Woman with a Secret (34 page)

The one who hadn’t yet betrayed his sister
.

I save my draft email to Dimwit Stefanowicz and sign out of my Yahoo account. I’ll tell Adam and the children I wrote and sent the email, and do it first thing in the morning.

Now for King Edward.

I log into my Hushmail account, open his last message to me and read it again. Then I click on the “reply” button and start to type:

Hello, King Edward,

I agree to your conditions. If you let me down again . . . well, let’s just say you’d be foolish to risk it.

Nicki

Delete that last part. Delete it. Only someone lacking a brain altogether would threaten a dangerous murderer
.

I press “send.”

Too late now.
Good
. I have to do something. The police aren’t going to solve the case. If teachers at the best independent primary school in the Culver Valley set tests that make no sense, if parents drive their own children to hospices and pretend they’re lunatic asylums . . . No, I don’t trust the police to catch Damon Blundy’s killer. I don’t trust anyone who isn’t me.

I picture myself lying in the dark, on a bed in the Chancery Hotel, naked and blindfolded. Will he touch me? Does it still count as infidelity if I’m doing it to catch a killer?

What if I take a knife with me—a sharp one? Lie on top of it to hide it.

Purely hypothetical questions. What-ifs.

Once I’ve heard King Edward tell me the truth about Damon Blundy, what if I find myself yearning to kill him, to stab him through the heart? What if I don’t have the strength to resist?

PAULA PRIVILEGE ON THE COUCH
Damon Blundy, April 30, 2013,
Daily Herald Online

What is a poor (or even a rich) woman to do when, week after week, the newspapers contain no mention of her name or her sex life? Much to the chagrin of Saint Paula of Privilege, she can’t sue the
Sun
or the
Mail
for failing to run scurrilous stories about her in the absence of new material, and even I, her most vocal adversary, have neglected her of late in favor of my old friends
Keiran Holland
,
Reuben Tasker
and
Bryn Gilligan
, each of whose separate but thematically linked
dedication to irrationality grows stronger by the day
.

Here’s the story, for those of you who missed it: Tasker published a new, much less pretentious and rather gripping horror novel last month,
Riven
,
that garnered some
favorable reviews
. If I were his editor, I’d encourage him to dispense with the supernatural element of his writing, since his chief talent is for describing gruesome horrors inflicted on one human being by another; meanwhile, the representatives of the spirit world sip ghost-blend coffee out of Styrofoam cups in the wings and mutter, “We’re pretty much redundant here, aren’t we, guys?”

If Bryn Gilligan is reading this, he won’t approve of the above paragraph. Young Bryn took to Twitter recently to
argue
that Tasker’s novel
should not
have valuable column inches squandered on it, and that readers should not waste time reading it, when he, Bryn Gilligan, is no longer allowed to sprint competitively. Yes, you did read that correctly. Gilligan seems to believe, in a worrying lost-his-marbles kind of way, that because he suffers, Tasker must also deserve to.
(Is this my fault, for drawing a parallel between them? Probably.) Gilligan is still engaging with his Twitter critics on an hourly basis, trying to persuade them that if they had been him, they too would have taken performance-enhancing drugs. When they declare themselves unconvinced, he tweets, “BLOCKED,” at them and then, as far as I can tell, neglects to block them and continues to try to win them over.

I
pointed out
to Gilligan that what he ought to want, rather than equal-footing pariah status for him and Tasker, is the opposite for both of them: acceptance, and a modicum of compassion. Gilligan didn’t respond, but Keiran Holland did, God help me. Holland
retaliated
with two lists, each of which he tweeted at me one item at a time, like an online drone attack. The
first
was of literary masterpieces composed by writers partial to mind-altering substances. The
second
was of critical and commercial flops written by the square and sober. These lists would have been a devastating critique of my position if only I’d argued, even once, that opium addicts were incapable of writing well and/or that all novels written without a narcotic boost were indisputably fantastic. Perhaps I’ll devote my next column to two lists of my own: one of brilliant sporting wins by those on steroids, and one of people who have never taken illegal drugs and can’t even run for a bus.

