye. He sighed and left, locking the flat carefully behind him.
Doyle returned heavily to his own flat where Mr Statt was still sitting at the table, a mirror image of the room he'd just left. It suddenly felt very surreal. Mr Statt looked up. There was no hope or expectation in his eyes, which made Doyle's announcement a little easier.
"I need to call the police, Mr Statt. This is outside my jurisdiction."
Mr Statt simply nodded then asked to go to the toilet. Doyle said to go ahead while he made a phone call. Connecting to the local station he asked to speak to DI Frost. The duty sergeant, whom Doyle knew, said that Frost was on leave and that Moyle was the duty officer at the moment.
"Leave?!" Doyle spluttered, "Jack never takes leave."
"High authorities came down like a ton of bricks. Rumour has it," the sergeant whispered conspiratorially, "that if he didn't take leave, he could take retirement instead."
Doyle sighed. He knew Moyle to be a bully and a bigot. He'd be the last person Doyle would want haranguing this confused and frightened old man.
"Can you get hold of Jack? Tell him I want to speak to him urgently - and I mean urgently."
"I'll do my best. You want the gentle touch, eh?"
"Absolutely."
"I'll do my best," and with that the sergeant rang off.
It was the best Doyle could do at present. Jack was nearer this old man's age and he may get more out of him than Doyle could. It seemed that Mr Statt's hearing hadn't been affected by shock.
"I don't want to be a nuisance. If your friend isn't there, Mr Doyle, I can see someone else. It really isn't going to make any difference to what happened, is it?"
Doyle could see the logic of Mr Statt's argument. "You'd be better seeing Mr Frost. He's a good and fair man."
"If you trust him, Mr Doyle, so do I."
Doyle smiled at him and said he could call him Ray. Mr Statt just smiled weakly, not wishing to offend. Into the silence, while they waited for the phone to ring, Mr Statt asked Doyle if he wanted to know what had happened. Doyle had a fair idea but kept an open mind.
"Better wait till DI Frost gets here, then you can tell him directly."
Mr Statt nodded and waited like an obedient child. When the phone did ring, it made them both jump.
"Jack here. What's so important that CI5 needs my skills and expertise to save the world then?"
Doyle smiled. "Sorry to drag you away from leave…"
"It's all right. I had to cancel my trip to the Bahamas in any case. Bloody ash clouds," Jack said sarcastically. He hadn't changed in all these years!
Doyle grinned and felt a weight lifted from his shoulders. "I've a neighbour here with a problem - a police matter. I know you're on leave, but I also know that Moyle's in charge at the moment."
"Is he, son? Then you know more than I do. Give me your address and I'll be over. Stick the kettle on."
Doyle thanked him. He didn't usually give out his address so freely but this was an emergency and he trusted his old, irascible DI.
"Jack's on his way," Doyle confirmed to his visitor. "Would you like some soup?"
The man looked haggard. He nodded and Doyle had to combine chicken with vegetable to make it go round for the three of them. He should have done some more shopping rather than lounging around. In less than ten minutes, the doorbell sounded. It seemed that Jack - as Doyle suspected - was straining at the leash for something interesting and useful to do. His life was his work and his work was his life. He hoped that he never ended up like that. Doyle let his friend in and said briefly that he'd seen the flat upstairs and Mr Statt had indeed killed his wife - or that was the way it seemed on first sight. Learning from Cowley, Doyle never took anything for granted. Doyle added, needlessly, that he hadn't touched anything in the flat apart from the front door. Frost entered the kitchen and sat opposite Mr Statt. As he was bundled up in a blanket, Frost couldn't see the blood-stained shirt.
"Now Mr Statt, my name's Frost - Jack Frost. I'm a Detective Inspector. You can save your gasps of surprise till later. You came down to see Mr Doyle. Do you know him well?"
Doyle was sat opposite like a tennis umpire between two players. He said nothing and would keep silent while Frost quietly encouraged the old man to tell his tale.
"I don't know the young man at all - except to nod and say hello on the stairs. He seems very pleasant." Doyle had already become invisible. "But I seem to remember someone, I think it was Miss Bright at No 28, telling me at some point that Mr Doyle was a policeman. So I came down here to tell him that I'd murdered my wife. He'd know what to do next."
"And what did he do?"
"He gave me a cup of tea and a blanket and went upstairs to see if Dorothy were dead. I knew she was but I wanted it officially confirmed." Frost didn't mention - and neither did Doyle - that Doyle wasn't an official authority. Moyle would have done. Frost didn't want to confuse the old man so said nothing and let him continue. He didn't seem to want to say any more and the three men finished their soup in silence.
After he'd finished his bowl, Frost said. "I suppose I need to take a look, Mr Statt."
