The Telling Error

by Hannah, Sophie

  ‘Reuben Tasker’s attic window,’ said Gibbs. ‘But there was no …’ He stopped. His eyes widened. ‘The school.’

  Simon nodded. To Sam, Sellers and Proust, he said, ‘The school opposite Reuben Tasker’s house, the one he could no longer stand the sight of, is called King Edward VII.’

  ‘So … that’s why …’ Gibbs broke off, rubbed his face with his hands. Unable to reach a conclusion as quickly as he’d have liked to, he diverted to a question: ‘So where does that get us? Tasker killed Blundy – right?’

  ‘Nicki’s reply to Charlie’s “Confidant” ad tells us a lot,’ said Simon. ‘Given everything else we know, I think it’s safe to assume a few things: Nicki posted an ad on Intimate Links in 2010 – “I Want a Secret”. A man calling himself King Edward VII replied. At first, he maintained his anonymity, as you would if you were cyber-cheating with a virtual stranger. Why trust them with your true identity? Then, I’m guessing, they got closer, came to trust each other more, and Nicki probably told him who she was: her full name, where she lived, details about her life. She wanted him to reciprocate – a signal that this increased trust was mutual. Wouldn’t that be a natural way of moving to the next level in an adulterous online relationship?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sellers.

  ‘Right. But King Edward didn’t want to tell Nicki who he was. Why not? I’ll come back to that. He also didn’t want to refuse to tell her who he was, so he told her he was Damon Blundy. This happened round about October 2011 – that’s why Nicki started commenting on Blundy’s columns like someone who was head over heels in love with him, as Paula Riddiough said – because she was in love with him. Or, rather, she thought she was. At that point, the man she’d fallen in love with, through his emails, was King Edward. They mustn’t have met in all that time. Once he’d told her he was Damon Blundy, she started to read Blundy’s columns. She researched him, read every word he’d ever blogged and tweeted, no doubt. Blundy was an attractive alpha male with a strong personality.’

  Simon paused for long enough to realise that no one was interested in interrupting him any more. Good. ‘Before too long, although King Edward was the man Nicki was corresponding with, he was no longer, straightforwardly and for his own sake, the man she loved. Now she loved Blundy too, although she didn’t realise there was a “too” involved. It’s interesting, if you think about it: Nicki fell in love with one real flesh-and-blood man at the instigation of another and yet … still managed to fall in love with a man who didn’t really exist. The man she fell for was a fictional fusion of the two: King Edward’s private emails to her combined with Damon Blundy’s public persona.

  ‘Between October 2011 and February this year, Nicki was in no doubt that the man she was emailing – King Edward – was Damon Blundy. She continued to comment on his columns. In February, they broke up. She stopped commenting and answered a new Intimate Links ad: Gavin.’

  ‘But her email to Charlie – to Confidant – implies that King Edward is Gavin,’ said Sellers.

  ‘He is,’ said Simon. ‘I don’t know why Nicki and King Edward split up, but he knew, didn’t he? King Edward knew – not only Nicki’s innermost thoughts and feelings, after their years-long correspondence, but also what she was likely to want after breaking up with him. That’s the character he created in Gavin.’

  ‘The Internet’s brought us a plague of invisible men.’ Proust smacked his hand against his computer screen. ‘I dread to think how many fake online identities you’ve spawned, DC Sellers, and how you’ve deployed them.’

  ‘Dongcaster’s the one he’s most famous for, sir,’ Gibbs said.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, can we pay attention here?’ said Simon. ‘If Charlie and I split up, acrimoniously, and I knew she was likely to go straight to a particular website to hunt for a new man, I’d know exactly what kind of ad to write to reel her in – one that sounds as if it’s been written by a man who’s everything I’m not.’

  ‘If she finds such an advert, ask her to forward it to me,’ said Proust. ‘I’m sure we’d all enjoy working with him.’

  ‘King Edward reeled Nicki in again, as Gavin – again pretending to be someone he wasn’t,’ said Simon. ‘OK, at this point, she still believes Damon Blundy’s the man she’s broken up with. That’s why she contacts an estate agent and instructs him to sell her house, too cheaply if necessary, as soon as possible. She only moved to Spilling because Blundy lived there and she believed he was her secret lover – she wanted to be closer to him. Once they’ve split, she wants to get out of Spilling and away from him as quickly as she can. Except then she has a change of heart, doesn’t she? She rings the estate agent back and says, “Forget all that – I don’t want to sell my house after all.” Why?’

