out of the pool. Now she was weighed down by the water trapped in her clothes; moving quickly in the heat was even harder.
‘Where are you going?’ Simon asked her.
‘Where am I going?’ she echoed his question. ‘Where could Charlie be going?’ Let the speculator speculate, she thought, hurrying towards Domingo’s wooden house. She was going to ring the airline, find out how soon they could fly home.
Sam understood, finally, something Grint had said in passing earlier: that he’d asked Lorraine Turner for the names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone she’d shown round 11 Bentley Grove so far, as well as anyone who’d enquired about it, even if they hadn’t followed up with a viewing. Sam had put it down to thoroughness, a desire to cover all bases, but he saw now that it had been more than that. The woman who had assumed Selina Gane’s identity and put her house on the market without her permission might have decided to pose as a prospective buyer. The psychology was consistent. This was someone with form for gaining entry under false pretences, someone who was known to have lied about who she was. Sam could see that it might amuse her to deceive yet another member of Lancing Damisz staff.
And then? What would the woman who wasn’t Selina Gane do next? Make an offer? Buy the house? Was that the aim, all along? It was pointless speculating, Sam decided, with so few solid facts available.
‘Couldn’t make it up, could you?’ Jackie was chatting to him now as if they were old friends. ‘There was me standing there like a lemon, and the poor Frenches, who’d have bought that house, guaranteed, except I had to tell them it wasn’t for sale after all, it was a mistake. Embarrassed doesn’t even begin to cover it! The Frenches were gutted. It’s the worst part of my job, having to deal with the emotional fallout when things go wrong. It must be the same with your job.’
It was a pity Jackie Napier wasn’t more intelligent; a cleverer person would have known which parts of the story were important and which weren’t. Sam had an awful feeling he would shortly be hearing all about Jackie’s saving of the day – the even better house she found for the Frenches, with its sunnier garden and superior garaging facilities – if he didn’t take active steps to avoid it.
‘I need to clarify this,’ he said. ‘You’re saying the woman you met at 11 Bentley Grove the first time you went there wasn’t Selina Gane? The woman who told you she wanted to sell the house, the one who proofread the brochure and gave you a key?’
‘She was nothing like Dr Gane,’ Jackie said angrily.
‘So the real Selina Gane was the one you met when you turned up with the Frenches a few days later?’
‘Exactly a week later,’ said Grint. ‘Wednesday 7 July.’
‘I should have known as soon as I saw that bloody passport photo,’ said Jackie, tight-lipped. ‘Selina Gane’s blonde and pretty. The other woman was dark and . . . sort of severe-looking, but you don’t think, do you? Someone shows you a passport photo and says, ‘‘I used to dye my hair blonde,’’ you believe them, don’t you? You don’t think, ‘‘I wonder if they’re pretending to be someone else.’’ I had no reason to be suspicious of her. She had a key to the house, for God’s sake – she was in the house when I went to meet her there. Of course I assumed it was her passport and her house – who wouldn’t? Who puts someone else’s house up for sale? I mean, why would anyone do that?’
Why would anyone put a photograph of a murder victim on a property website?
‘How did you come to see the passport?’ Sam opted to ask an easier question.
‘We have to see ID for anyone whose house we’re selling. So we know they’re who they say they are.’ If Jackie was aware of the irony, she was hiding it well.
‘You say she was dark, the woman who wasn’t Selina Gane. What was her body shape – small, tall, fat, thin?’
‘Small and thin. Petite.’
Sam felt something click into place in his mind before he realised why. Then it came to him: petite. Connie Bowskill had used the same word. A dark-haired petite woman . . .
Some bloody woman had only gone and put her house on the market without telling her. That’s what Jackie had said.