The Other Woman’s House

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘Thank you.’ Alice Bean smiled as Charlie took the letter from her. ‘Sam Kombothekra looked terrified when I tried to give it to him.’

  ‘Men are cowards.’ Charlie opened her bag, made sure Alice saw her putting the envelope safely inside. ‘You could give Sam a note for the milkman and he’d worry about getting mixed up in a scandal.’

  ‘My aim isn’t to make trouble. The opposite. I care about Simon.’

  ‘Then take this opportunity to help him.’ Charlie reminded herself that she was here to extract information. It would have been too easy to say, ‘Yeah, well, he wants nothing to do with you – why do you think I’m here?’

  She’d suggested to Alice that they meet at Spillages café, but Alice had proposed the park instead. It had irritated Charlie at the time – she hated people who talked about being ‘cooped up’ and behaved as if it was obligatory to go and stand directly under the sun whenever it was out – but now she was glad to be in the open air, following the narrow tree-fringed footpath around the lake, listening as the birds overhead conducted a vigorous debate in a language she didn’t understand. Walking alongside somebody, you didn’t have to look at their face, or let them see yours. Sitting across a table from Alice would have been much harder.

  Harder to resist the temptation to say, ‘Oh, by the way – guess who got married last Friday?’ Charlie had decided before ringing Alice that she wouldn’t mention it. She knew that to tell her would lead to open hostility between them, even if she didn’t know exactly how it would happen. Probably it would be her fault. In her official capacity as Simon’s wife, she might feel obliged to say, ‘Take your letter and stick it up your arse.’

  She hoped she’d be glad later – proud, even – that she’d chosen the mature, non-confrontational path. She certainly wasn’t enjoying it now, while it was happening; hostility, even if you went on to regret it later, was much more fun in the short term.

  ‘I’ll help if I can,’ said Alice, ‘but…can I ask you a question first?’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Do you think Simon will ever forgive me?’

  That was one Charlie could answer honestly. ‘No idea,’ she said. ‘He might have forgiven you already. Or he might bear a grudge for ever. The only thing I can guarantee is that he’ll never discuss it with anyone.’ Especially not me.

  Alice had stopped in front of a wooden bench by the edge of the lake, under a weeping willow. She brushed the trailing leaves off it and bent to read the writing on the gold plaque. ‘I can never walk past one of these without reading it,’ she told Charlie. ‘I’d feel as if I was leaving someone to die alone. Look at this one – two brothers, both died on 29 April 2005. One was twenty-two and one twenty-four. How sad.’

  ‘Car accident, probably,’ Charlie said matter-of-factly. She didn’t want to talk about sad things with Alice. With anyone. She imagined herself and Liv both dying on the same day as she reached into her bag for her cigarettes; getting one in her mouth and lit suddenly felt like an urgent need. She took a long drag. ‘When I die, I want my park bench plaque to say, “She always meant to give that up.”’

  Alice laughed. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Simon’s worried about Connie Bowskill.’ Time to stop pretending you’re friends enjoying a nice day out. With someone like Alice Bean, there was no such thing as small talk, in any case. So far she’d brought up forgiveness, lonely death, family tragedies – what subject would be next, the torture of small animals?

  ‘I’m worried too.’

  ‘Do you know where Connie is?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘No. She’s not answering her landline or her mobile.’

  ‘When did you last speak to her?’

  ‘Much as I’d like to tell you, I’m not allowed to,’ said Alice. ‘Patient confidentiality.’

  Charlie nodded. ‘I understand that you have to respect Connie’s privacy. I also know you’re not averse to drafting a new set of ethical guidelines when someone might be in danger. You did it for your own sake, seven years ago. Isn’t it worth relaxing your professional integrity to ensure Connie’s safety?’

  ‘I did it for my daughter’s sake seven years ago,’ Alice corrected her, apparently without resentment. ‘And I don’t know for sure that Connie’s in danger, or that Simon can keep her safe, assuming she is.’

  ‘But you think she might be in danger.’ You’ve been trying to convince yourself otherwise, and you’ve failed.

