was two hours past Mabel’s lunchtime walk, and Felix still hadn’t been arrested, so finally he jingled the lead, clipped it to her collar, and took the spare key from the hook. Then he closed the front door behind him with a Post-it note stuck to it at eye level.
Dear Officer. Walking the dog. Not armed. Back soon. F. Pink.
Miss Knott was weeding next door.
‘Hello, Mabel!’ she always said. ‘And how’s my favourite girl?’
Felix always suspected that Miss Knott would like him to respond to such greetings in Mabel’s voice – Bit RUFF today, Miss Knott, and how are WOOF? – but he refused to summon up the required foolishness.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Knott.’
‘And how are you, Mr Mabel?’ Miss Knott smiled.
I killed a man today.
‘Quite well, thank you, Miss Knott.’
‘Going anywhere exciting?’
To prison, in all probability.
‘Just around the block.’
‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘It’s a nice block, isn’t it?’
Felix didn’t know what to say to that. The block was no nicer than many and no worse than most. Mostly residential with a mix of terraces that opened straight on to the pavement, and semis that had driveways and little front gardens. There was a corner shop with a bucket of overpriced flowers on the pavement and a rack of postcards that showed pictures of pretty places that were quite near, but not quite here.
‘I like looking at the other people’s gardens,’ Miss Knott went on. ‘Don’t you?’
Felix never noticed other people’s gardens but he said ‘Mm’ to be polite, as she prattled on gaily, ‘I like to give them marks out of ten.’
‘Oh,’ he nodded. And then he said, ‘Actually, Miss Knott, I’ve been meaning to give you my spare key’ – as if he’d moved in a month ago, not forty years.
Miss Knott looked surprised. ‘Are you going away?’
Felix winced at her unwitting turn of phrase. ‘It’s only for emergencies,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking of Mabel being stuck indoors, you see, if something should happen to me.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it won’t,’ Miss Knott said sweetly, and then added, ‘But that’s a very good idea, isn’t it, Mabel?’
It’s GRRRRReat!
Felix didn’t say that. He just handed Miss Knott the key. He didn’t tell her that he expected she would be using it quite soon because he was wanted by the police and would shortly be dragged off in handcuffs. That would only complicate matters.
‘Thank you, Miss Knott,’ he said, and was relieved that the transaction was over. He didn’t like to ask people for favours. People might think they were friends.
‘Not at all,’ said Miss Knott. ‘And please, do call me Winnie.’
See what I mean? thought Felix, but he just said, ‘Of course.’
‘Perhaps I should give you my key as well.’
Really, this was spiralling out of control. Felix heartily wished he’d given his key to somebody else, but the thing was, there was nobody else. Not since their friends – or the friends Margaret had graciously shared with him – had drifted out of his life. Miss Knott, however, had never stopped visiting, and had cried hard at both funerals, and continued to hand-deliver a Christmas card to him every year, so Felix cleared his throat impatiently and said, ‘If you like. For emergencies.’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll pop it round.’
‘Just put it through the letterbox,’ he said. ‘Well, we must be going.’
‘Goodbye, Mabel,’ said Miss Knott, and giggled – which was an oddly pretty sound to come out of such an old woman – and gave them a little wave of a trowel as they went on their way.
Felix waited until he was out of earshot before looking down at Mabel and murmuring, ‘Mad as a hatter.’ But Mabel gave him a sidelong look that made him feel rather judged, and he proceeded more humbly with his walk.
He hoped Amanda was all right. He hoped she wasn’t wracked with guilt. He’d misjudged the situation, so it was only right and proper that he should take the blame.
Except he hadn’t taken the blame. Instead he’d fled the scene of the crime to feed his dog.
Felix blushed at the memory. In the heat of the moment it had seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Now it seemed like a cowardly plummet from the moral high ground he’d claimed so grandly when he’d told Amanda that she must leave and he would take care of everything.
So now he was . . . wanted.
Felix Pink hadn’t expected to be a wanted man when he’d left home this morning. He’d expected to go to Abbotsham, oversee a man departing this life with quiet dignity, and be home in time for tea. Instead Amanda had panicked and the wrong man had died, and he’d had to escape from police by breaking down a garden fence. After seventy-five years of law-abiding citizenship, Felix hated to think of all the laws he’d broken, all since breakfast. Goodness only knew what Margaret would say!
Felix hoped that the man they had killed by mistake had been an ass, whose family were not sorry he was dead. And although he recognized the selfishness of this idea, he felt so stupidly cheered by it that he let it run about freely in his head for a bit, enjoying itself. The positivity was infectious. Maybe the whole thing would come to nothing. The police must know where to find him, and yet here he was, free as a lark, walking Mabel and chatting to neighbours as if he hadn’t killed a man at all.
Mabel stopped suddenly to widdle on a weed growing against the Martins’ garden wall, and Felix sighed as his silly fantasy fragmented and blew away. He had created a new reality and he needed to accept it. He’d given Miss Knott his key now, so Mabel would be all right. And if he couldn’t get hold of Geoffrey tonight . . . well then, tomorrow he’d just have to go to the police anyway, and explain his mistake.
Although he wasn’t sure how . . .
‘Hurry up, Mabel,’ he said with a tug, but the little dog hadn’t finished snuffling and dug in her heels. Felix didn’t press the point. He knew from experience that Mabel’s weight increased exponentially the harder he tried to drag her away from any point of interest.
While he stood there waiting for her to set off again, he looked at the Martins’ flowerbeds. It was early May but the tulips were still spectacular. A living, breathing firework display of orange, pink and red brilliance, with daphne scenting the air and velvety camellia petals scattered over the small patch of lawn.
Felix gave the Martins’ garden an eight.
He called Geoffrey for the third time since he’d arrived home.
No answer.
Felix
