The Other Woman’s House

by Sophie Hannah

  At first Simon thought the walls were papered, because every inch of wall space was covered, and the ceiling. He quickly saw that it couldn’t be paper; there was no repeated pattern. No designer, not even the most radical, would create something this convoluted and bizarre. Photographs. Simon realised he was looking at hundreds of photographs, melded together in such a way that you couldn’t see the joins. Maybe there were none; Simon couldn’t see lines where one picture started and another finished. How had Kit done it? Had he taken all these photos and had them made into wallpaper, somehow?

  They were all of roads and buildings, apart from the ones on the ceiling. Those were of the sky: plain pale blue, blue streaked with white cloud, grey flecked with sunset pinks and reds; a deep blue with part of the moon in one corner, a curve of uneven glowing white.

  Simon moved closer to the wall; he’d spotted a street he recognised. Yes, there was the Six Bells pub, the one near the Live and Let Live, where he’d met Ian Grint. ‘Is this…?’ Turning in search of Barbara, he found himself looking at the books on the shelves instead. They were lined up in neat rows, their spines exactly level. From their titles, Simon saw that they had a subject in common.

  ‘Welcome to Cambridge in Bracknell,’ said Barbara.

  Histories of Cambridge, books about the origins of the university, the boat race, Cambridge’s rivalry with Oxford; about famous people associated with the city, Cambridge and its artists, Cambridge and the writers it inspired, the pubs of Cambridge, the gardens of Cambridge, its architecture, its bridges, the gargoyles on the college buildings, A Cambridge Childhood, Cambridge college chapels, Cambridge and science, spies with a Cambridge connection.

  Simon saw the words ‘Pink Floyd’ – had he found a book that broke the pattern? No, it was The Pink Floyd Fan’s Illustrated Guide to Cambridge.

  At the far end of one shelf there was a pristine copy of the city’s A–Z – an old one, if Kit hadn’t been inside this room since 2003, but it looked brand new. On the shelf above it, Simon saw a row of Cambridge Yellow Pages and telephone directories.

  He was aware, suddenly, of Barbara standing beside him. ‘We knew he was fond of the place,’ she said. ‘We had no idea it was an all-consuming obsession.’

  Simon was reading the road signs in the photographs: De Freville Avenue, Hills Road, Newton Road, Gough Way, Glisson Road, Grantchester Meadows, Alpha Road, St Edward’s Passage. No Pardoner Lane, or at least none that Simon had seen yet. He looked up at the pictures of the Cambridge sky. Thought about eighteen-year-old Kit Bowskill, unwilling to sleep under its Bracknell equivalent.

  Connie had been wrong. She’d told Simon that Kit had been in love with someone while he was at university, someone he wouldn’t tell her about, whose existence he flat-out denied. For obvious reasons, she’d suspected it was Selina Gane.

  It wasn’t. It was no one. The love Kit Bowskill had been intent on hiding from his wife – so strong that he either couldn’t put it into words, or was unwilling to – was not for any individual inhabitant of Cambridge. It was for the city itself.

  Barbara was doing her tour-guide bit, as promised. ‘This is the Fen Causeway – Nigel and I used to drive along it when we went to visit. King’s College Chapel you probably spotted. The Wren Library at Trinity. Drummer Street Bus Station…’

  Simon was aware of his breathing and not much else. Like Kit Bowskill seven years ago, he could think about only one thing.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Barbara asked. ‘You look a bit worried.’

  18 Pardoner Lane.

  Kit Bowskill, who hated to fail, had found his perfect house in his perfect city. His parents wouldn’t give him the money he needed, so he hadn’t been able to buy it, but someone had bought it. Someone had succeeded where Kit had failed.

  Someone who, at the time, must have felt lucky.

  21

  Saturday 24 July 2010

  ‘Do you have a job?’ DS Alison Laskey asks me, determinedly calm in the face of my agitation. She’s a slim, middle-aged woman with short, no-nonsense brown hair. She reminds me of a politician’s wife from about twenty years ago – dutiful and muted.

