Damon Blundy @blunderfulme
@KeiranBHolland Me: never met your wife or made any vows to her. Owe her nothing. Suggest on Twitter that her tedious book won’t sell.

08:24am - June 27, 2013

Damon Blundy @blunderfulme
@KeiranBHolland Which of us has treated @IonaDennis73 worse, Keiran—you or me?

08:25am - June 27, 2013

Damon Blundy @blunderfulme
@IonaDennis73 Iona, who has hurt you more, me or @KeiranBHolland?

08:26am - June 27, 2013

Bryn Gilligan @sprinterbryng
I’m no fan of Damon Blundy, but he’s right to say Keiran Holland’s a hypocrite.

08:42am - June 27, 2013

Bicester Mister @bicestermister
@sprinterbryng Fuck off lying cheating asswipe. No one cares what you think.

08:44am - June 27, 2013

CHAPTER 12

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

“HE’S A NOVELIST,” SIMON shouted into his phone, hoping he’d be heard over the wind and the rushing of the river. “He writes supernatural-horror kind of books. He lives opposite your school, on Gaywood Road. I just wondered if you’d ever had any contact with him.”

“None whatsoever,” said the improbably named headmistress whose voice he could barely hear. Nastia Grekov was obviously of Russian ancestry, or something similar, though she sounded very English. Having a name that sounded identical to the word “nastier” when you worked in a school couldn’t be easy, thought Simon.

“I’d never heard of him until I got your message,” she said. “Do you mind telling me what this is about? Do I need to worry about this man?”

“No, not at all.” Having heard the answer, he was impatient to end the call. He was supposed to be meeting Hannah Blundy at her office five minutes ago, was standing outside it, and had been about to press the buzzer when his phone had started to ring.

“You say ‘not at all’ and yet you’re a police detective, and you say he writes horror, so . . . I’m a little concerned,” said Mrs. Grekov. “What can you tell me to put my mind at rest? Has Mr. Tasker committed a crime? Is he suspected of a crime? I’m responsible for the welfare of several hundred—”

“Your pupils aren’t in any danger,” Simon told her, hoping to God that he was right. A few more abstract reassurances and he was able to extract himself.

Why did Reuben Tasker hate the school opposite his house so much? And only since Damon Blundy’s death, according to Gibbs, who had spoken to Tasker’s wife, Jane, about it. It surely must have something to do with the murder, but how could it possibly be connected?

Simon pressed the buzzer. The “21” beside the door was so subtle that, even with the sun shining directly on it, Simon almost missed it. Hannah Blundy’s psychotherapy practice was obviously doing well if she could afford space in this large white stucco-fronted townhouse, the middle one of a wide, regal, terraced block of three on the riverfront in Silsford.

“Yes?” a crackly voice emerged from the intercom on the wall. Hannah’s?