The Other Woman’s House (16 page)

‘Connie? Is everything okay?'

‘No,' says Kit. ‘Things are far from okay. I'm going to work.'

Once he's gone, once I've composed myself, I say, ‘We had a row. I expect I don't need to tell you that. You're a detective, after all.'

Sam taps his fingers on the table-top, as if he's playing the piano. ‘What aren't you telling me?' he says.

‘What aren't
you
telling
me
?' I fire the question back at him. ‘You could have told me about the stain on the carpet over the phone. You must be busy, and yet here you are – wasting time on me and my silly story. Why?'

Sam looks caught out. ‘Lorraine Turner told me something that bothered me,' he says.

I lean forward, my heart racing.

‘Selina Gane's no longer living at 11 Bentley Grove. Immediately after putting the house on the market, she moved into the D— into a nearby hotel.'

I make a mental note to find out which Cambridge hotels have names that begin with D. Or maybe it was ‘Du'. The Duchess? The Duxford? Isn't there a place near Cambridge called Duxford?

‘Why would anyone do that?' I say.

Sam looks away. We're both thinking the same thing, or at least I think we are. He doesn't want to be the one to say it.

Fortunately, I have no such reservations. ‘You'd do it if you knew someone had been murdered in your house. Or if you'd murdered that person yourself.'

‘Yes,' Sam agrees. ‘You would. But, Connie, you must see that—'

‘I know: it doesn't prove anything. Do Cambridge police know?'

‘I'm not sure. Probably not. Lorraine Turner happened to mention it to me when we were talking about the map – she was worried about something so valuable being left in an empty house – a house empty of people, I mean. Most of Dr Gane's belongings are still there, Lorraine says. Her furniture, books, CDs…'

‘Did she tell Lorraine why she was moving out?'

‘No. And Lorraine didn't ask. She didn't feel it was her place.'

I gulp my water down in one mouthful. ‘You've got to tell Cambridge police,' I say.

‘It won't make a difference.'

‘If they analyse the carpet, they might find traces of blood, or DNA.'

‘They won't do anything, Connie. There's no proof. Selina Gane moving out of her house is odd, I agree, but people behave strangely all the time. The guy I've been dealing with, DC Grint – he was satisfied with what Lorraine told him.'

‘Then he's a crap detective! Lorraine's the person who took the pictures for the virtual tour, isn't she? She's the last person whose word he ought to rely on. Has he checked with the Beaters, or Selina Gane? What if the Christmas tree story's a lie?'

‘Listen to what you're saying and think what it means,' says Sam. ‘Lorraine Turner would have to be a psychotic killer who murders her victims in houses she's trying to sell, then posts photographs of their dead bodies on the internet. Does that sound likely to you?'

‘Why victims, plural? Maybe there's only one victim: the woman I saw. And you could say that about any crime, in that disbelieving tone, make it sound implausible. “What, so he dissolved all his victims in a bath full of acid?” “What, so he hacked up young men's bodies and stored them in his freezer?”'

‘Do you read a lot of true crime stuff?' Sam asks.

I can't help laughing. ‘None,' I tell him. ‘Everyone knows those stories. They're common knowledge. What are you suggesting, that I'm some kind of morbid blood-thirsty freak? What if Lorraine Turner's the freak, or Selina Gane, or both of them? Why does it have to be me?'

Because you're the one yelling at the top of your voice in a crowded canteen, idiot.

‘I've answered your question,' Sam says calmly. ‘Are you going to answer mine?'

How does he know I'm keeping something back? Because Kit and I had a fight? He can't have heard the details; he was too far away.

‘I spoke to Alice Bean,' he says.

I try not to let my anger show. Alice is mine; sometimes I feel as if she's all I've got, the only person I can rely on to have my best interests at heart. How dare Sam poke around in my life? Why didn't Alice tell me she'd spoken to him?

‘You told me Alice advised you to contact Simon Waterhouse, but you didn't speak to her in the early hours of Saturday morning, did you? You didn't tell her about seeing the woman's body.'

‘I saw her later on Saturday and told her then.'