  ‘I have two jobs,’ I tell her. ‘My husband and I have our own company, and I also work for my parents.’ We’re in the same interview room that Kit and I were in on Tuesday, with the chicken-wire grid covering the window. ‘Look, what does this have to do with Ian Grint? All I want is—’

  ‘Imagine if you were on holiday – sunning yourself on a beach, say – and someone turned up at one of your workplaces asking for your mobile number. Would you want your mum and dad, or the people at your company, to hand over your number, so that the person could interrupt your holiday?’

  ‘I’m not asking for Ian Grint’s mobile number.’

  ‘You were when you first arrived,’ says DS Laskey.

  ‘I understand why you can’t give it to me. All I’m asking now is that you ring DC Grint and ask him to ring me. Or…meet me somewhere, so that I can talk to him. I need to talk to him. He can ring me at my hotel. I can be back there in—’

  ‘Connie, stop. Whether he’s interrupted by you or by me, it’s still an interruption, isn’t it?’ DS Laskey smiles. ‘And it’s his day off. And there’s no reason to disturb him. All police work is done on a team basis. You can talk to me about whatever’s bothering you. I’m familiar with your…situation already, so I know the background. I’ve read the statement you gave us.’

  ‘Was it you who decided there was no murder at 11 Bentley Grove? Was it your decision to just leave it, forget all about it?’

  Laskey’s mouth twitches. ‘What was it that you wanted to tell Ian?’ she asks.

  ‘There was a murder,’ I tell her. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’

  ‘You’ll show me?’ Her eyebrows shoot up. ‘What will you show me, Connie? A dead woman lying in a pool of blood?’

  ‘Yes.’ What choice do I have but to brazen it out? Even if the dead woman isn’t there any more, the blood must be. Traces of it, at least. ‘Will you come with me?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ll be glad to,’ says Laskey, ‘but first I’d like you to tell me where we’ll be going, and why.’

  ‘What’s the point? You think I’m delusional – you’re not going to believe anything I say. Come with me and see for yourself, and then I’ll tell you – when you’ll have no choice but to take me seriously.’ I push back my chair, stand up. The keys I took from the mug on Selina Gane’s shelf hang heavy in my pocket.

  ‘Sit down,’ Laskey says. I hear the slump of weariness in her voice. ‘It’s Ian Grint’s day off today, not mine. I have work to do, in this building.’ She gestures around the room, as if I might be in some doubt as to what she means by ‘this building’. ‘I can’t abandon ship unless I’m convinced there’s a need. Like it or not, if you want me to accompany you somewhere, you’ll have to give me a full explanation now.’

  And then you’ll decide I’m even crazier than you already think I am.

  I fall back into my chair. I might as well get on with it, if I have no choice. I turn my head so that I can’t see her, and start talking, imagining I’m addressing a more sympathetic listener: Sam, or Simon Waterhouse. I thought about contacting them instead of Grint, but what could they do? They’re miles away, in Spilling.

  I tell Laskey everything. She must be wondering why my delivery is so slow and jerky. I can’t help it – the most important thing is to test every sentence before it leaves my mouth, check it for errors. My reasoning needs to convince her, or she won’t help me. A voice in my head, one I’m trying to ignore, whispers that it won’t work, however hard I try, and I’ll hate myself afterwards for this demeaning attempt to impress her.

  When I finish, she looks at me for a long time without saying anything.

  ‘Will you come with me?’ I say.

  She seems to be trying to make up her mind about something. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m going to have someone bring you a cup of tea and a sandwic
h, so that you can have a bit of a break, and then I’m going to come back and—’

  ‘I don’t need a break,’ I snap.

  ‘And then I’ll come back, and I’d like you to tell me that story – everything you’ve just told me – again.’

  ‘But that’s a waste of time! Why do you want to hear it again? Weren’t you listening?’

  ‘I listened very carefully indeed. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite so…unusual. We police don’t hear that many unusual stories – far fewer than you might think. Normally the stories surrounding the crimes we deal with are very dull.’

  I see what she’s driving at. ‘You think I invented the whole thing, don’t you? You want to hear the story again so that you can check I don’t slip up and change some of the details.’

  ‘Do you have an objection to telling me again?’ Laskey asks.

