‘No,’ said Ruth. ‘Only Malcolm’s seen it, apart from me, and now you. Aidan and I haven’t spoken properly for months.’ She looked bereft. ‘I thought if Malcolm knew what the man looked like, he could look out for him. He’s often here when I’m not—bit of a guardian angel, really. He keeps an eye on things for me. There, look, you can see the man’s face.’

Malcolm. He must have seen the display wall in the bedroom. No wonder he’d reacted oddly when Charlie had turned up in person. Clearly Ruth’s made herself known to you . . . She didn’t tell me she was going to make contact. Did Malcolm Fenton know why Ruth was obsessed with Charlie? Did Aidan Seed? He had to, surely, if he shared Ruth’s bed. What possible reason could there be? How many other people had seen the wall? Had the men from Winchelsea Combi Boilers seen it? Had they also recognised Charlie this morning?

Her eyes were fixed on the screen, but she wasn’t really looking. Ruth’s voice cut through her thoughts and she realised she’d missed most of the show. ‘Look, you can see his face clearly now. See the way he’s looking at the window?’

No. It couldn’t be.

It was. Bobble hat or no bobble hat, it was him. With a black Labrador, for Christ’s sake? Now Charlie knew two things Ruth didn’t know she knew.

‘He’s probably just a nosey bastard,’ she said. If Ruth noticed that her tone or manner had changed, she showed no sign of it. Charlie couldn’t remember the last time she’d trusted anyone less than she trusted this strange woman who was staring at her wide-eyed, apparently waiting for help of some sort. ‘Why did you seek Mary out?’ she asked abruptly.

‘Pardon?’ Ruth paused the tape.

‘You said she attacked you. You left the gallery and never went back. Sounds pretty upsetting. Yet subsequently you went to her house. Why?’ I’m going to stick my fingers into every hole in your story, bitch, and I’m going to pull and pull until the whole thing snaps and I get to watch you fall apart.

‘For the painting,’ said Ruth. ‘For Aidan. Aidan wanted it. But that was later, much later.’

‘All right, so what happened next? After the incident with Mary in the gallery last June, and you leaving your job? That was six months before Aidan told you he’d killed her, right?’

‘I can’t tell you everything you want to know.’ Charlie heard panic in Ruth’s voice. ‘I can tell you everything I know, everything that happened, but not why, or what it means.’

‘I’ll settle for anything that isn’t a lie.’

‘No more lies,’ Ruth promised. ‘What happened next was that Aidan and I went to an art fair in London.’

7 - Monday 3 March 2008

7

Monday 3 March 2008