The neighbour handed over his key again and Doyle was left alone with their charge. As he was washing up, to kill the time, Mr Statt found a tea towel and helped to dry. Jack came back in swift order.
"You've made a good job of it," was his tactless confirmation. "Perhaps you can tell me why, since I know the how."
As this may take some time, Doyle directed them all into the living room. He wasn't sure whether he should be taking notes as Jack was still officially on leave. This interview should be down at the station with a sanctioned note-taker, a solicitor, and Moyle in charge. But Jack never was one to follow orders, as Doyle knew only too well. At least Frost could get the ball rolling here.
"I've been trying to think where to start. I don't want to keep you from your work."
"It's all right. Our time is for you," Frost declared brightly and hoped that his smile came across as encouraging.
Statt just smiled blankly not wanting to upset anyone. He thought for a few moments more before sighing and appearing to come to a decision. "I think the place to start is when I met and married Dorothy. It was my one great mistake and my one great regret. We should never have married. It was a stormy courtship, so what could I expect otherwise when we were hitched?"
His audience said nothing and let him ramble.
"She was a dominant woman, headstrong and confident. I was happy to go along most of the time but any time I bucked the trend she'd go for me. At first it was verbally and then physically. You must think me a weak man."
He looked at his audience. There was no scorn in their eyes. He thought he detected pity, but not derision. He was encouraged to carry on.
"Then I met someone. Our eyes met and that was that. I was smitten. I don't remember ever feeling that for anyone before or since. Of course I didn't know whether he felt the same." He paused - perhaps for effect. "Yes, it was a 'he'."
"How long ago was that?" asked Frost gently.
"Far back enough for it to be illegal. I had to tread gently or he'd push my teeth down my throat for - what's the modern expression? - 'coming on to him'?" He paused again, his mind going back over the years to that first fateful meeting. "We danced around each other for a while, became pals, found we had a mutual interest in fishing and gardening and history. Talked long into the night at the pub about the things that interested us, then after a few months I felt Joe put his hand on my knee under the table in the pub. All very discreet like. He just looked into my eyes to see how I'd react to that. He wanted to know as much as I did what side of the fence we were. I smiled at him and nodded. We knew then that we felt the same about each other. We were both married and in full-time work, so getting time off was always going to be a problem. We'd never been alone together; always in a public place. We went to lectures on history, we went to flower shows, but we never went anywhere where it would be odd to be seen together, like going to the picture house or a restaurant, that kind of thing."
Frost and Doyle were wondering when he was going to get to the point. All this sounded ancient history - interesting, but history all the same.
"Then I saw a small ad in a shop window advertising a bedsit over a shop on the high street. On an impulse I made enquiries and signed up a lease for six months. We could never live together. That was completely out. We knew that, but it was a bolt hole where we could be together, even if only for a few hours. Joe was delighted when I told him. It was unfurnished so we spent days looking for cheap second-hand furniture. We were like an engaged couple planning their first home together." Statt smiled at the memory, his rheumy eyes swimming with tears. "If anyone asked, we were brothers. That was our cover. But no-one bothered us. But being on the high street, there was always a chance our wives or friends would wonder what was going off, but we were always cautious. We never entered or left the flat together and I had the radio on quite loud so neighbours couldn't hear any conversations since I was meant to be there on my own. We told each other everything. Joe's marriage was ok. His wife was quite demanding in the bedroom and wanted kids. She was even getting tests to find out why nothing was happening. Joe didn't tell her he'd had a vasectomy. I told him about my marriage. Dorothy had laughed at me on my honeymoon. It was my first time; it should have been hers. So things went from bad to worse. Fortunately we didn't have kids either but that was because Dorothy didn't want to be intimate with me, and didn't like kids anyway. She never asked me whether I'd ever want them. I did wonder if she had a lover, then I realised that I couldn't care less if she did. It would be better, in fact, if she did. But who would have her?"
You did, his audience thought sadly.
"So I was swinging between happiness with Joe and, well, hell with Dorothy. She accused me of a lot of things, but homosexuality was something she never even suspected. It was my secret joke. Don't know everything, you bitch."
The men were surprised at the sudden violence, but let him continue. He was living the moment.
