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Authors: Simon Brett
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eaves. Though its size and condition ruled out âpokeyâ and ârun-downâ, as they entered the cottage Graham thought âdraughtyâ might still be in with a chance, but this hope was quickly dashed by the blast of central heating and open fire that welcomed them. He toyed momentarily with âoverheatedâ and âsmokyâ, but was forced to reject them as inappropriate. âTarted-upâ, âpreciousâ and âponcyâ met the same fate. It was just a very nice cottage, practical, skilfully modernised, well-equipped. Above reproach, even for such a skilled practitioner of reproach as Graham Marshall.
And any hope that Robert Benhamâs image might be shattered by a grotesquely unsuitable partner was dispelled as a girl issued from the kitchen to greet them.
Before he met her, Graham knew her primary attraction â that she was a girlfriend rather than a wife. The more he saw of Robertâs life, the more he blamed the unfavourable comparison of his own on his ill-considered and premature marriage to Merrily. She was his handicap; she was the obstacle to the full realisation of his potential.
He felt this with redoubled force when he saw how beautiful the girlfriend was. Not only beautiful, but famously beautiful. He recognised her face from his television screen. The pale blue eyes and black hair identified Tara Liston, an English actress who had made it in the States and been reimported to her own country in an internationally successful detective series.
And Robert Benham actually possessed this creature who peopled the wet-dreams of the world. His recent weekend trip to Miami fell into place.
And Grahamâs last hope of comfort fell into oblivion.
What was more, Tara Liston proved to be charming. His defensive wishful thinking that she might turn out to be a bitch, might even give Robert a hard time, dissipated through the evening. She was delightful, entertaining and apparently deeply in love.
Graham made the mistake at one point of mentioning his mother-in-lawâs name, brandishing it as if to show his own association with the glamour of show business, in the way that had proved so successful in his early days at Crasoco. Tara was of course charming about it and, jutting out a dubious lower lip, said yes, she was sure she had heard the name. But Graham felt deflated and shabby, like a man name-dropping in a pub.
The dinner she cooked for them the first evening revealed no shortcoming in domestic skills, and an imagination that contrasted with Merrilyâs predictable offerings from the Corden Bleu partwork.
Neither Tara nor Robert could have been nicer to him. To compound his malaise, Graham had the knowledge that it all came from within himself.
At the end of the meal, the talk moved to drugs and he brightened at the prospect of showing his cosmopolitan insouciance on the subject. Those rare and over-dramatised puffs of pot taken in Lilianâs Abingdon cottage would now stand him in good stead. Even though it was a good ten years since he had smoked, he spoke of cannabis with familiarity and enthusiasm.
As Tara produced the little bag of cocaine, he realised his mistake, but he had already said too much. His refusal to participate, a reflex born of Calvinist upbringing and the fear of doing it wrong, left him feeling gauche and immature.
He watched the others covertly, but it was Tara who held his gaze for the rest of the evening. He stared, with fascinated envy, at the neat, practised way in which she snorted the white powder and, later, the unambiguous intent with which she led Robert off to their bedroom.
As he lay awake in his single bed, Grahamâs mind lubriciously translated every creak of the old cottage to his own disparagement.
And, once again, as was increasingly the case, the only thought that gave him strength and identity was the knowledge that he was a murderer.
He was woken on the Saturday morning by more creaking. It
And any hope that Robert Benhamâs image might be shattered by a grotesquely unsuitable partner was dispelled as a girl issued from the kitchen to greet them.
Before he met her, Graham knew her primary attraction â that she was a girlfriend rather than a wife. The more he saw of Robertâs life, the more he blamed the unfavourable comparison of his own on his ill-considered and premature marriage to Merrily. She was his handicap; she was the obstacle to the full realisation of his potential.
He felt this with redoubled force when he saw how beautiful the girlfriend was. Not only beautiful, but famously beautiful. He recognised her face from his television screen. The pale blue eyes and black hair identified Tara Liston, an English actress who had made it in the States and been reimported to her own country in an internationally successful detective series.
And Robert Benham actually possessed this creature who peopled the wet-dreams of the world. His recent weekend trip to Miami fell into place.
And Grahamâs last hope of comfort fell into oblivion.
What was more, Tara Liston proved to be charming. His defensive wishful thinking that she might turn out to be a bitch, might even give Robert a hard time, dissipated through the evening. She was delightful, entertaining and apparently deeply in love.
Graham made the mistake at one point of mentioning his mother-in-lawâs name, brandishing it as if to show his own association with the glamour of show business, in the way that had proved so successful in his early days at Crasoco. Tara was of course charming about it and, jutting out a dubious lower lip, said yes, she was sure she had heard the name. But Graham felt deflated and shabby, like a man name-dropping in a pub.
The dinner she cooked for them the first evening revealed no shortcoming in domestic skills, and an imagination that contrasted with Merrilyâs predictable offerings from the Corden Bleu partwork.
Neither Tara nor Robert could have been nicer to him. To compound his malaise, Graham had the knowledge that it all came from within himself.
At the end of the meal, the talk moved to drugs and he brightened at the prospect of showing his cosmopolitan insouciance on the subject. Those rare and over-dramatised puffs of pot taken in Lilianâs Abingdon cottage would now stand him in good stead. Even though it was a good ten years since he had smoked, he spoke of cannabis with familiarity and enthusiasm.
As Tara produced the little bag of cocaine, he realised his mistake, but he had already said too much. His refusal to participate, a reflex born of Calvinist upbringing and the fear of doing it wrong, left him feeling gauche and immature.
He watched the others covertly, but it was Tara who held his gaze for the rest of the evening. He stared, with fascinated envy, at the neat, practised way in which she snorted the white powder and, later, the unambiguous intent with which she led Robert off to their bedroom.
As he lay awake in his single bed, Grahamâs mind lubriciously translated every creak of the old cottage to his own disparagement.
And, once again, as was increasingly the case, the only thought that gave him strength and identity was the knowledge that he was a murderer.
He was woken on the Saturday morning by more creaking. It
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