have come out. Jepps wasn’t sure the firm could weather the bad publicity. He also couldn’t have proved anything against her, though he knew exactly what was going on.’
‘More than can be said for me and Sam,’ Charlie muttered.
‘Every house Jackie was selling, soon as an offer came in, there would be a counter offer – a little bit higher,’ said Simon. ‘Usually this would lead to a bidding war, with each side offering two grand more each time, sometimes five or ten grand more each time, depending on how desirable the property was. Eventually someone’d drop out. So far, so normal, Jepps said – happens all the time with house sales – except that, with the houses Jackie Napier was selling, there was one constant: Kit Bowskill. Bowskill was the one who made the second offer, every time, and started the bidding war. Funnily enough, he was never interested in any of the houses anyone else was selling. It was only the houses on Jackie’s list that inspired him to bid the price up and up, high as he could. Invariably, the inspiration was short-lived; Bowskill was always the one who dropped out, leaving the other bidder several tens of thousands of pounds worse off, sometimes, but feeling chuffed as anything, thinking he or she had won.’
‘So . . . you’re saying Kit Bowskill never had any intention of buying any of these houses?’ said Sam. ‘He wanted to inflate their prices artificially. Why?’
‘So that Jackie Napier would get more commission,’ Charlie said with certainty. Someone ought to invent a word, she thought, to describe this very particular kind of eureka moment: when the penny drops and you realise two people you haven’t previously connected are having an affair. Jackie Napier and Kit Bowskill. Olivia Zailer and Chris Gibbs.
‘Same thing’s been happening at Lancing Damisz, since Jackie changed jobs,’ said Simon. ‘She’s not been there long enough for anyone to notice, but when I told Lorraine Turner what Hugh Jepps had said, she was concerned enough to have a rummage around Jackie’s desk. She found two letters from Jackie to Bowskill, confirming his offers on two different houses she was selling, explaining that there was another potential buyer interested in each case who’d offered more than he had, and did he want to offer more at this stage?’
‘That’s illegal,’ said Sam. ‘It’s fraud.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ Simon agreed. ‘A fraud that’s close to impossible to prove, as long as Kit Bowskill sticks to his story: since 2003, he’s been looking for a place in Cambridge. He’s put in offers on a stack of houses, got into bidding wars – starting with 18 Pardoner Lane, the only one that was genuine – but, so far, he’s always pulled out. Why? He’s a perfectionist – that’s actually true, so it bolsters the lie pretty effectively. No one can hack into his mind and prove his motivation: that he never had any intention of buying any of those houses, and it’s all a scam. And if Jackie’s colleagues ask any questions – as Hugh Jepps did, several times – she turns on the charm and says, “Poor Mr Bowskill – he just can’t commit.” ’
‘Hugh Jepps didn’t believe her, though,’ said Charlie.
‘Course he didn’t. The coincidence of Bowskill only ever going for houses Jackie was selling wasn’t plausible. Jackie didn’t care, though – she brazened it out. It’s not her fault, it’s nothing to do with her, she says. Mr Bowskill’s a stranger to her, and coincidences do happen. Jepps considered getting a private investigator onto her, see if he could prove a connection between her and Bowskill. In the end he decided he just wanted shot of her, and packed her off to be another firm’s problem instead. He said her unjustly accused naïve waif act was scarily convincing.’
‘That wasn’t the act I saw,’ said Sam. ‘She wasn’t naïve with me, she was more . . . the weary, put-upon woman of the world who thinks she knows a thing or two.’
‘I doubt she’s short of personas,’ said Simon. ‘The woman at number 17 described her as “a warm, lovely girl”.’
‘So if Jackie lives at 18 Pardoner Lane, Mrs Talker at number 17’s her neighbour,’ said Charlie.
‘Neighbour and good friend,’ Simon said. ‘Oh, she’s known Jackie for years, she told me – since long before Jackie moved to Pardoner Lane. She’s also friendly with Elise Gilpatrick, though she’s not seen Elise for a while.’ He emphasised this as if he thought it