  ‘She decides she doesn’t want to let Damon Blundy drive her away, because it’s weak?’ suggested Sam. ‘Spilling’s her home as much as it’s his – why should she leave?’

  ‘Or she found out, soon after deciding to sell, that King Edward wasn’t Damon Blundy,’ said Gibbs. ‘If he’s not Blundy, then the guy who broke her heart, assuming that’s what happened, doesn’t live near her. She has no idea who he is or where he lives, so no need to move.’

  ‘That’s what I think it was,’ said Simon. ‘Sam, when you and I interviewed Nicki on the day of the murder, she told us she didn’t know Blundy. If she knew him and didn’t want to admit it, she’d lie, obviously, but that wasn’t all she said. She also said, “I couldn’t have known him any less if I’d tried.” Why add that? Most people wouldn’t. She sounded bitter when she said it.’

  Sam nodded slowly. ‘To us, it sounded like a more emphatic “I didn’t know him”, but to her, it meant “What an idiot I am – believing I was romantically involved with a man who’d never even heard of me.”’

  ‘Spot on,’ said Simon.

  ‘You said you were going to come back to why King Edward didn’t want to tell Nicki who he was, and you haven’t,’ said Proust. ‘Who is he, by the way?’ he added with exaggerated casualness.

  Simon decided he’d made them wait long enough. Almost. ‘A man who, sitting at his desk one day browsing the Intimate Links “Women Seeking Men” page, found an ad he wanted to respond to. He couldn’t use his own name, so he needed a pseudonym. He probably got up from his desk at that point, walked around the room a bit, like I am now, because it helps me to think clearly. He looked out of the window at the school opposite his house and thought, King Edward VII – that’ll do nicely.’

  ‘Reuben Tasker,’ said Gibbs. ‘I fucking knew that guy was dodgy.’

  ‘Well? Waterhouse?’

  ‘Yes.’ Finally, Simon gave Proust the name he was after. ‘Reuben Tasker. That’s why he started to hate the school and wanted to block out its sign – after his long relationship with Nicki ended, he didn’t welcome the reminder. It would have hurt him every time he saw that name.’

  ‘And then after Blundy died, he hated it even more,’ said Sam, his voice rising in excitement. ‘That has to be significant.’

  ‘It is,’ said Simon. ‘Before last Monday, the name King Edward VII was a painful reminder of a love affair gone horribly wrong. Since the murder, it’s reminded Tasker of something he’s even keener to avoid thinking about: the fact that he killed Damon Blundy.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong, love,’ PC Claire Whelan told Yolanda Shaw, the receptionist on duty at the Chancery Hotel. ‘You’ve got a Nicki Clements staying in room 419. Just look, will you?’

  ‘You can say it as often as you like, it doesn’t make it true,’ said Yolanda. ‘I have looked – you saw me. There’s a guest in room 419 whose name bears no resemblance to the one you’ve just given me.’

  ‘Well, that’s not what I’ve been told.’ PC Whelan pulled her phone out of her pocket. ‘All right, what’s the name of your person, then?’

  ‘How do I know you’re a real policewoman?’ asked Yolanda, irritated by the attitude.

  PC Whelan passed her ID card across the desk. ‘Satisfied?
’ As though Yolanda were an unreasonable nag and not a responsible member of hotel staff concerned about guests’ privacy.

  The ID looked legitimate. Damn. Now Yolanda had no choice but to tell her. ‘There’s a woman called Kate Zilber in 419.’

  ‘I need the key to that room,’ said PC Whelan. She held out her hand, nearly whacking Yolanda in the face with it, and made repetitive flicking movements with her fingers as if to say, ‘Come on, hurry up.’

  ‘No,’ Yolanda told her. ‘I’m sorry. Why do you need the key?’

  ‘With respect, I don’t have to explain myself to you.’

  A man in the waiting area, no more than four feet from the reception desk, lowered his copy of the Daily Telegraph and said, ‘However, if you did explain, you’d stand a better chance of getting the key, so …’

  Yolanda recognised the man whose check-in process earlier in the day had taken fourteen years. She’d nearly started crying, he’d asked so many questions. Mr … Some weird name beginning with a ‘U’. Undalis or something. No, Uskalis. U-s-k-a-l-i-s. Nice of him to intervene on her behalf, but what was he doing reading his paper in reception when he had a far more comfortable room to go to? Now that she’d noticed him, Yolanda realised he’d been sitting there for a long time.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said PC Whelan. ‘I think I know how to do my job.’

