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She might just as well have hit him with a steel club.

  She stepped back a pace, waiting, and the funny thing was that he remained standing there for at least four or five seconds, gently swaying. Then he crashed to the carpet.

  The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped bring her out of the shock. She came out slowly, feeling cold and surprised, and she stood for a while blinking at the body, still holding the ridiculous piece of meat tight with both hands.

  All right, she told herself. So I've killed him.

  It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a detective, she knew quite well what the penalty would be. That was fine. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the child? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill them both - mother and child? Or did they wait until the tenth month? What did they do?

  Mary Maloney didn't know. And she certainly wasn't prepared to take a chance.

  She carried the meat into the kitchen, placed it in a pan, turned the oven on high, and shoved it inside. Then she washed her hands and ran upstairs to the bedroom. She sat down before the mirror, tidied her hair, touched up her lips and face. She tried a smile. It came out rather peculiar. She tried again.

  'Hullo Sam,' she said brightly, aloud.

  The voice sounded peculiar too.

  'I want some potatoes please, Sam. Yes, and I think a can of peas.'

  That was better. Both the smile and the voice were coming out better now. She rehearsed it several times more. Then she ran downstairs, took her coat, went out the back door, down the garden, into the street.

  It wasn't six o'clock yet and the lights were still on in the grocery shop.

  'Hullo Sam,' she said brightly, smiling at the man behind the counter.

  'Why, good evening, Mrs Maloney. How're you?'

  'I want some potatoes please, Sam. Yes, and I think a can of peas.'

  The man turned and reached up behind him on the shelf for the peas.

  'Patrick's decided he's tired and doesn't want to eat out tonight,' she told him. 'We usually go out Thursdays, you know, and now he's caught me without any vegetables in the house.'

  'Then how about meat, Mrs Maloney?'

  'No, I've got meat, thanks. I got a nice leg of lamb from the freezer.'

  'Oh.'

  'I don't much like cooking it frozen, Sam, but I'm taking a chance on it this time. You think it'll be all right?'

  'Personally,' the grocer said. 'I don't believe it makes any difference. You want these Idaho potatoes?'

  'Oh yes, that'll be fine. Two of those.'

  'Anything else?' The grocer cocked his head on one side, looking at her pleasantly. 'How about afterwards? What you going to give him for afterwards?'

  'Well - what would you suggest, Sam?'

  The man glanced around his shop. 'How about a nice big slice of cheesecake? I know he likes that.'

  'Perfect,' she said. 'He loves it.'

  And when it was all wrapped and she had paid, she put on her brightest smile and said, 'Thank you, Sam. Good night.'

  'Good night, Mrs Maloney. And thank you.'

  And now, she told herself as she hurried back, all she was doing now, she was returning home to her husband and he was waiting for his supper; and she must cook it good, and make it as tasty as possible because the poor man was tired; and if, when she entered the house, she happened to find anything unusual, or tragic, or terrible, then naturally it would be a shock and she'd become frantic with grief and horror. Mind you, she wasn't expecting to find anything. She was just going home with the vegetables. Mrs Patrick Maloney going home with the vegetables on Thursday evening to cook supper for her husband.

  That's the way, she told herself. Do everything right and natural. Keep things absolutely natural and there'll be no need for any acting at all.

  Therefore, when she entered the kitchen by the back door, she was humming a little tune to herself and smiling.

  'Patrick!' she called. 'How are you, darling?'

  She put the parcel down on the table and went through into the living room; and when she saw him lying there on the floor with his legs doubled up and one arm twisted back underneath his body, it really was rather a shock. All the old love and longing for him welled up inside her, and she ran over to him, knelt down beside him, and began to cry her heart out. It was easy. No acting was necessary.

  A few minutes later she got up and went to the phone. She knew the number of the police station, and when the man at the other end answered, she cried to him, 'Quick! Come quick! Patrick's dead!'

  'Who's speaking?'

  'Mrs Maloney. Mrs Patrick Maloney.'

  'You mean Patrick Maloney's dead?'

  'I think so,' she sobbed. 'He's lying on the floor and I think he's dead.'

  'Be right over,' the man said.

  The car came very quickly, and when she opened the front door, two policemen walked in. She knew them both - she knew nearly all the men at that precinct - and she fell right into Jack Noonan's arms, weeping hysterically. He put her gently in a chair, then went over to join the other one, who was called O'Malley, kneeling by the body.

  'Is he dead?' she cried.

  'I'm afraid he is. What happened?'

  Briefly, she told her story about going out to the grocer's and coming back to find him on the floor. While she was talking, crying and talking, Noonan discovered a small patch of congealed blood on the dead man's head. He showed it to O'Malley who got up at once and hurried to the phone.

  Soon, other men began to come into the house. First a doctor, then two detectives, one of whom she knew by name. Later, a police photographer arrived and took pictures, and a man who knew about fingerprints. There was a great deal of whispering and muttering beside the corpse, and the detectives kept asking her a lot of questions. But they always treated her kindly. She told her story again, this time right from the beginning, when Patrick had come in, and she was sewing, and he was tired, so tired he hadn't wanted to go out for supper. She told how she'd put the meat in the oven - 'it's there now, cooking' - and how she'd slipped out to the grocer's for vegetables, and come back to find him lying on the floor.

  'Which grocer?' one of the detectives asked.

  She told him, and he turned and whispered something to the other detective who immediately went outside into the street.

  In fifteen minutes he was back with a page of notes, and there was more whispering, and through her sobbing she heard a few of the whispered phrases - ' ... acted quite normal ... very cheerful ... wanted to give him a good supper ... peas ... cheesecake ... impossible that she ...'

  After a while, the photographer and the doctor departed and two other men came in and took the corpse away on a stretcher. Then the fingerprint man went away. The two detectives remained, and so did the two policemen. They were exceptionally nice to her and Jack Noonan asked if she wouldn't rather go somewhere else, to her sister's house perhaps, or to his own wife who would take care of her and put her up for the night.

  No, she said. She didn't feel she could move even a yard at the moment. Would they mind awfully if she stayed just where she was until she felt better. She didn't feel too good at the moment, she really didn't.

  Then hadn't she better lie down on the bed? Jack Noonan asked.

  No, she said. She'd like to stay right where she was, in this chair. A little later perhaps, when she felt better, she would move.

  So they left her there while they went about their business, searching the house. Occasionally one of the detectives asked her another question. Sometimes Jack Noonan spoke at her gently as he passed by. Her husband, he told her, had been killed by a blow on the back of the head administered with a heavy blunt instrument, almost certainly a large piece of metal. They were looking for the weapon. The murderer may have taken it with him, but on the other hand he may've thrown it away or hidden it somewhere on the p