Paula shrugged, unconcerned. “He must have done. I can’t see how I’d know it otherwise.”
“Why did he move to Spilling in November 2011, if he loved London so much?”
“Why do you think I’d know the answer to that question, DC Waterhouse?” She smiled without warmth. “Do you think Damon might have discussed his house-buying plans with me, in between writing his column one week about what a terrible mother I am and another one the next week about my home-wrecking tendencies?”
“I think he moved to the Culver Valley because you were its MP,” Simon said. “Because you were based here some of the time, weren’t you? He wanted to be in your part of the country. He was in love with you.”
Paula laughed. “If he was, he had a funny way of showing it. And surely if he wanted to be in my part of the country, he should have moved to North or East Rawndesley? Or Combingham, where I lived, and without which no Labour MP would stand a chance of getting elected in the Culver Valley, ever.”
“Spilling was still nearer than London—and you spent most of your weekends in the Culver Valley, didn’t you? Not in your London flat.”
“Yes. It’s important for MPs to really live in their constituencies, not just pretend to live in them.” Paula sounded bored. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Damon was so consumed by his hatred of me that he wanted to move closer to me so that he could hate me close up. I have no way of knowing, I’m afraid.”
“The two of you met for the first time on October 26, 2011. Damon fell for you. Maybe you fell for him too?”
“I truly didn’t.”
“He rented in Spilling at first, while he looked for a house to buy,” Simon told her what he suspected she already knew. “Why was he in such a hurry to get to the Culver Valley, if not to be closer to you?”
“I’ve just answered that question, DC Waterhouse. If anyone was twisted enough to want to move closer to the primary object of their loathing, Damon was probably that person. So . . . maybe you’re right. But we weren’t having an affair. If we were lovers, why did he decimate me in column after column? Why did I retaliate?”
“Disguise,” said Simon. “If you’re tearing each other apart in the papers every week, no one’s likely to suspect you’re having an affair.”
Paula rolled her eyes. “Look, when I met Damon in October 2011, my marriage to Richard was all but over. Damon was single. There was nothing to stop us falling into each other’s arms if we’d wanted to. Why would we fall passionately in love, then decide to badmouth each other in public while secretly having an affair? Why would we both marry other people? I have to say, this conversation doesn’t fill me with hope about your skills as a detective.”
“Who said anything about passionately in love?”
To Simon’s annoyance, Paula remained unruffled. “Sorry, I took the passionately-in-love part for granted, in your affair scenario,” she said. “I wouldn’t have a relationship of any kind with a man unless I was passionately in love with him. And to answer your next question—have I been passionately in love with lots of people, in that case?—no, I don’t think I have, looking back. But if you’d asked me at the time, while those relationships were going on . . . hell, yes. I always believe it’s the real thing. I’m a romantic. I always have been.”
You’re a clever liar with an answer for everything.
If she’d been in love with Blundy, why wasn’t she a wreck? That, as far as Simon could see, was the main problem with his theory. Even if he was right about the affair, it didn’t make Paula a murderer.
He resisted the urge to kick the leg of the table. No matter how many successes he notched up, he always feared that the current case would be his first failure. He suspected he always would. Charlie’s reassuring him that he always got there in the end wasn’t the consolation she imagined it to be; it only piled on more pressure.
“Can we move on from my and Damon’s imaginary sex life to his murder, which is more important?” Paula asked. “Do you think you’re going to find his killer?”
“I know I will.”
“Oh good. Because . . . don’t let this go to your head, but I’ve heard that you’re an excellent detective. The best that Hicksville has to offer.”
Heard where?
“You want Damon’s murderer caught, then?” Simon asked.
Paula flashed him a smooth smile. “I’d want any murderer caught.”
“You mentioned having another appointment in Spilling—tomorrow?”
“Yes. This will be a good test of your powers of detection. My appointment tomorrow is the chronological opposite of my meeting with you today. No, wait. It’s the horological opposite. If you’re as good as I’ve heard, you’ll work out what that means before I leave the room.”
