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A Novel
by Richard Osman
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Amy had told him to call the company "Maverick Steel International Investigations." Branding is very important in the world of private investigations, she had said, but Steve had countered that his name was Steve, and he investigates things, and if that wasn't a brand, what was?
Amy is working with Rosie D'Antonio, the author, somewhere or other in America. Steve will play it cool when he next talks to Amy, but he will want all the gossip. There's always gossip when she's protecting celebrities. Once Amy was working with a singer in a boy band, and he took heroin on an elephant.
"Google America time difference," says Steve into his Dictaphone.
Steve Investigates keeps him pleasantly busy and adequately afloat. He has a few contacts with insurance companies. If you've ever claimed a year's salary because of a bad back anywhere in the New Forest, Steve has probably sat outside your house at some point, perhaps followed you to the gym. It makes Steve happy to find that people are almost always telling the truth about these things. He'll look into affairs if you really, really want him to. His only rule is that he won't travel any distance. Steve doesn't want to stray too far from Axley. He'll drive up to Brockenhurst if you need him to, couple of nice pubs up there. At a push he'll head over toward Ringwood or down toward Lymington, but ask him to go to Southampton, or Portsmouth, and Steve will politely decline.
Get yourself involved in a murder case, say, and before you know it your time is not your own. Steve never misses the Wednesday night quiz at The Brass Monkey now. A murder would almost certainly get in the way of that at some point. No thank you.
Steve reaches the pond and takes his customary seat. Debbie's favorite. The ducks love this bench, but they are all safely asleep now, tucked up, like the rest of the village, Steve keeping watch over them all. Least he can do after everything Axley has done for him.
Steve still remembers that feeling of relaxation, of finally letting life settle around him. Of trusting that people wished him well, and that each day would bring happiness. Of feeling safe. It didn't work out that way, of course. When does it?
In one sense, Debbie's death hadn't taken him by surprise. He'd mentally prepared for it every day since they'd fallen in love. That something would surely take her away. Cancer, heart disease, a car hitting her bike on a country road, a stroke, burglars. Something would steal his immense good luck at loving her, and being loved by her.
In the end it had been a train carriage that derailed as it approached a country station. There had been three people on the platform: Debbie and two other poor souls, who left their lives behind that rainy January day.
And, despite his assiduous preparation, it had taken him by surprise. You can think something often enough, but you will never be prepared for your heart disintegrating.
After Debbie's death the village gathered around him, carried him through. Walking through this village, where he knows everyone and everyone knows him, Steve is grateful that at least he feels loved. Because if you don't feel loved, it's difficult to feel anything at all.
A lone pony wanders by the side of the pond, head bobbing as he walks. Steve eyes him suspiciously. Well, Steve eyes him. His looks are always suspicious. He gets in trouble for it in the pub all the time.
"You should be asleep," he tells the pony.
The pony turns his head toward Steve, as if to say, "So should you." Steve accepts that the pony has a point. The pony continues his slow walk, moving across the High Street and down the passage alongside the greetings card shop, stopping to nuzzle something in a dustbin along the way. Axley belongs to Steve once again.
Steve rubs his fingers across the brass plaque on the bench. Debbie's name, the date of her birth, the date of her death. He presses "record" on his Dictaphone, because otherwise he would just be a man on a bench talking to himself.
Excerpted from We Solve Murders by Richard Osman. Copyright © 2024 by Richard Osman. Excerpted by permission of Pamela Dorman Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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