avoids me afterwards, like we’ve done something shameful. He’s lying there right next to me, but he’s avoiding me.’ Charlie sighed. ‘It’s hard to explain.’
‘Simon’s weird in all areas, not just sex,’ said Liv, as if this somehow made things better. She sounded a lot less distraught than she had a minute ago. Charlie wouldn’t have put it past her sister to feign a wrecked life when all she really wanted was to gossip. ‘You’ve been sleeping together for a while, living together for even longer – it changes things. I never want to have sex with Dom any more. I’ve got this little trick—’
‘Please don’t tell me about it,’ Charlie cut in.
‘What? No, it’s not a sexual thing, it’s psychological. If Dom starts angling in, if I only don’t want to a little bit, I make a point of letting him. That way, when I massively don’t want to, when I’m desperate to finish whatever book I’m reading and it really can’t wait, I’m off the hook – I can say no with a clear conscience, knowing there’s no way he can accuse me of never saying yes.’
Charlie stared at the phone. Was it something to do with this being a long-distance conversation? Would she understand her sister better if they were in the same country? She tried not to picture Dom angling in.
‘. . . isn’t that I don’t find him attractive – I do. But . . . I don’t know, we’ve done it so many times.’
And now you’re doing it with someone else as well.
‘Has Simon got worse since the wedding?’ Liv asked. ‘Is the shag rate in decline? Too early to tell, I suppose.’
Charlie sighed. Tastefully put. ‘Look, I don’t really want to talk about it, and I especially don’t want to whisper about it in a Spanish caretaker’s hut. Tell me about leaving Dom.’
‘I can’t leave him.’
‘Who’s your new man?’
‘I can’t leave Dom, Char. It would destroy him. He has no idea that it would, but it would. And if I leave him for this . . . other person – not that he’s asked me to, not that we have anything in common – I’ll soon be equally bored of having sex with him, won’t I? Even if it doesn’t feel that way at the moment. So I might as well stay with Dom and cheat on him discreetly until my fling becomes as boring as my main relationship. Not that Dom himself is boring – just the sex. Which isn’t to say it’s bad.’
Charlie couldn’t bring herself to attempt a response.
‘What do you think?’ Liv asked anxiously.
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I’m bound to get bored of New Sex Man, once the novelty wears off. Don’t you think?’
‘I’m bored of talking about him, if that helps,’ said Charlie. New Sex Man. He was probably a weedy vegan arts journalist or some pompous writer Olivia’s paper had sent her to interview.
‘It’s inevitable.’ Liv sniffed. Charlie heard her blow her nose. ‘It’s a law of nature. Every grand passion shags itself into tedium, given time.’
‘How uplifting,’ said Charlie. ‘Talking of time, yours is up.’
‘Wait – there’s one more thing I wanted to ask you, just quickly. Simon won’t mind that I phoned, will he?’
‘He won’t know,’ Charlie told her. ‘He’s gone for a walk.’
‘On his own?’ Olivia’s indignation could be heard all the way from London. ‘Why didn’t he take you with him?’
‘What’s your question, Liv?’
‘I just asked it: will Simon mind that I phoned? I don’t think he’d mind. Would you mind if he had a very quick phone conversation with . . . someone, anyone? From home, or . . . work?’
Charlie swallowed the scream that was clogging her throat. ‘Sam wants to talk to Simon, does he?’
‘Don’t go mad. I haven’t told him where you are, but . . . could Simon maybe ring him? I don’t know the details, but I think someone might have been murdered.’
‘So? That’s like interrupting a postman on his honeymoon because someone wants to send a parcel to their gran. You can tell Sam from me that he’s a gutless fuckhead, using you to pass on his messages.’
‘Don’t be mean about Sam – he’s sweet. And he hasn’t asked me to pass on anything – I haven’t spoken to him for months. Look, whoever’s been murdered, I think it might be someone Simon knows. Or knew. Oh, I don’t know!’
Someone Simon knew? Immediately, Charlie thought of Alice Fancourt. Not her, anyone but her. Charlie didn’t know