‘Chill, Hannah.’
I made a face. ‘I’ve never even met the guy, but I already dislike him.’
The Mail reported that Greg had been playing golf in Palm Springs when news of the accident reached him. As much as I wanted to pin Susan’s hit-and-run on the opportunistic so-in-so staring out at me from the front page of the Mirror, unless he could manage a round trip from Los Angeles to London and back at the speed of light, he had a rock-solid alibi. Or an accomplice.
Had one of Susan’s readings hit too close to home? In that case, suspects were legion. All they needed was a car. A dark car, I reminded myself. Either blue or gray. Maybe black. A Ford, or a Vauxhall, or a Fiat. Everybody in England seemed to drive a Ford, Vauxhall or Fiat. How do you spell ‘needle in a haystack’?
SIXTEEN
‘There were men shouting, screaming, praying and dying all around them. The cold water was starting to take its toll. The minutes passed into hours and still there was nothing but darkness… After three hours he could no longer feel his legs. From the waist down he was paralysed by the penetrating coldness of the water… He also admits, with some candour, that one thing that kept going through his mind all night while he hung on to the raft, was that he had never had a woman, and he could not leave the world in that condition.’Ken Small, The Forgotten Dead, Bloomsbury, 1988, pp.46-47
The rest of the day, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Susan’s murder was related to a reading, and that kept bringing me back to the mysterious disappearance of Jon’s first wife, Beth. What if Jon had murdered Beth? What if he believed Susan Parker was getting messages from Beth, his victim, from the great beyond, and what if he thought Susan was going to rat him out?
There were a lot of ifs in that statement.
Even though Jon was married to my best friend, and as much as I liked him, Jon had – for the moment, at least – shot straight to the top of my suspect list. The only difficulty with this theory was my husband. Paul was Jon’s alibi.
Lying next to Paul in bed that night, I said, ‘Tell me about your sailing trip.’
Paul tugged on the duvet and tucked it under his chin. ‘Well, the first race was Saturday…’
‘Start before the race, when you left home.’
Paul turned his head on the pillow and studied me quizzically. ‘We sailed to Cowes…’
‘No, before that.’
‘OK. Wednesday morning I got up, staggered to the loo, showered, shaved, brushed my teeth…’
‘Not that early, silly.’
Paul propped himself up on one elbow. ‘What’s going on, Hannah?’
‘I was just wondering, is all. After you sailed out of the Dart Marina, was Jon with you the whole time?’
‘Of course he was! He was at the helm.’
‘Thursday and Friday, too?’
‘Where else would he be? We were stripping the boat of non-essentials, getting her ready to race.’
‘Jon didn’t slip away, even for a few hours?’
Paul’s eyes widened, comprehension dawning. ‘If you’re asking me whether Jon had time to get himself from Cowes to Dartmouth and back again…’
‘That’s exactly what I’m wondering.’
‘What are you smoking, Hannah? Jon didn’t have a car, for one thing. And even if he’d rented a car, Cowes is on the Isle of Wight. It’s an island, remember? Water all around? There’d be a ferry involved.’ He pressed to my lips a finger that smelled like lavender soap. ‘And before you go off on another wild tangent, we kipped aboard Biding Thyme, so there was no sneaking out of the hotel room at night, either.’
I sighed, stretched out my arm and began playing with a lock of his hair, twisting it around my finger.
Paul closed his eyes. ‘May I go to sleep now?’
‘Certainly.’ I kissed the tip of his nose goodnight, lay down and stared at the concentric circles of light my bedside lamp was casting on the ceiling.
‘Maybe Alison would have been more secure in her relationship with Jon if they’d been able to have a child together,’ I mused, speaking more to the ceiling than to my husband.
Next to me, Paul stirred. ‘Well, that would never happen, would it?’
‘Didn’t, but could have.’
‘Not possible, Hannah. Jon had a vasectomy.’
I shot straight up into a sitting position, leaned over my husband. ‘What did you say?’
Without opening his eyes, Paul repeated. ‘Jon had a vasectomy.’
‘That’s what I thought you said.’ I plopped back on to my pillow, my brain reeling. ‘Are you sure?’
Paul nodded.
‘One hundred per cent positive?’
‘What’s it going to take, Hannah? A signed affidavit from his surgeon?’
‘When?’ I asked.
‘A year or so after Kitty was born.’
I sat bolt upright, stunned by the news. ‘Jeeze, Paul! Jon told you that?’
‘One night at the Cherub, when we were here on the exchange, in fact.’ He turned on his side to look at me. ‘Jon was feeling no pain at the time, and he let it slip. Frankly, I’d forgotten all about it until now.’
‘From talking to Alison, I don’t think she knows.’
‘That would surprise me very much. Jon and Alison seem very close.’
‘Maybe so, but take it from me, Alison’s clueless.’ I folded my pillow in half and propped it behind my back. ‘OK, you’re a guy. You tell me. Why would Jon keep his vasectomy a secret from Alison?’
‘Perhaps he was afraid she would leave him if she found out he couldn’t father her children?’
‘Could be,’ I agreed. ‘But aren’t vasectomies reversible?’
‘Sometimes. But the surgery would have to be private, not on the NHS’s dime. Maybe money was an issue.’
With Paul to alibi him, I was willing to scratch Jon off my list of suspects in Susan Parker’s murder, but something still didn’t compute. Why would a happily married man with only one child decide to have a vasectomy? Clearly, he didn’t want to have any more children with Beth. So, maybe he wasn’t as happily married as everybody thought.
Next to me, Paul began to saw logs.
I elbowed him awake. ‘We have to ask him, Paul.’
‘Ask who what?’ he snuffled.
‘Jon. Invite him to meet you at the pub. Ask him why he got that vasectomy.’
‘You’re not going to let me get any sleep until I agree, right?’
‘I see you understand.’
‘OK, I’ll try.’
‘Do or not do,’ I quoted, channeling Yoda. ‘There is no try.’
When Paul and I walked into the Cherub just before noon the following day, Jon was already there, sitting at a table in the corner, nursing a pint. When he caught sight of us, he shot to his feet. ‘Hi, Hannah. I didn’t know you’d be coming, or I’d have brought Alison along.’
He kissed the air next to my cheek. ‘Name your poison, folks.’
While Jon went to the bar to fetch a shandy for Paul and a lemon and lime for me, we sat down. ‘You go first,’ I whispered.
After the arrival of our drinks and the usual pleasantries, Paul took the lead. ‘Actually, Jon, we didn’t invite Alison on purpose. There’s something Hannah and I want to ask you.’
Jon sipped his lager, winked at me. ‘Very mysterious.’
‘Before we go any further,’ Paul continued, ‘I want you to assure me that you didn’t have anything to do with Beth’s disappearance.’
Jon’s eyebrows shot into the stratosphere. ‘Christ, Ives! How can you even think that?’
‘I don’t believe you did, but a couple of things that we’ve found out recently simply don’t add up.’
Jon ran a hand nervously through what was left of his silk-fine hair. ‘Like what?’