The Telling Error (25 page)

The anger in Melissa’s voice was unmistakeable. ‘Then, a few months later, she started to mention Damon Blundy, and how interesting and clever his writing was. Again, the mock-innocent tone: “I hope you don’t mind me mentioning Damon Blundy so often?” she’d ask, all wide-eyed. “It’s just that he’s my new favourite columnist. It’s so important to have a favourite columnist, isn’t it?” I read his columns, and there was Nicki in the comments thread every time, sticking up for him. I’d asked her not to tell me about what she was getting up to – this was her way of saying, “Sod you, I’ll do what I like, as always.” I snapped one day and said, “I get it, Nicki – you’re sleeping with Damon Blundy. Bully for you.” She pretended to be shocked: “What? Where have you got that from? I’m not, and even if I were, I wouldn’t tell you, would I? You’ve asked not to be told.” Trust me, she was having an affair with him. Why else would she suddenly leave London and move to Spilling? She’s not an escape-to-the-country sort of person. She loves London. But Damon Blundy moved from London to Spilling, so she had to follow. She made Adam ask for a transfer at work so that she could be nearer to Blundy.’

‘Did you tell Lee what you suspected?’ Gibbs asked.

‘No. Not until Tuesday, after Nicki asked me to lie to the police. That brought home to me how serious it was. Before that … no. Lee’d have told his mum and dad, and they’d have told Nicki’s husband, Adam – everything that happened when I told him on Monday would have happened a lot sooner. I don’t actually want Nicki’s life to fall apart, or Adam’s, and since I didn’t know for sure—’

‘Hold on,’ Gibbs stopped her. ‘On Tuesday, you told your husband that you suspected his sister had been involved with Damon Blundy and … he told their parents?’ Why would he do that? Anyone sensible would want to keep the parents out of it, surely. ‘And they told Nicki’s husband?’
Nice family.

‘They told Nicki they were going to. She said there was no need – she’d already told him. I don’t know if that’s true or not. If I know Nicki … I think she might have told Adam something, knowing her parents would otherwise, but not the whole truth. No way.’

Gibbs leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘All right, so let’s say Nicki was having an affair with Damon Blundy. Does that mean she killed him?’

Melissa looked confused. ‘No, of course not. But … it means she might have done, doesn’t it? Lee thinks so, and he’s her brother. If she’s got nothing to hide, why’s she asking me to lie to the police for her?’

‘Where’s Lee today? Why didn’t the two of you come in together?’

‘He’s at work. He asked me if I’d be OK on my own and I said I would.’

‘What does he do for work?’ Gibbs asked.

‘He’s a speech writer. For the Home Office.’

And for his wife: a speech called ‘Why You Should Convict My Husband’s Sister of Murder’.

‘And you? What’s your job?’

‘I work from home,’ said Melissa. ‘I do the admin for a mail-order company that sells herbal remedies and health supplements. I’m also doing a part-time law degree. Why do you want to know all this?’

‘I just do,’ said Gibbs. It came out more aggressively than he’d intended it to.

‘Look, I sincerely hope Nicki didn’t kill Damon Blundy,’ Melissa said, no doubt sensing his antipathy towards her. ‘I’m not saying she did it, but it’d be irresponsible of me not to come to you with my concerns, especially knowing that she’s a … well, she’s basically a pathological liar!’

Gibbs said nothing. He sensed that Melissa hadn’t finished.

‘She doesn’t only lie to get herself out of trouble, like most people. She lies for fun. It’s her hobby. She commits crimes for fun too. Once, she stole a pair of shoes, kids’ shoes, at a soft-play centre. They belonged to a toddler who’d been mean to Ethan. Nicki stole his shoes, as revenge, and threw them in a bin on the way home. Once, she contacted the local paper – this was while she still lived in London – and slagged off Sophie and Ethan’s primary school. When a critical article appeared, instead of telling the head, “Yes, I was unhappy with the school so I dished the dirt to a newspaper,” she pretended …’ Melissa stopped. She looked embarrassed. ‘It’s so flagrantly implausible it’s almost funny. She denied flat out that she’d gone to the press. She told the head she’d been discussing it with a friend, privately and responsibly, and the deputy editor of the local paper had happened to be standing behind them at the time – in the supermarket, she said – and he’d then gone off and used it as a story without her permission or knowledge, the
bastard
.’ Melissa shook her head. ‘I heard her on the phone to the head. She actually called the guy a bastard, then burst out laughing as soon as she’d put the phone down. “Did that sound OK, in a so-implausible-it-must-be-true kind of way?” she asked me.’

