Although he knew it already, she’d told him before, he said to her in a light, amused tone, “I shall have to be very careful what I say to you, then.”
She was vehement, intense. “You never never say those sort of things. You never have. It’s one of the reasons I love you and go on loving you, because you never hurt my feelings.”
Again he lifted to her his wizened, skeletal face. “Not because I’m so sexy and charming?”
“That too. Of course.” She was entirely sincere, unsmiling. “And the thing about Fiona is, it was true what she told the police, that I disliked Jeff, that I hated him, if you like. I hated him because he said those cruel things. He’s dead and he died in a horrible way, but I don’t care. I’m glad. It won’t matter how I try, I shall never forget the things he said.”
Matthew covered her hands with his. “Not even if you get thin and I get fat?” He knew now that she was trying to lose weight and he supported her, though without admonition for the past or congratulations for the present. “Not even when I’m Large and you’re Little?”
As she was trying to answer him the doorbell rang. Michelle put up her hands to her face, her eyes suddenly bright and staring. “They’ve come back. On a Sunday. They don’t care when they come, they don’t even let us know they’re coming.”
“I’ll go,” Matthew said.
He walked quite quickly these days and could stand almost upright. The bell rang again before he got there. Fiona was on the doorstep, a new, unattractive Fiona, her dirty hair in rats’ tails, her face swollen from weeping, and her eyes red. The trousers she wore were several sizes too big for her and looked like a man’s. A shirt that should have been white, tucked into the waistband, showed how thin the past week had made her.
“Come in.”
She put her face close to his and kissed him on both cheeks. It was the kind of kiss the recipient isn’t required to return. “I have to see you. I can’t be alone any longer. I’m going back to work tomorrow. I think it will kill me.”
Michelle blushed brightly when they came into the living room. She got up and took two, then three, awkward steps toward the visitor. Matthew wondered what she’d say, if she’d even refer to her contention.
Fiona stepped toward her, they met, and the bereaved woman threw her arms round Michelle, breaking into sobs. “Why haven’t you come to me? Why have you deserted me? What have I done?”
The silence was profound. Then Michelle said, in a voice Matthew had never heard before, “You know what you’ve done.”
“I don’t, I don’t. I needed you and you left me alone. I’ve no one I care about but you. What have I done? Tell me, you must tell me. I swear I don’t know.”
“You don’t know that you told those police people that Matthew and I disliked Jeff? You told them that and now they suspect us? You don’t know that?”
“No, darling, they don’t suspect us,” Matthew said firmly. Fiona had broken into fresh tears. She threw out her arms wildly, her face streaming. “Sit down, Fiona. Come on now, calm yourself. I’ll make some tea.”
“Not until Michelle says she’ll forgive me. I didn’t know what I was doing or saying. I said anything that came into my head. I’d give everything I’ve got to take it back now.”
Michelle was looking at her sadly. “The difficulty is that you can’t take things back.”
“Then say you’ll forgive me. Say it can be as if it never happened.”
“I’ve forgiven you already,” Michelle said dryly and went into the kitchen to switch on the kettle. But I haven’t forgotten, she thought. Why is it so much easier to forgive than to forget?
Violent Crimes interviewed Leonardo Norton on Sunday evening. He was very shocked that Jims, whom he thought the most discreet and laid-back of men, had given them his name. A sense of grievance sounded in his voice. “It was at least eight-thirty before I saw him, probably nearer nine. I’d spent the day with my mother in Cheltenham.” This rang in his own ears as the most innocent and blameless of ways to spend a day. “I really can’t account for what Mr. Melcombe-Smith may have been doing in the afternoon.”
They didn’t ask him where Jims had spent the night. Presumably, they hadn’t much interest in what happened after 4:30 P.M.
The next question was rather near the bone. “Did he have a key to this house?”
“To my house? Certainly not.” Jims, after all, would never admit to such a thing.
“But the lady next door has?”
“Amber Conway? Yes, she does. As I have a key to hers. It seemed wise. I understand Mr. Melcombe-Smith borrowed her key.”
According to her sister, whom they tracked down, Amber Conway had gone to Ireland but not until Saturday. She had been at home on Friday night but the sister knew nothing about a key. Violent Crimes told Leonardo they’d come back. Leonardo phoned Jims at home. When the receiver was lifted he could hear a child screaming, another one laughing, and something that sounded like a Disney video bleating and crooning from the television.
“You are a one,” said Leonardo when he heard Jims’s morose tones. “Quite a little devil when you like. Did you really stick a knife in your wife’s husband’s guts?”
“Of course I fucking didn’t.”
“You’ll be taking bribes in brown envelopes next.”
“I don’t allow even you to say that.”
Leonardo laughed. “Want to come over?”
Jims told him coldly that he didn’t think so. He’d had a grilling that had lasted most of the day and he was tired. Besides, he’d have a fresh confrontation next morning.
“Nothing to worry about,” said Leonardo. “The papers will only say a Westminster man has been helping them with their inquiries. Or maybe ‘a well-known Tory MP.’ ”
“Leave it out, would you?” said Jims.
Chapter 23
ON THE OPPOSITE side of Glebe Terrace to Amber Conway and Leonardo Norton lived a woman Natalie Reckman had got to know. She was the sister of her boyfriend’s flatmate’s girlfriend, a rather distantly removed relationship but one whose branchings were instantly simplified by most of the parties meeting for a dinner arranged and cooked by the flatmate. His sister-in-law-to-be told the company how the peace of her street had been disturbed all day by the comings and goings of the police, some in uniform and some, she was sure, plainclothed. Their quarry appeared to be the woman opposite or it might instead be this woman’s neighbor, a young banker or stockbroker or something whom she’d always supposed perfectly law-abiding. Someone had told her that a frequent visitor to his house-and she’d seen him call there herself-was that MP whose wife was a bigamist. She recognized him when she saw his picture in the paper.
Natalie was so excited she could barely eat her dinner. Unfortunately, she had to eat it and she was going to have to stay the night there too or put her relationship with her boyfriend in jeopardy. He’d already complained she was always away and thought more of getting a scoop than of him. Anyway, there wasn’t much that could be done before the morning. But by nine next day she was in Glebe Terrace, her car in the underground car park to avoid all risk of towing away or clamping, and Natalie was ringing the bell on a pretty little house which was the right-hand half of a joined-up pair. No police were about. Just as it began to look as if Amber Conway was still away and Natalie had rung the bell three times, the door was opened by a half-asleep woman with tousled hair and sleep dust in her eyes, wearing a short dressing gown over baby doll pajamas.
“Amber Conway?”