Sam waits.

‘You're right,' I say. ‘I hadn't told her on Saturday morning, when I spoke to you.'

‘So she must have suggested you contact Simon about something else.'

I say nothing.

‘I'd be very interested to hear what that something else was.'

‘It's not really something else. I mean, it is, but…it's connected. 11 Bentley Grove is the connection.' I take a deep breath. ‘Do you remember the snow we had in January?'

Sam nods. ‘I was worried it was never going to end,' he says. ‘I thought it was the beginning of the new ice age that the climate change scientists keep predicting.'

‘On 6 January, I went to Combingham to buy ten big sacks
of coal. Kit loves real fires and we'd run out, and he couldn't go – he was in London. If you're about to ask why I didn't go to the nearest garage, Kit won't let us buy coal from anyone but Gummy in Combingham. That's not his name, but it's what everyone calls him. I'm a bit scared of him, and having teeth isn't his strong point, but Kit insists his coal is the best. I don't know or care enough about coal to argue with him.'

Sam is smiling, and he shouldn't be. This isn't a happy story.

‘I took Kit's car because it's better in snow than mine – it's a four-wheel drive. I'd never been to Gummy's before, not on my own, and my sense of direction's hopeless, so I used the SatNav in Kit's car.'

‘He didn't drive to London, then?' says Sam.

‘He never does. Usually he parks at Rawndesley station, but it was too icy first thing that morning to drive anywhere apart from on the main roads. The gritters hadn't been out yet. Kit walked all the way down to the Rawndesley Road and caught the bus to the station.'

I wish he'd driven. I wish his car had been in the station car park that day instead of sitting outside our house, looking so much safer and more appealing than mine.

‘I bought the coal. I probably could have found my way home, but I didn't want to go wrong, so I decided I'd play it safe and use the SatNav again. I pressed “Home”.' I take a deep breath. ‘The first thing I noticed was the driving time: two hours and seventeen minutes. Then I noticed the address.'

Sam knows. I can see from his face that he knows.

‘As far as Kit's SatNav was concerned, “Home” was 11 Bentley Grove in Cambridge. Not Melrose Cottage in Little Holling, Silsford.' I start crying; I can't help it. ‘I'm sorry. I just
can't…I can't believe that six months later I'm still telling this story without knowing what it means.'

‘Why didn't you tell me this on Saturday morning?' Sam asks.

‘I didn't think you'd believe me about the woman's body if I told you everything. If you knew I was obsessed with 11 Bentley Grove already…'

‘Were you?'

Is there any point in my denying it? ‘Yes. Totally.'

‘Because Kit had put it in his SatNav as his home address?'

I nod.

‘And you wanted to know why. Did you ask him?'

‘The second he walked through the door. He claimed not to know what I was talking about. He denied it, completely denied it. He said he'd never programmed in any home address – not ours, and not an address in Cambridge that he'd never heard of. We had a huge row – it went on for hours. I didn't believe him.'

‘That's understandable,' says Sam.

‘He'd bought the SatNav new – who else could have programmed in the address apart from him? I said that, and he said, “It's obvious, isn't it? You must have done it.” I couldn't believe it. Why would I do something like that? And if I had, why would I accuse him of doing it?'

‘Try to calm down, Connie.' Sam reaches over, pats my arm. ‘Would you like another drink?'

I'd like another life – any life but this one, anyone's problems as long as they aren't mine.

‘Water, please,' I say, wiping my eyes. ‘Can you ask them to fill it to the top this time?'

He returns a few minutes later with a tall, full glass. I take a gulp that makes my chest ache.

‘Did you suspect Kit had another family in Cambridge?' Sam asks.

‘That was the first thing that sprang to mind, yes. Bigamy.' It's the first time I've said the word out loud. Even with Alice, I skirt around it. ‘It sounds melodramatic, but it happens, doesn't it? Men really do commit bigamy.'

‘They do,' says Sam. ‘Some women do too, I guess. Did you talk to Kit about your suspicions?'

