“Spot on. What does that tell you?”

“Obvious, isn’t it? It must have occurred to Blundy, or Paula Priv, or both of them, that they were meeting on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 2011. What could be more fitting than to meet at eleven minutes past eleven? They probably thought it was funny: five elevens instead of three. Except . . .”

It was Simon’s turn to wait. Impatiently. “Go on,” he said.

“Well, why are they arranging to meet in an in-joke kind of way when they’re supposed to be enemies?” said Charlie. “He’s a demolition-job columnist who’s invented a nasty nickname for her—”

“And called her the UK’s worst mother more than once.”

Charlie shook her head. “Doesn’t make sense,” she said. “If you were meeting an enemy on November 11, 2011, you’d meet them at half past ten, or eleven. You wouldn’t say, ‘Tee hee, let’s meet at eleven minutes past eleven.’ It’s too . . . cozy.”

“Let’s say you were meeting Liv,” said Simon.

“No. No, let’s not, please.”

“All right, Stacey Sellers or Debbie Gibbs.”

“Thanks for giving me such a sparkling fantasy social life,” Charlie said sarcastically.

“If it was November 11, 2011, that you were planning to meet, would you suggest meeting at eleven minutes past eleven?” Simon asked.

“No.”

“And if they suggested it?”

“I’d think it was weird. Unless it was . . .” Charlie stopped. “It’s flirty, isn’t it? In a purely platonic relationship, you wouldn’t suggest it. Would you?”

“I don’t think so. I agree.” Simon looked pleased. “Also, you wouldn’t choose the date you met a purely platonic friend as the password for your laptop.”

“So he was cheating on his wife, having an affair with a hot MP,” said Charlie. “I guess that explains why he moved to Spilling. He used to live in London, didn’t he? I remember reading his column about moving—he said he’d had a dream about moving to the Culver Valley and being set upon by sexy women, and he had to try and make it come true. Sounds like his wife’s got an ample motive for murder,” Charlie summed up.

“He wasn’t married to her when he wrote that,” said Simon. “He and Hannah met on November 29, 2011, and got hitched in March 2012.”

“So . . . eighteen days after his second meeting with Paula Priv, the one that was so important to him that he made it his password, he met the woman he went on to marry?” Charlie frowned. “That’s all very . . . quick. Perhaps his fling with Paula only lasted two weeks. Things can move fast in relationships, I suppose. Not ours, obviously, but I’ve heard of speedy romantic developments happening to other people.”