Murder... Now and Then by Jill McGown Page B

her at all,’ said Lloyd, lighting the grill.
    â€˜When?’ she asked, frowning.
    â€˜When she fainted. Totally ignored her.’
    Her eyebrows rose. ‘Fancy,’ she said. ‘ So – what’s the story?’
    â€˜There’s more,’ said Lloyd. ‘Finch tells me that before all that happened, he saw Mr Scott – that’s the husband – laying into Mrs Scott round the back of the office block. He had to sort him out. She’s a lot younger than him, incidentally.’ He selected two lamb chops each, and placed them on the grill pan.
    â€˜Well? Stop being so annoying! What was it all about?’
    Lloyd pulled out the salad drawer and took out mushrooms and tomatoes. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
    â€˜You mean all that was going on and you didn’t stick your nose in?’ she asked incredulously.
    This was it. The moment he had been putting off. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Because something odder than that happened.’
    His recollection had an unreality about it that bothered him. He was seeing the beard and the scar, but the face wasn’t clear. He just knew it wasn’t Holyoak’s face. And he remembered looking away , just as he had today, as though he shouldn’t have been looking at all.
    He knew why he’d looked away today, but why would he have done so before? Had he done so before? Was the whole thing a figment of his imagination? If so, when had it lodged itself there? Just today? Then why the feeling that it had happened a long time ago?
    â€˜What?’ she demanded.
    He knew what her reaction would be. But he had to tell someone, and Judy was the only person in the world that he could tell. Even if she was looking at him the way she was looking at him now, as he related his strange experience.
    â€˜The wrong face ?’ she repeated.
    He nodded, pouring cold boiled rice into sizzling oil in the pan. He wondered if he should get a wok.
    â€˜Lloyd—’
    She didn’t say whatever she had been going to say. If she had been going to say anything. Just saying his name more in sorrow than in hysterical laughter was enough, really.
    He stoically made her dinner. Why, he wasn’t sure. She was supposed to be sympathizing, understanding. But no one had ever told her that, unfortunately.
    â€˜So,’ she said. ‘What do you think? He lends the beard and scar out? Perhaps someone stole it – perhaps he stole it. He could be the leader of a gang of international beard thieves. Maybe it was false – did you try to pull it off?’
    â€˜Very funny,’ said Lloyd.
    â€˜Any funnier than thinking he has a doppelgänger ?’
    â€˜It can’t be a doppelgänger ’, Lloyd said seriously. ‘Or it would have had the same face.’
    â€˜ Don’t ’, she said, looking uncomfortable.
    â€˜I tell you,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen that beard and scar before. And it—’
    â€˜Yes – don’t say it again, Lloyd, please. Perhaps you just saw someone else once who—’
    â€˜Who had a beard and a scar exactly like his? What do you suppose the odds are against that?’ he asked. ‘It’s a very particular kind of beard and it hasn’t been fashionable since Edwardian times.’
    â€˜Then you saw him ! He’s changed, that’s all. You said yourself it seemed like a long time ago.’
    â€˜Yes. Ten, fifteen years ago. It was London. I’m sure it was London.’ That had come to him on the way home. The feeling that accompanied the half memory was London. A feeling of not being very happy, of the world lying heavy on his. shoulders. He’d only really felt like that in London. By the time he and Barbara had come back to Stansfield, they had known the marriage was over; it had just been a matter of playing out the last act.
    â€˜Well – he probably had a business in London.’ Judy looked at him. ‘Maybe