And I bet you laughed along with her, didn’t you? I bet you were more fun before you hooked up with Lee.

‘There are probably stories like that about most people,’ said Gibbs.

‘Not me,’ said Melissa. ‘I’ve never stolen anything. I don’t lie habitually like Nicki does. I’m sure you don’t either.’

Gibbs’s confidence in her judgement shrank to less than zero. ‘Tell me about Tuesday,’ he said. ‘Nicki asked you to lie to the police?’

‘She didn’t have her car with her. She turned up, uninvited, and that was the first thing I noticed: a set of car keys in her hand that didn’t belong to her. She said her car was missing a mirror and the trains were knackered, so she’d hired a car. Then she told me Damon Blundy had been murdered, without sounding particularly shocked or upset about it. She sounded as if that were a minor detail and not what she’d really come to talk to me about. Then she asked me to lie.’

‘About?’

‘Two Sundays ago, she and I went to an auction together in Grantham. She said detectives investigating Damon Blundy’s murder might contact me, and she asked me not to tell them that her passenger-side wing mirror was missing that day.’

‘She asked you
not
to tell the police that the mirror was missing?’ Gibbs straightened up in his chair. Nicki had told Sam and Simon it had been missing when she and Melissa had gone to Grantham, and that Melissa would verify this.

‘Nicki thought she was being clever. She wanted the exact opposite of what she asked me for. I was supposed to object to the proposed dishonesty and insist that, if questioned by the police, I’d tell the truth. Only one problem: it
wasn’t
the truth. Her wing mirror
wasn’t
missing that day. It was definitely there. It was a warm day and I had my window down most of the way to Grantham. I looked at my reflection in the wing mirror, several times.’

‘You’re sure?’ Gibbs asked.

‘A hundred per cent. The car was a tip, as always, and so full of crumbs you could have stuffed a cushion with them, but all the mirrors that should have been there were there.’

As Gibbs was writing down this new information, Melissa said in an aggrieved voice, ‘Damon Blundy wasn’t the first time Nicki had cheated on Adam, and Tuesday wasn’t her first encounter with the police.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Gibbs. ‘About the police,’ he clarified. ‘I don’t care if Nicki’s slept with four men or forty.’ He was still annoyed about Melissa’s casual categorising of him as someone who wouldn’t habitually lie, when he lied to his wife, Debbie, every single day of his life.

‘A few weeks ago, Nicki turned up at my house – again, unannounced – and said something terrible had happened; this was the worst day of her life; it was something to do with the police—’

‘When?’ Gibbs interrupted. ‘Do you know the date?’

‘Yes. I looked at my diary yesterday and worked it out. It was Wednesday 5 June, about two o’clock. The bell rang; I answered the door. Nicki barged in and said she had to talk to me, it was an emergency, and I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone, not even Lee. She was pretty hysterical. I think she thought it was big enough and serious enough to sweep aside my reservations about hiding things from my husband.’

‘Did it?’

‘No. The opposite. If it was something important, I was even more determined not to have to lie to Lee about it. I explained to Nicki that she’d have to find someone else to confide in and discuss her … problem with. I tried to be as sensitive as I could, but … she didn’t take it well. Things got a bit out of hand.’

‘Did she become violent?’ Gibbs asked.

‘No, nothing like that. Just … nasty.’

‘In what way?’

