‘She said . . .’ I shake my head. It can’t be true. It must be. I heard it, twice. ‘She said, “Lasting damage”, the woman who answered the phone. Why would she say that to me?’
I see my confusion reflected in Kit’s eyes: blank incomprehension. Then he breathes in sharply and his face changes. ‘She didn’t say, “Lasting damage”, Connie. She said, “Lancing Damisz” – it’s the name of the agency.’
I wrap my arms around myself, rocking back and forth to make it go away. ‘She said, “Lasting damage”.’ I know what I heard.
‘Connie . . . Connie! Lancing Damisz is the estate agent that’s selling 11 Bentley Grove. It’s the company Lorraine Turner works for: Lancing Damisz.’
Lasting damage. Lancing Damisz. I’m not sure how many times Kit says the name before I allow myself to hear it. ‘How do you know? How do you know what the estate agent’s called?’
He closes his eyes, waits a few seconds before answering. ‘I can’t believe you don’t know. The logo’s on the Roundthehouses page. Just above where it says, “11 Bentley Grove, Cambridge”. Can’t you picture it? We’ve just spent half an hour staring at it, with Grint and Sam. All in upper case, with the D hanging off the L, looped over it. I noticed it because it’s an unusual name. I thought, “They must be new – there was no Lancing Damisz in 2003, when we were looking at houses.” ’
The D hanging off the L. Yes: navy blue letters. I didn’t take in the name because I wasn’t interested in which estate agent was selling 11 Bentley Grove; I was too busy looking for my husband in the photographs.
‘Are . . . are you sure?’ I ask Kit. How could I not know the name? I’ve phoned the estate agent before – last Friday, when I first saw the ‘For Sale’ sign in the garden. I asked if anyone was available immediately to show me round. No one was.
‘Ring them back.’ Kit glances at my shattered phone lying in pieces in the road, then tries to pass me his. ‘Don’t take the word of someone you don’t trust.’
‘No, I . . .’
‘Ring them!’ He waves it in my face. ‘Prove it to yourself. Maybe then you’ll realise you need help – proper medical help, not some crappy quack homeopath who knows a gullible idiot when she sees one.’
What about you, Kit? Do you know a gullible idiot when you see one?
I find the Sainsbury’s receipt again, key in the number. Drops of water fall on the phone’s screen. Tears. I wipe them away.
This time someone answers after only one ring. ‘Lancing Damisz.’
It’s the same voice, same woman. Same words. How could I have misheard it? I pass the phone back to Kit, who is waiting for me to admit my mistake and apologise.
What’s the point? What’s the point of Kit and me saying anything to one another, when neither of us can be trusted?
Chapter 14
20/7/2010
‘It was only two days,’ Jackie Napier answered Sam’s question with her eyes on Ian Grint. ‘Two days isn’t a long time. I saw it on Saturday, and I phoned the police first thing Monday morning. I explained to you why.’
‘Could you explain it to me?’ Sam asked. Jackie tore her eyes away from Grint to scowl at him. She had taken out one of her gold sleeper earrings and was using the end of it to scrape underneath her pink-painted fingernails. Odd behaviour for someone so well turned out, Sam thought; the immaculate presentation and the rather unsavoury public grooming seemed to contradict one another. Jackie’s make-up looked as if it had been applied by a professional, and her bobbed dark hair had been styled with architectural precision. Sam didn’t see how it was possible to achieve that rigid triangular look – not without scaffolding and an RSJ, at any rate.
He couldn’t pin down Jackie’s age in the way that he could most people’s – she might have been anything from twenty to forty-five. She had a round childlike face, but her bare legs were covered with a tracery of prominent blue veins, like a much older woman’s. Or maybe it had nothing to do with age. If Sam’s wife Kate were here, she would say, ‘The legs might not be her fault, but the skirt is. Trousers were invented for a reason.’ Or words to that effect. Strange things offended Kate, things Sam didn’t give a toss about: