Lasting Damage (37 page)

Alice smiles, as if there is something understandable or endearing about my insanity.

‘Kit saw I wasn’t going to calm down or let him get any sleep until he’d come up with a solution to the problem I’d invented, so he said, “Come on, then – let’s go and investigate.” He soon found enough on the internet to convince me there was no need to worry: we could give number 17 a name if we wanted to. It’s easy – all you have to do is write to the Post Office. He said, “How about The Nuthouse?” ’

‘You must have been hurt,’ says Alice.

‘Not at all. I started laughing – thought it was the best joke I’d ever heard. I was so relieved that everything was going to be okay – Kit would get the house he loved, and I’d be able to make it feel like home by naming it. Course, on one level I must have known I’d now have to come up with some other obstacle . . .’ I shake my head in disgust. ‘I wonder what it would have been: that I didn’t like the doorknob, or the letterbox. My hysteria would have attached itself to some other random thing, given half a chance, but I didn’t see that then. Kit was relieved too. We were almost . . . I don’t know, it was like we were celebrating. We didn’t go straight back to bed – we stayed up looking at house name websites on the internet, laughing at the ridiculous suggestions: Costa Fortuna, Wits End. Apparently names like that are really popular – that’s what the website said. I found it hard to believe, but Kit said he could imagine some of his colleagues calling their houses things like that. “It’s a common affliction, thinking you’re funny when you’re not,” he said. “Wits End. Might as well call your house, ‘I’m a Dullard’.” I asked him what he wanted to call ours.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Oh, loads of stupid things – things he knew were stupid, to wind me up. I don’t think he tried too hard – he knew it wasn’t up to him. The name needed to be perfect, and it had to come from me – something that would say “this is home” and make all my anxiety go away. Kit started talking rubbish. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “Let’s call it the Death Button Centre. Do you think the people at the Beth Dutton Centre’d be pissed off? Or the postman?” I told him not to be ridiculous. Should’ve known that’d only make him worse.’ The memory, absent from my mind for so many years, is suddenly more vivid than reality. I can see myself clearly, sitting at the desk in the Martland Tower flat, Kit kneeling down beside me, both of us in our pyjamas. We only had one computer chair in those days. I was howling with laughter, so loud I could hardly hear Kit’s voice, tears pouring down my face. ‘He pretended he was deadly serious, said, “It’s growing on me the more I think about it: the Death Button Centre. We could get a plaque made for the front door. No, I know, even better – let’s call it 17 Pardoner Lane . . .” ’ The words evaporate in my mouth as new fear surges through my body.
What? What is it?

The Death Button Centre. The Death Button Centre . . .

I stand up, stumble, steady myself against the wall.

‘Connie? What’s wrong?’

I know what I saw – the missing detail that I haven’t been able to bring to mind until now.
Yes
. It was there. It was definitely there, in the picture with the dead woman and the blood. But not in the photograph of the lounge, the one without the woman, the one I would see if I looked at the tour of 11 Bentley Grove now. In that picture, it’s missing. ‘I’ve got to go,’ I tell Alice. I grab my bag and run, ignoring her pleas for me to stay, leaving behind the bottle of remedy she has prepared for me that’s standing on the corner of her desk.

*

POLICE EXHIBIT REF: CB13345/432/25IG

VOLCANO

by Tilly Gilpatrick, 20 April 2010

V
ery hot lava

O
ver all the land

L
ike a big hot wet blanket

C
overing the world in

A
sh

N
obody can fly home from their holiday

O
range hot lava!

Super work, Tilly! Some lovely images!

No, it
'
s an appalling poem, even for a five-year-old.This is a good poem:

When first my way to fair I took

Few pence in purse had I,

And long I used to stand and look

At things I could not buy.

Now times are altered: if I care

To buy a thing, I can;

The pence are here and here
'
s the fair,

But where
'
s the lost young man?

– To think that two and two are four

And neither five nor three,

The heart of man has long been sore

And long
'
tis like to be.

Chapter 16

23/7/2010

Ian Grint was early. Simon had guessed he might be; he’d sensed the detective’s anger within seconds of meeting him, the impatience of a man who needs to prove people wrong, and quickly. Grint headed for the bar, making a pint-lifting gesture at Simon, who nodded. Actually, he hadn’t needed as much time as both he and Grint had thought he would. He’d finished reading everything half an hour ago, and had gone for a stroll. The pub Grint had chosen, the Live and Let Live, was in a residential area, so Simon hadn’t seen any of the historical college buildings that Charlie had told him he had to see because they were so beautiful, only houses and another small pub: the Six Bells.

Walking around, Simon had drawn the conclusion that Cambridge was a more imaginative place than Spilling. More tolerant too. The front door colours had surprised him: yellow, orange, lilac, pink, bright turquoise. Evidently the inhabitants of Cambridge believed that all shades were eligible for consideration; in Spilling most people opted for something sombre and dignified: black, dark red, dark green. Simon doubted there was a single orange door in the whole of the Culver Valley.

