Faber & Faber John Brown's Body

Marise Tomelty is the young wife of a travelling salesman, who dislikes sex and is terrified of open spaces. Ralph Shilling, a dealer in pesticides, lives in the flat above the Tomeltys'. One day Marise's husband casually mentions that he recognizes Ralph as John Brown: a man acquitted, for lack of evidence, of the double murder of two sisters.