‘He denied it – flat out denied it, everything. He's been denying it for six months. I didn't believe him, and that became another thing to fight about – the inequality. I didn't trust him as much as he trusted me.'

‘So he believed you when you said you didn't do it?'

‘He moved on to accusing my family – my mum, Fran, Anton. Reminded me of all the times one or other of them had been round when his SatNav was lying around in the house.'

‘Who are Fran and Anton?' Sam asks.

‘My sister and her partner.'

‘Was Kit right? Could a member of your family have programmed in the address?'

‘They could have, but they didn't. I know my family inside out. My dad's terrified of anything modern and gadgety – he refuses to acknowledge the existence of iPods and E-readers – even DVD players are too much for him. There's no way he'd go anywhere near a SatNav. Fran and Anton aren't imaginative enough or devious enough. My mother can be both, but…trust me, she wouldn't have put that address into Kit's SatNav.'

She'd rather swallow fire
. I've seen her stiffen and change the subject when anything with a Cambridge connection comes up in conversation: the boat race, Stephen Hawking and his black hole theory. She doesn't even like me to hear Oxford
mentioned, or any university, in case it makes me think of Cambridge. At first I thought she was worried about upsetting me, but then I realised her motivation was more selfish than that: she wants me to forget that Cambridge exists, that Kit and I were ever thinking of moving there. Her greatest fear is that I will one day leave Little Holling.

Mine is that I won't.

‘Kit programmed in the address,' I tell Sam. ‘He must have. That's what I think at the moment, anyway. That's what I've thought a thousand times, and then I accuse him again and he persuades me again that he's not lying about anything, and he's so…
convincing
. I want to believe him so much, I end up wondering if maybe I did it, then wiped the memory from my mind. Maybe I did. How do I know? Maybe I programmed 11 Bentley Grove into Kit's SatNav, and hallucinated a body that wasn't there. Maybe I'm some kind of deranged lunatic.' I shrug, embarrassed suddenly by how strange and pathetic my story must sound. ‘This is what my life's been like since January,' I say. ‘Round and round: believing, not believing, questioning my sanity, getting nowhere. Not much fun.'

‘For you or for Kit,' says Sam. Does that mean he believes Kit's telling the truth?

‘He even tried to say once that maybe someone in the shop he bought it from had programmed in the address.' I thought I'd finished, but I can't leave it alone. ‘He wanted us to go down there together, ask all the staff.'

‘Why didn't you?' Sam asks.

‘Because it was bullshit,' I say angrily. ‘I wasn't prepared to let him play games with me. I nearly agreed, but then I had a flash of clarity. I have those, sometimes, where it dawns on me
that I don't need to torment myself speculating, wondering. I
know
the truth: it wasn't anyone in the shop, or me, or a member of my family. It was Kit. I know he did it.' As soon as I'm out of here, I'm going to ring London Allied Capital and ask to speak to Stephen Gilligan's secretary. Maybe he had a meeting with Kit at 3 p.m. on 13 May; maybe he didn't. I need to know.

‘For six months, Kit's been telling you that he didn't programme in that address,' says Sam. ‘What makes you so sure he did?'

Sure? I wonder who he's talking about. Will I ever again be sure of anything?

‘Three things,' I say. Exhaustion sweeps over me; it's hard to summon the energy to speak. ‘One: it's his SatNav. He had no reason to think I'd be using it, no reason to think I'd find out.' I shrug. ‘The simplest explanation is usually the right one. Two: when I first asked him about it, before he had a chance to arrange his face into a puzzled expression, I saw something in his eyes, something…I don't know how to describe it. It was only there for a split second: guilt, shame, embarrassment, fear. He looked like someone who'd been caught. If you're about to ask me could I have imagined it, sometimes I think yes, I must have. Other times I'm certain I didn't.' I want to tell Sam how frightening it is to have the narrative of your life shift and lurch and change its contours every time you look closely at it, but I'm not sure any words can accurately describe it. Could Sam even begin to understand what it's like to inhabit such an unstable reality? He strikes me as a man firmly embedded in a consistent world, one that retains its shape and meaning from one day to the next.