The Other Woman’s House

by Sophie Hannah

  I think of Mum asking what woman in her right mind would ruin a lovely dress by lying in red paint. Jackie Napier’s mind must have gone badly wrong.

  ‘She was lying in blood that didn’t belong to her,’ says Kit.

  She still is. If you strangle someone to death, they don’t bleed. ‘Whose blood?’ I gasp, bile rising in my throat. I can smell Kit’s sweat, his desperation – a hard, rotten smell. As if his body’s accepted that it will die soon and is making preparations.

  ‘You have no idea how much I hate her,’ he says. ‘And I hate myself for hating her.’

  But not for killing her. ‘Jackie?’ I say

  ‘She’d have done anything for me…’ The rest of his sentence loses itself as loud sobs shake his body.

  When he’s quiet again I ask, ‘Why did you kill her?’

  ‘Because I. Had to.’ His breathing is uneven. ‘There was no happy ever after for me and her. There’s no happy ever after for me and you, not now that everything’s happened the way it has. It’s left us no way out. We have to be brave, Con. You said all you wanted was to know, and I want to tell you. I’m sick of the loneliness of knowing and not being able to tell you.’

  Terror twists my heart. I don’t want him to tell me, not yet, not if killing me’s what comes afterwards.

  I stare at the shaking knife. Even if I could concentrate on it hard enough to make it fall out of his hand, I still wouldn’t be able to struggle free. I try to make myself believe that DS Laskey will come in time. I told her the address, told her there was a dead woman here. She might have her doubts about my story, but she’ll come anyway. She’ll want to check.

  One dead woman. Not two. Please not two.

  ‘I’ll look after you, Con,’ Kit says. ‘Jackie said she’d take care of you, but she didn’t mean look after. She meant “take care of” in the other way. There’s something wrong with that, don’t you think? That the same words can mean both?’

  Words. I hear them, but they don’t seem to work. They don’t translate. What’s he saying?

  I can smell death. Decay, decomposition. How is that possible? How long ago did Kit kill Jackie Napier? How long before a dead body starts to smell? She was still warm…

  ‘What did she say about me?’ I ask.

  ‘She was going to kill you, Con.’ Kit weeps into my hair. ‘I couldn’t have stopped her, not without…doing what I did.’ He kisses the back of my neck. I clamp my mouth shut to keep in the scream that’s ringing in my head.

  ‘I killed her to save you,’ Kit says.

  24

  24/7/2010

  Charlie had finished her pint and needed another one, but she knew that if she went to the bar, she’d miss too much and struggle to catch up; that was her – what had Simon called it? – her firmly ingrained personal-experience-based assumption. The other two seemed to have forgotten that there were thirsty bodies attached to their brains; Charlie tried to do the same.

  ‘Remember your point about simple solutions, in Spain?’ Simon said. ‘When there’s an unknown, a puzzle, the simplest answer’s usually the right one?’

  ‘You disagreed with me,’ said Charlie. ‘We managed to pack some interesting arguments into our half-hour honeymoon,’ she told Sam.

  ‘Jackie Napier was banking on Ian Grint subscribing to your way of thinking, not mine,’ said Simon. ‘Like a lot of highly imaginative people, she assumes most people she comes into contact with have more straightforward, prosaic minds than she does, and she’s right. Grint finds that someone’s hacked into Lancing Damisz’s computer network – who’s the obvious non-suspect? Jackie Napier. Why would she need to hack in when she works there and can access the system legitimately whenever she wants? If a woman might or might not have been murdered at 11 Bentley Grove, who’s the obvious non-suspect? Jackie Napier again – she drew herself to the police’s attention, saying she’d seen the body, supporting Connie Bowskill’s story, a story no one would have wasted five minutes on if Jackie hadn’t come forward – Connie would have been dismissed as a delusional neurotic. It was thanks to Jackie that Grint moved on the possible murder, did the whole forensic bit, found out about the computer hacking. Simplistic assumption? That Jackie can’t have been responsible for any of it. The possibility that she might be wouldn’t occur to Grint or to anyone – no one draws their own crimes to the police’s attention, crimes they would otherwise get away with.’

  ‘But…you’re saying Jackie did?’ Sam asked.

  ‘I think so, yeah,’ said Simon. ‘I’m not sure why, though.’ He looked angry. ‘I might be an imagination person, but I’m nowhere near her level.’

