There was a kind of—well, justice, in it, I thought. After all, it was because she was threatening to tell about the hit-and-run that I was letting her be murdered. ‘But what about clues?’ I said. ‘Even I left a footprint.’
He had worked that out too. He and I are the same size, of course, and most of our clothes are the same as one another’s. Not for any silly reason of dressing identical, but simply because when he’d go along shopping, I’d go along too, and mostly we’d like the same things; or he’d buy something and it’d be a success, so I’d buy the same, later. We must dress the same on the night, he said, because of the alibi: and we checked our stuff over, shoes, grey flannels, shirts, without jackets—this all happened in September. Our blue poplins were in the wash—we’d worn them clean Sunday, and second-day Monday; so it would have to be the striped wool-and-nylon—a bit warm for this weather, if anyone remarked it, but we’d have to risk that, I said, we daren’t ask the old woman to wash out our blue ones special. The last thing we wanted, was to do anything out of the ordinary. That was what the police looked for: the break in routine. That was asking for it.
Our shoes were the same: same size, same make, bought together; a rubber sole with bars across it, but, like I said, new enough not to be worn down, or have any peculiarities. And everything else we’d wear identical: not only for the alibi, but in case of bits caught in the girl’s finger-nails or what-not—you’ve only got to read the papers. Not that he meant to get near enough for that. But she might not—well, she might not kick-in at once, if you see what I mean; he might have to get out of the car and do something about it. And in case of scratches, he said, I’d better be prepared to get some scratches on my own hands too—we could say we’d been blackberry-ing or something.
‘Blackberry-ing,’ I said. ‘That’d be bloody likely! We both detest blackberries, everybody knows it: or anyway, the old woman knows it, we never touch her blackberry pie.’ I knew he’d only said it to remind me of the kid: him and his little can of blackberries, spilt all around him…
‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘say we got scratched pushing through the brambles down by the river. Do your poaching down by the bramble patch.’
But she didn’t scratch him. It was all a bit grim, I think: he couldn’t be sure she was properly done-in and he had to get out of the car and have a look and—well, go back and take a second run at her. But she didn’t have the strength left to scratch him. All the same, he looked pretty ghastly when finally we met in the moonlight, in the Vicarage woods. He didn’t say anything, just stood there, staring at me with a sort of sick, white heaviness. I couldn’t exactly say anything either; it was worse than, talking it over, I’d thought it ever would be. I sort of—looked a question at him; and he gave me a weary kind of nod and glanced away towards the river. It was easier to talk about my angle, so I said, at last: ‘Well, I saw the Vicar.’
‘But did he see you?’ he said. We’d agreed on the Reverend, because he always walked across the church of a Thursday evening; you’d be sure of passing him, if you went at a certain time.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He saw me. I gave a sort of grunt for “good evening” and he said “Going poaching?” and gave me a bit of a grin. You’d better remember that.’ He nodded again but he said nothing more; and more to ease the silence than anything else, I said: ‘Is the car all right? Not marked?’
‘What does it matter if it is?’ he said. ‘It’s marked all over, no one could say what’s old or what’s new: you know that, from bashing the boy.’ As for bits of her clothing and—blood and all that, he’d had the idea of spreading a bit of plastic over the front of the car before he—well, did it. He produced the plastic folded in a bit of brown paper, and we wrapped the whole lot round a stone and sank it, then and there, in the river. There was blood on the plastic all right. It gave me the shudders.
But next thing he said, I really had something to shudder at. He said: ‘Anyway, your number’s up, mate. She’s shopped you.’
‘Shopped me?’ I said. I stood and stared at him.
‘Shopped you,’ he said. “She’d already sent off an anonymous note to the police. About the hit-and-run.’
‘How do you know?’ I said. I couldn’t believe it.
‘She told me so,’ he said. ‘It was on her conscience.’
Her conscience. Lydia’s conscience! I started to laugh, a bit hysterical, I suppose, with the strain of it. He put his hand on my wrist and gave me a little shake. ‘Steady lad,’ he said. ‘Don’t lose your head. I’m looking after you.’ It wasn’t like him to be so demonstrative, but there you are—it’s like the poem says, when times are bad, there isn’t no friend like a brother. ‘It’s just a matter of slanting the alibi,’ he said.