Lasting Damage

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘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 these 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.

  ‘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.

  ‘The woman at 17 Pardoner Lane told me where Elise Gilpatrick works,’ Simon said. ‘The Judge Business School. I couldn’t get through to them on the phone – they’re probably closed Saturdays. If I’d got through, I’d have asked when Elise last turned up for work.’

  ‘Aren’t you leaping to rather extreme conclusions?’ said Charlie.

  ‘Who was the dead woman Connie Bowskill saw on Roundthehouses?’ Sam asked her. She inferred from the question that he shared Simon’s concern for Elise Gilpatrick’s welfare.

  ‘You could wrap a body in a pair of curtains,’ Simon said in a monotone. He seemed to be talking to a point beyond Charlie’s shoulder. ‘The prof said Jackie Napier’s car was full of them, curtains wrapped in plastic – so many she’d had to put the back seats down. Wrap a dead body in curtains, cover the whole lot in plastic, make it airtight with parcel tape so that the neighbours don’t smell anything . . .’ Simon was pressing buttons on his phone. The same button, three times: number 9. ‘We’ve got enough,’ he said. ‘No breaking and entering required.’ A few seconds later, Charlie and Sam heard him ask to be put through to the police.

  Chapter 25

  Saturday 24 July 2010

  ‘You can still save me,’ I say to Kit, as calmly as I can. ‘Saving me doesn’t mean killing me. You must be able to see that.’

  He’s behind me, his face pressing against the back of my skull. When he shakes his head, I feel it. ‘You don’t understand anything,’ he says, his words indistinct, muffled by my hair. ‘Nothing.’

  The knife moves beneath my chin. I lift my head, try to pull my neck back.

  ‘Listen to me, Kit. You’ve always told me I’m clever. Remember?’ This is what I have to do: I have to talk. There can’t be silence, or space for him to think. Space for him to act.

  ‘You’re not as clever as Jackie,’ he says flatly.

  I want to scream at him that I’m cleverer than Jackie, that she’s lying lifeless in someone else’s congealed blood and I’m still alive.

  I’m clever enough to find a key labelled ‘No. 12’ in a mug with a red feather design, and remember about 17 Pardoner Lane, 18 Pardoner Lane. 11 Bentley Grove, 12 Bentley Grove.

  If only I’d been clever enough to stay away – to be satisfied with knowing, instead of having to prove it to myself.

  How can Jackie Napier have wanted me dead? She didn’t know me.

  ‘Please listen,’ I say evenly. ‘There’s no way out of this, you’re right, but there is a way through. If we face up to what’s happened, take responsibility . . .’

  Kit laughs. ‘Did you know there are no prisons in Cambridge? I Googled it yesterday. There’s one in March, one in a place called Stradishall, near Newmarket. Postcode’s CB8 – sounds like Cambridge, but it’s not.’

  I open my mouth, but no words come. It’s not what I was expecting him to say. He searched for prisons in Cambridge. On the internet. Why?

  ‘We were idiots – we shouldn’t have wasted our time on the villages,’ he mumbles. ‘Should have stuck to the city. Those tiny hick places – Horningsea, Harston – they’re not Cambridge, they’re not civilisation. Might as well stagnate in Little Holling. Reach, Burwell, Chippenham – you might as well be in Newmarket, once you’ve gone that far.’

  My teeth are chattering. Is it still hot outside? It can’t be; I’m freezing. Kit’s body feels cold too. Freezing each other to death.

  ‘We wasted so much time,’ he says sadly. He’s talking about 2003, our house search.

  Seven years ago. Gone, finished. There’s no past and no future, no point talking about either. There’s nothing but now, and scared of dying, and silence piling up around me, suffocating, spreading like blood.

  Blood that disappeared when Kit sat down to look.

  I breathe in sharply. Knowledge rushes at me, before I have time to doubt it. The blood wasn’t the only thing that disappeared.

  I try to push my fear aside and think in an ordered way, but I can’t think – all I can do is see what’s no longer in front of me, like a film playing in my head: Kit sitting at my desk, staring at the laptop. Me standing behind him, scared I’ll see the horrific picture again, even though he’s saying it isn’t there; Nulli’s certificate of incorporation lying on the floor in its smashed frame . . .

  ‘I know how you did it,’ I say. ‘Everyone kept asking me why you didn’t see the woman’s body, when you looked at the same virtual tour that I looked at, the one I started. I kept having to explain what I thought must have happened.’

  Kit makes a noise, a small exhalation. Somehow, I can tell that he’s smiling.

  I can feel the expression on his face without seeing him: does that mean I know him?

  ‘It was a good theory,’ he says. ‘A virtual tour with a variable that comes up only once in every hundred or thousand lo
ops.’

  ‘I was wrong, though, wasn’t I? You were looking at a different tour. When you first went into the room, I stayed outside.’

  Shaking on the landing. Kit on the other side of the closed door, complaining. Great. I’ve always wanted to look at a stranger’s dishwasher in the middle of the night.

  ‘You closed down the lot,’ I say. ‘The tour, the internet, everything. One click and it was gone. On the desktop, you had the other tour ready to go – the original one.’ You got it from her, from Jackie. ‘Another click and it started playing. There was the lounge, with no woman’s body in it.’

  Kit says nothing. I don’t think he’s smiling any more.

  ‘When I came back into the room, there was no Roundthehouses screen behind the virtual tour box, only the desktop screen. Before I woke you up, when I was watching the tour on my own, the screen behind it was the Roundthehouses screen. The address was there – 11 Bentley Grove – and the Roundthehouses logo.’

  Why has it taken my memory so long to produce this detail?

  Because you can’t see everything at once. You can’t see your husband’s face when you’re staring at the knife in front of your own.

  ‘When you got angry with me and went back to bed, I sat there and stared for a few minutes, just stared. Watched one room after another turn in slow motion. Every time the lounge came back, it was the same – no woman’s body. Then I closed the tour down – your tour. I decided to start from scratch, in case that made a difference. All I could think about was how the dead woman could possibly have disappeared. I didn’t ask myself why I was having to reconnect to the internet – I was barely aware of doing it.’