  ‘You’re talking as if you know for a fact that Jackie’s a liar,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I do. If you’d come with me to Lancing Damisz and the Cambridge Property Shop today, you’d know it too.’

  Charlie didn’t point out that he had neither told her where he was going nor invited her to join him.

  ‘For starters, Jackie hasn’t been to New Zealand any time recently, and she hasn’t got a sister,’ said Simon. ‘The holiday part was true. She took her disabled mother to a B&B in Weston-super-Mare. She does it every summer, apparently.’

  Weston-super-Mare. New Zealand. The distance between the lie and the truth was enough to make anyone feel jet-lagged.

  ‘Jackie sold 18 Pardoner Lane to the Gilpatrick family in 2003,’ said Simon. ‘In 2009, they decided they wanted to move again. Jackie, still working for Cambridge Property Shop, sold them another house: the one opposite Professor Sir Basil Lambert-Wall’s. She bought their old house herself.’

  ‘What?’ Charlie wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

  ‘Jackie Napier bought 18 Pardoner Lane, in March last year,’ said Simon. ‘She was the agent handling the sale, she put the house on the market – and then bought it herself.’

  ‘So…why bother putting it on the market?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Did she have to pay herself commission?’ said Charlie.

  ‘No idea.’ Simon looked away; he hated not knowing. ‘But that’s where Jackie now lives – in the house Kit Bowskill was gagging to buy in 2003, the house he wanted so much that he allowed his proud mask to slip and begged his folks for fifty grand.’

  Charlie looked to Sam for help, saw her confusion mirrored in his face.

  ‘In February this year, Jackie switched jobs – she moved to Lancing Damisz,’ said Simon. ‘I spoke to Hugh Jepps, one of Cambridge Property Shop’s senior partners. He’s felt guilty ever since about the glowing reference he wrote her, and was only too willing to let me hear his confession. The reference was only glowing because he was keen to get rid of Jackie – he’d have sacked her, except that then the story of what she’d been up to might have come out. Jepps wasn’t sure the firm could weather the bad publicity. He also couldn’t have proved anything against her, though he knew exactly what was going on.’

  ‘More than can be said for me and Sam,’ Charlie muttered.

  ‘Every house Jackie was selling, soon as an offer came in, there would be a counter offer – a little bit higher,’ said Simon. ‘Usually this would lead to a bidding war, with each side offering two grand more each time, sometimes five or ten grand more each time, depending on how desirable the property was. Eventually someone’d drop out. So far, so normal, Jepps said – happens all the time with house sales – except that, with the houses Jackie Napier was selling, there was one constant: Kit Bowskill. Bowskill was the one who made the second offer, every time, and started the bidding war. Funnily enough, he was never interested in any of the houses anyone else was selling. It was only the houses on Jackie’s list that inspired him to bid the price up and up, high as he could. Invariably, the inspiration was short-lived; Bowskill was always the one who dropped out, leaving the other bidder several tens of thousands of pounds worse off, sometimes, but feeling chuffed as anything, thinking he or she had won.’

  ‘So…you’re saying Kit Bowskill never had any intention of buying any of th
ese houses?’ said Sam. ‘He wanted to inflate their prices artificially. Why?’

  ‘So that Jackie Napier would get more commission,’ Charlie said with certainty. Someone ought to invent a word, she thought, to describe this very particular kind of eureka moment: when the penny drops and you realise two people you haven’t previously connected are having an affair. Jackie Napier and Kit Bowskill. Olivia Zailer and Chris Gibbs.

  ‘Same thing’s been happening at Lancing Damisz, since Jackie changed jobs,’ said Simon. ‘She’s not been there long enough for anyone to notice, but when I told Lorraine Turner what Hugh Jepps had said, she was concerned enough to have a rummage around Jackie’s desk. She found two letters from Jackie to Bowskill, confirming his offers on two different houses she was selling, explaining that there was another potential buyer interested in each case who’d offered more than he had, and did he want to offer more at this stage?’

  ‘That’s illegal,’ said Sam. ‘It’s fraud.’