Simon ignored her challenge. “Your alibi’s impressively solid,” he said. “Your friends confirm that you and your husband were with them last Monday morning. I knew they would.”
“So did I. Because it’s the truth.” Paula looked up at the clock on the wall. “Horological,” she repeated. “Relating to clocks. Any ideas yet? You’re not very fast, for a super detective. Maybe you’re not so super after all.”
“I’m good enough,” said Simon.
“Good is different from excellent, though, isn’t it? You must know the saying ‘All it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.’ Damon used to say, ‘If you take that at face value, it’s true, but ninety-nine percent of people who wheel out that line aren’t advocating good men doing good deeds. They’re advocating good men doing the kind of evil acts that evil men do—which turns them into equally evil men.’”
“When did Damon say that?”
“Oh, I don’t remember,” Paula said airily.
She’s toying with you . . .
“Stop playing games,” Simon snapped, standing up so that he didn’t have to have her face in front of him. He walked over to the corner of the room, leaned against the wall. “Damon Blundy’s dead, and your husband’s miles away. Tell me the truth. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? This meeting was your idea, not mine.”
Paula narrowed her eyes. “There are things I could tell you . . . They might even help you. Can you give me a cast-iron promise that if I share this sensitive information with you, Hannah Blundy will never find out?”
“About your affair with Damon, you mean?”
Paula raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a fair question, DC Waterhouse. We’re still discussing the terms and conditions for my telling you. Don’t jump the gun. I’ll ask again: can you promise me that you won’t tell Hannah what I tell you?”
“No. Hannah’s Damon’s wife. I think she’s got the right to understand why her husband was murdered.”
“Very noble,” said Paula. “There’s only one snag: what I know would crush Hannah in a way that’s impossible to convey without spoilers. There are some injuries—psychological injuries—that no one could survive. This would be one, believe me. You don’t care about Hannah. I do. And what I know would lay waste to her. Beyond repair.”
“You care about Hannah Blundy? I didn’t realize you knew her.”
“She was a good wife to Damon—loyal and loving. He loved her. So, for his sake as well as for hers, I won’t do that to her, not even to help you solve your case. Damon would rather his murderer went unpunished than have Hannah destroyed.”
Was this the same Paula Riddiough who, only a few minutes ago, had portrayed Damon Blundy as her enemy? Simon didn’t like the way his brain was doing three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turns inside his head. He felt as if he wasn’t in control, and he hated that feeling more than anything. “You know Damon well enough to make that claim, and yet you weren’t having an affair with him?”
Paula rolled her eyes. “Oh, you can do better than that. Can’t you? Don’t you know anyone well that you’re not having an affair with? Your mother, your colleagues, your best friend?”
“Don’t you think Hannah might want to know the truth, however
painful it is?”
“If she would, she’s a fool.”
“You need to tell me what you know,” Simon said coldly. “You might only care about what Damon would have wanted, but I care about catching a murderer.”
“I understand that, and it’s why I made you the offer I made,” said Paula. “Give me your word that you won’t tell Hannah and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Never would dishonesty be more justified, Simon thought. “All right,” he lied.
Paula snorted. “Well, that was unconvincing,” she said. “And we seem to have reached stalemate, or checkmate, or whatever you’d prefer to call it. I can see only one possible way out.”
Simon waited.
Paula pressed her index finger against the middle of her top lip. Thinking. Then she said, “If it were to turn out that Hannah had killed Damon, everything I’ve said about not wanting to hurt her would leap out of the window.”
“Isn’t that a bit hypocritical? Given what you said before about good men doing evil things to evil men and, in doing so, becoming evil themselves?”
“No,” Paula said with confidence. “My point, or rather Damon’s point, was that there’s no such thing as a good person. There are only kind and unkind acts. Would it be unkind of me to stop caring about Hannah’s feelings if it turned out she’d murdered Damon? I’m not sure. I think it would be understandable. Unless you’d want to encourage me to protect a murderer from the law? Do you think Hannah did it?”
