Sally’s lists were incredible. They absolutely blew Rag’s mind. They also made him feel guilty, because while he’d been out sulking, Sally had done something constructive. She’d sat up all night filling in details and running analyses, while he’d slept in a bus stop waiting for a chance to get home. When he finally got in, she was sound asleep in her chair at the kitchen table, her face resting on her laptop.
Rag woke her gently and suggested that she go to bed, but Sally insisted on explaining what she’d been doing first. Later on, while she napped upstairs, Rag looked over everything that she’d done, deeply impressed by the brilliance of it.
As many years as they’d been together, Rag had never got over her ability to organize her thoughts so logically. He tended to operate mostly on intuition – and, he admitted, he was lucky that worked for him as well as it did. Sally was the opposite. She considered everything rationally, evaluated logically and acted accordingly.
Even so, these spreadsheets of hers were a level above what Rag was used to. As much as the dispassionate thought processes behind them were a little scary – at least, to imagine yourself on the wrong end of they were – he had to admit that Sally’s system was going to save them a lot of trouble.
Eventually, he’d joined her for a nap of his own, and they’d woken up in the mid-afternoon when the sunlight started to angle through their bedroom window. Amid much cuddling and foreplay, they’d discussed how the division of labour would work; they’d had to turn off their phones and take the landline off the hook to get the necessary peace and quiet, but they’d done so. Sally was in charge of the spreadsheets, of course. Both of them would be responsible for gathering more data to plug into them and hopefully narrow down their suspect list. Rag would be responsible for making sure their pumping of assorted friends and acquaintances for information wasn’t too obvious.
“You’re not a lone wolf anymore, my love,” Sally said. “I need you to work with me on this one.”
Naturally, he’d agreed. It was only obvious that Sally’s idea would help.
He’d even added a detail to it, because Sally was always open to suggestions for improving a thing. Rag’s addition was another thing that would help narrow things down by providing a cross-check: they would try to track the flow of the information. Who told who, and who, upon being told, did not pass it on to others. It would parallel but not duplicate Sally’s spreadsheets, and Rag hoped that seeing where the rumour died might provide some clues. After all, the killers would have no particular interest in passing along the information either – like the dog that did not bark, they might provide clues by their very silence.
They were both eager to get to work on it. Sally suggested they invite some people over tonight.
“Too short notice,” said Rag. “It’ll look suspicious.”
“Do you have a better idea?” she asked.
“Yes. We go down to the pub, and just see whoever we see there. We’ll get a more random selection that way – and we might be able to find people who don’t know yet. It’d be nice to eliminate some people from your lists – I don’t like suspecting all our friends.”
“Neither do I, hon. Neither do I.”
“So it’s agreed?”
“With one codcil,” said Sally.
“Which is?”
“I’m going to call Trish first, and see if we can’t find out who David already told.”
“Tell her to try to keep her household at home tonight – we don’t need Dave muddying the waters.”
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