The Telling Error (8 page)

‘No, I mean …
I
think it’s worth it, but I wanted your take on it. It could be perfectly innocent, just a local busybody, as you say.’

‘Course we have to talk to her,’ said Sellers.

Charlie exhaled slowly. ‘What’s this about, Gibbs? You’re trying to flatter me by making out my opinion really matters to you – I get that, though I’ve no idea why – but couldn’t you have found something more interesting to ask me, something a bit less obvious? Anyone with a brain, seeing what you’ve just shown me, would say you should speak to Nichola Clements as soon as you can.’

‘I’ve been saying it,’ said Sellers.

‘Anyone with a brain, and Sellers as well, would say interview Nichola Clements,’ Charlie teased.

Sellers attempted a smile, but it didn’t take. ‘What the fuck’s wrong with you?’ Gibbs asked him.

A good moment to leave them to it, Charlie decided. Even stone-cold-sober cultural awareness was preferable to this.

‘I can’t prove that Damon never loved me, so if it’s evidence you’re after, you’ll be disappointed. As I have been.’ Hannah Blundy faced Simon and Sam across the large oval-shaped wooden table in her kitchen. The family liaison officer, a young woman called Uzma who seemed incapable of performing any action quietly, was making them all tea, if the available visual evidence was reliable and if you considered it in isolation; the sound effects suggested a train crash at close range. Irritating though it was, Simon welcomed the background noise; it helped to add a veneer of normality to one of the most unlikely conversations he’d ever had, and he’d had a fair few.

‘I understand,’ said Sam. ‘You mean there was nothing concrete, only a … feeling you had?’

‘No, if I’d allowed myself to be guided by feelings alone, I could have been blissfully happy in my marriage,’ said Hannah. ‘Damon told me he loved me all the time. He behaved as if he loved me. Our physical relationship was great – very passionate.’ As she spoke, she seemed to be conducting a kind of inner audit:
Is that statement true? Yes. And is this statement also true? Yes. Am I sure? Yes.

‘But … you didn’t
feel
loved?’ Sam tried again.

‘Well, no, I did,’ said Hannah. ‘It was hard not to. Damon lavished attention on me – physically, emotionally. In every way. I’ve never known anyone give another person such care and consideration. You could put Damon’s treatment of me in a Hollywood romance and it wouldn’t be out of place.’

Simon and Sam exchanged a look:
where to go from here?

‘He complimented me constantly. He had great respect for my intelligence. Took all my needs and wants seriously. There’s nothing he wouldn’t have done for me, as he demonstrated over and over again.’ Hannah spread her hands and stared down at her palms. Simon couldn’t help but look at them too: white and dry like creased paper gloves.

‘I’d ask the impossible of him sometimes, to test him. More often than not, he’d prove it was possible. He really didn’t put a foot wrong, never once let the mask slip. That was the problem: his deception was so seamless that I
did
feel loved.’ Hannah let out a jagged sigh. ‘At the same time, I knew that euphoric feeling he gave me was based on a lie, so I tried not to allow myself to trust it.’ She laughed abrasively. ‘Easier said than done. My emotions were responding to Damon’s … rolling programme of false stimuli. I was being manipulated. Brilliantly, to give him his due, but … I didn’t want to feel loved if I wasn’t. I wanted to know the truth. And from the day we met until he died this morning, he would never tell me. He denied there was anything to tell.’

‘When did the two of you meet?’ Simon asked. He was going easy on himself, starting with questions likely to yield answers he’d understand. Getting to grips with dates and times was easier than trying to make sense of Hannah’s bizarre account of her husband’s spotlessly plausible hoax love. ‘How long were you and Damon together, and how long married?’

‘We met on 29 November 2011 and married in March 2012,’ said Hannah. ‘On 18 March.’

‘And … no children?’

‘No. I’m not too old – I’m only thirty-nine – but Damon wasn’t keen. He said he loved me too much to be willing to share – another lie. He wasn’t keen on children at all. Used to say they were boring and pointless. I could probably have persuaded him, though. He’d have given in if I’d framed it in the right way – “Prove you love me by giving me a baby” – but I didn’t want children either, not with him. Not until I’d found out what he wanted from me.’

