The Other Woman’s House

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘The owner of 11 Bentley Grove is a Dr Selina Gane.’

  So that’s her name. Sam has found out more useful information in forty-eight hours than I have in six months.

  ‘She’s an oncologist, works at Addenbrooke’s hospital.’

  ‘Know it well,’ says Kit. ‘I did my undergraduate degree at Cambridge. Addenbrooke’s relieved me of a putrid appendix, about an hour before it would have killed me.’

  Kit’s undergraduate degree is his only degree. He could have said, ‘my degree’, except then Sam Kombothekra wouldn’t have assumed it was one of many.

  If the University of Cambridge offered an MA course in Thinking the Worst of People, I’d graduate with distinction.

  ‘Dr Gane bought the house in 2007, from a family called the Beaters. They bought number 11 from the developers when it was first built in 2002. Bentley Grove didn’t exist before then. The Beaters’ sale of the property to Dr Gane was handled by a local estate agent called Lorraine Turner. Lorraine is also the agent marketing the property now, coincidentally.’

  ‘Not coincidentally at all,’ Kit corrects him. ‘If you want to sell your house, why not put it on with the person you know sold it successfully last time – to you? That’s what I’d do, if I were selling Melrose Cottage.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be selling Melrose Cottage,’ I can’t help saying. ‘We would be selling it.’ I want to apologise to Sam for Kit’s interruption; I hate it when he shows off.

  ‘Cambridge police spoke to Lorraine Turner yesterday. I spoke to her on the phone this morning. I think you’ll be reassured when I tell you what she told me. In December 2006, the Beaters decided to put 11 Bentley Grove on the market – they wanted to move out to the countryside.’

  Why, for God’s sake?

  ‘The day they made their decision was also the day Mrs Beater sent Mr Beater out to buy a Christmas tree.’

  ‘Shall I get us each a mug of cocoa?’ says Kit. ‘This sounds like the beginning of a bedtime story.’

  ‘You’ll see why it’s relevant shortly,’ Sam tells him.

  In other words, don’t interrupt again.

  ‘She wasn’t in when he got back, and so wasn’t able to remind him to put something down to protect the carpet before setting the tree down on it, in its pot. The pot had holes in the bottom, the earth in it was wet…’

  ‘What a fool.’ Kit laughs. ‘I bet Beater wife gave Beater husband a tongue-lashing he’ll never forget.’

  ‘I’d say that’s likely.’ Sam smiles.

  Why is everyone having a good time here except me? I can’t take this seriously, any of it – all this trivia about Christmas trees and people who mean nothing to me; at the same time, I can’t see anything to laugh about. My mind fills with a disgusting image: scratching my face until the skin comes off, until there’s nothing left but a red-raw featureless bulb where my head used to be.

  ‘When Lorraine Turner turned up to value the house, the first thing Mrs Beater showed her was the damaged lounge carpet. She had a lengthy moan about her husband’s incompetence: “Typical useless man – the very day we decide to try and sell the house…” Et cetera. You get the idea. Mrs Beater hired a professional carpet cleaner, but the stain refused to disappear completely. A brown ring-like mark was left that couldn’t be shifted.’

  Sam turns from Kit to me. ‘Last Monday, Lorraine went to value 11 Bentley Grove for Dr Gane. Three and a half years after she first set foot in the house, the stain was still there. She made a joke about it, apparently, then regretted it because Dr Gane seemed to take it the wrong way – as if Lorraine was implying she was slovenly, not having replaced the previous owners’ ruined carpet. Lorraine said it was a bit awkward.’

  Am I expected to feel sorry for an estate agent I’ve never met? Kit is chuckling: the perfect audience.

  ‘She filmed the house and garden for the virtual tour, took photos to put in the brochure and on the agency’s website,’ Sam goes on. ‘One was of the lounge, with the Christmas tree mark on the carpet clearly visible – that’s the photograph we’ve just looked at.’

  ‘So what?’ I say, more rudely than I intended. ‘What does any of this prove? What’s it got to do with the dead woman I saw?’

