“Nicki’s reply to Charlie’s ‘Confidant’ ad tells us a lot,” said Simon. “Given everything else we know, I think it’s safe to assume a few things: Nicki posted an ad on Intimate Links in 2010—‘I Want a Secret.’ A man calling himself King Edward VII replied. At first, he maintained his anonymity, as you would if you were cyber-cheating with a virtual stranger. Why trust them with your true identity? Then, I’m guessing, they got closer, came to trust each other more, and Nicki probably told him who she was: her full name, where she lived, details about her life. She wanted him to reciprocate—a signal that this increased trust was mutual. Wouldn’t that be a natural way of moving to the next level in an adulterous online relationship?”

“Yes,” said Sellers.

“Right. But King Edward didn’t want to tell Nicki who he was. Why not? I’ll come back to that. He also didn’t want to refuse to tell her who he was, so he told her he was Damon Blundy. This happened round about October 2011—that’s why Nicki started commenting on Blundy’s columns like someone who was head over heels in love with him, as Paula Riddiough said—because she was in love with him. Or, rather, she thought she was. At that point, the man she’d fallen in love with, through his emails, was King Edward. They mustn’t have met in all that time. Once he’d told her he was Damon Blundy, she started to read Blundy’s columns. She researched him, read every word he’d ever blogged and tweeted, no doubt. Blundy was an attractive alpha male with a strong personality.”

Simon paused for long enough to realize that no one was interested in interrupting him anymore. Good. “Before too long, although King Edward was the man Nicki was corresponding with, he was no longer, straightforwardly and for his own sake, the man she loved. Now she loved Blundy too, although she didn’t realize there was a ‘too’ involved. It’s interesting, if you think about it: Nicki fell in love with one real flesh-and-blood man at the instigation of another and yet . . . still managed to fall in love with a man who didn’t really exist. The man she fell for was a fictional fusion of the two: King Edward’s private emails to her combined with Damon Blundy’s public persona.

“Between October 2011 and February this year, Nicki was in no doubt that the man she was emailing—King Edward—was Damon Blundy. She continued to comment on his columns. In February, they broke up. She stopped commenting and answered a new Intimate Links ad: Gavin.”

“But her email to Charlie—to Confidant—implies that King Edward is Gavin,” said Sellers.