  ‘I was pretty shocked last time she came to see me,’ Alice admitted. ‘Having been one myself, I recognise a creature threatened with extinction when I meet one. There’s a really harmful energy around Connie, trying to crush the life out of her. It’s unmistakeable – being in a room with her has never been easy, but recently it’s been a real challenge – just for me to stay there, to keep reminding myself that she’s someone who needs my help. What I can’t tell is whether the threat has an external origin, one that she’s internalised, or whether the vicious energy’s coming from Connie herself. It’s not easy to distinguish the two – when people seek to destroy us, we often respond by making ourselves their accomplice, punishing ourselves on their behalf.’

  ‘Any chance I could get some or all of that in layman’s terms?’ Charlie asked.

  Alice stopped walking. ‘My gut instinct tells me Connie might not survive. Either there’s someone out there trying to obliterate her, or she’s doing it to herself.’

  ‘Who’s your money on?’

  Charlie didn’t expect an answer, and was surprised when Alice said, ‘The husband.’

  ‘Kit?’

  ‘Yesterday was Connie’s birthday. His present to her was a dress: the same one she saw on the dead woman in the virtual tour picture – different colours, but the design was the same. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.’

  ‘So you spoke to her yesterday,’ said Charlie. Why was it that everything Connie Bowskill said – to Simon, Sam, Alice – required a such a gargantuan suspension of disbelief? Because the woman’s a pathological liar. ‘Apart from the dress, what did the two of you talk about?’

  ‘Connie’s fears, her unhappiness, her suspicions – same as usual. Our sessions are always hard-going, but…I’ve never been frightened for her before, but this time she said two things that…I don’t know, this thing with the dresses really shook me. I had a nightmare last night – I knew it was a nightmare, even though everything in it really happened. I dreamed my session with Connie, exactly as it was: her sitting in my consulting room telling me that one dress was blue and pink, the other green and mauve.’ Alice shuddered. ‘Sometimes, all the evil seems to be packed into the smallest details.’

  Charlie knew what she meant, and wished she didn’t.

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about Kit – a man I’ve never met – taking two dresses up to the till, one for each of his women. One of them ends up dead on a carpet somewhere in Cambridge – what’s going to happen to the other one?’ Alice turned towards Charlie, put a hand on her arm. Her face was pale in contrast to her bright red lipstick. ‘Where is she? Why isn’t she answering either of her phones?’

  ‘You said there were two things.’ Charlie realised she was at an advantage, as the person who cared least. She also felt excluded. Simon was worried about Connie Bowskill; Alice was, if anything, even more worried. They could get together and have a panic party. Charlie was as convinced as she’d ever been that Crazy Connie was talking nonsense; she wouldn’t be invited. ‘What else did Connie say that scared you?’ she asked Alice.

  ‘It won’t make sense out of context: “the Death Button Centre”.’

  Charlie laughed. ‘The what?’

  ‘I wasn’t the only one who was scared. Something occurred to Connie when she said it – something she hadn’t thought of before. I saw it dawn on her, whatever it was. Like she’d seen a ghost inside her head. She ran – literally, ran away.’

  ‘The Death Button Centre?’

  ‘Connie and Kit nearly moved to Cambrid
ge in 2003. The house they were going to buy was next to a school building called the Beth Dutton Centre. Connie was stressed at the thought of leaving her family behind. She got it into her head that she couldn’t live in a house that didn’t have a name.’

  ‘A name?’

  ‘You know: The Beeches, The Poplars, Summerfields…’

  ‘Right, I see,’ said Charlie. Did she? No, not really. Not at all, in fact. ‘Why couldn’t she live in a house without a name?’ Plenty of people did; most people.

  ‘It was an excuse. Connie’s lived in Little Holling all her life, and all the houses there have names – it’s what she’s used to. She was afraid of straying too far from the only place she’d ever known, and ashamed to admit it. She and Kit had found this house – the perfect house, or so she said – and she told him she wouldn’t buy it unless they could give it a name. It was attached to the Beth Dutton Centre on one side, and Kit – as a joke – suggested calling it the Death Button Centre. He asked her if she thought it’d annoy the Beth Dutton Centre people, and the postman.’