  ‘Connie,’ Kit mutters.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Sam tells him. He feels sorry for him, I think. Can’t be easy, being married to a mad woman. ‘This Saturday afternoon just gone, so nearly twelve hours after you saw the dead woman on the virtual tour, Lorraine Turner showed a young couple round 11 Bentley Grove. She told them the Christmas tree story, showed them the mark. It was the same mark, Connie – Lorraine says she’d swear to it. The rest of the carpet was immaculate. No blood.’ He waits for this to sink in. ‘Do you see what I’m saying?’

  ‘You’re saying it means that the carpet can’t ever have had blood on it. Are you sure that’s true? I’ve washed clothes with bloodstains on them, and the blood’s completely disappeared.’

  ‘Connie, do you really have to…?’ Kit tries to shut me up.

  I talk over him. ‘It’s easy to get rid of blood: cold water, soap…’

  ‘Believe me, if someone had bled to death on a beige carpet, you’d see a mark,’ says Sam. ‘However much soap and cold water and Vanish was applied afterwards.’

  I run my hands through my unbrushed hair, fighting the urge to lie down on the sticky canteen floor, close my eyes and give up.

  ‘Connie, when you saw the woman’s body, was that mark there in the corner of the room, in the same photograph?’ Sam asks. ‘The Christmas tree mark?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ No. I don’t think it was. ‘I didn’t notice it, but…’ I cast around for a likely explanation. ‘Maybe the photograph of the dead woman was taken years ago, before Mr Beater put his Christmas tree down on that spot. Have you thought of that?’

  Sam nods. ‘You described a map on the wall – do you remember?’

  ‘Of course I remember. Why wouldn’t I? Saturday was only two days ago. I’m not senile.’

  He pulls a notebook out of his shirt pocket, opens it and starts to read. ‘“Comitatus Cantabrigiensis Vernacule Cambridgeshire, 1646. Jansson, Johannes.” Otherwise known as Janssonius.’ He looks up. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard of him?’

  ‘Is he a friend of the Beaters?’ I say snidely. I can’t help it.

  ‘He was a famous Dutch cartographer – a map-maker. The framed map above Selina Gane’s fireplace is a Janssonius original, worth a packet. Lorraine Turner admired it when she went to value the house for Dr Gane. Oh, and you mentioned the crests – they’re the crests of the Cambridge colleges: Trinity, St John’s…’

  ‘Don’t miss out the best one,’ says Kit. ‘King’s.’

  ‘Don’t you get enough opportunities to boast to your adoring minions in London?’ I snap at him. ‘Do you have to turn this into a boast-fest too?’

  ‘The empty crest was left empty deliberately – so that whoever bought the map could fill in their own family crest,’ Sam continues as if I haven’t just lashed out at my husband. ‘Dr Gane told Lorraine all about it. It’s one of her treasured possessions, understandably. Apparently it was a housewarming present from her parents when she moved to Cambridge from Dorchester, where she’d lived previously.’

  Lucky her. Some people get antique Dutch maps, others get revolting home-made tapestries. Evidently Selina Gane’s mother has better taste than mine. I dread to think what the Monk family crest might look like, if we had one. A picture of Thorrold House’s kitchen; generations of provincial nobodies chained to a knackered old Aga.

  Sam’s eyes meet mine. I know what he’s going to ask me.

  ‘Connie, when you saw the dead woman on the virtual tour, did you also see the map? Did you see both things in the room at the same time, in the same picture?’

  ‘Yes. That doesn’t prove I imagined the woman’s body,’ I add quickly, afraid that it does. I need time to work out what this means, without Kit and Sam watching me.

  ‘
Doesn’t it?’ says Sam. ‘Assuming you’re right, when was the photograph of the dead woman taken? Before Selina Gane bought 11 Bentley Grove? Then what’s her map doing up on the wall? After she bought the house? In which case, the blood would have ruined the carpet and she – or someone – would have had to replace it. And we know, thanks to Lorraine Turner, that that hasn’t happened, because the mark from the Beaters’ Christmas tree is still there.’

