“I came as soon as I could,” Simon says, dumping a bag by the door. “That’s the advantage of being freelance, I guess. I can work from here just as easily as from a Starbucks.” He looks at my face and stops. “Jane, are you sure you’re all right? You look terrible.”
“Simon…I’ve got an apology to make. All this time you’ve been telling me that Edward killed Emma and I’ve been dismissing it. But now I’m starting to think…” I hesitate, unwilling even to put this into words. “I’m starting to think you may be right.”
“No need to apologize, Jane. But can you tell me what’s changed your mind?”
I tell him about the cameras and my confrontation with Thiel. “And then I came straight out and accused Edward of giving me the same necklace as Emma,” I add.
Simon stares at me, suddenly tense. “How did he take that?”
“He said they were two different necklaces.”
“Could he prove it?”
“He didn’t even try to. He just threw me out.” I shrug resignedly. “I have five days to find somewhere else.”
“You can stay with me for a while, if you want.”
“Thank you. But really, I’ve imposed on you quite enough.”
“We will stay friends, though, Jane, won’t we? Leaving here won’t mean you just forget all about me?”
“Of course not,” I say, a little embarrassed by his neediness. “Anyway, now I have a moral dilemma.” I gesture at the table, where my necklace lies curled in its clamshell case. “All this stuff about necklaces made me look up how much it’s worth. It turns out to be around three thousand pounds.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Which would be a pretty hefty deposit on a flat.”
“Exactly. But I think I should give it back to Edward.”
“Why? If he chooses to give you something valuable, that’s his problem.”
“Yes, but…” I struggle to explain. “I don’t want him to think I only care about its financial value. The trouble is, I do need the money.” And I don’t want to make him more contemptuous of me than he already is, I think but don’t say out loud.
“It says so much about you that this is even a dilemma, Jane. Most people wouldn’t hesitate for a moment.” Simon smiles. The tension he displayed just now when I talked about Edward and the pearls has vanished. Why was he so tense? What did he think I was going to say?
Then something occurs to me—something tiny, but completely obvious.
If Simon’s right and my necklace is the one Edward previously gave Emma, one of the strings will have one less pearl than the others. But looking at it now, it seems to me that each string is exactly the same.
I run my fingers over the top string, counting quickly. Twenty-four pearls.
The second string also has twenty-four pearls.
So does the third.
Edward was telling the truth. The necklace he gave me wasn’t the one he gave Emma after all. The scenario Simon described, in which Edward killed Emma, then picked up all but one of the loose pearls, never happened.
Unless it was Simon.
The thought floats into my brain, fully formed. What if it all happened just as Simon said…but to him, not Edward?
You have no proof, I tell myself.
But suddenly I feel a whole lot less happy about having this man spend the night here.
Something else occurs to me. There have been no technical malfunctions at One Folgate Street while Simon’s here. The water flows from the taps, the stove works, even Housekeeper stays unlocked. Why is that?
Unless he was somehow causing it all?
Thiel had looked shamefaced when I confronted him. But he’d also looked puzzled. And he’d said something about a problem.
Was he only embarrassed because he knew someone else had accessed One Folgate Street’s systems?
Have I been getting this all wrong?