shocked by the hoarse sound of my own voice. ‘I knew someone was following me.’
I mentioned it to Alice when I first went to see her – that once or twice, in Cambridge, I’d heard footsteps behind me. She prescribed me a remedy for that precise delusion: Crotalus Cascavella.
Wrong.
I didn’t need a brown bottle full of something dissolved in water. I needed Jackie Napier to die.
Obsessed with Gils since Pardoner 2003. There’s only one thing that can mean.
‘The Gilpatricks bought 18 Pardoner Lane, didn’t they?’ I say. ‘When you . . . when we wanted it.’
I don’t need an answer – I can see it in Kit’s face.
‘You pretended you didn’t want it any more, blamed it on my . . . problems. You must have loathed the Gilpatricks. And then . . . what, they moved? They bought 12 Bentley Grove, and . . .’
Rent out 11, live at Pardoner.
‘Jackie. Jackie bought 18 Pardoner Lane.’ I’m still working it out as I say it. ‘You probably gave her some of the money.’
‘How could I do that?’ Kit says angrily. ‘I don’t have any money that you don’t know about.’
‘I was too much of a mess to move away from my family, but that wasn’t a problem for you,’ I say, thinking aloud. ‘You could live in Cambridge with Jackie. The two of you had been waiting for 18 Pardoner Lane to come up for sale again, but when it did, you didn’t want it any more – Jackie did, enough to buy it, but you . . .’ Yes. It has to be. ‘You wanted whatever house the Gilpatricks wanted, and that wasn’t 18 Pardoner Lane any more – it was 12 Bentley Grove.’
Disjointed ideas clash in my mind. What did Kit say about Jackie waiting in number 12, watching for me, knowing I would come looking? Soon as the Gilpatricks left in the morning . . . So they weren’t dead at that point. And if Kit hadn’t killed them yet . . . ‘How did Jackie get the keys to this house?’ I ask. ‘Was she . . . ?’ Her pink denim jacket, a Lancing Damisz key-ring in the pocket. Her black spider handwriting, on Lancing Damisz paper. ‘She was an estate agent, wasn’t she? Did you meet her in 2003? Did she sell this house to the Gilpatricks?’
Kit doesn’t answer. He looks away.
‘She did, didn’t she? And she kept a copy of the front door key.’
‘We used to meet here, when they were out,’ Kit mutters, eyes down. ‘It was a stupid game we played, but it was better than the real life she wanted us to have together. I couldn’t bring myself to set foot in the Pardoner Lane house, not once she’d bought it. She wanted me to move in there with her, but how could I? I lived in Little Holling, with you – at Melrose Cottage.’ He says it as if I don’t know already – as if I’m a stranger he’s introducing himself to. Telling me about his life. ‘I never loved Jackie. The one thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to live with you, wherever I lived but . . . the game had gone too far by then. And . . . it was more than a game. I wanted . . .’ He clears his throat. ‘I didn’t see why the Gilpatricks should have what I wanted. That was when it all started to go wrong, when they bought our house.’
I wait.
‘Jackie and I had terrible rows,’ Kit goes on eventually, so quietly I can barely hear him. ‘I didn’t really want this place . . .’ he gestures around him ‘. . . but it was easier to pretend I did than admit the truth. Jackie knew it was bullshit – she went on and on at me, telling me the Gilpatricks wouldn’t be selling anytime soon, that this was their forever home, trying to get me to admit that I’d stop wanting it anyway as soon as I could have it, even if they did decide to move again. She was furious with me – how could I have let her buy 18 Pardoner Lane if I wasn’t planning to live there with her? The rows got worse and worse, and then . . .’ He shakes his head.
This time I can’t guess. I have to ask. ‘Then what?’
‘The SatNav thing happened. And Jackie decided it was destiny – the solution to