  ‘Come on, Con, you can’t argue with that,’ says Kit, keen to hurry things along.

  ‘Can’t I?’ Can I? Plausibly? Why do I want to, so badly? Why aren’t I happy to be proved wrong? ‘You can cut carpet, presumably,’ I say in a monotone. ‘If there was a line across the room where one section of beige carpet finished and another one of exactly the same colour started, would Lorraine Turner have noticed? Did you ask her?’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Kit mutters. ‘Next you’ll say what if Selina Gane laid another beige carpet over her original one, murdered someone, then removed the blood-soaked carpet and found the one underneath still in tip-top condition, miraculously unstained.’

  ‘That’s one definition of ridiculous, I agree,’ I fire back at him. ‘Another is pretending something didn’t happen when you know it did – disbelieving your own eyes.’ I turn to Sam. ‘What are Cambridge police planning to do?’

  His face tells me everything I need to know. I open my mouth to protest, but I’ve lost my grip on the words I was going to use. Everything has blurred. Sam is a fuzzy pink blob.

  ‘Con?’ I hear Kit say. His voice sounds as if it’s coming from the other side of the world. ‘Do you feel faint?’

  My mind is shrinking, floating in pieces; I can’t feel parts of my body. Can’t speak.

  ‘Shall I get her a drink?’ someone says – Sam, I think.

  ‘Water,’ I try to say.

  You’re supposed to put your head between your knees – Kit is always trying to make me do that – but I feel better if I straighten my back and do nothing but inhale and exhale until it passes. Alice says it’s okay to do that. ‘Listen to your body,’ she says. ‘It’s telling you what it needs.’

  Gradually, I feel myself reassemble, as if someone has knitted me together again. Thank God. Every time this happens, I wonder if I will make it back. When my vision straightens out, I see Sam queuing at the serving hatch.

  ‘Why doesn’t he push to the front?’ says Kit. ‘You need water more urgently than that greasy-haired guy needs that fry-up.’

  ‘I’m not sure water’s going to help,’ I say.

  ‘If Kombo-whatsit had offered us a drink in the first place, you’d have been fine. It’s sweltering in here – you’re probably dehydrated. What’s the point of meeting in a canteen if you don’t even get a drink?’

  ‘Alice thinks the dizzy spells are stress-related,’ I say. I’ve told him this before.

  ‘Great. It’s my fault, then, like everything else.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Connie, listen to me.’ Kit takes both my hands in his. ‘This is a turning point in our lives. Or it could be, if you’ll let it.’

  ‘You mean if I forget about the dead body I saw on Roundthehouses – if I agree to pretend I imagined it.’

  ‘You did imagine it, sweetheart. Come on, you must see that you can’t have it both ways: if stress can make you faint and have dizzy spells, it can also make you see things that aren’t there at one in the morning, surely, when you’re exhausted.’

  He’s right.

  ‘Imagining things doesn’t make you a freak, Con. You’re talking to the man who once imagined that loads of blades of grass turned into a gigantic grass monster and attacked his feet – remember?’

  ‘You were pissed out of your head. And stoned.’ Reluctantly, I smile at the memory. A few weeks after we first met, Kit woke me up in the middle of the night, weeping and demanding that I examine his shoelaces, insisting they were frayed and full of holes from the grass monster’s assault. It took me nearly an hour to persuade him that there was no monster and his shoelaces were intact. The next morning, he declared marijuana the root of all evil. He hasn’t touched it since.

  ‘I’ve been lying to you,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been going to Cambridge. Nearly every Friday.’ I look down at the white Formica table, wishing I could sink into it and disappear.

  Kit says nothing. He must hate me.

  ‘I go by train,’ I say, keen to continue with my confession now that I’ve started. ‘The first couple of times I drove, but then Mum asked me why my car wasn’t in the driveway two Fridays running, when I was supposedly at home working. I couldn’t think what to say, until it occurred to me to tell her to mind her own business.’

