The Telling Error (33 page)

‘He didn’t lay off?’ Simon guessed.

‘Got it in one. If anything, his attacks on me escalated – on his blog, on Twitter. So I repeated the process: emailed him again, asked him to stop,
again
. He pretended not to have noticed that he hadn’t stopped. Made me present him with evidence. Then he summoned me to another meeting. This time, he decreed that it had to be on 11 November at eleven minutes past eleven a.m. It was part of a very weird attempt to humiliate me. Probably makes no sense to you, but … that’s what he was trying to do.’

Simon could see what she meant. It sounded plausible, therefore he didn’t like it; it played havoc with his theory that only lovers or prospective lovers would arrange to meet at that particular time.

‘It entertained Damon to make me behave in a ridiculous way. I shouldn’t have turned up – I should have told him to stick it up his arse, and write whatever he liked. It’s a common definition of madness, isn’t it: doing the exact same thing and expecting it to have a different result? He told me that if I arrived at ten past eleven, or twelve minutes past, he’d get up and leave. If I wanted to speak to him, I had to be bang on time. Absurd!’ Paula ruffled Fergus’s hair. ‘If only I’d met Fergus sooner. You wouldn’t have let me pander to Damon Blundy’s ego, would you, darling?’

‘I’d have dealt with him,’ said Fergus. ‘I’ve never known a man to behave in that way. I don’t know what he thought he was up to.’

If Paula and Blundy had been romantically or sexually involved, wouldn’t she be visibly upset and shaken? If they’d been enemies, as she claimed, wouldn’t she sound angrier when she described how he’d tormented her? Wouldn’t she gloat about his death? Simon found her unruffled good humour disturbing.

‘So what happened at the second meeting?’ he asked.

‘Same as at the first. Damon was charming. He apologised for having broken his word last time, he promised again not to eviscerate me in his column – and it was all lies. He did it again and again and again. Until he died.’ Paula looked down at her wedding and engagement rings. She adjusted them, twisting them round on her finger. ‘At least I wised up after the second time. I didn’t bother appealing to his compassionate side again – I’d worked out that he didn’t have one.’

‘He was a brute,’ said Fergus. ‘Wasn’t he, Loophole?’

Simon didn’t immediately realise that Fergus was talking to the larger of the two dogs, now awake, whose ear he was stroking. Loophole? Strange name for a pet. Still, at least it wasn’t Fergus’s pet name for Paula, as Simon had initially imagined. ‘Does anyone call you Riddy?’ he asked her.

‘Not any more,’ she said. ‘It was my nickname at school. Why?’

‘The password for Damon Blundy’s laptop was “Riddy111111”.’

‘Was it? Doesn’t particularly surprise me. The man was obsessed with me.’

‘Funny thing is, now Toby has the same nickname at his new school,’ said Fergus. ‘Riddy! Complete coincidence, too – no one at Ashfold knows that Paula used to be known as Riddy.’

‘Ashfold?’ said Simon.

‘Oh, here we go!’ Anger flashed in Paula’s eyes. ‘Yes, Ashfold – the independent fee-paying prep school. Why did I move my son there from a state school? That’s my business and none of yours. Toby couldn’t stay at his old school after we moved in with Fergus. If you must know, I decided Damon was right about that one thing – nothing else. But … if I can afford the very best education for my son, it’s my duty to provide that, isn’t it?’

‘Your son’s surname is Riddiough, then?’ Simon asked. ‘Not Crumlish like his father?’

‘You’ve done your homework. I’m flattered.’ Paula smiled. ‘My son’s name is Toby Crumlish-Riddiough,’ said Paula.

And you sent him to a state school in Combingham, and expected him to survive his first day?

Riddy111111.
Was it possible the Riddy in Damon Blundy’s password was Toby? ‘How did Damon Blundy know your school nickname?’

‘Good question,’ said Paula. ‘One of his hobbies was digging around looking for any dirt on me he could find. He probably unearthed one of my old classmates and got it from her.’

‘Or he had your son in mind,’ said Simon. ‘Did you have Toby with you on 11 November 2011 when you met Damon?’

‘No. Of course not. Why would I take my son to what was likely to be a deeply unpleasant meeting?’

‘Did you ever refer to Toby as Riddy in Blundy’s presence?’

