more she liked the idea: giving a house its own address as a name was a bit like sticking two fingers up at everyone who took the business of house-naming too seriously. She decided to suggest it to Simon: 21 Chamberlain Street, 21 Chamberlain Street, Spilling. They could have labels printed. Simon’s mother, who had no sense of humour, would be horrified, and, although nothing would be said in so many words, Simon and Charlie would be given to understand that the Lord shared her horror. It was nothing short of miraculous, the way God and Kathleen Waterhouse saw eye to eye on every issue.
Liv would think it was hilarious.
‘I’m going to have to go.’ Alice looked at her watch. ‘I’ve got to take my daughter to a birthday party.’
‘If you remember anything else, can you ring me?’ said Charlie. Simon wasn’t going to be happy. A joke about calling a house the Death Button Centre was unlikely to be the answer to anything. If Connie Bowskill was in a fragile emotional state, on a self-destruct mission, mightn’t the word ‘death’ be enough to bring on an attack of paranoia? She had probably put two things together that weren’t connected at all – a daft joke her husband made years ago, and the dead woman she’d seen on her computer screen, or claimed to have seen.
As she watched Alice walk away, Charlie felt something vibrate against her stomach. Energy vibrations. What crap. She pulled her mobile phone out of her bag. It was Sam Kombothekra. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked without preamble.
‘Not much,’ said Charlie. ‘How about you?’ Under normal circumstances, she would have told him, but she didn’t want to say the name ‘Alice’ out loud in case Sam sensed her guilt down the phone. Not that she felt guilty; she simply recognised that she was. Or soon would be. On this occasion, her culpability didn’t bother her. Tucking her phone under her chin, she used both hands to retrieve Alice’s letter from her handbag.
‘Where are you?’ Sam asked.
Charlie laughed. ‘Is your next question, “What colour underwear are you wearing?” ’
‘My next question is, where’s Simon? I’ve been trying to ring him.’
‘He’s in Bracknell talking to Kit Bowskill’s parents,’ Charlie told him. How ludicrous that she felt proud: she knew where Simon was and Sam didn’t.
‘Can you meet me at the Brown Cow in fifteen minutes?’
‘Should be okay. What’s the problem?’
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
‘I’ll get there quicker with a hint to speed me on my way,’ said Charlie. Her fingers traced the sealed flap of the envelope. Nothing good would come of opening it; Simon was unaware of its existence, and Charlie didn’t want its contents in her own head any more than she wanted them in his. She ripped the envelope into small pieces, then smaller ones still, letting them fall at her feet.
‘Jackie Napier,’ said Sam. ‘The problem is Jackie Napier.’
‘You have to treat it as you would a bereavement,’ Barbara Bowskill told Simon. ‘You used to have a son, but you don’t any more. You’re in the same position as a mother whose son went to fight in Iraq and was killed by a bomb, or someone whose child died of cancer, or was murdered by a paedophile. You tell yourself there’s nothing you can do – they’re gone – and you stop hoping.’ She looked like Simon’s idea of what a bereavement counsellor ought to look like, though in reality they rarely did: frizzy dyed auburn hair, grey at the roots; an embroidered tunic over flared jeans, chunky wooden jewellery, sandals with fabric tops and heels made of rope and cork. And no real bereavement counsellor would advise pretending that one’s child had been murdered by a paedophile when that child was alive and well and living in Silsford.
Not for the first time since he’d arrived, Simon had doubts about Kit Bowskill’s mother. It wasn’t only the paedophile remark. He found her smile unsettling, and was glad he’d only seen it twice – once when she’d opened the door to let him in, and then again when she’d handed him a mug of tea and he’d thanked her. It was intrusive, a violation of a smile – one that suggested extreme empathy, shared pain, yearning and a strong desire to devour the soul of its recipient. There was too much crinkling of the skin around the eyes, too much pursing of the lips, almost as if she was about to blow