It takes a bit more detective work to track down Simon Wakefield. I manage to speak to Mark, the agent who dealt with One Folgate Street before Camilla, but he doesn’t know how to contact Emma’s former boyfriend either.
“If you do speak to him, though,” he says, “give him my best, will you? It was tough, what happened to him.”
“Emma’s death, you mean?”
“That too. But even before then, with the break-in at their previous flat and so on.”
“They were burgled? I didn’t know that.”
“That was why they wanted One Folgate Street in the first place, for the security.” He pauses. “Ironic, when you think about it. But Simon would have done anything for Emma. He wasn’t particularly keen on living there himself, but as soon as she said she liked it, that was that. The police asked me if I’d ever seen any evidence he could be violent toward her. I told them no way. He adored her.”
It takes me a moment to understand what he’s saying. “Hang on. The police thought Simon might have killed her?”
“Well, they didn’t say so explicitly. But I had to liaise with them after she died, letting the forensics teams into the house and so on, so I got to know the detective running the investigation quite well. He was the one who asked about Simon. Apparently Emma had claimed he’d physically hurt her.” He lowers his voice. “I was never really sure about Emma, to be honest. Everything was all about her, if you know what I mean. Bit of a drama queen. It seemed like Simon didn’t get much say in things.”
Mark might not have his contact details, but he remembers where Simon worked, and that’s enough information for me to track him down on LinkedIn. The magazine he wrote for has closed now, and like most freelancers he keeps his profile and CV publicly searchable. Even so, I hesitate before contacting him. Yes, he might have left flowers for Emma outside One Folgate Street, but from what Mark just told me, Simon had also been a suspect in her death. How sensible is it, really, to start questioning him about what happened?
I will be careful, I decide, and make sure I don’t press or threaten him in any way. So far as he’s concerned, I’ll simply be trying to make amends for taking his floral tributes.
I send a bland email, asking if we can meet for a chat. A reply comes back within minutes, suggesting Costa Coffee in Hendon.
I’m early, but he is too. He arrives dressed much as he was that time outside One Folgate Street: polo shirt, chinos, trendy shoes; the smart-casual uniform of the London media worker. He has a pleasant, open face, but his eyes are troubled as he takes a seat opposite me, as if he knows this is going to be difficult.
“So you got curious,” he says once we’ve introduced ourselves properly. “I’m not surprised.”
“Confused, more like. Everyone I speak to seems to have a different version of how Emma died. Her therapist, for example—she thinks Emma killed herself because she was suffering from depression.” I decide to come right out with it. “And I also heard some story that the police questioned you, because of an allegation Emma had made. What was that all about?”
“I don’t know. That is, I’ve no idea why she said it, or even if she really did. I would never, ever have hit her.” He looks me in the eye, emphasizing every word. “I worshipped the ground Emma walked on.”
I’ve come here today warning myself to be cautious, not to take everything this man says at face value, but even so I believe him. “Tell me about her,” I suggest.
Simon exhales slowly. “What can you say about someone you love? I was lucky to have her, I always knew that. She went to a private girls’ school, then a proper college. And she was beautiful, really beautiful. She was always getting approached by scouts for model agencies.” He glances at me, a little sheepishly. “You look a bit like her, by the way.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“But you don’t have her…” He frowns, trying to find the right word, and I sense he’s probably trying to be tactful. “Her vibrancy. It caused her all sorts of problems, actually. She was so friendly, men always felt they could approach her without getting brushed off. I told the police, the only times Emma saw me so much as threaten violence was when some idiot wouldn’t leave her alone. Then she’d give me a look and that was my signal to step in and tell the guy to back off.”
“So why would she say that you hit her?”
“I really don’t know. At the time I thought the police made it up to rattle me, to make me think they had more on me than they really did. To be fair to them, they apologized and let me go quite quickly. I think they were just going through the motions, really. Most murders are committed by someone close to the victim, aren’t they? So they bring in the ex-boyfriend as a matter of course.” He’s silent for a moment. “Except they got the wrong ex. I kept telling them it was Edward Monkford they should be looking at, not me.”
I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle at the mention of Edward’s name. “Why’s that?”
“Conveniently enough, Monkford wasn’t around much in the aftermath of Emma’s death—he was away, working on some big commission. But I’ll never accept it wasn’t him who killed her.”
“Why would he do that, though?”
“Because she’d broken up with him.” He leans forward, his gaze intense. “About a week before she died, she told me she’d made a terrible mistake, that she’d realized he was just a manipulative bully, a control freak. She said—and I suppose this is ironic really, given how much he hated her to have any possessions of her own—that he treated her like an accessory, just one more thing to make his house look pretty. He couldn’t stand her having any thoughts or independence of her own.”
“But no one murders someone just for having their own thoughts,” I object.
“Emma said that over time he changed completely. When she called it off, he became almost deranged.”
