be willing to pay more than the price they’d agreed with the Gilpatricks. The Beth Dutton people were torn – they were against gazumping on principle, but they saw a chance to get their hands on more money. They told Jackie that if Bowskill could go fifty grand above what the Gilpatricks were going to pay, he could have the house.’
‘They were so principled that their sell-out mark-up was that much higher,’ Charlie muttered scornfully.
‘We know what happens next,’ said Simon. ‘Bowskill’s folks won’t stump up the cash and he cuts them off. Meanwhile, Connie’s been quietly going to pieces. Much as she wants to move, she’s also panicking. Bowskill can’t tell her the truth about 18 Pardoner Lane and admit he failed, so he rewrites the story. In his fictional version of events, he reclaims his power – instead of being at the mercy of circumstance, he’s in control. He pretends he’s changed his mind for the sake of Connie’s health, and tries to enthuse her about his new plan: their own business, a beautiful house in the Culver Valley – a new dream, a fake one.’
‘It came true, though,’ Sam pointed out. ‘I’ve seen their place in Little Holling. It’s pretty amazing – the archetypal idyllic country cottage. And they did start their own business – something to do with data and databases. It’s called Nulli Secundus. I get the impression it’s a success.’
‘Oh, yeah, Bowskill made it all happen,’ said Simon. ‘But it was never his dream – only a stage on the way to the real goal.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Charlie said irritably. The heat was getting to her. She wanted to open a window, but if she did, Simon would demand she close it for the sake of the too-feeble-to-make-a-difference air-conditioning. ‘Maybe the new dream was real.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen that bedroom at his mum and dad’s place,’ Simon told her. ‘For as long as there’s breath in his body, there’s no way Kit Bowskill’s settling for living anywhere but Cambridge.’
‘But he has settled,’ Charlie argued. ‘Or else he’s changed his mind: he was fixed on Cambridge once, but then he had a rethink and—’
‘You didn’t see what I saw,’ Simon interrupted her. ‘It wasn’t the bedroom of someone planning a rethink – take my word for it. The cottage in Little Holling was a stepping stone. Starting his own business was a good move: if you work for yourself, you can relocate head office when it suits you – you’re not dependent on Deloitte or any other firm having an opening at the right time.’
‘But . . . Connie told me he’s obsessed with the Little Holling house,’ said Sam. ‘She said he’s commissioned an artist to paint its portrait.’
‘Yuck,’ said Charlie. No need to say any more when one word summed it up.
‘Obsessives remain obsessive, but they sometimes change the focus of their obsession, don’t they?’ Sam asked.
‘Not Bowskill,’ said Simon irritably. He hated it when other people’s inconvenient questions got in the way of his certain knowledge. ‘Changing his mind about the best place to live would feel like failure to someone with his mindset – it’d involve admitting he’d been wrong for years. He feels humiliation acutely and easily. Imagine him pulling all those pictures off the walls of his Bracknell bedroom, thinking about the fool who put them up in the first place.’
Sam and Charlie exchanged a look. Neither wanted to point out that none of this could be known for sure.
‘While he and Connie were looking for their Little Holling house and starting up their business, Bowskill was dwelling on where he’d gone wrong,’ said Simon. ‘First mistake: walking away from 18 Pardoner Lane and expecting it to come back to him. Not believing in the Gilpatricks. Second mistake: letting Connie see his enthusiasm for moving, once she’d suggested it. His certainty and determination scared her off – she fell into the role of the one who panicked and applied the brakes. He became the reassuring adult and she was the frightened child. Her hair started falling out, she was sick with nerves all the time – it was all wrong – Bowskill didn’t want to be in Cambridge with a bald invalid wife who felt she’d been steamrollered into moving and resented it. Finding out that there was no way of him getting his hands on 18 Pardoner Lane was what convinced him: one by one his “perfects” were falling away, and it was better