‘How long after you married Damon did you, er, start to suspect that his love for you wasn’t genuine?’ Sam asked.

‘I didn’t suspect; I
knew
,’ Hannah said. She was a clarifier, Simon noted: pedantically obsessed with the accuracy of her own words as well as everyone else’s. It was a personality type he didn’t often encounter, but he recognised it when he did. Clarifiers made good witnesses normally. Except when they were telling you stories that made no sense at all.

‘Long before I married Damon, I knew,’ Hannah went on. ‘The first time he said he loved me, I thought, “No, you don’t. You can’t. It’s not possible.” If you’re wondering why I stayed with him …?’

‘Go on,’ said Sam.

‘Several reasons at first: I’d been single for a long time and was afraid I’d never meet anyone. Then I met Damon, or rather he met me. I was minding my own business, looking at cheap wool blankets in the National Trust shop on Blantyre Walk – folding and unfolding them, frowning and muttering complaints under my breath because none was quite right. I doubt I could have looked more frumpy spinster-ish and less sexually enticing if I’d tried. Damon …’

‘Are you OK, Hannah?’ Sam asked when she stopped. ‘We can take a break if you—’

‘No. Thank you. Let me carry on.’ Having said this, she pressed her lips shut as if she’d resolved never to speak again.

Simon and Sam waited.

Eventually, she said, ‘I didn’t notice Damon until he accosted me and started talking to me as if we’d been friends for years. I was flattered that such a good-looking man would even glance in my direction. I found him compelling to listen to, and, later, to talk to – conversations with Damon were like verbal firework displays. And I was intrigued. Intellectually curious. I wanted to work out what he was up to. That was what I thought at first: that I’d stay with him only until I’d figured out what he wanted so badly from me that he was willing to lie so ruthlessly and convincingly. Thanks, Uzma.’

Three cups of tea were slammed down on the table like heavy auction hammers. Uzma retreated and started to load the dishwasher; if he’d closed his eyes, Simon could have convinced himself that he was listening to a dangerously out-of-hand bottle fight.

Hannah had produced a tissue from the pocket of her jeans and was dabbing at the corners of her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You’d think I wouldn’t be too fussed about him being dead, in the circumstances.’

Right. You’re only his wife.
Proximity to Widow Weirdo was making Simon’s flesh itch. He knew he was being unfair, but the fact that Hannah was so suspicious of her late husband, and not in the least ashamed of being so, made him suspicious of her.

‘Of course you’re upset about Damon’s death,’ Sam said gently. ‘You … loved him?’

‘Yes, I did. Very much. I got hooked on the fake stuff, that was the problem. I responded with the real thing.’

‘Fake … love?’ Sam asked.

Hannah nodded. ‘No man had shown an interest in me for some time, so I succumbed to the pull of the phony. My love for Damon was as real as his for me was a sham, but the sham nourished my spirits more than an absence of authentic love would have. I was happy for long spells sometimes. Then it would hit me again: he’s acting. I tried telling my heart it had been tricked and mustn’t fall for it, but it didn’t listen to me any more than any heart ever does to wise advice.’ She looked doubtful suddenly. ‘I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t so wise. Fake love’s better than no love. It must be, or else why do the majority of my patients stay in non-nurturing romantic relationships?’

‘In your work as a psychotherapist, have you ever come across a situation like yours with Damon?’ Sam asked her. ‘People claiming their partners don’t love them but are just … convincingly pretending?’

‘No, never,’ said Hannah. ‘Don’t worry – the irony isn’t lost on me. I’m excellent at my job – sorry, I don’t do false modesty. I’ve never failed to get to the bottom of a patient’s relationship issue. Never. Sometimes it takes a while, but the moment always comes when things slot into place and I think, “Aha, that’s what’s going on here.” With Damon, I never got there, never found my answer. Maybe I was too close to see it.’