Melissa sighed. ‘She said that when I lost my heart to Lee, I really did lose my heart – altogether. I’m heartless, apparently, because I’m not willing to be drawn into her lies. Then … I don’t know, just a load of rambling stuff designed to mess with my head and manipulate me. She said she didn’t know who she was any more, or if she could bear to be that person for much longer, but at least there was no danger, thank God, that she’d ever end up like me, and how overwhelmingly grateful she was for that … that kind of thing. I asked her to leave. She had one more go at persuading me: I was the only person who really knew her; I’d known her for years; only I could help her …’ Melissa shuddered. ‘I just wanted her out of my house. I didn’t mention it to Lee because I couldn’t bear to think about it, once it was over.’

It’s called feeling guilty. With good reason.

Melissa frowned. ‘Lee’s right: I should have told him straight away. He knows everything now. I’ve told him everything I know.’

‘It sounds as if Nicki might have wanted your help with a problem she was having,’ said Gibbs neutrally.

‘I’m sure she did,’ Melissa said with feeling, her face colouring. ‘I’m equally sure it was a problem entirely of her own making.’

‘And you think she might have made herself a new problem on Monday, by killing Damon Blundy?’

‘Lee thinks so. And I … Well, let’s just say with Nicki anything’s possible.’

‘Where were you and Lee on Monday morning between eight thirty and ten thirty?’ Gibbs asked her.

‘I hope you enjoy reading horror.’ Damon Blundy’s first wife handed Sam Kombothekra a copy of her memoir,
A Hole in the Stone.
Sam barely noticed the title, or the subtitle:
How I Survived the Marriage From Hell
. He stared instead at the name on the jacket: Verity Hewson.

Verity Hewson, Abigail Meredith
, he recited silently in his head.
Verity Hewson, Abigail Meredith
. Not, as they had quickly come to be known by CID, Doormat and Despot. If he could get through this interview without slipping up and calling either of Damon Blundy’s ex-wives a ‘D’ word, Sam would be a happy man.

The inconvenience of Verity living in Lothersdale, a small village in North Yorkshire, was mitigated by her having Abigail Meredith as a houseguest. Sam would have preferred it if they’d arranged it the other way round, since Abigail lived in Oakham, which was nearer to the Culver Valley, but you couldn’t have everything. And although it was a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Spilling to Lothersdale, Sam was enjoying being back in Yorkshire, where he’d lived and worked for eleven years. As he’d driven through the unspoiled greenery on his way to Verity Hewson’s converted barn, he had finally been able to confirm something he’d long suspected about Yorkshire: parts of it were visually stunning, yes, but it didn’t have a kind heart in the way that, say, Devon did. The fields and trees of Yorkshire were not welcoming Sam home today, much as they had failed to greet him warmly when he’d first moved to Bingley, near Bradford, from London. If Lothersdale had been a person, it might have said to him, ‘Well, then. Let’s hear what you’ve got to say for yourself. I doubt we’ll be impressed by it, whatever it is.’

‘You’re wasting your time on us, unless you’re just here to get background,’ Abigail Meredith said. She was sitting sideways in a low-backed chair with her legs draped over its arm. ‘Vet was busy being a birth partner for a friend of hers on Monday morning – she got to cut the cord and everything. I was more boringly at work all day, surrounded by colleagues. I’d much rather have been murdering Damon.’

‘Abby,’ said Verity authoritatively.

‘Sorry. It’s all just so horrible.’ Abigail swung her legs round so that she was sitting straight in her chair. ‘I can’t stand the endless
gloom
of death. I mean, even after the death’s happened, the gloom just goes on and on! You know who’d agree with me? Damon! He’d laugh if he could hear me joking about murdering him.’

‘If I’d known he was going to be killed …’ Verity’s lower lip shook. ‘I feel as if I’ve spoken ill of the dead, even though he wasn’t when I wrote the book.’

A good reason never to speak, or publish, ill of anyone, Sam thought.

‘Why? It’s all true,’ said Abigail. ‘Was then and is now. Damon said exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, and he approved of others doing the same. You should write another memoir, about losing him. I’ll co-write it with you.’

Losing him? Was Abigail referring to Damon’s murder? Hadn’t both women lost him when their respective marriages to him had ended?

‘So … you two are good friends, obviously,’ Sam said.

‘Yes,’ said Verity. ‘I couldn’t have got through these last few days without Abby. She’s held me together.’