“Spilling was still nearer than London—and you spent most of your weekends in the Culver Valley, didn’t you? Not in your London flat.”

“Yes. It’s important for MPs to really live in their constituencies, not just pretend to live in them.” Paula sounded bored. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Damon was so consumed by his hatred of me that he wanted to move closer to me so that he could hate me close up. I have no way of knowing, I’m afraid.”

“The two of you met for the first time on October 26, 2011. Damon fell for you. Maybe you fell for him too?”

“I truly didn’t.”

“He rented in Spilling at first, while he looked for a house to buy,” Simon told her what he suspected she already knew. “Why was he in such a hurry to get to the Culver Valley, if not to be closer to you?”

“I’ve just answered that question, DC Waterhouse. If anyone was twisted enough to want to move closer to the primary object of their loathing, Damon was probably that person. So . . . maybe you’re right. But we weren’t having an affair. If we were lovers, why did he decimate me in column after column? Why did I retaliate?”

“Disguise,” said Simon. “If you’re tearing each other apart in the papers every week, no one’s likely to suspect you’re having an affair.”

Paula rolled her eyes. “Look, when I met Damon in October 2011, my marriage to Richard was all but over. Damon was single. There was nothing to stop us falling into each other’s arms if we’d wanted to. Why would we fall passionately in love, then decide to badmouth each other in public while secretly having an affair? Why would we both marry other people? I have to say, this conversation doesn’t fill me with hope about your skills as a detective.”

“Who said anything about passionately in love?”

To Simon’s annoyance, Paula remained unruffled. “Sorry, I took the passionately-in-love part for granted, in your affair scenario,” she said. “I wouldn’t have a relationship of any kind with a man unless I was passionately in love with him. And to answer your next question—have I been passionately in love with lots of people, in that case?—no, I don’t think I have, looking back. But if you’d asked me at the time, while those relationships were going on . . . hell, yes. I always believe it’s the real thing. I’m a romantic. I always have been.”

You’re a clever liar with an answer for everything.

If she’d been in love with Blundy, why wasn’t she a wreck? That, as far as Simon could see, was the main problem with his theory. Even if he was right about the affair, it didn’t make Paula a murderer.