Free A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill

she said smugly.
    Alice’s heart sank.
    ‘Who do you mean?’
    ‘Why, your Dave for one.’
    Oh God, she thought. Was he still at it? In spite of the row last night? He’d say it to someone who mattered sooner or later. And then, then the law would have its course with David Fernie. Alice knew nothing of the law of slander. But she knew how much compensation she herself would demand for being falsely accused of murder.
    She tried to speak casually.
    ‘Dave? What’s he been saying to you?’
    To you. Maisie Curtis. Queen gossip of the Woodfield Estate. Which meant of the town.
    ‘To me? Nothing. Your Dave doesn’t pass the time of day with me. No, it was our Stanley he was talking to.’
    This was worse. Maisie Curtis’s Stanley was a direct channel to the Rugby Club. The only one Dave had, probably. And, equally probably, he’d know it. There’d be gossip enough at the Club. Bound to be. Suppose Stanley, young, bumptious, keen to impress … lived nearly opposite the murder-house … next to a key witness.
    Witness! To what?
    Like that time in Bolton. That was a few years ago, but her memory was longer than her husband’s. The law had been brought in then, but only to ask why anyone should have wanted to break Fernie’s jaw and kick three of his ribs in.
    But Mr Connon was a different kettle of fish. It wouldn’t be the law of the jungle this time. Gossip was one thing. Innuendo, knowing winks, impudent questionings. But someone saying he knew was quite different; someone saying he was certain.
    Dave Fernie, big Dave Fernie. He knew. He always bloody well knew. Not even God Almighty was as certain about things as Dave Fernie.
    ‘What’s Dave been saying, then?’ she asked as calmly as she could, shredding her ticket with meticulous care.
    ‘Well, according to my Stanley, your Dave says he knows how he, Mr Connon that is, killed his wife. And he knows why.’
    Maisie nodded as affirmatively at this point as if she had been Fernie himself.
    Soul-mates, thought Alice. They’re soul-mates. Born under the same star.
    ‘Was that all?’
    ‘All? Wasn’t it enough? It quite upset our Stanley, it did. That’s how I got to hear of it. I could see something was bothering him. And he’s not been in the best of health lately, had a few days off work with one of his tummy upsets. So I asked him and he told. He’s always looked up to Mr Connon, you see. Well, I mean, they all do, down at that Club. He’s on the selection committee as well, you see.’
    Alice didn’t see, because she’d stopped listening. To think they said that it was women who had the vicious tongues. There’d been one or two near things since Bolton. One or two unpleasant moments. One or two lost friends.
    But this could mean the law.
    ‘Alice! Are you not getting off, then?’
    The pressure had gone from her flank. Maisie was standing in the aisle, looking down at her.
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    They set off down the main road together, Maisie chattering away about other matters now. She was unoffendable herself and never considered for one moment that anyone could be hurt or angered by anything she might say.
    After fifty yards they turned left into Boundary Drive.
    It was quieter here, away from the main course of traffic. The private side of the road was lined with trees which, even though stripped for winter, added something to the peacefulness of the scene. The trees which should have been on the other side of the road had been swept away at one fell swoop, without warning, when the Corporation bulldozers had moved in at the end of the war. An act of civic vandalism, the residents had called it, complaining even more when they realized they would have to pay road charges now the council was making up the road-surface. But the trees had gone beyond recall, and their absence accentuated as much as the architecture the differences between the old and the new.
    Still, the trees and the pleasant outlook over to the more solid and architecturally