  Yes. It’s a waste of time. I force myself to subdue my anger. ‘No,’ I say, then can’t resist adding, ‘As long as you’re aware of the flaw in your logic.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If I tell you again and my story doesn’t change, you’re no further forward. I might be telling the truth, or I might be a liar with a brilliant memory.’

  She smiles. ‘Whichever you are, you need something to eat. Your stomach’s been rumbling for the last fifteen minutes. Wait here.’

  At the door, she stops, turns back. ‘Stealing a set of keys from someone’s house is a crime, by the way. If you’re planning on changing any part of your story, that’s the bit I’d start with.’ Still smiling, she leaves the room.

  What does she mean? Is she suggesting I lie to avoid trouble? Or giving me notice that, after the food she’s forcing on me, I’m going to be arrested? It didn’t occur to me not to tell her that I took the keys from the mug in Selina Gane’s kitchen. How can she care about that, after what I’ve just told her?

  Because she doesn’t believe you about the dead woman and never will. She probably doesn’t believe you about stealing the keys either, or she’d have arrested you already.

  I had to take those keys. Didn’t I? What if I’m wrong, and they don’t belong to Selina Gane’s American friend? What if the number on the label doesn’t mean what I think it means? Maybe it’s a different street. The label didn’t say Bentley Grove, or a name, just the house number.

  No. You’re not wrong.

  When she talked about her American friend, Selina Gane looked straight at that mug. The keys are to the friend’s house – they must be. And the number with no street name, that has to mean Bentley Grove – you’d only do that with your own street.

  And the houses on Bentley Grove are more or less identical. The lounges are more or less identical…

  Suddenly, the thought of staying here a moment longer, to be patronised and subtly threatened, makes me feel ill. I don’t need this kind of help. I’ve got a better idea, one that doesn’t involve trying to ingratiate myself with Alison Laskey.

  I grab my bag and make my way out of the building as quickly as I can, then walk until I come to a phone box. Pressing the buttons, I wonder if I will always remember Kit’s mobile number, even in ten or twenty years.

  He answers on the second ring. ‘It’s me,’ I tell him.

  ‘Connie.’ He sounds pleased to hear from me. His voice is thick, swollen. Has he been crying? He never used to cry. Maybe he does it all the time, now that he’s got the knack. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Where I am now is irrelevant. It’s where I’m going to be in twenty minutes that matters. I’m going to be at 11 Bentley Grove.’

  ‘What are you…?’

  ‘You know where I mean, don’t you, Kit?’ I talk over him. ‘11 Bentley Grove, not Selina Gane’s house. That’s where I’m going to be. Your 11 Bentley Grove.’

  Silence from Kit.

  ‘I’ve got a set of keys in my hand,’ I tell him. ‘I’m looking at them now.’

  I put the phone down, leave the booth, panic as I try to remember where I left my car. That’s right: the multi-storey car park next to the glass-fronted swimming pool with the tube-like slides.

  I move as fast as I can, knowing that Kit, wherever he was when I spoke to him, will now be making his way to the house. I couldn’t explain to someone like Alison Laskey how I know this, but I do. When you’ve been with someone for as long as I’ve been with Kit, you can predict a lot of their behaviour.

  I have to get there before he does. I need to let myself in and see it for myself, whatever it is. However bad it is.

  What are you going to do when Kit turns up? Kill him? Say ‘I told you so’?

  It doesn’t seem to matter what happens next. All that matters is what I’m doing now – trying to get to the house, so that I can put the key in the lock and turn it. See that it works. That’s all I want out of this: the relief of proving to myself, finally that I’m not mad or paranoid. I can’t think beyond that.

  Every traffic light is on red. I ignore a few of them and drive straight through. Others I obey. There’s no system behind my actions; my driving’s worse than it’s ever been, all my decisions entirely random. Lots of disconnected thoughts flash in my mind: the blue and pink hourglass dress Kit bought me, Mum’s tapestry of Melrose Cottage on my bedroom wall at home, Alison Laskey’s worm-lipped smile, 11 Bentley Grove’s floorplan, Nulli’s certificate of incorporation in its smashed glass frame, iron railings, Pardoner Lane, the Beth Dutton Centre, the rotting cabbage Mum found in the cupboard under the stairs, the yellow key fob in my pocket, red feathers on the mug in Selina Gane’s kitchen, her map of Cambridgeshire with the empty crest. Empty Crest Syndrome, I think, and laugh out loud.