But wait! There I go again, writing about men without cleavages when Saint Paula has gone to the trouble of making herself extra-specially newsworthy to get my attention. In
an interview with
J’aime
magazine
, Our Lady of Self-Promo has revealed that, while married to diamond geezer Richard Crumlish, she had several extramarital flings in addition to the three about which we’ve all already said, “So what?” Two more, to be precise. To which I say, “So what? x 2.” I do wonder how Paula’s newly ensnared landowner-farmer second husband feels about it, though. Is Fergus Preece the kind of man who will happily and with a heart full of hope spend all his free time parceling up bottles of Clearasil to send to leopards? One thing’s for
sure: he’ll need to be either extremely open-minded or exceptionally gullible if he’s going to go the distance with the People’s Pussy.

Of her five illicit entanglements, Paula says cheerily, “I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to be happy with Richard, or to make him happy, but do I regret my affairs? Not one bit. I am pleased and proud to have shared happy and fulfilling moments with some of the loveliest men on the planet. The thing is, I find other human beings fascinating and irresistible. I just really love and care about people. I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a warm, giving spirit, and every relationship I’ve ever had with a man has meant a lot to me. Each one of my romantic and sexual experiences has been life-enhancing and has made me a better person.”

One can’t help wondering if the category of “people” that Saint Paula claims to love and care about includes any women—in particular, the betrayed wives of her five dalliances—and why her giving spirit wasn’t tempted by the prospect of giving all those husbands back to their rightful owners at the earliest available opportunity. Could it be that there was a taking spirit on the payroll at the same time? Mere hair-splitting on my part, of course, since all that matters in the final analysis is that Saint Paula has been rogered to a state of better personhood. I suppose it’s cheaper than psychoanalysis. Talking of which . . .

“I’d love to get her on my couch,” said Mrs. Me, who, as careful readers will remember, is a psychotherapist. “I’m not sure she’s the hypocrite you think she is. Not intentionally, anyway. Most people haven’t got a clue what’s really motivating them. Riddiough might well believe that her addiction to infidelity is a kind of offshoot of a more general joie-de-vivre and affection for humanity.”

“But that’s obviously bollocks,” said I (for that is my clinical specialism:
things that are obviously bollocks
).

Mrs. Me agreed. “That’s why I’d be interested to get her on my couch,” she said. “To find out what’s really going on.”

It’s pretty self-evident, isn’t it? We know that Saint Paula’s grudge
against her own aristocratic and wealthy parents drove her to embrace left-wing politics and
inferior schooling for her son
. Since there could be no rational motive for her making these choices, it’s safe to assume that her sole aim was to stage a very public vote of no confidence in her own privileged upbringing. Privilege is highly addictive: prized and sought after by those who’ve never had it, and almost impossible to object to when one has it in abundance, unless one’s antipathy for those bestowing it is strong enough to overwhelm all such self-interested considerations. (Don’t even think about mentioning altruism or the greater good as possible motivations, dear reader. Have you forgotten the sorry tale of the five betrayed wives? Saint Paula cares not a jot for anything but the gratification of her own ego. In that respect, she is like nearly all of the rest of us.)

The question we must ask ourselves is this: in what circumstances might regular adulteries that undermine and eventually destroy one’s marriage feel more gratifying to the ego than cherishing and protecting one’s family unit? What kind of psyche could ruthlessly strip innocent women of their husbands, drive away a once-devoted spouse who also happens to be heir to a colossal diamond fortune, create a broken home for one’s only child (who already has the misfortune of attending a broken school) and still emerge from all this with “Yay for me!” as one’s dominant narrative?

Could it be that Saint Paula gets an enormous power kick out of undermining the institution of marriage? Every man she seduces into betraying his wife represents a victory over the father who made her feel powerless. And all of those foolish, trusting wives who soldier on in ignorance prove to Paula that she is cleverer and better than they are; they are all too stupid to spot that they’re married to utter bastards, and therefore deserving of everything they get.

If I’m right, this would explain why, having successfully kept at least some of her secrets for years, Our Lady of Privilege should suddenly decide to boast in print about these transgressions. Would it be anywhere near as much fun if she didn’t get to publicly humiliate
all her victims, male and female? Take that,
Baron Daddy and Baroness Mummy
!

