Free Suspension of Mercy by Patricia Highsmith

blue carpet, the old one, and installed her against the front door on the floor. He had gathered up her things, put the handbag into the suitcase, the suitcase into the car, and driven to—to where? Toward Parham, about five miles away, where there was a small forest. Hard enough to find forests in Suffolk where a man wouldn’t be disturbed digging, but Sydney had found a place to bury the suitcase, and then he had driven on about a quarter of a mile and started digging another larger hole for the body tomorrow. Because of summer foliage, he hadn’t been visible from the road while digging. That had been Friday afternoon.
    Then on Saturday morning, very early, when it was just light enough to see things and the birds were starting to chirp, Sydney had carried the rug with Alicia in it out the back door to the car. Mrs. Lilybanks had been peering out her window—God knew what she was looking at at that hour, or maybe she always got up that early—but all she had seen was him carrying a heavy carpet over his shoulder, and if she asked him about it, he’d say it was their old living-room rug he had taken out to dump somewhere. Anyway, she hadn’t asked him (Saturday evening), because the light was so dim, she probably hadn’t seen him at all. Or if she had, she hadn’t considered it worth asking a question about. And Saturday afternoon, he had made the telephone calls to the Polk-Faradays and to Inez and Carpie, preparing the ground. As the days passed, hotels in Brighton would be checked, then London hotels, finally overseas aircraft (though Alicia hated flying, and he would say so) and boats and trains. Because Alicia hadn’t written and hadn’t come home.
    Alicia’s parents would be notified, and would come bustling up from Kent. Sydney would tell them—this would probably be next Thursday or Friday—that he had put Alicia on the train at Ipswich Friday morning. Ipswich was better than Campsey Ash, because it was much bigger and there was less chance of anyone having noticed them. He would be firm in refusing Alicia’s fifty-pound-a-month income, because he didn’t want it, in fact. Not for him the Smith-brides-in-a-bath murders for peanuts, for petty gains that were incredibly part of what had betrayed Smith, the other part being his stupidity in repeating his method.
    On Tuesday, Sydney was back at The Planners again. He had only twenty more pages of typing to do, but since he was rewriting as he went, it was more than a day’s work. At a little past noon, a car drew up at the house. Sydney heard the motor through his back window, but went on typing, thinking that if it were the cleaners or someone dropping in, he would wait for a knock. The car drove off, and then Sydney heard the front door opening.
    “Syd?” Alicia’s voice called.
    “Hi,” he said without enthusiasm, but automatically he walked into the hall to the stairway, stood leaning against the top post with one foot dangling over the first step. Alicia was below with her suitcase, in high heels and in her best suit. “Have a nice time?”
    “Very nice, thanks. Did you get some work done?” She was removing her left glove.
    “Yes, quite a bit,” Sydney said, descending the stairs. “I suppose you want this—mounted?” He gripped the handle of her suitcase.
    “Oh, leave it, if you like. It’s not heavy.”
    But he took it up to their bedroom.
    Alicia followed. “Sorry I didn’t write you a postcard, Syd, but I really didn’t feel like it. I hope you weren’t worried.”
    She had never apologized before for not sending a postcard. “Nope. Neither was anybody else.”
    “Why should they be? . . . Who?”
    “Oh—Mrs. Lilybanks. Or Alex and Hittie.”
    “I suppose you told them I just went off for a few days by myself.”
    Sydney’s eyes narrowed. For the first time, he suspected she had had a date with a man. Alicia seemed unusually tense about something. Who, Sydney wondered. And he found himself unable to begin guessing,