Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018

She spent the Christmas holiday in France, and many people remarked to her that she seemed more assured. Her uncle declared that Angelique had become someone who “took the bull by the horns.”

Winter in Hull could have felt dismal, with night falling at four o’clock and the omnipresent dampness, but she soldiered on. She never fell ill; she made some friends among her English colleagues; she built up her vocabulary, her accent, her fluency; her friendship with Miss Sykes deepened.

After the burial of Bob, Angelique had stayed on alert, persuaded that the other one, the accomplice, would return. She got into the habit of looking around her at all times, on the street, in stores, playing sports. She’d even given up the bicycle for a while out of fear that he’d attack her on her route. But as time went by, the fat one never reappeared, and she finally began to feel like she was out of danger.

Yet as springtime came this irrational uncertainty returned, this malaise... she felt watched, followed. This lasted for weeks, right up until that afternoon in April when she saw him again. Doubtlessly he had watched to make sure Miss Sykes was not home that day.

Angelique was in the kitchen, making a cup of tea. When she turned around to carry it up to her room he was at the door. Her nose filled with his stink, the exact same as it was six months ago: a stink of grime, sour and strong. A stink of death. She had had plenty of time to memorize it as he had clutched her to him, to his obscene and reeking body.

He advanced on her, knife drawn before him.

“All alone?” he asked, his tone mocking, already undressing her with his eyes.

She saw his lust and his determination. It’s him or me, she thought.

“Where is he?” he demanded.

“Who?” she said.

“You know who I mean, bitch. Where is he?”

Before his vicious scowl she chose to buy time.

“He’s in the garden. Do you want me to show him to you?”

He looked perplexed.

“I’ll show you,” she went on, moving between him and the sideboard.

Miss Sykes’s large wooden rolling pin should have been stored inside its usual drawer, but for once it wasn’t. It was sitting there, awaiting its destiny, with its two fixed handles and revolving cylindrical mass. It settled naturally into Angelique’s right hand, and the movement she made to slam it into the fat man’s temple was just a natural extension of that settling. He did not even have time to flinch. He dropped his knife and stared at her, stupefied. So she hit him again, in the same spot. He convulsed, then sank to the tiled floor. She picked up her tea again and went up to her room. Miss Sykes would be home in less than an hour.