The House Guest - Mark Edwards Page 0,61

Eden? he had said.

Had he been lying? Had he been cheating on Mona with her? Was she the latest in a long line of conquests, most of them presumably undergrads or research subjects? That would explain two things. Firstly, how Eden found us. He probably would have boasted to her, like he apparently had to everyone else, about this hot actress who was coming to stay. Secondly, it explained why he had denied knowing who she was. He couldn’t risk Mona finding out.

I thought about going back to the hotel to see Mona, to tell her what I’d found out, or to Dennis Krugman. But I needed proof, didn’t I? Mona wouldn’t talk to me anyway, and I really didn’t think she’d appreciate being told now, while her grief was so raw, that her dead husband might have been sleeping with another woman. I’d already made her cry once today. And Krugman? Well, I was prepared to share what Brenda had told me with the police if it led to me finding Ruth. But so far, it had proven impossible to get him to take anything I said seriously. I doubted he would make the trip to Columbia to talk to Brenda, especially as Jack was his friend. And there was absolutely no proof that Jack had ever met Eden, let alone had a fling with her. Krugman would laugh me out of the station house.

But if I could prove he had known Eden, the police would have to take me seriously. They would be able to get a warrant, get Eden’s address.

Or maybe I could still get it myself, from Jack’s home office, which was in the basement apartment. He had said he didn’t use it much because of all the storage boxes that cluttered the place up, but maybe he kept notes there. It would be the perfect place to keep the contact details of his conquests, because Mona hardly ever went down there. There might even be photos.

I double-checked that I still had keys to the house. I didn’t have the key to the basement, but I knew where it was kept. It was hanging on a hook in the kitchen.

I got off the train in Williamsburg and headed straight to the house. It was still light, and as I turned off Bedford there were lots of people coming and going. Commuters arriving home from work. Dog-walkers and shoppers. I approached the house, trying to look casual, and nobody gave me a second glance. The crime scene tape had been removed, which was a blessing as it meant the house wasn’t drawing attention from passers-by. And if any of the neighbours saw me, they would probably recognise me, and think I was running an errand for Mona.

I let myself in and shut the door behind me.

The house was eerily silent and stiflingly hot, too, without the air conditioning on. I didn’t look at the stairs, not wanting to be reminded of the sight of Jack’s body. Would there still be bloodstains on the floor or would someone have come to clean them up?

I went straight through to the kitchen and there it was: the key to the basement.

I could almost hear my own heartbeat as I opened the back door and went down the steps. I turned the key in the lock and stepped inside.

I was hit instantly by a musty, stale smell – the result, I guessed, of the apartment being left empty over the summer, though I assumed Jack had been down here since they had returned home, and Mona had popped down here shortly before finding her husband’s body.

It was a small apartment, the same size as the ground floor of the house, with one main room, a galley kitchen and a small bathroom. I stood at the centre of the room and looked around. There were cardboard boxes stacked up against the wall, some old framed pictures leaning against them.

The desk was positioned over by the front window, with a view out on to a little patio area. I cursed. There was no computer on the desk. Jack had a MacBook and I guessed he brought it down here when he wanted to work. The laptop was probably still up in the house. It would be password-protected.

But maybe, in one of the desk drawers, I would find something. A scrap of paper bearing his password. Maybe something miraculous: a letter from Eden or a notebook containing her name and address. Secret love letters