  ‘That must have gone down well,’ says Kit. To my relief, he doesn’t sound angry.

  ‘After that, I decided to get the train, which takes twice as long. There’s no direct train – you have to change at King’s Cross. Once, I…I only just got back before you. We were both on the 17.10 from London to Rawndesley. You didn’t see me, but I saw you. It was the scariest journey of my life; I knew I wouldn’t be able to lie – if you’d spotted me, I’d have blurted it all out. When you got off at Rawndesley, you were talking on your BlackBerry. I hung back, waiting to see if you’d stay on the platform to finish the call. Luckily for me, you didn’t. You headed for the car park. As soon as you’d gone, I made a dash for the taxi rank. I got home about two minutes before you. Another time, I—’

  ‘Connie.’ Kit squeezes my hand. ‘I don’t care about train timetables. I care about you, and us, and…what this means. Why have you been going to Cambridge nearly every Friday? What do you do when you’re there?’

  I risk a quick glance at him, see nothing but unhappiness and incomprehension. ‘You can’t guess? I look for you.’

  ‘For me? But I’m in London on Fridays. You know that.’

  ‘Sometimes I sit on the bench at the Trumpington Road end of Bentley Grove and watch number 11 for hours, waiting for you to open the front door.’

  ‘Jesus.’ Kit covers his face with his hands. ‘I knew it was bad. I had no idea it was this bad.’

  ‘Sometimes I stand at the other end, behind a tree, waiting for you to drive up. Which you never do. Sometimes I wander round the city centre hoping to see you with her – in a café, or walking out of the Fitzwilliam Museum.’

  ‘Her?’ says Kit. ‘Who is Her?’

  ‘Selina Gane. Though I only found out her name today, when Sam told us. Sometimes I stand in the car park at Addenbrooke’s and—’ I stop suddenly. Selina Gane, Selina Gane…My throat closes tight as I make the connection. How could it have taken me so long? Instantly, I regret trusting Kit, telling him everything I’ve just told him. ‘Show me your diary.’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you haven’t got it with you. You always have it.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to pretend. Connie, what is it? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Give it to me.’ I hold out my hand.

  He pulls his diary out of his pocket, red in the face, and passes it to me. I flick through the pages. I know it was May, but I can’t remember the exact date. There it is. I spread it open on the table, so that we can both see the evidence. ‘13 May 2010 – 3 p.m. SG.’

  Kit groans. ‘This is your big revelation? Proof that Selina Gane and I must be playing house together at 11 Bentley Grove behind your back? SG is Stephen Gilligan, a lawyer at London Allied Capital. I met him at three o’clock on 13 May, at the office in London. Ring Joanne Biss, his PA, and ask her.’ He hands me his BlackBerry. ‘Now, so that you’ll know I haven’t had a chance to ask her to lie for me.’

  ‘You know I’m not going to ring anybody.’

  ‘You can’t risk being proved wrong, can you?’ Kit leans in front of me, forcing me to look at him. ‘You’d rather cling to your suspicions, the imaginary world you’ve constructed.’

  ‘I didn’t imagine what happened in January, and
I didn’t imagine that woman’s body,’ I say shakily.

  ‘You went through my diary. Of all the low fucking…’ Kit grabs my arms, pulls me towards him. His fingernails dig into my flesh. ‘I don’t know any Selina Gane,’ he says in a fierce whisper. He doesn’t want anyone to notice his anger – only me. ‘I haven’t been to Cambridge since the last time I went there with you, in 2003. I’ve never set foot inside 11 Bentley Grove. I’m not leading a double life, Connie – I’m leading a very lonely, very unhappy married life with a wife I hardly know any more.’ He lets go of me when he sees Sam coming back with my water. All that time in the queue and it’s a small glass, only half full. If that’s what counts as a glass of water around here, I should have asked for seven. There’s a dry burn in my throat, as if I’ve been screaming for a year.

  ‘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.