Free The Dead Side of the Mike by Simon Brett

outside influence, we must take it that that mood shifted and turned to a depression of suicidal proportions. That’s the bit you described as inexplicable – right?’
    â€˜Right.’
    â€˜Well, the alternative, which might explain the inexplicable, is that she talked to someone, met someone, had a phone call from someone, and whatever they said turned her suicidal.’
    â€˜I’m with you. But who?’
    â€˜It’s pure conjecture. It could be anyone . . . Presumably she was just sitting alone in that recording channel and anyone could have gone in and talked to her.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    Charles paused, then spoke more slowly. ‘It seemed to me that Mark Lear took rather a long time to get that wine from the club. We know from the geography of Broadcasting House that he could easily have walked past Andrea’s channel on his way.’ He tried not to make it sound like an accusation, tried to make it sound like one of many hypotheses to be sifted and eliminated, but he still felt slight guilt towards his friend.
    Steve nodded slowly. ‘Yes, it’s quite possible. I hadn’t thought about it before, but Mark must have known she was there. It would be very much in his character to go and assert his continuing existence and shatter any new security she may have built up. He treads always with the sensitivity of a blind elephant.’
    Another, more disturbing explanation of Andrea’s ‘inexplicable’ suicide was taking shape in Charles’s unwilling mind, but he dismissed it for the moment and continued, ‘That might make some kind of sense. She feels all revived and changed – actually confronted with the man whom she hoped she had got over, she crumbles and feels as bad as ever – he goes – she thinks, what the hell, it’s hopeless, fixes the razor blades in the slot and – geech!’ He made a guttural sound and mimed the violent movement of a hand across the blades. Immediately he regretted the gesture. He had forgotten for a moment how close Steve had been to Andrea, and the pause before she replied showed how he had shocked her.
    â€˜Yes, that certainly makes a more convincing explanation than anything else that’s been suggested.’ She sighed, trying to shrug off the brutal reminder of the reality of her friend’s death. ‘Oh well, if that did happen, no doubt the police will get the details out of Mark and tie up the few remaining loose ends in their neatly woven fabric.’
    â€˜They’ve talked to Mark?’
    â€˜Oh yes.’
    â€˜He was very anxious that they should contact him at the office.’
    â€˜They did. He need not worry about that.’ Steve Kennett’s brown eyes focused on Charles wryly. ‘So he never told his wife?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜I knew it. But, God, even so it makes me sick. The two-faced bastard. Needless to say, a constant theme of Andrea’s outpourings to me was how Mark was going to leave his wife, she knew all about it, they were just trying to sort out the timing of the final break.’
    â€˜But every time it was about to happen, one of the children got ill, or . . . that sort of thing.’
    Steve nodded. Charles felt satisfaction at having his conjecture confirmed, but he said, ‘I apologise. On behalf of my sex.’
    â€˜You mean you’ve been through that sort of subterfuge?’
    â€˜Been through it and hated it. It was to avoid going through it again that I left my wife.’
    â€˜But not for someone else?’
    â€˜No. For the idea of all the women who up until that point had seemed unattainable because I was married. And who subsequently proved to be unattainable because they were unattainable.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜I left my wife for an idea of freedom. A cliché of freedom, perhaps. Certainly an accepted stereotype of freedom.’
    â€˜And found . . .?’
    â€˜That I had to redefine my