Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

My laughter was a little forced, though, because that look that Harry did so perfectly reminded me of the way Caroline looked at me sometimes. Usually when I’d said something she disapproved of, like one time at lunch with her parents when I had made a remark to her father that she considered out of place. I can’t even remember what it was I said; it was inoffensive enough, but enough to make her raise her head from her plate and give me that abrupt, sidelong, and strangely calculating look.

Harry said, “And now there’s another one joined the flock.” He was looking across the avenue at Bill’s house. “Look, they’ve got Deirdre with them.”

We all turned and looked, and sure enough, the four wives had been joined by Deirdre. Deirdre Balsam.

“Well, it didn’t take her long to get out of her widow’s weeds,” said Harry. We could all see that Deirdre was wearing a bright summer dress, and her hair, even at this distance, we could tell, was a bizarre shade of red.

I said, “She looks like one of those candles they sell at that New Age shop in town.”

“Still,” said Harry, “it’s three months. She can’t stay in purdah forever.”

Deirdre was the widow of George Balsam, who had shuffled off this mortal coil three months before. A freak accident, they had called it in the papers, but then any accident is freak for some papers. George, who was a model-engineering nut, had gone down the garden to his workshop to rewire his lathe, a big three-phase job. He had, quite unlike him, forgotten Rule One: When you’re doing anything like that, always take out the fuse and keep it in your pocket, and poor George had taken 440 volts up both arms. Odd that, because George was what you might call your Urban Worrier, a belt-and-braces man. There was a fuse in his pocket, according to what I’ve heard, but it was the wrong one, apparently.

Deirdre had come home from a night out with the girls and had found him down there, dead as a doornail.

“She seems to have got over her grief well enough,” said Bill. We were all looking across there. The sun was lower now and shining straight into Bill’s picture window. We could quite clearly see Caroline, Suzanne, Melanie, and Tricia sitting in a circle, listening to Deirdre, who was standing, apparently retailing some story. There was a lot of animation, gestures and waving arms, and the wives seemed to be completely enthralled by whatever she was telling them. At any rate, they weren’t moving.

And neither were we. We stayed like that, gazing in unison across the avenue to where our wives were listening to Deirdre Balsam tell them something.

“I see she’s still on the sauce,” said Bill. We could see quite clearly that Deirdre had a large glass of something in her hand.

“Well, she can afford it,” said Doug, “with what she came out with after George went.”

A squadron of turtledoves came swooping low across the top of Doug’s house making that flff-flff sound they do and that weird high squeaking noise. I’m not sure whether that’s their wings making that noise or if it’s a sort of panting for breath. They wheeled in perfect unison and described a perfect circle around the garden.

Bill squinted up at them.

“I’ve heard that nobody really knows how they do that,” he said. We all followed his gaze and watched the doves execute a perfect break right and swoop off down the avenue.

“Do what?” Harry asked.

“That,” said Bill. He held his hands up like a Spitfire pilot describing how he got Jerry over the Channel, and made a wheeling movement. “That formation flying. The leader’s leading. But how? Maybe they’re watching him for signals. But how do they react so quickly like that? Or maybe the leader’s communicating in some way. Nobody’s really sure.”

“Turtle Leader to Turtle Wing. Break, break, break,” said Harry.

Doug stood up suddenly.

“Okay. That’s enough fresh air for one day. Why don’t we go and play a bit of serious poker. Bring a couple of bottles.”

I sighed. I was in for another trouncing. Caroline was always astounded and incredulous whenever I told her I’d been playing poker with Doug. She knows I’ve got no head for it. She said it was simply peer pressure, fear of being left out of the group. Perhaps she was right.

Doug was already marching towards the house with Bill and Harry trailing him. I turned back to pick up the cognac bottle. In doing that, I was facing straight across the avenue and I saw them. The others were already on the terrace and nearly into the house so I was the only one. But I did. I saw them standing in a line looking across at us. All the pretty young hens. And they saw me.

Me

“Me?” I’ve been saying this morning. “Oh, you know. All right, thanks.” And people have been looking at me with that wise look that they put on.

“No,” they’ve been saying, “you’re not all right. You will be, in time. But it will take time, Tom, you realise that.”