in the tiny town. Perhaps she was already poisoning the well of gossip against him; he imagined her repeating some of the things she had said to him on the telephone to Samantha, or to that nosy old woman in the delicatessen who gave him goose-flesh.
I uprooted my daughter and left my job and moved house for you, and you treat me like a hooker you don't have to pay.
People would say that he had behaved badly. Perhaps he had behaved badly. There must have been a crucial point when he ought to have pulled back, but he had not seen it.
Gavin spent the whole weekend brooding on how it would feel to be seen as the bad guy. He had never been in that position before. After Lisa had left him, everybody had been kind and sympathetic, especially the Fairbrothers. Guilt and dread dogged him until, on Sunday evening, he cracked and called Kay to apologize. Now he was back where he did not want to be, and he hated Kay for it.
Parking his car in the Fairbrothers' drive, as he had done so often when Barry was alive, he headed for the front door, noticing that somebody had mowed the lawn since he had last called. Mary answered his ring on the doorbell almost instantaneously.
'Hi, how - Mary, what's wrong?'
Her whole face was wet, her eyes brimming with diamond-bright tears. She gulped once or twice, shook her head, and then, without quite knowing how it had happened, Gavin found himself holding her in his arms on the doorstep.
'Mary? Has something happened?'
He felt her nod. Acutely aware of their exposed position, of the open road behind him, Gavin manoeuvred her inside. She was small and fragile in his arms; her fingers clutched at him, her face pressed into his coat. He relinquished his briefcase as gently as he could, but the sound of it hitting the floor made her withdraw from him, her breath short as she covered her mouth with her hands.
'I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... oh God, Gav ...'
'What's happened?'
His voice sounded different from usual: forceful, take command, more like the way Miles sometimes talked in a crisis at work.
'Someone's put ... I don't ... someone's put Barry's ...'
She beckoned him into the home office, cluttered, shabby and cosy, with Barry's old rowing trophies on the shelves, and a big framed photograph on the wall of eight teenage girls punching the air, with medals around their necks. Mary pointed a trembling finger at the computer screen. Still in his coat, Gavin dropped into the chair and stared at the message board of Pagford Parish Council's website.
'I w-was in the delicatessen this morning, and Maureen Lowe told me that lots of people had put messages of condolence on the site ... so I was going to p-post a message to s-say thank you. And - look ...'
He spotted it as she spoke. Simon Price Unfit to Stand for Council, posted by The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother.
'Jesus Christ,' said Gavin in disgust.
Mary dissolved into tears again. Gavin wanted to put his arms back around her, but was afraid to, especially here, in this snug little room so full of Barry. He compromised by taking hold of her thin wrist and leading her through the hall into the kitchen.
'You need a drink,' he told her, in that unfamiliarly strong and commanding voice. 'Sod coffee. Where's the proper stuff?'
But he remembered before she answered; he had seen Barry take the bottles out of the cupboard often enough, so he mixed her a small gin and tonic, which was the only thing he had ever known her drink before dinner.
'Gav, it's four in the afternoon.'
'Who gives a damn?' said Gavin, in his new voice. 'Get that down you.'
An unbalanced laugh broke her sobs; she accepted the glass and sipped. He fetched her kitchen roll to mop her face and eyes.
'You're so kind, Gav. Don't you want anything? Coffee or ... or beer?' she asked, on another weak laugh.
He fetched himself a bottle from the fridge, took off his coat and sat down opposite her at the island in the middle of the room. After a while, when she had drunk most of her gin, she became calm and quiet again, the way he always thought of her.
'Who d'you think did it?' she asked him.
'Some total bastard,' said Gavin.
'They're all fighting over his council seat, now. Squabbling away over the Fields as usual. And he's still in there, putting his two cents