want the house, if this isn’t the sickest of sick jokes, you can have it. The sooner I’m rid of it and it’s nothing to do with me, the better.’
I can’t help smiling. ‘An unconventional sales pitch,’ I say. ‘When you say I can have it . . .’
‘For 1.2 million,’ she says quickly. ‘That’s what you offered.’
‘Just checking you weren’t proposing to give it to me for free.’
‘I’ll give you my solicitor’s details – ask yours to make the offer official, as soon as possible.’ She drains her glass, puts it down on the worktop. ‘Would you like me to show you round? Or is that a waste of time? You don’t care what the rooms look like, presumably. You want to buy the house because you think someone might have been murdered here – the same reason I want to sell it.’
I can’t be bothered to defend myself. If she wants to think I’m doing this for ghoulish reasons, let her. ‘I’d like to look round,’ I say.
‘Let’s get it over with, then,’ she says brusquely. ‘I need to get out of here.’
As we go from room to room on the ground floor, she says nothing. Not a word. She hesitates for a few seconds by each door, as if afraid to open it and walk in. There’s a conservatory that wasn’t in the pictures on the website – plastic, not wood. Kit would hate it.
At the bottom of the stairs, Selina says, ‘If you’ve got any questions, ask.’
‘I already have,’ I tell her.
‘I mean about the house – the central heating, the burglar alarm . . .’
‘I’m not interested in anything like that.’
I follow her upstairs. Standing in one room after another, I look around, pretending to pay attention, not really seeing what’s in front of me. I’m still thinking about the china mug with the red feathers on it, the hard thing inside it that made a clinking noise.
As Selina leads the way into the bathroom, I say, ‘Oh – hang on. I think I can hear my phone ringing in my bag – I’ll just go and grab it.’ Without waiting for her reaction, I turn and run down the stairs.
On the threshold of the kitchen, I freeze. Did I mention my mobile phone being broken, in the letter? No, I don’t think I did. I told her to ring me in my hotel room, but I said nothing about having no mobile.
I move towards the red feather mug. My hand shakes as I lift it off the shelf and look inside. There’s no white button or disc in there, only a set of keys attached to a yellow plastic fob. The hammering of my heart throbs in my ears. There’s a label on the fob, words written in small handwriting. I pull it out very slowly, so that the keys don’t knock against the side of the mug, and take a closer look.
I read it again and again, my eyes racing over the small print. It can’t mean what I think it means. It must. Why else would Selina have looked at the mug when she did, picked it up to check the key was there? A loud roaring fills my head. My breathing speeds up. I can’t control it; it’s running away from me.
Oh, my God.
How could I not have known, all this time?
I think of what I told Alice, what Kit said about naming our Cambridge house: It’s growing on me the more I think about it – the Death Button Centre. We could get a plaque made for the front door. No, I know, even better – let’s call it 17 Pardoner Lane.
How could I have told Alice that he said that, and still not realised?
‘Connie?’ I hear Selina’s footsteps above me.
‘Coming,’ I shout. I stuff the keys into my pocket, replace the empty mug on the shelf, and run back upstairs. ‘I’ve got to go,’ I say. ‘I just . . .’ No convenient lie springs to mind. ‘Something’s come up.’ It’s the best I can do. I have to get out of here before Selina realises I’ve taken the keys.
Why did you take them? What are you planning to do?
She frowns. ‘You’re still buying though, right?’
For a second, I’m afraid I’ll laugh in her face. What would she say if I told her I don’t need to pay over the odds for her house any more? I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to pass – I’ve managed