The Other Woman’s House (32 page)

‘Nothing?' Mum looks at Dad with a plea in her eyes, as if she expects him to spring into action to correct the injustice. ‘What do you mean, they're doing nothing?'

Kit and I are prepared. We knew the reaction we'd get. We foresaw the horrified gasp, the quiver of outrage in the voice. We predicted Dad's reaction too, which we've not had yet, but we're fully covered on that front, because we prophesied the time delay. Mum is the instant responder of the two of them, spewing out her panic in gusts of self-righteous accusation. It will be ten minutes – fifteen at the outside – before Dad contributes anything to the discussion. Until then, he will sit with his head bent forward and his hands laced together, trying to come to terms with yet more unwelcome evidence that life does not always behave in the way Val and Geoff Monk believe it ought to.

Anton will continue to lie across my living room rug, propped up on one arm, talking mainly to Benji about their current favourite subject: a collection of fictional aliens called things like Humungosaur and Echo-Echo. Fran's a multitasker; while making sure Benji doesn't demolish Melrose Cottage, she will aim regular half-grumpy, half-jokey criticisms at Mum and Dad as a way of shielding them from the larger, more devastating criticism they deserve.

In the company of my family, Kit and I are psychics who never get it wrong. The predictability of the Monks ought to be a welcome relief after everything we've been through. Predictably, it isn't.

‘From what we can gather, there's a disagreement internally,' Kit tells Mum. No one would guess from listening to him how miserable and lost he feels. Whenever my parents are around, he plays the role of their brilliant, strong, capable son-in-law; he told me once that he enjoys it – it's the person he'd like to be. ‘Ian Grint doesn't want to let it go, but he's being leaned on. Heavily, or that's the impression we're getting from Sam Kombothekra.'

‘But Connie saw that…that terrible thing! Another woman saw it too. How can the police just go on as if nothing's happened? There must be something they can do.' Anyone listening who wasn't an expert on the way Mum's mind works might think she had forgotten that she didn't believe me at first. That's what most people would do: say one thing, then, when they were proved wrong, say another and choose to forget that at one time they were on the wrong side. Not Val Monk; no ordinary ego-preserving self-deception for her. She explained to me and Kit on Tuesday night, when we were too exhausted from our day with Grint to argue with her, that she had nothing to rebuke herself for: she was right not to have believed me at first because nobody knew about Jackie Napier at that stage, and, without her corroboration, what I was saying couldn't possibly have been true. Later, once we were alone, Kit said to me, ‘So, to summarise your mum's position: she was as right not to believe you then as she is right to believe you now. Even though if it's true now, it must have been true then as well.' We laughed about it – actually laughed – and I
thought how strange it was that in the middle of all the misery and uncertainty and fear, after a day spent being questioned by detectives who didn't like or trust either of us, Kit and I were still able to glean some comfort from our old favourite hobby of ripping my mum to pieces.

‘It's the lack of forensic evidence that's the problem,' Kit explains to her now. ‘They've gone over every inch of 11 Bentley Grove, taken up the carpets, the floorboards – essentially, they dismantled the house and sent the various parts off for analysis, and they found nothing. Well, no, they found more than nothing,' Kit corrects himself. ‘They found nothing in a way that means something.'

‘Twenty billion's more than nothing, isn't it, Daddy?' Benji asks Anton, tapping him on the leg with a grey plastic alien toy.

‘Anything's more than nothing, mate.' If things were normal between Kit and me, I would look at him now and send a silent message:
Could this be the most profound thing Anton's ever said?

‘Sam told us there are two different kinds of non-result, in forensic terms,' Kit goes on. ‘The conclusive and the inconclusive.'

Still with us, Anton?

‘What's that supposed to mean?' Mum says impatiently.

