‘I’m the one you spoke to, on the phone.’
‘Do you set down,’ Heaton told Strike comfortably, pointing at the armchair with its back to the window, facing his own. ‘Happy about the referendum?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Strike, who judged from Len Heaton’s expression that this was the correct answer.
During the few minutes Heaton’s wife moved in and out of the kitchen carrying tea, cups, plates and lemon drizzle cake, regularly crying ‘Wait fur me, I wanna hear it all!’, Strike had ample time to realise that the three blondes who’d cornered him at his godson’s christening had been mere amateurs in nosiness. The sofa-dwellers bombarded him with questions, not only about all his most newsworthy cases, but also about his parentage, his missing half leg and even – here, his determined good nature nearly failed – his relationship with Charlotte Campbell.
‘That was a long time ago,’ he said as firmly as was compatible with politeness, before turning to Leonard Heaton. ‘So you’re just back from Spain?’
‘Ah, thass right,’ said Leonard, whose forehead was peeling. ‘Got ourselves a little place in Fuengirola ahter I sowd my business. We’re normally there November through to April, but—’
‘He broke his bloody leg,’ said Shelley, finally sitting down on a chair beside her husband, perching the tiny white dog on her knee and looking greedily at Strike.
‘Liss of the “bloody”, you,’ said Leonard, smirking. He had the air of a joker used to commanding the room, but he didn’t seem to resent Strike’s temporary hogging of centre stage, perhaps because he and his wife were enjoying playing the role of impresarios who’d brought this impressive exhibit for their friends’ amusement.
‘Tell him what you was up to whan you broke it,’ Shelley instructed her husband.
‘Thass neither hare nor there,’ said a smirking Leonard, clearly wanting to be prompted.
‘Go on, Leonard, tell him,’ said Gillian, giggling.
‘I’ll tell’m, then,’ said Shelley.
‘Really?’ said Strike, smiling politely.
‘Bloody
‘Tripped,’ said Leonard.
‘Pissed,’ said Shelley, and the audience on the sofa chortled more loudly.
‘Do you shet up, woman,’ said Leonard, archly innocent. ‘Tripped. Could’ve happened to anyone.’
‘Funny how it olluz happens to
‘They’re olluz like this!’ the giggling Gillian told Strike, inviting him to enjoy the Heatons’ madcap humour. ‘They never stop!’
‘We stayed out in Fuengirola till he could walk better,’ said Shelley. ‘He didn’t fancy the plane and tryina manage the steps down the esplanade at home. We had to miss out on a couple of summer bookings, but thass the price you pay for marrying a man who breaks his leg tryina git a golf ball into a clown’s mouth.’
The trio on the sofa roared with laughter, darting eager looks at Strike to see whether he was suitably entertained, and Strike continued to smile as sincerely as he could manage while drawing out his notebook and pen, at which a silence tingling with excitement fell over the room. Far from dampening anyone’s spirits, the prospect of raking back over the accidental death of a child seemed to be having a stimulating effect on all present.
‘Well, it’s very good of you to agree to see me,’ Strike told the Heatons. ‘As I said, I’m really just after an eyewitness account of what happened that day on the beach. It’s a long time ago now, I know, but—’
‘Well, we were up right arly,’ said Shelley eagerly.
‘Ah, crack of dawn,’ said Leonard.
‘Before dawn,’ Shelley corrected him. ‘Still dark.’
‘We were s’pposed to be driving up to Leicester—’
‘Fur me auntie’s funeral,’ interjected Shelley.
‘You can’t leave a Maltese,’ said Leonard. ‘They do howl the place down if you leave ’em, so we needed t’ampty har before we got in the car. You’re not s’posed to take dogs down on the beach in th’oliday season—’
‘But Betty was like Dilly, she wus only tiny, and we always pick up,’ said Shelley comfortably. After a split second’s confusion, Strike realised she was referring to dog shit.
‘So we took har along the beach, just out there,’ said Leonard, pointing left. ‘And the gal come a-runnin’ out of the dark, screaming.’
‘Give me a hell of a tann,’ said Shelley.
‘We thowt she’d had a sex attack or something,’ said Leonard, not without a certain relish.
‘Can you remember what she said?’
‘“Hilp me, hilp me, she’s gone under” sorta thing,’ said Leonard.
‘“I thenk she’s drowned”,’ said Shelley.
‘We thowt she meant a dog. Who goes swimming, five a.m. in the North Sea? She wus in her undies. Soaking wet,’ said Leonard with a smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows. Shelley cuffed her husband with the back of her ringed hand.
‘Behave yoursalf,’ said Shelley, smirking at Strike, while the sofa-sitters snorted with renewed laughter.
‘She wasn’t in a swimsuit?’
‘Undies,’ repeated Leonard, smirking. ‘Freezing cold.’
Shelley cuffed him again while the sofa-sitters laughed.
