my eyes had misled me. Perhaps I’d lost her and was standing outside the wrong shop while she hurried away somewhere else, leaving me behind.
After I’d waited nearly an hour, my frustration made me do something so stupid, I still have trouble believing I did it. I walked into the shop. I was so sure I wouldn’t find her in there, but there she was. She and the woman behind the till stared at me with the same angry, triumphant look in their eyes; I knew without anyone saying anything that they were friends. ‘What’s going on?’ Selina Gane demanded. ‘Who are you, and why are you following me? Don’t even think about denying it, or I’ll call the police.’
My legs nearly gave way. I stared wildly at her, not knowing what to say. I noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, which made me feel better about nothing.
‘Lock the door,’ she said to her friend. Then, to me, ‘I’m getting an answer from you – whatever I have to do.’
Before her friend had a chance to move from behind the till, I ran for the door, and was out and tearing down Trinity Street like a hunted animal in fear for its life. I ran for what felt like miles. When I finally dared to stop and turn round, I saw that there was no one there, or at least no one with any interest in me, and burst into tears of relief. I’d got away. She didn’t know who I was. It only occurred to me the following day that I might have said, calmly, ‘My name’s Connie Bowskill. I’m Kit Bowskill’s wife.’ How would she have reacted? Blank incomprehension, or shock? Did she know Kit? Did she know that he was married?
I didn’t find out her name on that day either. I only found it out this morning, when Sam Kombothekra told me.
‘Connie?’
‘Mm?’
‘Did you tell Simon Waterhouse?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I told him everything I’ve told you.’
‘What did he say?’ Sam asks.
Chapter 10
19/07/2010
‘I asked her if there was any possibility that she programmed the address into her husband’s SatNav herself,’ Simon told Charlie. They were sitting at the large wooden table on one side of the swimming pool – Simon under an umbrella and Charlie in the full glare of the sun. She knew it was bad for her, but she loved it: the way it burned its glow into her skin and made her feel as if her brain was dissolving, so that she had no choice but to hurl herself into the pool.
On the lunch front, the unthinkable was happening: Simon was peeling prawns and handing them to her, one by one; that was how guilty she’d made him feel. She was no longer hungry, but she wanted him to keep peeling. He didn’t seem to mind, which irritated her a little, but then he’d only done eight prawns so far and she reckoned she could eat about fifty, even if she did end up being sick afterwards. She was confident he’d be fuming and swearing before she was ready to let him off the hook.
‘Why would she programme the address in herself, then accuse her husband of doing it?’ she asked Simon.
‘Because she genuinely believes he did it. If she’s erased the memory of herself doing it, and then she finds it there – well, he must have done it, mustn’t he? And she wants to know why. Why’s he putting this unknown Cambridge address into his SatNav as “home”?’
‘Bollocks,’ said Charlie. ‘People’s brains don’t erase memories. Why that address, anyway? Your post-traumatic memory-wipe hypothesis would make more sense if the address she’d found in the SatNav had been 17 Pardoner Lane.’
‘Unless 11 Bentley Grove has equal significance for her,’ said Simon. ‘Which it might. If she’s traumatised enough to delete the memory of putting it into the SatNav, who’s to say she wouldn’t delete all her memories connected to the house? So that, when she sees the address, it means nothing to her.’
Charlie groaned. ‘Here’s what happened: the husband, Kit, programmed in the address. The simplest solution and all that.’
Simon held up a peeled prawn and stared at it. ‘Occam’s Razor? It’s a myth,’ he said. ‘If you think back over the last few years of our working life . . .’
‘Connie Bowskill isn’t work, so don’t pretend she is,’ said Charlie. ‘She’s your latest fucked-up hobby. And our working life doesn’t exist. I left CID years ago. I have my own paid