‘No. And … Damon wouldn’t have been interested enough in Toby to make a password out of him,’ said Paula. ‘Damon’s one of those childless men for whom children barely exist. When I tried to explain to him how much his attacks on me were hurting Toby, he laughed and said, “Buy him a packet of Maltesers and he’ll be fine.” And he had the nerve to call me a bad mother and say I only cared about my career and my sex life! If you added up all the times I’ve had sex since Toby was born and set that total against the number of times I’ve read
Tiddler
and
The Gruffalo
and
The Gruffalo’s Child
– my favourite books in the
world
! – I promise you sex would be the loser!’

‘Paula’s a brilliant mother,’ Fergus announced loudly.

‘Thank you, darling.’ She ruffled his hair again.

A brilliant mother to whom, Simon wondered, Toby or Fergus? There was something maternal about the way she was gazing fondly at her husband.

‘Thanks for your patience, both of you.’ Simon stood up. ‘I’ll get out of your hair now, but I’ll probably be back.’

‘Anytime,’ said Paula. ‘I’ll walk you to the front door. Don’t want you getting lost on the way. It’s a bit of a maze. Are you coming too, Loophole? Sweet
girl
! Darling, you couldn’t stick the kettle on, could you? I think we deserve a cup of tea for getting through our first ever police interview!’

Simon could have done with a cup of tea, but at no point had one been offered.

He, Paula and the dog walked to the front door in single file. Every wall had a mountain of miscellaneous items piled up against it – bicycles, Wellington boots, a watering can, two tins of paint – not Dulux’s Ruby Fountain 2, Simon noticed. Here were two kegs of beer, a wheelbarrow, several clear plastic containers with royal blue plastic lids. All of these things narrowed the usable space by about half. This was the domestic equivalent of a clogged artery.

At the front door, Paula said, ‘I need to come and see you. In Spilling.’

It was an admission. Unambiguous.

‘To tell me what you couldn’t say in front of your husband?’ Simon asked.

‘How about Monday, ten a.m.? Or Tuesday afternoon – I’ve got another appointment in the Culver Valley on Tuesday morning, so I’ll be around anyway. No, I tell you what: let’s make it Monday at ten past ten. I think that would be appropriate, don’t you? And then I’ll stay over somewhere, for my Tuesday meeting.’

‘I’d rather say ten o’clock,’ said Simon uncomfortably.

‘And I’d rather say ten past.’ Paula raised one eyebrow provocatively. ‘If only to prove to you that two people can meet at a daft time of day and not be having a clandestine affair.’

Charlie smiled when she heard Simon’s voice say, ‘What?’ He sounded hassled. Normally he didn’t answer when she rang him; he preferred to let her give up, then call her back.

‘Guess what I’ve just found waiting for me on my desk,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Copies of the pathologist’s report, the crime-scene report—’

‘Damon Blundy?’ Simon talked over her.

‘—confirmation of several alibis: Rabbi Fedder, Verity Hewson, Abigail Meredith, Richard Crumlish, Lee Redgate, Nicki Clements, the neighbour whose daughter’s earlobe he wrote about cutting off. Yeah, Damon Blundy. Nice that someone thought to include me, isn’t it? Whoever it was kindly swept all
my
work to one side. Some of it fell off the desk onto the floor.’

‘Proust,’ said Simon.

‘Or Sellers in a bad mood. Do you know what’s up with him?’

‘Yeah, and I wish I didn’t. He deserves his bad mood and worse.’

‘Tell me,’ said Charlie eagerly.

‘Later. Tell me about the pathologist’s report.’

‘It’s everything you know already. Blundy’s airways were blocked by a combination of the knife and the tape. He suffocated, after first being knocked out with the knife sharpener. The knife was sharpened at the scene. No identifiable fingerprints in the room apart from Blundy’s and his wife’s. Some unknown prints too, but you’d expect that.’

‘So tell me again who’s alibied for sure: Rabbi Fedder, Nicki Clements …?’

‘Doormat and Despot,’ said Charlie.

‘So that leaves Keiran Holland, Bryn Gilligan and Melissa Redgate without a decent alibi.’

‘And Hannah Blundy.’

‘Maybe Reuben Tasker too, depending on what he’s telling Gibbs now.’

‘What about Paula Riddiough?’ Charlie asked.

‘She was with friends. I’ve no doubt her alibi’ll be watertight, whether she murdered Damon Blundy or not.’

Charlie smiled to herself. ‘You’ve met her, then?’

