Murder Song by Jon Cleary

built for its stars a reputation for good taste.
    She parked the red Celica in the triple garage, closed the doors to hide it and went across to the house. As she put her key in the front door Brian Boru came hurrying up the driveway, seeming to half-run on his toes, as if he did not want to arouse the neighbours with the sound of his shoes on the gravel. He was wearing a raincoat with the collar turned up and a hat with the brim turned down all round and looked like a minor character out of the Midnight Movie.
    â€œWhere did you park your car?”
    â€œQuick, inside!” He almost pushed her into the house, slammed the door shut behind them. “Is there anyone here?”
    â€œOf course not.” She wanted to laugh at the melodramatic way he was acting; but reason told her he would not be acting like this without cause. “That’s why I suggested we come here. I don’t want to be found out, any more than you do. Now what’s this all about?”
    He took off his hat and now she saw clearly the worry and concern in his bony face. She was a practical woman, even when wildly in love. She wanted to embrace him, hold him tight against her till she could feel the hardening of him; but, as always, she first wanted to know exactly where she was. The actual place didn’t matter, the situation did.
    â€œHas Philip found out about us? Has he been on to you?”
    â€œChrist, no! I could handle him.” He took her by the hand and looked about him. He had met her here two or three times since they had fallen in love, but he still didn’t know his way round the house. It was one thing to know one’s way around a man’s wife, but another one altogether to invade his house willy-nilly. “Where can we go?”
    She could feel the tension in him. “Relax, there’s no one here. Our cleaning woman comes in once a week when we’re not here, just to rearrange the dust. We’ll be all right,” she said reassuringly. This was her first affair since she had married Philip, yet sometimes she felt so much more experienced than her lover. “Let’s go in here.”
    She led him into the sun-room that looked out on to the back garden and the pool. As in almost every room in the house, there was a television set here; Philip never wanted to miss any screening of himself, no matter how brief. The screen now was, mercifully, grey and blank.
    They sat down beside each other on a couch, still holding hands. He looked at their hands, then at her face. For weeks she had tried to put a name to that look: it was more than love. Suddenly she realized it was gratitude and the thought hurt her.
    â€œYou’re a real comfort,” he said. Then his grip tightened; she was always surprised at the strength in those big hands, they had often bruised her in their love-making. “I’m in trouble.”
    â€œTrouble?” She had heard the rumours; even Philip had discussed them at the breakfast table as he read the financial pages. “You’ve never talked about the rumours—”
    â€œNo, not them. Well, yes, maybe—” A thought struck him, one that hadn’t occurred to him before. “A girl was murdered in our flat at the weekend.”
    â€œOur flat?”
    Then she realized which one he meant. They had met there half a dozen times, he always making sure that none of his corporate executives ever tried to use it at the same time. She had felt sleazy at first, sharing a bed with God knew how many other lovers; the sheets were always clean, but she had seen the semen stains on the mattress, like dirty handprints. The flat was obviously as much a fringe benefit for the local executives as it was an accommodation for interstate and overseas executives. Then she had come to realize that all the beds they shared, with the exception of that here in her own house, would provoke a feeling of sleaze: she had never achieved the blind innocence of the