Simon’s impatience had started to tick inside him. It was time to confront her. ‘Hannah, sorry if I’m being slow, but … if Damon’s act was so flawless, how can you be sure he didn’t really love you?’

‘Because he said it too quickly. On our second date. He was – he
pretended
to be – too besotted too soon. So I suppose what I said before wasn’t strictly true: there
was
a flaw in his act, at the beginning. If he’d seemed to like me only a bit at first, to find me interesting enough to want to see me again … If he’d gone for a more gradual build-up and let me see his enthusiasm growing as he got to know me better, that I might have believed in. If he’d waited a few months before telling me he loved me for the first time—’

‘So it was the speed of his love that you didn’t trust?’ Simon interrupted her.

Hannah gave him a pointed look to let him know she’d noticed. ‘At that stage, yes. Later on, there were other things. He never got angry or irritable with me, never missed an opportunity to be kind to me, never pretended to listen to me while secretly tuning out, the way
all
husbands do. With Damon, it was as if he was … I don’t know, trying to commit every word I said to memory. Like people are at the very beginning, when they want to drink in as much information and detail of a new partner as they can. Damon was like that permanently, from the moment I met him. It’s so hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. It was as if he was sucking up to me the whole time, but not pathetically, not off-puttingly.’

‘I’d kill for one like that,’ Uzma chipped in undiplomatically from across the room. Hannah didn’t seem to notice.

‘Hannah, just to play devil’s advocate for a moment,’ Sam began hesitantly. ‘Isn’t it possible that … well, that it
was
love at first sight for Damon?’

No. Not this woman.
Simon felt guilty for thinking it and was pleased no one but him would ever know he had.

Sam was persisting with his romantic fantasy. ‘I can imagine that if you’re swept off your feet and if that feeling lasts …’ he said to Hannah. ‘I mean, maybe that explains why Damon thought you could do no wrong, and why he listened to you properly. Everything you’ve described, it sounds to me as if it could be … well, love. Not a fake.’

Hannah smiled at him. ‘That’s sweet, if a little naïve,’ she said. ‘Do you listen to every word your wife says?’

‘Maybe not every word, but—’

‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’

‘I do, yes,’ said Sam.

‘You?’ She turned to Simon.

He shook his head. ‘Something that feels like it, maybe,’ was the most he could manage.
A lust-fuelled delusion, a form of insanity.
He’d experienced it only once and hoped never to again, preferring the kind of love he had for Charlie, the slow-to-start sort that you added to gradually, that ended up being worth so much more; love that was more like a savings account than a spending spree.

Alice Fancourt.
Simon would never forget that name. It passed through his mind at least once a day.

‘You mean the frenzied obsessive attraction that sweeps through people like forest fire?’ said Hannah. ‘That I-must-devour-you urge that we call love because it’s the most powerful word we have?’

Simon made a non-committal noise.

‘No, that’s not what I meant when I said Damon lied about loving me on our second date. I’m not saying he was infatuated or in a pre-love state that he mistook for love. I’m saying he felt nothing for me beyond a desire to use me for his own ends, whatever they might have been.’

‘How can you know that for sure?’ Sam asked.

Hannah glared at him. ‘It should be obvious to you,’ she said. ‘There are some people who inspire passionate love-at-first-sight feelings and some who never have and never will – women like me.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Sam. Simon knew exactly what she meant.

‘Look at me, Sergeant Kombothekra.’ Hannah pushed back her chair and stood up so that he could see more of her. ‘What man would take one look at this face and this body – or even two looks, or three – and decide he had to have me or he’d go mad? This isn’t self-pity talking. I’m not secretly hoping you’ll both tell me how gorgeous I am. I know I’m not physically attractive. A long way from hideous, yes, but not actively good-looking, and not even ordinary. I look odd. My face is asymmetrical; my body’s out of proportion—’

‘Hannah, you’re being way too hard on yourself,’ Sam interrupted gallantly. Simon said nothing. Having listened to her assessment of her own appearance, he was inclined to take her tales of Damon Blundy’s phony love more seriously.