‘Then there was no need to check.’ Lambert-Wall lowered himself into his chair, then rose again to adjust his dressing gown.
Simon waited until he was settled. ‘Never mind the date. I want you to think back to that day. You had your new alarm fitted. Was there anything else going on that you remember, anything that happened at roughly the same time?’
‘Yes.’ The old man blinked several times in quick succession. It was disconcerting to watch – as if someone was messing around with his eyelid controls. ‘I read an exceptional book – People of the Lie by M Scott Peck. It offers the best definition of human evil that I’ve ever come across.’
Simon pictured a two-word text, the two words being ‘Giles’ and ‘Proust’. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I ate something called a “tian” for my lunch. I had and still have no idea what a tian is, but it tasted delicious. It was cylindrical. I liked the look of it in the shop, so I thought I’d give it a try. Oh, I went to the shop, of course – the supermarket.’
‘On the day your burglar alarm was fitted?’
Lambert-Wall nodded. ‘My daughter took me, in the morning, to Waitrose. She takes me every Tuesday morning. She’d like me to shop online, but I resist.’
Simon nodded. This was getting him nowhere. ‘So you read People of the Lie, had lunch, went shopping . . .’
‘Yes, though not in that order. I napped in the afternoon, as I always do – one o’clock to four o’clock. Oh, and one of my neighbours was rude to me, which spoilt what would otherwise have been a rather pleasant day.’
‘Which neighbour?’
The professor pointed towards the window. ‘One of the men who lives in the house opposite,’ he said. ‘He’s usually the soul of politeness, which was why I was surprised. He and his wife had bought new curtains, and they were carrying them into the house. She’d had to lower the back seats of her car to fit them all in. I wandered over to have a chat, intending to make a remark on the subject of the coincidence – new curtains, new burglar alarm. Not terribly compelling, I grant you, but no doubt it would have led on to matters of greater interest. His reaction was entirely uncalled for.’
‘What did he do?’
‘He shouted at me. “Not now! Can’t you see we’re busy?” Then he said to his wife, “Get rid of him, will you?” and went into the house carrying an armful of curtains. Most unattractive they were too, from what I could see through the plastic wrapping.’
Simon’s skin had started to prickle. This had to be it: a normally polite man, suddenly rude and offensive. Kit Bowskill? Except that it didn’t make sense. Assuming it existed, Bowskill’s illicit connection was with 11 Bentley Grove. That was the address his wife had found in his SatNav, the house she’d been looking at on Roundthehouses when she’d seen the dead body. Number 11 Bentley Grove was next door to Basil Lambert-Wall’s house, not opposite.
‘His wife was terribly apologetic,’ the old man went on. ‘She must have said sorry twenty times. “Ignore him,” she said. “It’s not you, it’s the two hours we’ve just spent at the curtain warehouse. Never again!” You’d think after spending all that time that they’d put the new curtains up, but they still haven’t.’
Simon produced a photograph from his pocket, the same one he’d shown Lambert-Wall last time, of Kit Bowskill. ‘Is this face familiar?’ he asked.
‘Yes, that’s him,’ said the professor.
‘The neighbour who was rude to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘From the house directly opposite?’ Simon walked over to the window and pointed, to avoid ambiguity.
‘That’s right. You seem surprised.’
Kit Bowskill lived in Little Holling, Silsford. Kit Bowskill was Professor Sir Basil Lambert-Wall’s neighbour, in Cambridge. How could both those statements be true?
‘So . . . the man in the picture, he isn’t the one from Safesound, who fitted your alarm?’
Lambert-Wall did his multiple blinking trick again. ‘Why would the chap from across the road install my burglar alarm?’
Simon didn’t have the heart to remind him of what he’d said last time they spoke. ‘You described him as “one of the men who lives in the house opposite”. Is there another?’
‘Yes. Night Man.’
Simon tried not to show his surprise. Evidently he failed, because the professor laughed. ‘I should explain: the man who was rude to me is Day Man. Those aren’t their