  ‘Yeah, it is,’ Simon agreed. ‘A fraud that’s close to impossible to prove, as long as Kit Bowskill sticks to his story: since 2003, he’s been looking for a place in Cambridge. He’s put in offers on a stack of houses, got into bidding wars – starting with 18 Pardoner Lane, the only one that was genuine – but, so far, he’s always pulled out. Why? He’s a perfectionist – that’s actually true, so it bolsters the lie pretty effectively. No one can hack into his mind and prove his motivation: that he never had any intention of buying any of those houses, and it’s all a scam. And if Jackie’s colleagues ask any questions – as Hugh Jepps did, several times – she turns on the charm and says, “Poor Mr Bowskill – he just can’t commit.”’

  ‘Hugh Jepps didn’t believe her, though,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Course he didn’t. The coincidence of Bowskill only ever going for houses Jackie was selling wasn’t plausible. Jackie didn’t care, though – she brazened it out. It’s not her fault, it’s nothing to do with her, she says. Mr Bowskill’s a stranger to her, and coincidences do happen. Jepps considered getting a private investigator onto her, see if he could prove a connection between her and Bowskill. In the end he decided he just wanted shot of her, and packed her off to be another firm’s problem instead. He said her unjustly accused naïve waif act was scarily convincing.’

  ‘That wasn’t the act I saw,’ said Sam. ‘She wasn’t naïve with me, she was more…the weary, put-upon woman of the world who thinks she knows a thing or two.’

  ‘I doubt she’s short of personas,’ said Simon. ‘The woman at number 17 described her as “a warm, lovely girl”.’

  ‘So if Jackie lives at 18 Pardoner Lane, Mrs Talker at number 17’s her neighbour,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Neighbour and good friend,’ Simon said. ‘Oh, she’s known Jackie for years, she told me – since long before Jackie moved to Pardoner Lane. She’s also friendly with Elise Gilpatrick, though she’s not seen Elise for a while.’ He emphasised this as if he thought it was significant. Charlie was about to ask him what he was implying when he said, ‘Jackie’s a close friend of Elise too – used to go for dinner at the Gilpatricks’ house all the time. That’s where Number 17 Woman met her. Which is why she wasn’t suspicious when she saw Jackie and her boyfriend letting themselves into number 18 on weekday afternoons.’

  Jackie Napier and Elise Gilpatrick, close friends. Charlie frowned. Jackie had sold 18 Pardoner Lane to Elise Gilpatrick in 2003. Were they already friends at that point? They must have been. No one befriends the estate agent who sells them their house.

  ‘Number 17 Woman made the same mistake Basil Lambert-Wall made,’ said Simon. ‘You see someone let themselves in with a key and you assume they’re legitimate. Intruders don’t have keys: they have stockings over their faces and sacks labelled “Loot” in their gloved hands. Number 17 Woman didn’t even twig when Elise Gilpatrick confided in her that she couldn’t shake off an irrational feeling that 18 Pardoner Lane wasn’t hers, somehow. She said she felt like an intruder or a squatter, even though she and her husband had bought the place fair and square. She had nightmares about another family turning up and telling her she had to leave. One day she ended up in tears and admitted that she was worried the house was haunted, even though she knew it couldn’t be and didn’t believe in ghosts. Still, Number 17 Woman didn’t make the link.’ A mixture of disbelief and disdain hardened Simon’s voice. ‘Even when she was telling me, she presented the two as unconnected: Elise Gilpatrick’s sense that number 18 wasn’t really hers, and Jackie Napier and her boyfriend turning up at the house in the daytime, when none of the Gilpatricks were in. I showed her the photo of Kit Bowskill that Connie gave me – she confirmed that was who she meant by Jackie’s boyfriend.’

  Sam looked as if his eyes were about to fall out of his head.

  ‘18 Pardoner Lane wasn’t haunted,’ said Simon. ‘It was invaded. They’re unlucky, the Gilpatricks. The house they moved to in March last year, opposite Basil Lambert-Wall – that’s been invaded too.’

  ‘Day Man and Day Woman,’ Charlie said, remembering the scant information Simon had given Sam over the phone, while she’d been driving. ‘That’s them too – Kit Bowskill and Jackie Napier.’

  Simon nodded. ‘Though Jackie told the professor her name was Connie, short for Catriona. At first I wondered if Day Woman might be Connie, but it’s not possible. On Tuesday 29 June, when Day Woman was apologising to Basil Lambert-Wall for Day Man’s rudeness, Connie Bowskill was at her mum and dad’s shop in Silsford all day – I checked.’

  ‘Jackie was playing at being his wife,’ Sam said. ‘I get that part, but not the Gilpatricks.’ He looked up, at Simon. ‘Why do Bowskill and Jackie want to have sex in their house – in two of their houses – while they’re out? Is it some sort of sexual obsession thing?’

