Deadly Virtues by Jo Bannister

sufficiently off-kilter to create a mystery where none existed.
    He had no way of knowing, no yardstick against which to judge. He thought that what he remembered, what seemed to have happened, what he thought he’d heard, was essentially accurate. But then, he would think that, whether or not. “Could it have been someone else’s dog? Someone he knew. I’m sure he called it Othello.”
    Adelaide looked up at her husband, who had remained standing. “Was he thinking of a friend’s dog? Do you remember him walking a dog for a friend?”
    Cardy shook his head. “Not that he said to me. I’d have remembered. I’d have worried about him bringing its hairs home on his clothes.”
    Ash glanced down guiltily at his dark suit. But it had been in the back of the wardrobe since before he had Patience—he didn’t think he was going to leave Geoff Cardy in a state of anaphylactic shock.
    “Anyway,” added Jerome’s father roughly, “what kind of a name for a dog is Othello?”
    A faint sweet smile stole across Adelaide’s face. “It’s a very literary name,” she said with satisfaction. “Most children these days have no idea who Shakespeare is.” The smile turned apologetic. “Comes of having an English teacher for a mother, I suppose.”
    “Was Othello his favorite play?” asked Ash, grasping for the straws of understanding.
    She raised an eyebrow at him. “The story of a black man who murders his white wife because he can’t believe she truly loves him? What do you think?”
    Ash winced again. By now he was wishing he hadn’t come. He was never going to understand what Jerome Cardy had wanted to tell him, not least because he couldn’t be sure what Jerome had said. “Probably not.”
    Geoff Cardy owned a garage. He did not share in his wife’s love of literature, had always felt a little excluded because their son did. Now Jerome was dead and she was sharing it with a stranger. Resentment rose in his throat like bile. “Mr. Ash, I thought you had something to tell us about how our son died. Or why. Or something. I’m sorry, but I’m not finding this particularly helpful.”
    “No, I’m sorry,” said Ash, contrite. “I shouldn’t have troubled you. I just thought … I thought he wanted to put something on record, something he didn’t want to put into words, and I didn’t understand what it was and I wondered if you might. I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”
    Adelaide touched the back of his hand with a soft finger, startling him. He had grown unused to human contact. “Don’t be sorry. My son had a bad death. He was afraid, and helpless, and much, much too young. But there’s this. Shortly before he died he was with someone he trusted enough to talk to, and who cared enough about what happened to try to pass the message on. Maybe we’ll never know what he wanted to say, or even if there was something. But you tried, Mr. Ash, and I appreciate that.”
    There was nothing more he could tell them and nothing he could learn. It had been a fool’s errand. The effort of will it had taken to get him here, to make him talk to these people, had been wasted, as had their time. “Thank you for seeing me. I won’t trouble you again.”
    But at the door he hesitated. “ Othello. It’s about jealousy, isn’t it? About a man destroyed by his own jealousy.”
    “Jealousy, yes,” agreed Mrs. Cardy, “and love. Iago is jealous of his commander’s success and sets about ruining him. He sows the seeds of jealousy in Othello by hinting that his new wife is betraying him. Even more than jealousy, the play is about love running out of control, and the fear that comes with all love—that it will not last forever. Othello accepts Iago’s lies because he can’t believe that someone he loves that much loves him in return. Othello is as much a victim as Desdemona is. But who cries for him?” Perhaps she was unaware of the tears streaking her cheeks.
    Ash hesitated, aware of how much pain he was causing and