“I can’t discuss the investigation with you,” said Simon.
“Could she have done it? If she’s got a rock-solid alibi, there’s no harm in telling me, is there?”
“Everything relating to the investigation is confidential.”
“You’re about as flexible as a metal barrier, aren’t you? Still . . . if I had to guess, I’d say you do suspect Hannah. Me too.” Paula stared out of the window.
Simon had sat where she was sitting. He knew she could see nothing but the redbrick wall of the job center. “There are a few things I could charge you with, if you don’t tell me what you know,” he said.
She laughed. “You think I care about getting a criminal record? My parents would be devastated, but me? I’d be all over the papers again. The only columnist who thought me interesting enough to write about once I left politics is dead, remember? I do love the spotlight.”
“I think you loved Damon Blundy,” Simon said on impulse. “I think you’re devastated by his death, and trying very hard to hide it.”
Paula’s expression was sympathetic. “Then you think wrong. Any ideas yet about my horologically opposite appointment tomorrow?” She glanced up at the clock again. “Tick, tick, tick . . . No pressure.”
“Would Damon do the same for you, if the roles were reversed?” Simon asked. “If you’d been murdered, and he had information that would destroy Fergus, would he withhold it?”
“Excellent question. Yes, he would.”
Simon saw a shadow at the back of his mind, mouthing words. Trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t hear, or see clearly, or . . . No, it was gone. As so often, he could feel the presence of several pieces of a good idea, but he couldn’t put them together.
“What made you ask me that?” said Paula.
“I’m not sure.”
“Your subconscious is an intelligent guesser.” She smiled.
“It’s hard to know what to ask when you’re being told a combination of lies and truth,” Simon said. “I think you’re being deliberately inconsistent. You want me to catch whoever killed Damon. That means you want to help me. But not too much—because of the secret you still need to keep. It’s not only your affair with Damon Blundy, is it? That’s not what would destroy Hannah. It’s more than that.”
Paula sat forward in her chair. “All right, here’s something that might help you. If Hannah didn’t kill him, I think I might know who did.”
“Who?”
“A woman called Nicki Clements. She was obsessed with Damon—head over heels, even though she’d never met him. Whenever he wrote a column or a blog post, she commented. Each of her comments was a long, passionate hymn of praise to the wondrous Damon Blundy.”
“Did she praise him when he said unpleasant things about you?” asked Simon.
“Oh yes, all the time. Whatever he wrote, Nicki Clements just happened to share his view, and launched into a rant against his opponent. Usually quite effectively, it has to be said. She’s clearly a bright woman. I didn’t much like it when the opponent was me. Most of the time—when Damon’s target was infant male circumcision, or Barack Obama, or the burka—most of the time I agreed with every word she said.”
“And, therefore, with every word Damon Blundy said?”
“Well . . . yes, I suppose so,” Paula admitted grudgingly. “As long as it wasn’t anti-me, or political. Damon said some sensible things, despite his determination to be ridiculous whenever possible.”
“Barack Obama?” said Simon. “That sounds political.”
“I meant domestic political—Labour-versus-Tory stuff. I’m not a fan of the terror tactics used in America’s never-ending war on terror. Damon thought Obama was a hypocrite: trying to look like a good guy while acting like a bad guy. Cardinal sin, that, in Damon’s book.”
“You used the expression ‘head over heels’ to describe Nicki Clements,” said Simon. “That phrase refers to romantic love.”
Paula laughed. “Er . . . well, yes, obviously. I think it’s a fairly well-known expression.”
“How do you know Nicki Clements had romantic feelings for Damon? Couldn’t she have been an ardent supporter of his writing and his opinions, without there being any more to it?”
“Trust me, she was in love with him,” Paula said.
Offhand, Simon couldn’t think of many people he’d met that he’d trusted less. “How do you know? Is there any proof of that?”
