When Will There Be Good News?: A Good Man Is Hard to Find Summary & Analysis

Louise wakes up feeling as though she can’t breathe. She feels hungover and regrets last night’s red wine. She watches Patrick sleep and thinks about their docile lovemaking, wondering what it would be like with Jackson. She feels like a “very bad wife” for thinking this.

Louise gets up and drives to the Hunters’, rousing Neil Hunter at ten to seven with overbearing cheerfulness. When he lets her in, she asks for Joanna’s aunt’s contact information, since she hasn’t been able to reach Joanna. When Neil goes to look for it, Joanna hears a mobile ringing in a drawer. She can’t resist answering it. A cracked male voice asks, “Jo?” When Louise says “no,” the caller hangs up immediately. She puts it back and, when Neil returns, asks if she can have Joanna’s phone. Neil appears shocked—albeit unconvincingly, in Louise’s eyes—when Louise shows him the phone in the drawer.

Later, Louise is parked outside Alison Needler’s house, thinking about the elderly aunt. Some basic online research had revealed that Agnes Mason Barker had been an actress in her youth and married a BBC radio producer. But when Louise compares Joanna’s call history to the number of the aunt, there’ve been no calls between the two. When Joanna tries the number herself, she learns that Agnes Barker’s number was disconnected last week.

Louise watches Alison Needler walk her children to school, then drives to Dr. Hunter’s surgery, feeling unable to stop moving. The surgery’s receptionist tells her that she hasn’t actually spoken to Joanna; Neil called to tell her about the sick aunt. In the maternity clinic, Sheila Hayes can’t tell her anything, either. But Sheila has seen the story about Joanna and the Mason murders in the paper.

Back at the office, Louise redoubles her efforts to track down Joanna. Later, she returns to the Hunters’ and starts up Joanna’s Prius, which Neil claimed had been broken down. He jokes, “Do I need a lawyer?” Louise says, “I don’t know. Do you?”