‘I’m outside her house now, in Buffler’s Holt.’

‘That sounds like an arcane sexual practice.’

‘Paula Riddiough denies she was having an affair with Damon Blundy,’ said Simon. ‘She’s lying.’

‘How do you know?’

‘The elevens thing. The fact that he chose to make it his password.’

‘I’m not sure that alone—’

‘I am,’ Simon cut her off.

Charlie wasn’t in the mood to be trampled underfoot. ‘And
I’m
sure you’re wrong, unless Blundy had two bits on the side,’ she said. ‘I think Nicki Clements was the one having the affair with him, and I’ve got solid reasons for thinking so. All you’ve got is a meeting arranged at an aren’t-we-clever time of day.’

‘Let’s hear it, then,’ said Simon.

‘The tit photo Nicki Clements was taking when Meakin snuck up on her was to send to a man she’d met online, on Intimate Links – a man called Gavin. She told me she answered his ad in February. Also in February, she suddenly stopped commenting on Damon Blundy’s columns. I think that’s when they broke up. She went looking online for a new lover and found this Gavin person. And before you say that’s pure speculation – yes, I know it is, and that’s why I did a bit of digging around, to put my theory to the test. I dug up some interesting facts. Nicki and her family moved from London to Spilling in December last year. Damon Blundy made the same move on 5 November 2011—’

‘That’s only six days before 11 November 2011,’ Simon interrupted. ‘So Blundy travelled from Spilling back to London for his meeting with Paula Riddiough, six days after moving in the opposite direction. Would he do that if he weren’t having an affair with her?’

‘Simon.’ Charlie laughed. ‘Spilling’s an hour and a half from London by train. Of course he’d nip in for a meeting if there was someone he needed to meet, whether he was shagging them or not.’

‘Really?’ Simon sounded doubtful. ‘I wouldn’t want to revisit the place I’d just moved away from. Not immediately.’

‘Yes, well … you’re a freak and a hermit, aren’t you? Can we concentrate on Nicki Clements? Why did she decide to move to Spilling? It wasn’t for work reasons – she wasn’t working then and isn’t now.’

‘Husband’s work?’

‘Ah! Thought you’d say that. No. Her husband, Adam, had an army IT job in London, and they reassigned him to the Culver Valley, but
he
asked
for the transfer. I’ve spoken to them, confidentially. Adam told them he wanted to transfer because his wife had her heart set on relocating round here.’

‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ said Simon. ‘The Culver Valley’s a beautiful place. Who wouldn’t want to live here?’

Charlie was surprised. She’d never heard him say anything like that before. She’d had no idea it was how he felt; normally, apart from needing things to be tidy wherever he was, he seemed oblivious to his physical surroundings.

‘It proves as much as a meeting at eleven minutes past eleven does,’ she said. ‘But if you want more proof … I rang round a few local estate agents to see if any of them remembered Nicki Clements. If you’re planning to move to a different part of the country, chances are you’d ring an estate agent in your target area and tell them what you were looking for, right? And it was just about recent enough for someone to remember, I thought. Unfortunately, no one remembered anything, but it didn’t matter. Two separate estate agents still had Nicki Clements’s wish list stored on their systems. Guess what she told both of them she was looking for?’

‘Go on.’

‘A four-bedroom house in Spilling within ten or fifteen minutes’ drive of Elmhirst Road, but not
on
Elmhirst Road and not too near to it.’

‘You’re kidding? No way!’

It wasn’t often that Charlie managed to impress Simon. When she did, she often felt for days afterwards as if she were glowing from within. It was pathetic, she knew. ‘Seriously,’ she said. ‘Now, what possible explanation could there be for that, apart from that Nicki was having an affair with Blundy and wanted to be close enough but not too close – not dangerously close to where he lived with his wife.’

‘If I wasn’t so sure Blundy was having an affair with Paula Riddiough …’ Simon’s voice was barely audible. It was more like listening to thoughts than words – ideas powerful enough to make themselves heard, but only just. ‘He was obsessed with her. Read his columns. He went on about her constantly. Like him, she’s famous, spectacularly good-looking, an egotist who loves to be in the public eye – the perfect match for him. Look, you said it before, and maybe we shouldn’t dismiss it: what if he was having two affairs? Paula Riddiough
and
Nicki Clements. That’d give three women a motive to kill him – both of them and Hannah, his wife.’