The kettle was boiling. I threw my coffee cup down and shrugged.
“I didn’t want to tell you everything, because it doesn’t just affect me,” he said.
Still ignoring him, I spooned the instant coffee in – Simon grimaced – and then the sugar. Kennedy sat at my feet, hoping that if I made toast, he might get some.
“You found something at Riz’s house,” Simon said after a lengthy silence. “Didn’t you?”
I looked anywhere but him. I drank my coffee and ate my toast. Kennedy ate his toast. We munched along quite contentedly. “Arden, stop sulking and talk to me! Jesus Christ, you are the most infuriating man on the planet! I leave you alone for two fucking seconds and you get hit by a car! You want to break into houses! You run around screaming at Guy at two in the morning! Your life is a fucking soap opera!”
“You have no idea,” I muttered.
“What?” he snapped.
“I said you have no idea,” I yelled. “Fine, you wanna know what I found?” I stalked around to where the jacket that I’d worn to Riz’s house was hung up and searched in the pocket for the piece of paper. “Here.” I threw it at Simon and stalked back to my coffee.
He picked it up from where it had fluttered to the ground.
“What’s this?”
“Use your spy-sense and tell me.”
“It’s a letter. From a barrister … from. Oh.”
“From Oliver Ross. Yes, my ex-boyfriend. I don’t recognise the name he’s sending it to, but it’s Riz’s address. And it was in Riz’s things. Riz knew Ollie, how? Why? What the fuck does my ex have to do with whatever crazy plan your fiancé was cooking up? How is he involved, Simon? Does this mean I’m involved?”
Simon stared at the paper. “I had no idea.”
“Noooo, because why would you? Why would you have a clue that the man you were going to marry was a fucking psychopath stalker?”
I slammed my cup down and paced my kitchen (nowIwas doing it, apparently). Simon continued to stare at the note. “I have some ideas of what this could mean. Have you spoken to Oliver about it?”
“No. No, I fucking haven’t,” I snapped. “Too busy being lied to and hit by cars,” I added churlishly. Whatever. I was in a mood.
“We need to find out the truth behind this,” he said, flourishing the letter at me. “We need to figure out if Riz or … or this secret second Marina knew about this. It could mean the person was gunning for you, too. It could mean that the newspaper article wasn’t only because your name had been trending on Twitter.”
“Ollie doesn’t know Riz,” I said. “He’d never heard of him before the photos leaked. He’s never even been to Salisbury, as far as I know. And he definitely doesn’t hang around with Labour Party apparatchiks.”
“As far as you know,” Simon said.
I glared at him. “I’ll ring him,” I said. “Right now. I’ll put him on speaker.”
Simon shook his head. “It’s a piece of piss to lie convincingly down the phone. And if Ollie’s been tricked, then he won’t even know he’s doing it. Best to do it in person.”
“What? We can’t. He’s in London. Well, he might come down this weekend.”
He huffed at this. “No, that’s too late. The by-election is two days away. What if it’s connected?”
“You think this has all been some grand scheme to get Suzy Rabbit elected? Give over.”
“I don’t know,” he said. He took over pacing. Kennedy instantly got up and followed him.
“Fine. We go to London to see him.” He checked his watch. “If we leave now, we can be there by 2 p.m.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not dropping everything to go to London. I have shit to do. I have a book to finish. I have emails from my editor piling up. I’ve been ignoring them to chase murderers around the countryside.”
“Arden, please,” Simon said. “Please, do this for me, and I promise I won’t ask anything else.”
My resistance failed. Judgey Simon was gone. Heartbroken, grief-stricken Simon was back. Mad with pain and anguish. The Simon who needed answers. It happened so quickly – maybe he was acting. I didn’t want to imagine that Simon had been manipulating me this entire time.
