“This one.” Gibbs pulled it off the shelf. “Verity Hewson was Blundy’s first wife. This is about their marriage.”

The effect upon Jane was remarkable. She gasped, put her right hand in her mouth and bit down on her index finger. Gibbs watched the skin whiten around her teeth. Even when she spoke, she kept her hand close to her face, as if protecting it. “The writer of that book was . . . Oh my gosh. I’ve had that book for years. Since long before Damon Blundy first wrote about Reuben. I never read it. Normally, I’ll gulp down any biography, but that one was just too . . . nasty.” She started to shake her head. “Oh blimey. I never made the connection. I’d better . . .”

She moved to take the book from Gibbs, then stepped back. Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

Do? Gibbs didn’t understand. “Why is it such a shock?” he asked. “What does it matter that you’ve got a book by Damon Blundy’s ex-wife and haven’t read it?”

“Reuben’ll be angry.”

“Don’t be daft. Why would he be?”

“He’d hate the thought of me having a book about Damon Blundy—even just owning it and not reading it. He hates the books I read anyway. Lowest common denominator, he calls them. Affectionately, but he means it. I tried to read Middlemarch once, so that he wouldn’t think I was stupid, and he told me not to bother—I wouldn’t enjoy it. It wasn’t ‘my’ sort of book. Look, can you . . . ?” Jane froze, her face twisted in anxiety.

“What?” Gibbs asked her. He wanted to get out of this house and away from the Taskers. He felt as if something cold had passed through his soul. Was this how his and Debbie’s guests felt when they visited?

“Will you take the book away with you and get rid of it?” Jane asked him. “I don’t want it. If it stays here, I’ll have to tell Reuben about it—I can’t lie to him—and then he’ll be even more disappointed in me than usual.”

“He’s usually disappointed in you? Why?”

Jane glanced up toward the ceiling. “I shouldn’t talk about it,” she said. “I feel disloyal.”

Gibbs was wondering how best to encourage her to confide a bit more when she said, “I don’t know why. I do everything I can to make him happy. I don’t see what more I can do! Nothing works.”

“Were the two of you really here together for the whole of Monday morning?”

“Yes. And that’s the truth.”

“Why does Reuben hate the school across the road?”

Jane’s eyes widened. “You know about that? He told you?” She sighed. “I don’t know why. I can’t work it out. He never used to hate it. It’s recent.”

“How recent?” asked Gibbs.