  Charlie turned away to hide her smile. Alice and Connie could find it terrifying if they wanted to; she reserved the right to find it amusing. ‘So you think Connie realised something as she was telling you this? Something that frightened her enough to make her run?’

  ‘I’m certain of it. I keep going over the conversation in my mind – there was nothing else that could have panicked her. It was the last thing she said before she left.’

  ‘What exactly did she say, can you remember?’

  ‘Only what I’ve already told you: that Kit wanted to call the house the Death Button Centre, or pretended to want to – it wasn’t clear which. I assume he was joking. No one would really give a house that name, would they?’

  Charlie didn’t think there was anything about which you could safely say, ‘No one would do it.’ There was always some lunatic who would step forward to prove you wrong. After what Alice had been through – after what she herself had done – Charlie wondered how she could be so naïve.

  ‘He said the name was growing on him the more he thought about it, suggested getting a plaque made for the front door.’ Alice’s eyes narrowed as she concentrated on the memory. ‘I think that was the last thing Connie said before she…Oh, no, sorry. Kit suggested another name for the house, even sillier – 17 Pardoner Lane – but that wasn’t what provoked Connie’s fearful reaction.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. You probably don’t believe in energetic vibrations…’

  ‘Probably not,’ Charlie agreed.

  Alice changed tack. ‘Take my word for it: it was the Death Button Centre that frightened Connie – that horrible name. Who would dream up such a disturbing name for a house they loved and wanted to live in? Even as a joke, you wouldn’t.’

  Somehow, Charlie felt the shiver as it passed through Alice’s body. How was that possible?

  The Death Button Centre. Press the button and someone dies.

  ‘17 Pardoner Lane was the address of the perfect house they didn’t buy,’ said Alice.

  ‘So Kit wanted to stick with just the address?’

  ‘No, he…’ Alice looked up at the sky. ‘Oh,’ she said, sounding surprised at having interrupted herself. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe what he meant was, “Let’s not call the house something daft – let’s be sensible and call it by its address: 17 Pardoner Lane.” Though, I have to say, that wasn’t my impression, from what Connie said.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I thought she meant that Kit had leapt from the absurd to the even more absurd and suggested 17 Pardoner Lane as a name for the house – one that also happened to be its address. I thought the duplication was the joke.’ Seeing the expression on Charlie’s face, Alice looked embarrassed. ‘I know – it’s mad. But so is the Death Button Centre. Connie’s often described Kit as funny, witty – maybe he’s got a surreal sense of humour.’

  ‘So letters would be addressed to 17 Pardoner Lane, 17 Pardoner Lane, Cambridge?’ Charlie found herself smiling again. ‘Sounds to me like he was taking the piss out of her.’ The more Charlie thought about it, the more she liked the idea: giving a house its own address as a name was a bit like sticking two fingers up at everyone who took the business of house-naming too seriously. She decided to suggest it to Simon: 21 Chamberlain Street, 21 Chamberlain Street, Spilling. They could have labels printed. Simon’s mother, who had no sense of humour, would be horrified, and, although nothing would be said in so many words, Simon and Charlie would be given to understand that the Lord shared her horror. It was nothing short of miraculous, the way God and Kathleen Waterhouse saw eye to eye on every issue.

  Liv would think it was hilarious.

  ‘I’m going to have to go.’ Alice looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got to take my daughter to a birthday party.’

  ‘If you remember anything else, can you ring me?’ said Charlie. Simon wasn’t going to be happy. A joke about calling a house the Death Button Centre was unlikely to be the answer to anything. If Connie Bowskill was in a fragile emotional state, on a self-destruct mission, mightn’t the word ‘death’ be enough to bring on an attack of paranoia? She had probably put two things together that weren’t connected at all – a daft joke her husband made years ago, and the dead woman she’d seen on her computer screen, or claimed to have seen.

  As she watched Alice walk away, Charlie felt something vibrate against her stomach. Energy vibrations. What crap. She pulled her mobile phone out of her bag. It was Sam Kombothekra. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked without preamble.