  ‘I’m not sure you know how to do it very well,’ said Uskalis. His voice sounded different. Not only his voice, but his manner too. ‘In your position, I’d have had the key in my hand in a matter of seconds,’ he said. ‘You still haven’t got it.’

  Yolanda, bolstered by his support, decided to hold out for as long as she could. He was quite right. This policewoman was rubbish at dealing with people. With all the training courses these days for anyone who had to deal with the public, how did she get away with being so brusque and rude? ‘Can I speak to someone and check you’re who you say you are?’ she asked PC Whelan.

  ‘You’ve seen my ID.’

  ‘Why do you need to get into Nicki Clements’s hotel room?’ asked Mr Uskalis.

  This was getting weirder by the second. ‘There is no Nicki Clements,’ Yolanda told him. ‘Her name’s Kate Zilber.’

  ‘Actually, her name’s Nicki Clements,’ said Uskalis. ‘Is she in some kind of trouble?’

  ‘I’ve been told she is,’ said PC Whelan.

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. The message I picked up wasn’t exactly clear.’

  ‘Trouble should be good enough, right?’ Uskalis turned to Yolanda. ‘One of your guests is in danger. Are you going to let us in?’

  ‘Sir, even if I let the police in, I can’t let you in. I can’t let one guest into another guest’s room, and I’m afraid I can’t take your word for it that this woman’s name’s Nicki Clements when she told me it was Kate Zilber.’

  Uskalis stared coldly at her. ‘And I’m telling you it’s not Kate Zilber. I know who Kate Zilber is. She’s a primary-school headmistress from the Culver Valley who snorts cocaine in her car before the school day starts, when she thinks no one’s looking.’

  ‘Sir, with respect—’

  ‘Oh, I’ve had enough of this,’ said PC Whelan. She turned and made for the door.

  Before Yolanda had a chance to say anything more to him, Mr Uskalis ran after her.

  ‘King Edward – Reuben Tasker – didn’t want to tell Nicki who he was because he didn’t enjoy being who he was,’ said Simon. ‘He told Gibbs he got himself off drugs because Damon Blundy’s portrayal of him as a pathetic addict got to him. But I checked – I rang his literary agent. Tasker only stopped taking drugs last summer, August 2012, so when he first told Nicki he was Damon Blundy, in October 2011, he was still using. And probably hating himself for it, and wishing Blundy would stop drawing the world’s attention to his addiction via his Daily Herald column. Tasker’s online fling with Nicki was a chance for him to pretend to be someone better. Someone he admired and wished he was.’

  ‘Damon Blundy?’ Gibbs sounded incredulous.

  ‘Wait, wait,’ said Sellers. ‘Aren’t you stretching it a bit?’

  ‘One hundred per cent Lycra.’ Proust yawned. ‘Not even a Lycra-truth blend, this theory we’re about to hear. Buckle up, boys.’

  ‘Tasker hated Blundy,’ said Gibbs. ‘Slagged him off all over the show, for criticising his novels unfairly.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re missing the crucial aspect here,’ Simon told him. ‘Who do we all secretly admire most? Who do we wish we could be, deep down, though we’d never admit it? The people who disdain us and scoff at us! Those so sure they’re superior to us that they don’t mind saying so in a public and witty way. Also, the people who’ve got something on us – they’ve got the power to destroy us. How desperately we’d rather be them, in their privileged pedestal position, than us. Think about it! Think of the envy you’d feel. Remember Tasker published a book this year that Blundy said was much better than his last one? What if he wrote that better book consciously trying to eradicate the pretentiousness Blundy had accused him of? I’d say there’s more than enough evidence that he admired Blundy and might well have wished he was him. There was a similar dynamic in operation between Blundy and his lover, Paula Riddiough – but let’s leave that for now.’

  ‘Now and forever,’ Proust amended. ‘If Riddiough didn’t murder Blundy, I don’t need to hear about their sex life. Nor do I care why Reuben Tasker pretended to be Blundy. I only care that he killed him and that Sergeant Zailer’s on her way to arrest him.’