I’m cheating a bit—superimposing therapy guff I’ve picked up from Mrs. Me onto what I know of Saint Paula’s personal circumstances, but that’s perfectly legitimate, if you think about it. It’s rather like a doctor being able to diagnose measles because he’s seen measles many times before and knows what they look like. (A livid scarlet bas-relief in the shape of
Dr. Andrew Wakefield
that covers a Welsh child’s entire body, for the nonmedical among you who are wondering.) Yes, I know that Andrew Wakefield is not officially a doctor anymore—in the same way that
Bryn Gilligan is no longer officially a winner
.

“
CULVER VALLEY EAST WAS
your constituency,” Simon said to Paula Riddiough. “Hicksville, as you now call it.”

She had arrived at Spilling Police Station at exactly 10:10
A.M
., as promised, dressed in an expensive-looking gray suit, with her hair pulled back and wound into a neat bun behind her head. She looked as if she expected to be given the keys to 10 Downing Street in front of hundreds of cameras, and had winced at the sight of the unglamorous interview room when Simon opened the door and ushered her in.

“I referred to Spilling as Hicksville
once,
and I’ve been apologizing to bloody-minded former constituents ever since,” she said. “It was a stupid thing to say, especially on Twitter, and I only said it because I knew it would annoy Damon Blundy. He lives here, but . . .” She stopped and corrected herself. “
Lived
here. But London was his one true love. London was where he belonged.”

“How do you know?” asked Simon. “Did he write that in one of his columns? I’ve not seen it, if he did.”

Paula shrugged, unconcerned. “He must have done. I can’t see how I’d know it otherwise.”

“Why did he move to Spilling in November 2011, if he loved London so much?”

“Why do you think I’d know the answer to that question, DC Waterhouse?” She smiled without warmth. “Do you think Damon might have discussed his house-buying plans with me, in between writing his column one week about what a terrible mother I am and another one the next week about my home-wrecking tendencies?”

“I think he moved to the Culver Valley because you were its MP,” Simon said. “Because you were based here some of the time, weren’t you? He wanted to be in your part of the country. He was in love with you.”

Paula laughed. “If he was, he had a funny way of showing it. And surely if he wanted to be in
my
part of the country, he should have moved to North or East Rawndesley? Or Combingham, where I lived, and without which no Labour MP would stand a chance of getting elected in the Culver Valley, ever.”

“Spilling was still nearer than London—and you spent most of your weekends in the Culver Valley, didn’t you? Not in your London flat.”

“Yes. It’s important for MPs to really live in their constituencies, not just pretend to live in them.” Paula sounded bored. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Damon was so consumed by his hatred of me that he wanted to move closer to me so that he could hate me close up. I have no way of knowing, I’m afraid.”

“The two of you met for the first time on October 26, 2011. Damon fell for you. Maybe you fell for him too?”

“I truly didn’t.”

“He rented in Spilling at first, while he looked for a house to buy,” Simon told her what he suspected she already knew. “Why was he in such a hurry to get to the Culver Valley, if not to be closer to you?”

“I’ve just answered that question, DC Waterhouse. If anyone was twisted enough to want to move closer to the primary object of their loathing, Damon was probably that person. So . . . maybe you’re right. But we weren’t having an affair. If we were lovers, why did he decimate me in column after column? Why did I retaliate?”

“Disguise,” said Simon. “If you’re tearing each other apart in the papers every week, no one’s likely to suspect you’re having an affair.”

Paula rolled her eyes. “Look, when I met Damon in October 2011, my marriage to Richard was all but over. Damon was single. There was nothing to stop us falling into each other’s arms if we’d wanted to. Why would we fall passionately in love, then decide to badmouth each other in public while secretly having an affair? Why would we both marry other people? I have to say, this conversation doesn’t fill me with hope about your skills as a detective.”

“Who said anything about passionately in love?”

To Simon’s annoyance, Paula remained unruffled. “Sorry, I took the passionately-in-love part for granted, in your affair scenario,” she said. “I wouldn’t have a relationship of any kind with a man unless I was passionately in love with him. And to answer your next question—have I been passionately in love with lots of people, in that case?—no, I don’t think I have, looking back. But if you’d asked me at the time, while those relationships were going on . . . hell, yes. I
always
believe it’s the real thing. I’m a romantic. I always have been.”

You’re a clever liar with an answer for everything
.