  ‘Simon.’ Charlie’s voice caught in her throat, which was horribly dry. ‘Fuck. I think I’ve just…’

  ‘What? What?’ Simon always demanded to know everything before she’d had a chance to get her thoughts in order.

  ‘The house opposite the professor’s – what number is it?’

  Simon screwed up his face, trying to remember.

  ‘It’s number 12, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s strange. Just before you said that, I was thinking “12”. I suppose it must be. I half remember seeing it on the door.’

  ‘I think Alice misunderstood what Connie Bowskill told her,’ said Charlie, tripping over her words in an effort to get them out quickly. ‘About Kit’s joke name for 18 Pardoner Lane. I think the joke was calling the house 17 Pardoner Lane when the address was 18 Pardoner Lane. It wasn’t the duplication that made it funny – 17 Pardoner Lane, 17 Pardoner Lane, Cambridge – it was the idea of confusing the postman by giving the house, as a name, a different address on the same street. Not only annoying the postman, but annoying the people who lived at number 17 too – Mr and Mrs Talker.’ The memory of Alice’s words came suddenly into sharp focus. ‘Annoying people was on Kit Bowskill’s mind when he was making his stupid suggestions,’ Charlie said, certain now that she was on to something. ‘He asked Connie if she thought it’d annoy the Beth Dutton people, them calling their house the Death Button Centre.’

  ‘17 Pardoner Lane, 18 Pardoner Lane, Cambridge,’ said Sam slowly.

  ‘You’re right,’ Simon said. ‘It works as a joke. Might even be a better joke.’ Humour wasn’t his area of expertise, and he knew it. ‘It’d also explain why Connie misremembered the address, all these years later – if the joke stuck, if 17 Pardoner Lane became her and Bowskill’s nickname for the house…’ Simon pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket, pressed some keys, then thrust it into the space between Charlie and Sam so that they could both see it. ‘Proust’s not Proust in my phone – he’s “Snowman”. Nicknames, pet names – they stick. Don’t they, Stepford?’

  Sam cringed visibly at the nickname Colin Sellers and Chris Gibbs had devised for him when they hardly knew him and found his unwavering politeness frustrating.r />
  ‘Forget about teasing Sam,’ Charlie said impatiently. ‘Don’t you see what I’m saying? Kit Bowskill did it again – he repeated his nickname trick, so proud was he of his little in-joke. He’s never had any connection with Selina Gane, or with her house – hers wasn’t the house he had in mind when he put 11 Bentley Grove into his SatNav as home.’

  Simon’s eyes were wide, unfocused. Charlie could see that he was getting it. ‘11 Bentley Grove is his name for 12 Bentley Grove,’ he said eventually. ‘His private name for his and Jackie’s…’

  ‘“Love-nest” is the word you’re looking for,’ said Charlie pointedly.

  Simon was biting the inside of his lip. ‘If he cares enough about that house to give it a special name…No, it doesn’t work. If he’s obsessed with 12 Bentley Grove now, it’s only because the Gilpatricks bought it. It’s a massively less attractive house than 18 Pardoner Lane, and Kit Bowskill wouldn’t be prepared to compromise on the aesthetics. Which means it’s not about the house any more…’ Simon’s eyes narrowed. He drummed his fingers on the table.

  ‘We’ve lost him,’ Charlie said to Sam, who looked worried.

  ‘You can’t dismiss 11 Bentley Grove as irrelevant,’ he told her. ‘That’s where Connie Bowskill saw the woman’s body.’

  ‘Why did they buy new curtains?’ Simon demanded, startling Charlie and Sam with the volume of his question. ‘No one buys curtains for a house they don’t own. Basil Lambert-Wall said the new curtains hadn’t gone up yet, but today, when I went to the house and rang the bell, all the curtains were drawn – closed. Sunny day like this, why wouldn’t you let the light in?’

  ‘You went to 12 Bentley Grove today?’ said Charlie.

  ‘I was hoping to talk to some or all of the Gilpatricks,’ Simon told her. ‘Seven years ago, they got what Kit Bowskill wanted. I wanted to check they’d survived their victory. No one answered the door.’

  ‘So you thought you’d enlist our help to smash it down,’ said Sam with a shudder he tried, unsuccessfully, to hide.