“Then what did you mean when you said he was a stranger?” I had detached myself by this point. I knew what my next logical move was each time, and I made it, but I’d switched off my feelings. I knew, though, that when I switched them back on, I would find that nothing King Edward had said or would say, or could ever say, would make me feel any better.

His next email nearly stopped my heart. “I am not, and have never been, Damon Blundy. That’s what I meant by the stranger line. You’ve believed that you’ve been having a love affair with Damon Blundy. You haven’t. The man in that room was me—a man whose name you still don’t know, a man who’s still hiding from you. A stranger. I was being melodramatic. Of course I’m not really a stranger.”

I didn’t believe a single word he said, and knew I never would again. I remember going through the possibilities in my head:

1. King Edward was Damon Blundy, but the man at the Chancery Hotel wasn’t.

2. King Edward was the man at the Chancery, but he wasn’t Damon Blundy.

3. King Edward was neither Blundy nor the man at the Chancery.

4. King Edward was Blundy and the man at the Chancery.

There were probably more options to choose from, but I decided I’d rather run a deep bath and drown myself than try to figure them out.

Another email arrived, when I failed to respond to the last one. “I lied to you, Nicki. I’m so, so sorry. I know you won’t forgive me. That’s why I couldn’t email you for days afterward. I felt too guilty, if you want the truth. I hate myself as much as you must hate me. Please believe that. I don’t know why I ever thought it was a good idea to pretend to be someone I’m not. Please be reassured that everything else I’ve ever written to you has been sincere and heartfelt. As for our time together in the hotel, I’m sorry about not seeing things through to their logical conclusion. You know my code—I tried to explain it to you. Quaint though it might sound, I don’t want to cross my line in the sand and be fully unfaithful to my wife in terms of all things physical. I need to be able to live with myself. I hope you understand. I suffer from poor impulse control, and if I cut myself too much slack, I’m afraid of what might happen. KE7.”

“Fully unfaithful”—that was the phrase that made me want to stab him in both eyes. And that was when I wrote back and said it: the stupid, ridiculous, reckless thing that led to Damon Blundy’s murder.

He is no less dead . . .