I try to imagine a deranged Edward. Yes, there have been times I’ve sensed passion underneath that preternatural calm, a maelstrom of emotions reined tightly in. His anger with the fishmonger, for example. But it’s only ever lasted a few moments. I just don’t recognize the picture Simon’s painting.
“And there’s something else,” Simon’s saying. “Something that might be another reason for him to want Emma dead.”
I bring my attention back to him. “Go on.”
“Emma found out that he murdered his wife and their baby son.”
“What!” I say, confused. “How?”
“His wife stood up to him—made him compromise his plans for One Folgate Street. Defiance and independence again. For whatever reason, Edward Monkford is pathologically unable to cope with either.”
“Did you tell the police all this?”
“Of course. They said there was insufficient evidence to reopen the investigation. They also warned me against repeating my accusations at Emma’s inquest—they said it could be libel. In other words, they decided to ignore it.” He rakes his hand through his hair. “I’ve been doing a bit of digging myself, ever since—gathering what evidence I can. But even as a journalist, it’s hard to get far without the kind of powers the police have.”
Just for a moment I feel a wave of sympathy for Simon. A perfectly nice, solid, unexciting guy, unable to believe his luck when he’d snagged a girl a bit out of his league. And then a series of unforeseen events had happened and suddenly she was faced with choosing between him and Edward Monkford. There really wouldn’t have been any contest. No wonder he found it impossible to move on. No wonder he had to believe there was some hidden conspiracy or secret behind her death.
“We’d have ended up back together if she hadn’t died,” he adds. “I’m absolutely certain of it. Sure, the way we broke up was messy—there was this one time she wanted me to sign some papers: I went to the house to try and win her around but I was a bit drunk and I didn’t handle it very well. I think I was jealous of Monkford, even then. So I knew I had a lot of work to do to make it up to her. The first step was convincing her to move out of that horrible house. And she’d agreed, in principle anyway—there were issues with the lease, some kind of cancellation penalty. If she’d only managed to leave I think she might be alive today.”
“The house isn’t horrible. I’m sorry you lost Emma, but you really can’t blame it on One Folgate Street.”
“One day you’ll see I’m right.” Simon looks directly at me. “Has he made his move on you yet?”
“What do you mean?” I protest.
“Monkford. Sooner or later he’ll make a pass at you. That’s if he hasn’t already. And then he’ll brainwash you too. That’s what he does.”
Something—perhaps knowing that if I admit we’re lovers it’ll simply confirm Simon’s belief that women fall over themselves for Edward—makes me say, “What makes you think I’d say yes?”
He nods. “Good. Well, if me talking about Emma’s death saves just one person from that bastard’s clutches, it’ll have been worth it.”
The café’s filling up. A man sits down at the next table, clutching a sausage-and-onion toastie. A pungent reek of cheap, dank dough and overcooked onions wafts toward us.
“God, that sandwich smells disgusting,” I say.
Simon frowns. “I can’t smell it. So, what are you going to do next?”
“Is there any chance Emma could have been exaggerating, do you think? It still seems odd to me that she made such bizarre claims to you about Edward Monkford, and equally bizarre claims to the police about you.” I hesitate. “Someone I spoke to described her as a person who liked being the center of attention. Sometimes people like that need to feel they’re important in some way. Even if it means making things up.”
He shakes his head. “It’s true Emma liked to feel special. But she was special. I think that was one reason she liked One Folgate Street—it wasn’t just the security, it was because it was so different. But if you’re saying that made her some kind of fantasist…No way.” He sounds annoyed.
“Okay,” I say quickly. “Forget it.”
“Is it all right if I sit here?” A woman holding a sub points to the empty chair next to us. Simon nods reluctantly—I get the impression he’d like to go on talking about Emma all day. As the woman sits down I catch the nauseating smell of fried mushrooms. It smells like wet dogs and dirty bedsheets.
“The food here really is disgusting,” I say in an undertone. “I don’t know how anyone eats it.”
He gives me an irritated look. “You’d rather have met somewhere more upmarket, I suppose. That’s more your style.”
“It’s not that.” I make a mental note that Simon Wakefield has a bit of a chip on his shoulder. “I like Costas normally. This one seems unusually smelly, that’s all.”
“It doesn’t bother me.”
Nauseous, I stand, eager to get into the fresh air. “Well, thanks for meeting me, Simon.”
He stands too. “Sure. Look, here’s my card. Will you get in touch if you find out anything else? And give me your own number? Just in case?”
“In case of what?”
“In case I finally get some evidence that Edward Monkford really is a killer,” he says evenly. “If I do, I’d like to be able to let you know.”
Back at One Folgate Street I go up to the bathroom and undress in front of the mirror. When I touch my breasts they feel sore and full. My nipples have darkened perceptibly, and there are little raised spots, like goosebumps, around each areola.
My period isn’t due for a week, so a test won’t be reliable. But I don’t really need one. The heightened sensitivity to smells, the nausea, the darkened nipples, the little raised bumps my midwife told me were called Montgomery tubercles—it’s exactly what happened the last time I was pregnant.