If she’d been in love with Blundy, why wasn’t she a wreck? That, as far as Simon could see, was the main problem with his theory. Even if he was right about the affair, it didn’t make Paula a murderer.

He resisted the urge to kick the leg of the table. No matter how many successes he notched up, he always feared that the current case would be his first failure. He suspected he always would. Charlie’s reassuring him that he always got there in the end wasn’t the consolation she imagined it to be; it only piled on more pressure.

“Can we move on from my and Damon’s imaginary sex life to his murder, which is more important?” Paula asked. “Do you think you’re going to find his killer?”

“I know I will.”

“Oh good. Because . . . don’t let this go to your head, but I’ve heard
that you’re an excellent detective. The best that Hicksville has to offer.”

Heard where?

“You want Damon’s murderer caught, then?” Simon asked.

Paula flashed him a smooth smile. “I’d want any murderer caught.”

“You mentioned having another appointment in Spilling—tomorrow?”

“Yes. This will be a good test of your powers of detection. My appointment tomorrow is the chronological opposite of my meeting with you today. No, wait. It’s the
horological
opposite. If you’re as good as I’ve heard, you’ll work out what that means before I leave the room.”

Simon ignored her challenge. “Your alibi’s impressively solid,” he said. “Your friends confirm that you and your husband were with them last Monday morning. I knew they would.”

“So did I. Because it’s the truth.” Paula looked up at the clock on the wall. “Horological,” she repeated. “Relating to clocks. Any ideas yet? You’re not very fast, for a super detective. Maybe you’re not so super after all.”

“I’m good enough,” said Simon.

“Good is different from excellent, though, isn’t it? You must know the saying ‘All it takes for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.’ Damon used to say, ‘If you take that at face value, it’s true, but ninety-nine percent of people who wheel out that line aren’t advocating good men doing
good
deeds. They’re advocating good men doing the kind of evil acts that evil men do—which turns them into equally evil men.’”

“When did Damon say that?”

“Oh, I don’t remember,” Paula said airily.

She’s toying with you . . .

“Stop playing games,” Simon snapped, standing up so that he didn’t have to have her face in front of him. He walked over to the corner of the room, leaned against the wall. “Damon Blundy’s dead,
and your husband’s miles away. Tell me the truth. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? This meeting was your idea, not mine.”

Paula narrowed her eyes. “There are things I
could
tell you . . . They might even help you. Can you give me a cast-iron promise that if I share this sensitive information with you, Hannah Blundy will never find out?”

“About your affair with Damon, you mean?”

Paula raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a fair question, DC Waterhouse. We’re still discussing the terms and conditions for my telling you. Don’t jump the gun. I’ll ask again: can you promise me that you won’t tell Hannah what I tell you?”

“No. Hannah’s Damon’s wife. I think she’s got the right to understand why her husband was murdered.”

“Very noble,” said Paula. “There’s only one snag: what I know would crush Hannah in a way that’s impossible to convey without spoilers. There are some injuries—psychological injuries—that no one could survive. This would be one, believe me. You don’t care about Hannah. I do. And what I know would lay waste to her. Beyond repair.”

“You care about Hannah Blundy? I didn’t realize you knew her.”

“She was a good wife to Damon—loyal and loving. He loved her. So, for his sake as well as for hers, I won’t do that to her, not even to help you solve your case. Damon would rather his murderer went unpunished than have Hannah destroyed.”

Was this the same Paula Riddiough who, only a few minutes ago, had portrayed Damon Blundy as her enemy? Simon didn’t like the way his brain was doing three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turns inside his head. He felt as if he wasn’t in control, and he hated that feeling more than anything. “You know Damon well enough to make that claim, and yet you weren’t having an affair with him?”

Paula rolled her eyes. “Oh, you can do better than that. Can’t you? Don’t you know anyone well that you’re not having an affair with? Your mother, your colleagues, your best friend?”

“Don’t you think Hannah might want to know the truth, however painful it is?”

“If she would, she’s a fool.”

“You need to tell me what you know,” Simon said coldly. “You might only care about what Damon would have wanted, but I care about catching a murderer.”

“I understand that, and it’s why I made you the offer I made,” said Paula. “Give me your word that you won’t tell Hannah and I’ll tell you what I know.”