  ‘Not much,’ said Charlie. ‘How about you?’ Under normal circumstances, she would have told him, but she didn’t want to say the name ‘Alice’ out loud in case Sam sensed her guilt down the phone. Not that she felt guilty; she simply recognised that she was. Or soon would be. On this occasion, her culpability didn’t bother her. Tucking her phone under her chin, she used both hands to retrieve Alice’s letter from her handbag.

  ‘Where are you?’ Sam asked.

  Charlie laughed. ‘Is your next question, “What colour underwear are you wearing?”’

  ‘My next question is, where’s Simon? I’ve been trying to ring him.’

  ‘He’s in Bracknell talking to Kit Bowskill’s parents,’ Charlie told him. How ludicrous that she felt proud: she knew where Simon was and Sam didn’t.

  ‘Can you meet me at the Brown Cow in fifteen minutes?’

  ‘Should be okay. What’s the problem?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

  ‘I’ll get there quicker with a hint to speed me on my way,’ said Charlie. Her fingers traced the sealed flap of the envelope. Nothing good would come of opening it; Simon was unaware of its existence, and Charlie didn’t want its contents in her own head any more than she wanted them in his. She ripped the envelope into small pieces, then smaller ones still, letting them fall at her feet.

  ‘Jackie Napier,’ said Sam. ‘The problem is Jackie Napier.’

  ‘You have to treat it as you would a bereavement,’ Barbara Bowskill told Simon. ‘You used to have a son, but you don’t any more. You’re in the same position as a mother whose son went to fight in Iraq and was killed by a bomb, or someone whose child died of cancer, or was murdered by a paedophile. You tell yourself there’s nothing you can do – they’re gone – and you stop hoping.’ She looked like Simon’s idea of what a bereavement counsellor ought to look like, though in reality they rarely did: frizzy dyed auburn hair, grey at the roots; an embroidered tunic over flared jeans, chunky wooden jewellery, sandals with fabric tops and heels made of rope and cork. And no real bereavement counsellor would advise pretending that one’s child had been murdered by a paedophile when that child was alive and well and living in Silsford.

  Not for the first time since he’d arrived, Simon had doubts about Kit Bowskill’s mother. It wasn’t only the paedophile remark. He found her smile unsettling, and was
glad he’d only seen it twice – once when she’d opened the door to let him in, and then again when she’d handed him a mug of tea and he’d thanked her. It was intrusive, a violation of a smile – one that suggested extreme empathy, shared pain, yearning and a strong desire to devour the soul of its recipient. There was too much crinkling of the skin around the eyes, too much pursing of the lips, almost as if she was about to blow a kiss and start crying simultaneously.

  Nigel Bowskill looked as if he belonged to a different world from his wife, in his grey suit trousers, green T-shirt and white trainers. ‘It’s too painful otherwise,’ he explained. ‘We can’t spend the rest of our lives waiting for Kit to change his mind. He hasn’t for seven years. Probably never will.’

  ‘Why should he have that power over us?’ Barbara sounded defensive, though no one had criticised her. There was something odd about the way this couple spoke, thought Simon – as if each disagreed violently with what the other had just said, though if you listened to the words rather than the tone, they appeared to be unanimous all the way down the line.

  So far, Simon hadn’t enjoyed being in their house: a detached beige-brick modern villa which, together with its built-on double garage, made an L-shape. He reminded himself that it didn’t matter; this was unpaid work, not fun. Day eight of his honeymoon. He wished he’d brought Charlie with him, but knew that if by some miracle time were to rewind to yesterday, he would choose again to make the trip alone. ‘It must be hard,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I ask what caused the rift?’

  ‘Kit didn’t tell you?’ Barbara rolled her eyes at her own foolishness. ‘No, of course he didn’t, because he couldn’t, not without revealing something about himself that he didn’t want you to know – that once he tried to do something and didn’t succeed, shock horror. What you’ve got to understand about my son is that he’s the most intensely private person you’ll ever meet, as well as the proudest. Since he refuses to come to terms with his own fallibility, his pride is easily wounded – that’s where the secrecy comes in, all in the good cause of saving face. There’s no doubt in Kit’s mind that the whole world is watching him, eagerly awaiting his downfall. He might seem relaxed and chatty on the surface, but don’t be fooled – it’s all image management.’