Preface to Murder

the cold evening.
‘Yes,’ said Diane. ‘It suits me.’
I’m sure it does. Diane didn’t appear inclined to pursue the conversation, and Bridget didn’t feel that the rewards from making small talk with the writer were likely to be worth the effort, and so they drove in silence up Parks Road and the Banbury Road before turning left into St Margaret’s Road.
‘It’s just here,’ said Diane, indicating a house on the right.
‘Yes,’ said Bridget through gritted teeth. ‘I already know.’
Diane seemed to have no appreciation of the amount of work and planning that went into an operation of this type. She seemed to be under the impression that Bridget and Jake were just casually hanging out with her for a few hours and had nothing better to do with their time. Gateau, thought Bridget wistfully.
She drew the car to a halt outside a large, detached Victorian house set well back from the road behind a high brick wall crowned with a hedge. A marked police car was stationed in front of the house.
Diane scowled when she spotted the car. ‘Is that for my benefit?’
‘Two police officers will be out here all night for your protection,’ Bridget explained.
‘Is that really necessary?’
Bridget was asking herself the same question. But the Deputy Commissioner certainly thought so, or he wouldn’t have allocated so many resources to the operation. Bridget still wasn’t sure what Grayson’s personal opinion on the matter was, but he had no choice other than to bow to his superior’s request, just as she was bowing to hers.
The two uniformed officers left their car and approached the Mini. Both were young, but seemed keen enough. Bridget got out to greet them.
‘We’ve already checked the garden and garage,’ said the taller of the two, a local lad with a warm Oxford burr to his voice. ‘All clear.’
‘Thank you.’ Bridget didn’t envy the two men having to spend the whole night sitting in a car outside the house. At least they were unlikely to encounter any trouble. The leafy street was so quiet it was hard to imagine anything untoward happening in this tranquil setting.
Diane ignored the two policemen and marched up the driveway, her sharp heels sinking into the gaps between the gravel chips, and Bridget followed in her sensible low-rise shoes.
The house was grand, built over three floors, with tall chimneys just visible in the darkness, and decorative stone work set against red brick, illuminated by a pair of outside lights. Three stone steps led up to the front door. Diane turned her key in the lock and pushed it open to reveal a generously-proportioned entrance hall.
Once inside, Jake made his way up the stairs while Bridget went through to check each room on the ground floor. The house seemed far too big for just one person, and Bridget wondered how Diane could afford it on a lecturer’s salary. It wasn’t as if her book was an international bestseller.
The house looked as if it had been decorated by an interior designer. Everything was of the highest quality, fitted and coordinating, but the overall effect left Bridget feeling cold. As she ran her hand over the granite worktop of the ultra-modern kitchen with its chrome fittings and stainless-steel appliances, she decided that Diane Gilbert was welcome to the place. Bridget preferred her small, cluttered cottage any day.
Jake met her back in the hall. ‘All clear upstairs,’ he confirmed.
Diane was standing by the lounge door. ‘Well, Inspector, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’ll be seeing you both again in the morning.’
Bridget would have preferred not to have to get up quite so early, and could probably have delegated the job to one of her juniors, but she was making a concerted effort to be a better boss this year, and that included doing her fair share of drudge work so that Jake and the rest of her team got the time off they deserved. It was the only one of her New Year’s resolutions to have made it past the end of January. ‘I’ll be here at six-thirty,’ she informed Diane.
‘If you must.’ Without a word of thanks or farewell, Diane ushered them out through the front door and locked it behind them.
Bridget crunched crossly across the gravel back to the car, Jake at her side. ‘What a woman,’ she muttered. ‘I’m quite tempted to kill her myself.’
‘I expect that’s against regulations, ma’am,’ said Jake drily.
‘No doubt.’
‘You don’t think the threat’s serious, then?’ he asked.
‘Well, she doesn’t seem to be taking it seriously. But it’s not for us to question why. We simply have to do our job.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Anyway, can I give you a lift home?’
He took a moment to consider her offer, then shook his head. ‘Thanks, but a walk will do me good. It’ll clear my head after listening to that talk.’
‘You won’t be rushing back home to read her book then?’
‘I think I’ll pass.’
They wished each other goodnight, and after speaking once more to the uniformed constables, Bridget drove the short distance to her small house in Wolvercote, just north of Oxford.
Ten minutes later she was curled up on the sofa with a glass of wine and a plate of gateau balanced dexterously in one hand. It was a well-practised manoeuvre. With her free hand she pressed play on the remote and settled back to enjoy an episode of the glamorous American soap she’d recently become addicted to. Just what she needed after a long and tiring day. But twenty minutes into the show she found her eyelids too heavy to keep open. Admitting defeat, she crawled upstairs to bed. It was going to be an early start next morning.
*
The alarm woke Bridget rudely at five-thirty am. She groaned and rolled over, then forced herself out of bed before sleep could reclaim her. It seemed unnecessary to be