Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

“I’ve been silly, and haven’t told you my name. I’m Margaret Cowley — Peggy to my friends.”

“And I’m Colin Morton,” said Dick, shaking the hand warmly. “I’m sorry I had to stop you, Peggy, when you were going to ask about his mother. It’s something I’ve been trying to stop him thinking about. If he was a little older it would be different.”

They were talking in the doorway of the kitchen now, and the percolator was making baritone noises.

“It was silly of me to even think of asking. It’s not my business, and these days, with everyone’s marriage breaking down, it’s much the best plan not to ask.”

Dick shook his head. “Oh, it’s nothing like that. Malcolm’s mother died, in childbirth. We were expecting a little girl, and we knew there were complications, but somehow—”

“Oh, I am sorry.” She turned to face him. His eyes were full. “So it was a tragedy clean out of the blue?”

“If the doctors suspected anything serious, they kept it from us.”

“Poor little boy. And poor you both, of course.”

“I’m trying to put it behind us, make a fresh start.”

“New place, new life?”

“Very much so.” He had blinked his eyes free of the tears, and now smiled bravely. “Everything in the old house reminded me... and though with a little boy memories fade, still, I do try to keep his mind on other things. He’s got to look to the future, even if I find it difficult, and keep... well, rambling in my mind back to the past. Stop me if I do that.”

“Isn’t life a bitch?” Peggy Cowley’s voice held genuine bitterness. “I lost my husband a couple of years ago. Massive heart attack. He was in his late sixties, but these days that seems no age.”

“It doesn’t.” He thought to himself that she must have married a man fifteen or twenty years older than herself, and his thought showed on his face.

“Yes, he was quite a bit older,” Peggy said. “Second marriage for him. But it was a very happy one.”

“No children?”

“No. Perhaps that was why it was a happy marriage.” They both laughed, but Peggy immediately kicked herself for her tactlessness. “I don’t mean it. We’d have loved to have kiddies, but it just didn’t happen. I’d have liked to have one to lean on when he died. It would have made all the difference. And even little Malcolm: You’ll have found he keeps your mind occupied and stops you grieving too much, I’ll be bound.”

Dick nodded. He had thought himself into the situation.

“Yes, he does. But sometimes I look at him and...” Again there were tears in his eyes and he took out a handkerchief. He shook himself. “That’s what I said to stop me doing.”

“Not when you’re on your own. It will do you good.”

“And what about you? Do you have a job? Or can you make ends meet with the bed-and-breakfast trade?”

“Oh, I make ends meet and a bit better than that. I’ve got the cottage as well.”

Peggy’s intention had been to drop this information casually into the conversation, but both immediately knew what was at issue.

“You have a cottage?” Dick’s voice had an equally bogus neutrality. They didn’t look at each other, but they were intensely aware of each other.

“Yes, just a tiny place at the bottom of the garden and across the lane. It doesn’t take more than two or three unless they squeeze themselves in. Actually the last of the Easter tenants leave in a couple of days’ time. I’ve got no bookings then until the school holidays start in July.”

Dick drained his coffee, and she filled his cup. Then she sat back peaceably and watched him sipping. They needed no words. Dick had half made the decision when he saw her at the door. That was why he had given her the name which was on the false papers he had got from an old contact when he was first contemplating snatching his son. The whole of the last couple of hours had felt like a coming to rest, the thing that all the last few weeks had been leading up to.

“I’d need a job,” he said. “That’s not easy in the West Country, is it?”

“It’s possible, if you’ll take the jobs that nobody else wants,” said Peggy. Dick was doing sums.

“How much do you charge for the cottage?”

“Oh, we can work something out as far as that goes.”

“No, I don’t want you to lose out,” said Dick emphatically. “There’s no earthly reason why you should lose out financially by allowing a stranger to sponge off you.”

Though they both knew perfectly well that there was one possible reason. Sex had edged its way more explicitly to the forefront of both their minds.

“I’d give the place at a reasonable rent to anyone who’d take it and look after it in the low season,” said Peggy stoutly. “Stands to reason. It’s always better to have a place occupied, with a bit coming in for it. Empty, you’re just asking for squatters and burglars.”

“I suppose that’s true,” said Dick, who knew better than most. “Where is the nearest job centre?”

“Oh, that’s way away, in Truro. You ought to look for something more local first. They’re wanting a relief barman at The Cornishman, just down the road.”