"Then I was in the pub one night, expecting Joe to pop in for his usual, when I overheard a conversation. Joe Hasselthwaite was talking to a bloke - I don't know his name, but I've seen him in there regularly - saying wasn't it sad about Joe Cross - my Joe that is. I pricked my ears up and strained to hear the rest of it. Then their eyes swung in my direction. 'You're a mate of Joe Cross, aren't you?' this bloke said. I just nodded. 'Well, I'm sorry to say that he was killed on the road this afternoon. I don't know what happened. The high street was closed off for most of the afternoon.' I just sat there with my beer I my hand, just staring at them. 'You alright?' this other Joe said and I just left. I didn't know or care what they thought. I went to my - our flat - and just sat there for hours. I didn't know what to do. I thought that they may have made a mistake. You know what rumours are. So in the end I went to the hospital to find out for myself. And it was true. I was told that his wife had identified his body. I asked if I could see him. I went as far as saying that I was an old friend. She was a bit reluctant and she had to speak to someone else, but I was eventually allowed into the mortuary. They only showed me his face and shoulders. Not a mark on him that I could see. He looked so peaceful, so beautiful. I'm afraid I broke down then. They were very kind and asked if someone could come and take me home. That was the last place I wanted to be. I said I'd be all right if I could have a little rest for a while."
Tears were streaming down Statt's face as he recalled the events. His audience were feeling very choked themselves.
"They put me in this room with chairs - easy chairs, and pictures on the walls - like a little lounge - and brought me some tea. They were very kind," he repeated. "I don't know how long I was there, but I knew I couldn't stay there all night so I left. I walked about for a long while until it were light, then had breakfast somewhere and went to work like nothing had happened. I suppose I was trying to convince myself that nothing had. Then I went home. I'd somehow forgotten that I hadn't been home the previous night. Dorothy really laid into me - punched me to the ground she did. I got up and hit her back. I'm not sure I broke her nose. Something seemed to give and I walked out. I got on a train to somewhere and stayed there for a few days. I should have stayed away. I don't know why I went back to Dorothy. Don't know why I asked her to forgive me. Had to grovel to the factory, too, for them to take me back. And all the while I couldn't say why - couldn't say what had really happened."
Mr Statt seemed to come to a sudden halt and Doyle felt it a good opportunity to offer more tea. Refreshed, Mr Statt continued.
"Well, I had to grieve for Joe quietly like. I did go to his grave - but not his funeral - that would have raised too many questions. I gave up the flat of course and sold the furniture. Over the years I stopped thinking of Joe every day, then stopped thinking of him every week until I could say that I didn't think of him at all. The pain gradually eased, with twinges now and then; little reminders - a phrase overheard, someone's name that sounded like his, things like that." He paused again and Doyle tried not to think how he'd cope if anything happened to Bodie. "Then, this morning, a song came on the radio. "Desert Island Discs" it was. You know, the programme where famous people pick out their favourite songs."
His audience nodded.
"They played 'Mad About the Boy'. It took me back to that time, that flat, that man. I just stood in the kitchen and went right back into Joe's arms. Then Dorothy switched off the radio and said that it was time to go to the shops. She saw that I was crying. I hadn't realised it myself and she wanted to know what had got into me all of a sudden. I couldn't tell her. Then she started saying how weak I was, the usual taunts and lies. I couldn't stand it any more. I pushed her away. I didn't want to see her face, her lies, her vileness." Statt was struggling for words. "She stumbled against something, then she took a swing at me. Suddenly I found a knife in my hand - the bread knife. I went for her. She thought I wouldn't at first. She didn't sneer for long. I saw to that." Statt turned his eyes intently at Frost, willing him to understand. "I kept sticking her with the knife. I wanted her dead, Mr Frost. I didn't intend to, not at first. When I first got hold of the knife. I would have put it back if she hadn't - well, if she hadn't. But I kept thinking of Joe and our song and our life and what I could have had if it hadn't been for her. I loathed her, Mr Frost. I loathe her with every fibre of my being."
Statt broke down in gulping sobs. Frost turned in embarrassment to Doyle.
"More tea, son?" Frost suggested to his friend, as he leaned forward and put his hand on Statt's arm supportively.
Doyle didn't think that was needed right now, but he dutifully got up and into the kitchen as he didn't know what else to do. Then, on impulse, he returned to the living room and went over to his hi-fi in the corner and rooted out an LP, found Dinah Washington's blues album, and put it on. 'Mad About the Boy' filled the flat. He didn't know if he was being insensitive or not.
"Do you want me to switch it off?" he asked gently, kneeling beside the man.
Statt shook his head and they all listened to the record in silence. When it had finished, Statt looked into the faces of this audience.
"You are such beautiful people," he sobbed. "Why couldn't you have been there at the start? Joe would have loved to know you."
Frost and Doyle looked in embarrassment at each other. Mr Statt got up slowly and said that he thought it was about time they were going. Frost knew him to be right. Doyle asked if he should come too but Frost said he'd call him if he needed him. Statt nodded, thanked Doyle sincerely and left with the DI.
Doyle played the song again after they left. He felt very alone and sad as he went over Statt's story again in his mind. When the record had finished he phoned Directory Enquiries and asked for the telephone number of Bodie's hotel in Brighton.