The names of the pubs in Spilling were stodgily traditional: the Brown Cow, the Star, the Wheatsheaf, the Crown. Never in a million years would a Culver Valley landlord choose to call his establishment the Live and Let Live. Live and Carp About Anyone Who Doesn’t Live the Way You Live, perhaps – the Live and Carp for short. The Liv and Chris Gibbs, Simon thought surreally – that was one pub Charlie wouldn’t be setting foot in.

He moved the papers off the table, put them down on the chair next to him as Grint approached with their pints. ‘I hope none of my esteemed colleagues has been in here and spied those over your shoulder,’ he said. ‘Much as I’d love to get sacked at the moment, I probably ought to try not to. Don’t think my wife would appreciate it.’ The word ‘esteemed’ was loaded with sarcasm.

‘I’m going to disappoint you,’ Simon told him. ‘I haven’t found much. Nothing you could put in front of your DI and say, “This is a new angle, a way of taking things forward.” ’

‘You’ve found something, though?’

‘Something and nothing. The statements Kit and Connie Bowskill signed – did you take them separately or were they—’

‘Separately.’ Grint took a swig of his beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘The official statements, they were both alone with me. Later I put them in a room together and took them over it all again, brought Sam Kombo in as well. I wanted to see how they changed in each other’s company, if at all.’

‘Did they?’

‘Not in any way you couldn’t predict. He looked more uncomfortable when she was there, but so would I have done, in his shoes – she was spitting accusations at him left, right and centre. She was a bit more high-octane in front of him than on her own, but only marginally.’

Simon sorted through the pile of papers, looking for Connie and Kit Bowskill’s official police statements. ‘When you interviewed them separately, did you spot anything odd?’

Grint laughed. ‘You mean, apart from everything about them?’

‘Factual contradictions.’

‘Where do you want me to start? He’s convinced she must have programmed the address into his SatNav, she says he did it. He reckons she might be a psycho killer, she thinks he’s the psycho. They’re each ready to suspect the other one of murder on the basis of a picture and not much else – a picture he didn’t even see.’ Grint shakes his head. ‘Bizarre doesn’t begin to cover it.’

‘There’s a smaller point of disagreement between them that might be significant.’ Simon passed the two statements to Grint. ‘The house they nearly bought in Cambridge in 2003. In Connie Bowskill’s statement, she gave the address as 17 Pardoner Lane. In Kit’s, it’s 18 Pardoner Lane.’

Grint frowned. Stared as Simon pointed out the relevant paragraphs. ‘Can’t believe I missed it,’ he said eventually. ‘Still, at a distance of seven years, it’s an easy mistake for one of them to have made. I doubt it means anything.’

Simon disagreed. ‘They both mention that the house was next to a school called the Beth Dutton Centre. Both go into detail about why this particular house appealed to them: original Victorian fireplaces, original iron railings outside . . .’ Simon shrugged. ‘Whichever one got it wrong, I can’t see why they’d remember all that and not the number of the house.’

‘I forget trivial stuff all the time,’ said Grint. ‘Don’t you?’

Simon never forgot anything. He dodged the question. ‘Connie Bowskill’s phone’s going straight to voicemail – I must have tried her fifty times since I got back from Spain. I never spoke to the husband, so I didn’t have his number. Your files did, though, so I made use of it.’ He waited for Grint to remonstrate with him. When it didn’t happen, he volunteered more information. ‘He’s agreed to meet me this evening at eight.’

‘Where?’ Grint asked.

Not your business
. Simon told himself to stop being a tosser. Grint had a right to know.

‘In a pub – the Maypole. I was going to ask you for directions.’

Grint made a dismissive noise. ‘The Maypole,’ he muttered, as if even the name offended him. ‘I won’t be coming with you, in that case.’

I didn’t ask you to
. Simon was better at talking to one person alone than he was in a group, even a small one.

‘You can ring me later, tell me if you get anything worthwhile out of him,’ said Grint. ‘If not, I’m going to have to stop pretending I’m a superhero. I’ll make the guv happy by following orders and pretending nothing ever happened – not much else I can do, is there?’

He was disappointed, Simon realised. Sam had talked up Simon’s talents, and Grint had expected him to come up with a plan of action, to see something in the files he’d given him that wasn’t there to be seen. Simon was the one who had turned out not to be a superhero.

‘According to Kit Bowskill, Connie’s phone’s broken,’ he said. ‘She threw it into a main road.’

‘Yeah, I can see her doing that.’ Grint looked at his watch. ‘You’ve got just over an hour to kill. Fancy grabbing a curry? You can tell me your unlikely theories and I’ll tell you mine. I’ve always found it’s the shit ideas that lead to the good ones.’

Simon felt uncomfortable eating with people he didn’t know well. He and Grint weren’t friends. Why did they need to have a meal together? What was the point? ‘I wasn’t thinking about food,’ he said. He was thinking about Pardoner Lane, that it couldn’t be too far from where he was now. He had time to find it, see whether the Beth Dutton Centre was next to number 17 or number 18. A small discrepancy, true, but there was no reason to think it wasn’t important all the same.