Shock Treatment by James Hadley Chase

had committed suicide, and it got into the papers, the Los Angeles police were certain to investigate. Suicide by electrocuting oneself by a TV set was more than suspicious. “He had been drinking. I found whisky and a glass by him. Okay, he was desperate and upset as you say. He turned the set on to take his mind off you. Finding it didn’t work, he got into a rage and got hold of this screwdriver and shoved it into the works. It’s just the sort of thing an unhappy, drunken man might do.”
    She lifted her shoulders helplessly.
    “I can’t believe he would do such a thing.”
    “It’s got to be an accident, Gilda!” I said, my voice rising. “If you tell the Coroner you think he killed himself, the newspapers will get it, and then you and I will be in the middle of a scandal, and that could ruin our lives.”
    “Well, all right, Terry.” She suddenly seemed to relax as if the whole thing was now too much for her. “It makes no sense to me, but I don’t suppose it matters. It’s so hard to believe he really is dead and at last I am free.”
    I began to breathe more easily.
    “We haven’t much time, Gilda,” I said. “We have to be careful. What I am going to say to you now may sound a little crazy, but it’s really sound common sense. There could be an investigation. It’s absolutely essential that no one knows that you and I have been lovers. If ever that gets out, we’ll be in bad trouble. If they don’t think he died accidentally, the Los Angeles police might poke their noses in, and they might want to know where you were when he died. You can see it would be fatal to tell them you were at my place. You must tell them you left him at the usual time to go to Glyn Camp at nine o’clock. You drove down to Glyn Camp by the lake road. On the way down you had a blow-out. It took you a long time to change the tyre. You had never done it before, and on that lonely road there was no one to help you. You didn’t reach Glyn Camp until just after half-past eleven.”
    I saw her stiffen and she stared uneasily at me.
    “But I can’t say that — it’s not true!”
    “You don’t have to tell them anything unless they ask you, Gilda,” I said, trying to keep my voice under control. “But if they do ask you, that’s the story you have got to tell them, and I mean that! If you don’t, both of us could be in serious trouble. I’m going to fix your spare tyre so if they check they’ll see you did have a flat.”
    “Terry!” She turned and gripped my arm, staring at me, her eyes a little wild. “You’re frightening me! You make it sound as if I’ve done something wrong!”
    “Not only you, but me as well! We have done something wrong! We have been lovers, Gilda! Don’t you realize people have sympathy for a cripple? If it ever got out that we were lovers before he died, do you think they would have any sympathy for us? We would get smeared across the front pages of all the local papers. I’m trying to protect you, Gilda! You must do what I say!”
    She lifted her shoulders.
    “Well, all right,” she said. “I can’t think properly now, but I’ll do what you say, Terry.”
    I got out of the Buick, went around to the trunk, opened it and checked the spare tyre. It had been used and the tread was worn.
    I went to my truck, got a nail from my tool kit and a hammer and returning to the Buick I drove the nail deep into the spare tyre. The air began to hiss out and I shut the trunk, tossed the hammer back in my toolbox and then came over to Gilda.
    “You’d better get back now,” I said. “You understand what you have to say if they ask you?”
    “Yes, of course, Terry, but I don’t like it. It frightens me. Are you sure I must lie about this thing?”
    “Gilda, please! I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t sure you had to do it. Now one more thing: from now on until the inquest, we must be careful to keep away from each other. After the inquest, you had better go to Los Angeles. Get a room there.