“Read her comments!”
“I have. She was undeniably a fan of Blundy, but I’ve read nothing that suggests love.”
“Oh, come on! The protective tone, the hurt when people misjudge him . . .”
“Protectiveness can take a platonic form,” said Simon. “People want to protect friends as well as . . . Don’t they?”
“She was in love with him,” Paula said flatly. “I can’t believe you can’t see it.”
“I can’t see it, no,” said Simon, feeling at last that he was on firmer ground. “But I believe that you can.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Simon looked pointedly at the clock on the wall. Tick, tick, tick . . .
It was the perfect moment to end the interview.
“AND THEN I PRESSED ‘Post advertisement’ and the deed was done,” Charlie told Simon, Liv and Gibbs. She decided not to mention that so far she’d had not one single reply that wasn’t spam of one kind or another.
Simon, who had heard the story already, was furious. “You’re telling more people?” he said. “Do you want to get sacked?”
“Liv and Gibbs won’t say anything, will they? Morally compromised as they are. As we all are.”
The four of them were having dinner at Passaparola. These days, Charlie and Simon had dinner with Liv and Gibbs more often than with Liv and Dom. Charlie had never been keen on her official brother-in-law, and increasingly Dom, a lawyer with a thick skin and a high opinion of himself, seemed to need to be the center of attention. He’d taken to prefacing nearly all of his I-know-better pronouncements with the words “Here’s the thing,” followed by an audible colon.
“For once, nothing’s leaked out to the press,” said Simon. “Nothing—and you go and do this.”
“And still nothing’s been leaked to the press,” said Charlie. “So. Relax.”
Liv clinked her fork against her glass. “Chris and I have something important to tell you,” she said.
Charlie held her breath.
“Now, please don’t be sad for us because we’re absolutely
fine. OK? We’ve decided that from now on, we’re going to proceed on a new basis: just very good friends. Best friends!” She beamed. “It won’t change anything as far as you’re concerned. We can still all meet for dinner. But . . . we’ve decided not to continue with the romantic side of our relationship.”
“You’re splitting up?” Charlie had dreamed of this day for years. Now that it had come, she felt oddly deflated. But . . . Gibbs had been sucking up to her like mad, and Simon had said he’d been the same with him. Charlie had been sure a large favor was about to be asked of them. Why would you butter people up in order to tell them your relationship was over? It made no sense.
“We’re no longer an item in that sense, no, but we’ll still see each other just as often,” said Liv. “Won’t we, Chris?”
Gibbs sighed. “If you say so,” he muttered. Charlie turned her attention to him, away from her sister. He looked embarrassed and slightly impatient. Not distraught, not in shock . . . Charlie glanced at Simon, who shook his head almost imperceptibly to let her know he agreed with her: something here didn’t add up.
Whatever they were playing at, it was Liv’s idea, Liv’s crazy plan, and Gibbs was going along with it.
“Why are you going to see each other just as often?” Charlie asked. “Isn’t the one advantage of a breakup that you can finally be rid of the person?”
“Chris and I love each other,” said Liv. “We’ll always be part of one another’s lives, just in a different way.” She reached over and squeezed Gibbs’s hand.
“I don’t believe you,” said Charlie. “You’re lying. What I can’t work out is why.” She turned to Simon. “What do they have to gain by pretending they’re not sleeping together anymore?”
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “I suppose they’ll tell us if and when they want us to know. In the meantime, we can talk about something else. Charlie spoke to another real estate agent today,” he said to Gibbs. “From Bateman Yoke.”
Gibbs stared down at the table.
“We’re not lying!” Liv insisted.
“I don’t think Simon’s that interested,” Charlie told her. It was a good tactic. Deprived of the attention she’d been counting on, Liv might be forced into revealing the truth. “He’d be very interested to hear what’s really going on with you and Gibbs, though, and so would I,” Charlie said, ramming the point home.
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