  I pull up outside the house and look at the clock on the dashboard. The journey from the multi-storey car park to here took ten minutes. It felt more like ten hours.

  The key works because I don’t waste time wondering if it will or won’t. Of course it works. That’s the part I forgot to mention to Alison Laskey: how absolutely certain I am that I’m right.

  I push open the front door and walk in. The smell makes me gag: human waste. And something even worse underneath it, like an undertone. Death. I’ve never smelled it before, but I recognise it instantly.

  This is real.

  Something inside me is screaming that I should run, get out, as far away as I can. I see several things at once: the white button stuck to the top of the newel post, a telephone on a table in the hall, by the stairs, lots of blood-dotted papers scattered on the floor beneath the table, a pink denim jacket lying just inside the front door. I reach to pick it up, feel the pockets. One is empty. The other has two keys in it – one on a Lancing Damisz key-ring, the other with a paper tag attached to it, the sort you might stick on a gift. On the tag, someone has written ‘Selina, no. 11’.

  My mind reels as I struggle to make sense of this. Then I see that there’s no mystery; it’s pitifully simple: you give someone your spare key, they give you theirs. If you lock yourself out, you’re covered.

  Ring the police. Pick up the phone and ring 999.

  Focusing on every move my body makes, I put one foot in front of the other and start to walk across the hall, keeping my eyes fixed on the end point. Twelve steps to that phone, no more. I stop when I reach an open door, aware of something in my peripheral vision, something large and red. My head is too heavy to turn and my neck too stiff. Slowly, I realign my whole body so that I’m facing the lounge.

  I’m looking at my sea of blood. Mine and Jackie Napier’s, I suppose I should say, since she and I were the only ones who saw it. It’s darker now, dry, like crusty paint. In the centre, there’s a woman lying on her front with her head to one side, facing away from me. The position of her head isn’t the only thing that’s different. Her hair is neater than in the photograph I saw on Roundthehouses. Almost too neat, as if someone has brushed it while she’s been lying there. And she isn’t wearing the green and lilac hourglass dress, she’s wearing a sleeveless pink top, a skirt with a white
and pink print, pink lace-up pumps. The pink jacket in the hall must be hers too. Lying by her side, as if it dropped from her shoulder before she fell, is a colourful flower-print canvas handbag.

  No wedding ring on her left hand.

  Terror jolts through me. I don’t know what to do. Ring the police? Check to see if she’s still alive?

  Get out of the house.

  But I can’t. I can’t just leave her here.

  I don’t know how long I stand there – it could be half a second, ten seconds, ten minutes. Eventually, I force myself to walk into the room. If I walk around the edge of the blood, over to the window, I’ll be able to see her face. If I walk around the edge of the blood. If I walk around the edge. Walk. Around the edge. It’s only by repeating it to myself that I’m able to do it.

  When I see who it is that’s lying there, I have to press both my hands over my mouth so hard that it hurts. My arms are shaking – all of me is shaking. It’s Jackie, Jackie Napier. She’s dead. Eyes staring, full of fear. Marks around her throat. Strangled. Oh, my God, please let this not be happening.

  Her face is twisted, especially her mouth. The tip of her tongue is visible between her lips. I hear myself saying no, over and over.

  Jackie Napier. The only other person who saw what you saw.

  I drag myself towards her, as close as I can bear to go. Bending down, I touch her leg. Warm.

  Shuddering, I back out of the room. The phone. Ring the police. That’s it. That’s what I do next: ring the police. I focus on my destination, start to make my way across the hall. As I get closer to the table with the phone on it, I see something that makes me seize up: my husband’s handwriting, on one of the blood-splattered pieces of paper on the floor.

  I sink to my knees, unable to stay upright. What I’m looking at makes no sense to me. It’s a poem by someone called Tilly Gilpatrick, about a volcano. There’s a comment beneath it, praising the poem. Underneath the praise, Kit has written that the poem is appalling, even for a five-year-old, and added a poem that he thinks is better: three rhyming verses. I try to read them, but can’t concentrate.