‘Well, hardly in flagrante.’
‘To all intents and purposes. I did spend the night with him. I’m not pretending otherwise. I don’t know the simplest way to explain that. It’s all rather complicated.’ Nikki Green swept the long highlighted hair back off her forehead. Carole and Jude were again reminded of her likeness to Chervil Whittaker.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I married Giles because he asked me to. It seemed to matter to him in a way that kind of thing has never mattered to me. Maybe because he lost his own father so young, he always dreamed of some kind of stability. A kind of family life; though not with children, not if I was going to be involved. I made it clear from the start there wouldn’t be any of them.’
‘Because you couldn’t have children?’ asked Carole.
‘No. Because I didn’t want them. So far as I know, I’ve got no malfunction in my apparatus for the manufacture of sprogs, I’ve just never fancied them. At the core of my being there’s a strong spine of selfishness. I enjoy life. I look after number one, and I’m quite good at being independent.’
‘But you still married Giles,’ Jude pointed out.
‘Yes, and that, as I said, was because he asked me to. I had no idea whether it would last or not. I knew neither of us would be faithful. It’s not in our nature.’
‘So you fully expected your husband to have affairs?’
‘Yes. Just as I fully anticipated having a good few myself. Over the years I’ve probably seen more action in that respect than Giles has. When he had his job in the City he worked much longer hours than I did. So I had more time to stray.’ Nikki Green grinned wolfishly.
‘What do you do?’ asked Carole.
‘I’m an artist’s agent.’
‘Oh, my daughter-in-law’s in a theatrical agency for—’
‘No, artists, not artistes. I represent people in the visual arts.’
‘Painters and people? Like Denzil?’ asked Jude.
‘Precisely.’
‘So you met him first as an artist?’
‘Yes. And he introduced me to Giles.’
‘From what Denzil was saying this morning, he and Giles had quite a few girlfriends in common.’ The old-fashioned quality remained in Carole’s voice.
‘Yes. So Denzil and I had been having a thing for a while before I hooked up with Giles.’
‘An affair that continued?’
‘On and off. For someone so self-centred and up himself, Denzil is a surprisingly generous lover. Very good in bed – and I speak as a connoisseur.’
‘And would you say the two of you are “an item” now?’ asked Carole.
‘We never were an item. It’s some months since Giles and I have been living together. I have quite a strong sex drive, but I don’t want to go through all that rigmarole of online dating and . . . It’s better to hook up again with someone you know well. So when Denzil and I are both free . . . like last night . . . we get together.’
Nikki Green spoke with no embarrassment and with absolute certainty about what she wanted from life. Carole could not imagine anyone conducting sexual relationships on such a casual basis. But at the same time a bit of her did find the idea rather appealing. ‘So don’t you ever feel jealous?’ she asked.
Nikki Green grinned. ‘Haven’t for a long, long time. Maybe all it means is that I’ve never properly fallen in love. Well, if that’s the case, fine by me. Imagine what it would be like actually worrying about what some little shit like Denzil – or Giles, come to that – was up to every minute of the day.’ She shook her head and chuckled. ‘Give me the quiet life.’
‘So,’ Carole went on, still intrigued by the woman’s attitudes, ‘it doesn’t worry you when you see Giles with Chervil, like you did at the Private View?’
‘Doesn’t worry me at all. He can work his way through the entire spice rack, so far as I’m concerned.’
‘And what about Giles and Fennel Whittaker?’ asked Jude gently.
For the first time here was something that did give Nikki Green pause. ‘That one I wasn’t so happy about.’
‘You were jealous of her?’
An impatient shake of the head. ‘I wasn’t unhappy from my point of view. But from hers. I knew how vulnerable that girl was. The last thing she needed was Giles and Denzil messing with her head.’
‘Did you talk to Giles about it?’
‘Yes, but he wasn’t listening. It was round the time that his job was on the line. Considering other people’s feelings was never high on my husband’s list of priorities; back then, he was even more blinkered than usual.’
Carole took up the baton of interrogation. ‘Had you met Fennel before the Private View?’
‘I’d met her at other private views, arts functions, gallery openings. It’s a smallish world, you know.’
‘Before your husband started having an affair with her?’
‘Yes, and after.’ Nikki Green grinned again. ‘And I wish you could get that note of shock out of your voice. It really wasn’t such a big deal.’
‘But at the Private View, when she started bawling Denzil out, did that embarrass you?’
‘I was embarrassed for the girl . . . well, no, not embarrassed, sorry for her. She clearly had so much she needed to get off her chest. I wouldn’t be surprised if letting it all out made her feel a whole lot better. You know, like lancing a boil.’
‘You’re right, actually,’ said Jude, not expecting such psychological perspicacity. ‘That’s what she said to me afterwards. She’d planned that public denunciation of Denzil, and letting it all out had been a very positive experience for her. But then within a few hours, she apparently killed herself.’
Nikki shrugged. ‘That’s mental illness for you. Sad, but you can’t do a lot about it, I gather. Just bad luck, like being born ginger.’
‘That’s how Fennel described it to me,’ said Jude.
‘There you are then. Just an incredibly bum deal donated to you by your genes. I’ve been lucky. I may be a selfish cow, but at least, thank God, I’ve never had a negative thought in my life.’
Jude had frequently heard Carole make similar statements – well, without the ‘selfish cow’ bit – and she knew how at odds with the truth they were. And she’d have put money on the fact that Nikki Green’s carapace was equally fragile. But now wasn’t the moment for psychoanalysis.
‘I was just wondering,’ Jude began casually, ‘whether that diatribe of Fennel’s at the Private View was only aimed at Denzil?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, it was very public, wasn’t it? I’d assumed the attack was aimed where it seemed to be – at Denzil. But at that stage I didn’t know she had also had an affair with Giles.’
‘Oh, I see what you mean. Killing two birds with one stone.’ The idea seemed to amuse Nikki Green. ‘I suppose it’s possible. If so, bad luck for Fennel, if she thought she was going to make either of those bastards feel guilty. Giles and Denzil have two of the thickest skins I have ever encountered.’
Again Jude wondered how true that was. From the intimate communications of her healing sessions, she knew that everyone had their vulnerabilities. She also knew that the more rigidly people tried to deny their fallibility, the more destructive those vulnerabilities could be.
And the genuine distress shown by Denzil Willoughby at the news of his mother’s death suggested that his skin was far from thick.
‘It’s a thought, though,’ said Carole. ‘Fennel Whittaker did say some pretty odd things that evening.’
‘So? She was mentally ill.’ Nikki Green said these words as though they put an end to the conversation.
‘She talked about someone “causing the death” of another person. If that was addressed to Denzil, do you have any idea what it could have meant?’