SIMON
Nobody had any idea that Simon Waterhouse was in Cornwall, apart from Simon himself – a fact he couldn’t help finding amusing. He’d chuckled to himself at least three times during the eight-and-a-half hour drive. That was before the dulling, greying effect of being on car-and-truck-jammed motorways robbed him of his ability to find anything funny.
Now, almost fully recovered, he was sitting at a table in the Orangery restaurant of the Lannanta Blue Hotel, watching people walk their dogs on the sandy beach below. A few minutes ago, he’d seen four fools in wetsuits walk into the sea. He’d expected them to run out screaming a few seconds later, but they were still in. In November.Madness.
The hotel was an imposing Victorian mansion, sitting squarely on a plateau that formed part of a steeply ascending wooded bay. Simon had thanked and said goodbye to Belynda Simmonds, Oliver Mayo’s former client and alibi-provider, and was now waiting for the person he’d next arranged to meet: ex-Cambridge college chaplain Jason Moorhouse. After that conversation, if it went the way he assumed it would, he’d drive home – through the night if he had to, though he’d needto find a way of guaranteeing he’d stay awake. Maybe it would only be seven hours on the way back, if he left it late enough.
His phone buzzed on the table in front of him, knocking against the side of the pint glass full of Coke that he’d insisted on being served.Charlie.
She launched straight in: ‘That gerbil-faced bitch is still avoiding me.’
‘Dooper?’
‘I’ve sent her three messages asking for a meeting, so I can apologise for my … vicious outburst. She knows that’s why I want to see her, and she’s ignoring me. Clearly thinks I deserve to feel awful forever. I mean, just fire me and put me out of my misery! Where are you, anyway? No one knows.’
‘Cornwall. Near St Ives.’
‘For God’s sake …’ A loud sigh travelled much more efficiently from the Culver Valley than Simon himself had. ‘Simon—’
‘What’s wrong with Cornwall?’ he asked.
‘Nothing, apart from you’ve got absolutely no reason to be there.’
‘It’s where Belynda Simmonds lives: the therapy client Oliver Mayo saw on the evening of 8 November 2012, when he couldn’t have been cutting throats at Devey House.’
‘She confirmed the Ollibi?’
‘The what?’ said Simon.
‘That’s what Sellers and Gibbs are calling it. As you might know if you were, you know, hanging out with your team instead of taking yourself off for little jaunts to the seaside. Why the hell didn’t you ring the Simmonds woman, or get her on Zoom?’
‘It’s not the same,’ said Simon. ‘You miss out on the subtle gestures, the body language. If I’d suspected Mayo any less,maybe I’d have been happy with a phone call.’ He took a sip of his Coke. ‘No point suspecting him now, though. I’d wondered if maybe Simmonds and Mayo had been more than client and therapist, but she told me she’d engaged him as a therapist because she was having an affair with someone else – one she described as “all-consuming”.’ Simon winced as he said it. ‘It’s still going on, too. Crazy story she told me: she couldn’t take the pressure any more, so she persuaded her husband to move down here, forcing a separation from the other guy – but he followed her. Left his wife and kids and moved in down the road from her here. As if that’s not mad enough, guess what he was before he did that, when he lived in Cambridge?’
‘A lowlife?’ said Charlie.
‘Yeah, and also the chaplain of St Saviour’s College.’
Charlie made a noise. ‘Well, it’s lucky he gave that up. Obviously Goddish behaviour was a struggle for him.’
‘Must have been. I wonder if he’ll confide in me.’
‘What?’
‘I’m meeting him in an hour,’ Simon told her. ‘Looked him up soon as Simmonds left. He’s got his own cleaning company now, so he was easy to find.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s nobody’s alibi for anything, is he?’
‘No. I just want him to look me in the eyes and say, “Yes, Belynda Simmonds and I were seeing each other in November 2012 and yes, that’s why she needed therapy every Thursday evening.”’
‘You don’t entirely believe her, then?’
‘I just want to make as sure as I can … make,’ Simon said. ‘I keep thinking, ithadto be Mayo who did it in 2012. Everyone else was vouched for by at least one stranger who owed them nothing. Whereas … ask me how hard I find it to believe thata devoted and grateful therapy client would lie for her shrink … Oh – have you tracked down Mark Mayo yet, Ollie Mayo’s dad?’
‘Yes, I’ve done all the little chores you assigned me,’ Charlie said in an acerbic tone. ‘Mayo Senior’s not an option for 8 November 2012. He’s a roadie now, for bands. Been doing that for over a decade. Have you heard of Audio Entry? Of course you haven’t. Why am I bothering to ask?’ She muttered something Simon couldn’t catch. ‘Mark Mayo was with them at the Toros Stadium in Birmingham on 8 November 2012.’
‘And on Monday?’ Simon asked.
‘Leeds, with Discocode, another group you won’t have heard of. I’ve told Sam. And I couldn’t persuade Mayo to tell me why he went to see Marianne Upton in 2006, though he did admit he was there – and saw Jemma seeing him walking through the garden. It wasn’t an enjoyable conversation; he got all excited about telling me as little as possible. Kept saying, “This is my son’s mess to sort out, not mine. Ask him.” I’ve passed that on to Sam too. And I’ve spoken to Farida Suleyman.’