‘You can find nothing at the site of a possible crime and still not know if a crime's been committed there or not. Or, as in this case, you can find no forensic evidence and say beyond doubt that a particular crime
wasn't
committed there. Sam says there's no way there could have been the amount of blood in that house that both Connie and Jackie Napier saw without it leaving forensic…detritus behind. Since it didn't…' Kit shrugs. ‘The police have nothing to work with. Forensically, they have to conclude no one was killed there. They've got one
estate agent and two former owners of the house swearing blind that the carpet in the lounge now is the same one that's been there for years, since before the present owner moved in. They've spoken to the neighbours, who told them not much, apart from that Bentley Grove's a lovely quiet street. No known missing persons fit the description Connie and Jackie Napier gave them, and there's no body. What can they do?'

‘They're the police,' says Mum, tight-lipped. ‘There must be something – an angle they haven't thought of, something else they can pursue.'

‘Kit's trying to explain to you that there isn't,' Fran tells her. I wonder if it bothers her that she's sticking up for a man she believes to be a liar with a secret life. She hasn't said anything about the conversation we had on Monday – not to Mum and Dad, not to Anton. They don't know about the address in Kit's SatNav, or his car on Street View. I didn't ask her not to tell anyone; it's her choice that we should all keep playing Happy Snappy Families. She's playing her role as willingly as Kit's playing his.

And you, Connie? Why don't you say something? Why don't you tell everyone your husband might be a murderer?

‘Ian Grint's no fool, Val,' Kit tries to soothe Mum. ‘He knows Connie and this Jackie person are telling the truth. Sam thinks his bosses know it too, but look at it from their point of view. If a murder
has
been committed, they've got no body, no suspects, no evidence apart from two witness statements and no way to take it forward. Completely hamstrung, aren't they? It's not so bad for Grint – he's only a DC, the buck doesn't stop with him. His DI's the one who's got everything to gain by saying, “This isn't a crime, it might just be a prank – let's assume it is, and forget all about it.”'

‘A
prank
?' Mum appeals to Dad again. ‘Did you hear that, Geoff? Killing someone is a joke, now, is it? Leaving them bleeding on a carpet…'

‘Mum, for God's sake.' Fran makes a face that suggests mental impairment. ‘Kit's saying that the police think there
was
no killing – the prank was getting someone to lie down in a load of red paint, or tomato ketchup…'

‘I know the difference between blood and paint,' I say.

‘What sort of prank is that?' Mum demands. ‘It's not very funny, is it? What woman in her right mind would ruin a lovely dress by lying in paint?'

‘Sam and Grint both think the prank theory's as daft as we all think it is,' says Kit. ‘Someone higher up the Cambridge police ladder suggested it when they found out that whoever hacked into the website and changed the virtual tour changed it back again half an hour later. I don't really understand why that's significant, and I'm not sure Sam and Ian Grint do either, but there's not a lot any of us can do. The decision's been made.'

‘And you're just going to sit back and do nothing?' Mum stares at me in horror. ‘Pretend it never happened? What about your responsibility to that poor woman, whoever she is?'

‘What can Connie do?' Kit asks.

‘I could apply for a job as Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire police,' I suggest.

‘Where's the cake, Daddy?' Benji asks Anton. ‘When are we going to give Connie her presents?'

I have no idea what he's talking about. Then I remember that this is supposed to be my birthday party. Today is my birthday. Like all Monk family celebrations, it began at 5.45 p.m. and will finish at 7.15 p.m., so that Benji can be in bed by 8.

‘First thing Monday morning, Kit, you phone the police,' says Dad.
Welcome to the conversation
. ‘You tell them you think it's a disgrace – you want answers and you want them now. You want to know what they're planning to do, and they'd damn well better be planning to do something.'

‘That's right.' Mum nods her support.

‘If they mess you around, you threaten to go to the press. If they still don't pull their finger out, you put your money where your mouth is. The minute it hits the local papers, the minute Cambridge residents know about this and start to panic, there'll be nowhere for DC Ian Grint and his chums to hide.'

‘Dad,
what
are you talking about?' Fran laughs. ‘Local residents won't start to panic. You make it sound as if there's a maniac on a killing spree, roaming the streets of Cambridge. Would you panic, if you heard that someone had been killed in Little Holling, if you had no reason to think
you
were in danger?'