Never would dishonesty be more justified, Simon thought. “All right,” he lied.

Paula snorted. “Well, that was unconvincing,” she said. “And we seem to have reached stalemate, or checkmate, or whatever you’d prefer to call it. I can see only one possible way out.”

Simon waited.

Paula pressed her index finger against the middle of her top lip.
Thinking
. Then she said, “If it were to turn out that Hannah had killed Damon, everything I’ve said about not wanting to hurt her would leap out of the window.”

“Isn’t that a bit hypocritical? Given what you said before about good men doing evil things to evil men and, in doing so, becoming evil themselves?”

“No,” Paula said with confidence. “My point, or rather Damon’s point, was that there’s no such thing as a good person. There are only kind and unkind acts. Would it be unkind of me to stop caring about Hannah’s feelings if it turned out she’d murdered Damon? I’m not sure. I think it would be understandable. Unless you’d want to encourage me to protect a murderer from the law? Do you think Hannah did it?”

“I can’t discuss the investigation with you,” said Simon.

“
Could
she have done it? If she’s got a rock-solid alibi, there’s no harm in telling me, is there?”

“Everything relating to the investigation is confidential.”

“You’re about as flexible as a metal barrier, aren’t you? Still . . . if
I had to guess, I’d say you
do
suspect Hannah. Me too.” Paula stared out of the window.

Simon had sat where she was sitting. He knew she could see nothing but the redbrick wall of the job center. “There are a few things I could charge you with, if you don’t tell me what you know,” he said.

She laughed. “You think I care about getting a criminal record? My parents would be devastated, but me? I’d be all over the papers again. The only columnist who thought me interesting enough to write about once I left politics is dead, remember? I do love the spotlight.”

“I think you loved Damon Blundy,” Simon said on impulse. “I think you’re devastated by his death, and trying very hard to hide it.”

Paula’s expression was sympathetic. “Then you think wrong. Any ideas yet about my horologically opposite appointment tomorrow?” She glanced up at the clock again. “Tick, tick, tick . . . No pressure.”

“Would Damon do the same for you, if the roles were reversed?” Simon asked. “If you’d been murdered, and he had information that would destroy Fergus, would he withhold it?”

“Excellent question. Yes, he would.”

Simon saw a shadow at the back of his mind, mouthing words. Trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t hear, or see clearly, or . . . No, it was gone. As so often, he could feel the presence of several pieces of a good idea, but he couldn’t put them together.

“What made you ask me that?” said Paula.

“I’m not sure.”

“Your subconscious is an intelligent guesser.” She smiled.

“It’s hard to know what to ask when you’re being told a combination of lies and truth,” Simon said. “I think you’re being deliberately inconsistent. You want me to catch whoever killed Damon. That means you want to help me. But not too much—because of the secret you still need to keep. It’s not only your affair with Damon Blundy, is it? That’s not what would destroy Hannah. It’s more than that.”

Paula sat forward in her chair. “All right, here’s something that
might help you. If Hannah didn’t kill him, I think I might know who did.”

“Who?”

“A woman called Nicki Clements. She was obsessed with Damon—head over heels, even though she’d never met him. Whenever he wrote a column or a blog post, she commented. Each of her comments was a long, passionate hymn of praise to the wondrous Damon Blundy.”

“Did she praise him when he said unpleasant things about you?” asked Simon.

“Oh yes, all the time. Whatever he wrote, Nicki Clements just happened to share his view, and launched into a rant against his opponent. Usually quite effectively, it has to be said. She’s clearly a bright woman. I didn’t much like it when the opponent was me. Most of the time—when Damon’s target was infant male circumcision, or Barack Obama, or the burka—most of the time I agreed with every word she said.”

“And, therefore, with every word Damon Blundy said?”

“Well . . . yes, I suppose so,” Paula admitted grudgingly. “As long as it wasn’t anti-me, or political. Damon said some sensible things, despite his determination to be ridiculous whenever possible.”

“Barack Obama?” said Simon. “That sounds political.”

“I meant domestic political—Labour-versus-Tory stuff. I’m not a fan of the terror tactics used in America’s never-ending war on terror. Damon thought Obama was a hypocrite: trying to look like a good guy while acting like a bad guy. Cardinal sin, that, in Damon’s book.”