‘You’re right,’ Simon said. ‘It works as a joke. Might even be a better joke.’ Humour wasn’t his area of expertise, and he knew it. ‘It’d also explain why Connie misremembered the address, all these years later – if the joke stuck, if 17 Pardoner Lane became her and Bowskill’s nickname for the house . . .’ Simon pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket, pressed some keys, then thrust it into the space between Charlie and Sam so that they could both see it. ‘Proust’s not Proust in my phone – he’s “Snowman”. Nicknames, pet names – they stick. Don’t they, Stepford?’
Sam cringed visibly at the nickname Colin Sellers and Chris Gibbs had devised for him when they hardly knew him and found his unwavering politeness frustrating.
‘Forget about teasing Sam,’ Charlie said impatiently. ‘Don’t you see what I’m saying? Kit Bowskill did it again – he repeated his nickname trick, so proud was he of his little in-joke. He’s never had any connection with Selina Gane, or with her house – hers wasn’t the house he had in mind when he put 11 Bentley Grove into his SatNav as home.’
Simon’s eyes were wide, unfocused. Charlie could see that he was getting it. ‘11 Bentley Grove is his name for 12 Bentley Grove,’ he said eventually. ‘His private name for his and Jackie’s . . .’
‘ “Love-nest” is the word you’re looking for,’ said Charlie pointedly.
Simon was biting the inside of his lip. ‘If he cares enough about that house to give it a special name . . . No, it doesn’t work. If he’s obsessed with 12 Bentley Grove now, it’s only because the Gilpatricks bought it. It’s a massively less attractive house than 18 Pardoner Lane, and Kit Bowskill wouldn’t be prepared to compromise on the aesthetics. Which means it’s not about the house any more . . .’ Simon’s eyes narrowed. He drummed his fingers on the table.
‘We’ve lost him,’ Charlie said to Sam, who looked worried.
‘You can’t dismiss 11 Bentley Grove as irrelevant,’ he told her. ‘That’s where Connie Bowskill saw the woman’s body.’
‘Why did they buy new curtains?’ Simon demanded, startling Charlie and Sam with the volume of his question. ‘No one buys curtains for a house they don’t own. Basil Lambert-Wall said the new curtains hadn’t gone up yet, but today, when I went to the house and rang the bell, all the curtains were drawn – closed. Sunny day like this, why wouldn’t you let the light in?’
‘You went to 12 Bentley Grove today?’ said Charlie.
‘I was hoping to talk to some or all of the Gilpatricks,’ Simon told her. ‘Seven years ago, they got what Kit Bowskill wanted. I wanted to check they’d survived their victory. No one answered the door.’
‘So you thought you’d enlist our help to smash it down,’ said Sam with a shudder he tried, unsuccessfully, to hide.
‘The woman at 17 Pardoner Lane told me where Elise Gilpatrick works,’ Simon said. ‘The Judge Business School. I couldn’t get through to them on the phone – they’re probably closed Saturdays. If I’d got through, I’d have asked when Elise last turned up for work.’
‘Aren’t you leaping to rather extreme conclusions?’ said Charlie.
‘Who was the dead woman Connie Bowskill saw on Roundthehouses?’ Sam asked her. She inferred from the question that he shared Simon’s concern for Elise Gilpatrick’s welfare.
‘You could wrap a body in a pair of curtains,’ Simon said in a monotone. He seemed to be talking to a point beyond Charlie’s shoulder. ‘The prof said Jackie Napier’s car was full of them, curtains wrapped in plastic – so many she’d had to put the back seats down. Wrap a dead body in curtains, cover the whole lot in plastic, make it airtight with parcel tape so that the neighbours don’t smell anything . . .’ Simon was pressing buttons on his phone. The same button, three times: number 9. ‘We’ve got enough,’ he said. ‘No breaking and entering required.’ A few seconds later, Charlie and Sam heard him ask to be put through to the police.
Chapter 25
Saturday 24 July 2010
‘You can still save me,’ I say to Kit, as calmly as I can. ‘Saving me doesn’t mean killing me. You must be able to see that.’
He’s behind me, his face pressing against the back of my skull. When he shakes his head, I feel it. ‘You don’t understand anything,’ he says, his words indistinct, muffled by my hair. ‘Nothing.’