‘That would never happen,' Mum says. ‘That's why we live in Little Holling – because it's safe and no one's likely to murder us in our homes.'

‘Cambridge isn't exactly Rwanda, is it, and someone seems to have been murdered there,' Fran fires back at her.

‘Cambridge is a city, with…people from all over the place living in it. No one knows anyone in a city, there's no sense of community. Nothing like what Connie saw would happen here, and if it did, the police would investigate it properly.'

‘Define “here”.' Fran looks to me for support. I look away. I can't risk getting into any kind of argument with Mum, in case I get carried away and accidentally mention that if ever a murder is committed in Little Holling, it will very likely be of her, by me. ‘Cambridge isn't that far away. I'm sure it's got quite a low murder rate, because people who live there are
generally quite intelligent and have better things to do than kill each other. Whereas in the Culver Valley…'

‘The Culver Valley's one of the safest places in England,' Dad says.

‘Are you kidding me? Anton, tell him! Don't you two
read
the local papers? In Spilling and Silsford in the last few years, there have been…' Fran stops. Benji is tugging at her arm. ‘Yes, darling? What?'

‘What's a murder? Is it when someone dies, when they're a hundred?'

‘Now look what you've done!' Mum wails at Fran. ‘Poor little Benji. It's nothing for you to worry about, angel. We all go to heaven when we die and it's lovely in heaven – isn't it, Grandad?'

‘
Angel?
' Fran looks ready to pounce. I don't think I've seen her this angry before. ‘We're on earth at the moment, Mother, not in heaven, and his name's Benji.'

‘First thing Monday morning, Kit.' Dad wags his finger. ‘You let that DC Ian Grint have it right between the eyes.'

I have to get away from them all. I mumble something about tea and cake, and force myself to leave the room at a normal pace, instead of running, which is what I want to do. In the kitchen, I close the door and lean against it. How long can I get away with staying in here? For ever?

The sound of knocking interrupts my fantasy.
Kit
. It must be – I can hear Mum, Dad and Fran still arguing in the lounge. I don't want to let him in, but as his co-conspirator I have no choice. He might have something important to say about the maintenance of the lie that we're presenting to my family this afternoon: our fake happy marriage.

‘You okay?' he asks me.

‘No. You?'

‘Just about staying afloat. Let's get on with the tea and cake, and then maybe we can get rid of them early.'

‘They'll leave at exactly seven fifteen, whatever we do or don't do,' I say. Kit ought to know better than to hope something different might happen. ‘Dad and Anton'll go straight to the pub for their Friday night pint, and Mum'll be busy for at least half an hour helping Fran put Benji to bed. I'll drive you to the station at seven twenty-five – that way I can be back by the time they all resurface. If any of them bothers looking, they'll see both our cars and assume we're both here.'

Kit nods. I fill the kettle and switch it on, take the shop-bought birthday cake out of the bread bin. I chose the most expensive one in the supermarket, as if that could make up for anything. I load cups, saucers and teaspoons onto a tray, fill the milk jug with milk, scrape the discoloured granules off the surface of the sugar so that Mum won't recoil when she looks into the bowl. Last but not least, a plastic lidded beaker full of apple juice for Benji, the only five-year-old in the world who still drinks out of a baby cup.

Kit's pulling clean cake plates out of the dishwasher. ‘Tomorrow I'll spend the day at Mum and Dad's,' I tell him. He holds out a large serrated knife for me to take. ‘If I'm there, none of them will come here. I'll tell them you're at home working.'

‘This is insane, Con. Why can't we tell them the truth? Our current project's coming to a head in London, I'm needed there full-time, so I've decided to stay at the flat for the foreseeable future.'

I take the knife from him. ‘That isn't the truth, Kit.'

‘You know what I mean,' he says impatiently, as if I'm splitting hairs. ‘Not the
truth
truth, but…can't we tell them
something closer to it, so that we don't have to pretend I'm living here when I'm not?' I watch him make up his mind to say more, and know what's coming. ‘Or we could make our lie true: you could let me move back in.'