  ‘Do we know for sure that he did?’ Sellers asked. ‘In Nicki Clements’s reply to the “Confidant” ad, where she thinks she’s replying to King Edward, she says Hannah Blundy might have murdered Damon.’

  ‘That’s easily explained,’ said Simon. ‘Hannah’s a psychotherapist and Nicki was her patient until February this year, when she broke up with the man she believed was Damon Blundy. She called herself Melissa Redgate, but it wasn’t Melissa. Melissa lives in London – why would she go and see a therapist in the Culver Valley? Nicki, on the other hand, was too curious to stay away from the woman she thought of as her rival. Again, as with Reuben Tasker and Damon Blundy, it’s the attraction-to-adversary syndrome. You’re drawn to your opposite number – the person who might, in various ways, represent your doom.’

  ‘In your case, can that be me, Waterhouse?’

  ‘Imagine the power kick: Nicki gets to tell Blundy’s wife all about the affair, every detail – mentioning no names, of course – and Hannah has to listen and make understanding noises and try to help Nicki. It’s the perfect revenge, from Nicki’s point of view, on the wife who’s got Damon in her bed every night.’

  ‘Though in fact the last laugh’s Hannah’s, since King Edward turned out not to be Damon,’ said Gibbs.

  ‘I’ve known, or at least suspected, that Nicki was Hannah’s patient for quite a while,’ Simon said. ‘When you and I interviewed Hannah, Sam, she mentioned a former patient who was paranoid about letting anyone drive her anywhere – remember? Train and taxi drivers, pilots of planes. This patient was neurotic and imagined these strangers would drive her to some terrible destination. I started to wonder if it could be Nicki Clements the first time she mentioned the auction.’

  Gibbs and Sam exchanged a puzzled look. ‘Auction?’ Sellers asked.

  ‘The one Nicki and Melissa went to in Grantham – in Nicki’s car, complete with wing mirror,’ said Simon. ‘But why were they in Nicki’s car at all? Melissa has a car too. I asked Charlie to find out if she had any driving hang-ups. A lot of people do, especially women – won’t drive on motorways or without their husbands, that kind of thing. But no, Melissa’s used to driving in all conditions – so why didn’t she and Nicki go to the auction in her car instead of Nicki’s?’

  Proust covered his eyes with his hands and groaned.

  Simon ignored him. ‘Let’s imagine for a minute that they had: Melissa drives from her home in Highgate to Ni
cki’s in Spilling to pick Nicki up. At least a two-hour drive. Then together they drive to Grantham, which is half an hour from Spilling. Then back to Spilling after the auction to drop Nicki off, and then Melissa drives back to Highgate – two longer journeys and two short ones. Instead, what happened was that Nicki drove to Highgate to pick Melissa up, then to Grantham, then back to Highgate to drop Melissa off, and then Nicki drove back to Spilling. Four long journeys, instead of two long and two short. Eight hours’ driving – eight hours! – when it could have been only five. As a plan, that makes no sense, unless Nicki has a phobia of being driven by anyone but herself. And, I think, her husband,’ Simon added as an afterthought. ‘He’s probably the only one she’ll agree to be driven by. He drove her to the train station last Tuesday, when she wanted to go to London to see Melissa and couldn’t take her own car because we needed to inspect its wing mirror, or lack of.’

  ‘You offered her a lift home after we interviewed her,’ said Sam. ‘She refused.’

  ‘Didn’t want to be driven by us,’ Simon said. ‘She had no choice when we turned up at her house and insisted she accompany us to the police station, which was why she was such a hysterical mess at first. Partly why, at any rate. So she refused a lift home and set off running instead. She’d told us she had other things to do in town, but I followed her. Instead of heading towards the shops, or going to the taxi rank by the Corn Exchange and getting a cab, she ran in the direction of her house. It couldn’t have been lack of cash. There’s a cashpoint opposite the Corn Exchange.’

  ‘The train to London,’ said Sam. He appeared to be too startled by what he’d realised to say anything else.

  Simon knew what he meant. ‘Yes, the trains that were supposedly not running on Tuesday afternoon, forcing Nicki to hire a car. I checked: the trains on Tuesday ran exactly according to the schedule – no problems at all. But Nicki didn’t want to travel by train because of her phobia, so she had her husband drop her at the station, then walked to a car-rental place.’