‘You told me half of that, Wendy, and I didn’t realize,’ said Kim. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘But I didn’t either,’ said Wendy, trying to stem her tears with a crumpled tissue. ‘That’s the tragedy of it. And it makes such sense.’ Her eyes welled again. ‘Of course I knew how his mother had died. But he told me he had had a gene test and was clear. It was a lie, I see that now, but it made our lives so much simpler.No explanations to the children, nothing to tell insurers. He carried that lie and he must always have been on the lookout for any change in his body. He must have felt that, if symptoms hit, he needed to be gone before they went full-blown. He would have lied on so many official forms.’ She blew her nose. ‘He must have known, poor man, and he didn’t tell me. My poor Jonathan.’
She tugged absent-mindedly at an earring as she mopped away her tears, a diamond glinting with the movement. Edward had been led astray by her money to start with, thinking she had every reason to be a killer. But insurers would not pay out on a suspicious death, would they?
‘The first thing that happened was when he made a firework. Just a little Catherine wheel for a friend with small kids. There was a bang in the garage and he’d lost a fingernail and taken the skin off his knuckles. That was the very first sign. So, as for blowing a bolt out of a tree with a charge, he would know exactly how to do that. Poor, poor Jon. Poor Jon.’
‘Ah, so that’s how he had the powder,’ said Edward.
‘How was she to know it meant anything? “He used to make homemade fireworks but then stopped”. It doesn’t exactly sound like a clue,’ said Kim in Wendy’s defence.
‘But it’s all in that sentence. He realized he had Huntington’s disease—’
‘Huntington’s Chorea is the official name,’ Wendy put in vaguely. Edward thought how different she was from the composed woman he had met at Harpford Hall. She said, ‘Now you describe it like this, I understand.’ She blew her nose loudly. ‘He didn’t want the crossbow there so no one would say “The man who killed himself”. He dropped it in the river days earlier, I guess. He left a suspicious scene and he wanted the mystery. The mystery would hide the sad truth. He had to protect me, so he bought the cinema ticket. But because I had never seen a Marvel film before, everyone took it as a sign of guilt.’ She shookher head with a sardonic laugh. ‘Ridiculous. He was a Catholic. He’d rather be remembered as a murder victim than a suicide.’
‘I wonder why he wore a white suit.’
‘And took his life by an airfield like that,’ Edward added. ‘He must have wanted to be found quickly. That way, Wendy was protected.’
‘He probably waited until he heard the plane,’ said Kim, reaching over to touch Wendy’s narrow hand. ‘Oh God, Wendy, I’m sorry.’
‘This will sound nuts,’ said Wendy, ‘but insurers pay out less on suicide. I think that might have been a factor. Unfortunately, they also don’t pay out if the surviving spouse is a suspect. The money doesn’t matter to me anyway.’
Edward sipped at his tea.
‘Where does it leave you?’ asked Kim.
‘I can apply for the inquest to be reopened,’ said Wendy, holding a finger below each eye and looking up, blinking. ‘And when it is, I can hold my head up. I only need one or two friends with me, and I can let everyone else keep their hating and their vicious tongues.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Will you be my friends after all this?’
‘I’ll even ask you out for lunch,’ quipped Kim, and Wendy wordlessly reached across the table and grasped her hand.
After a beat, Wendy straightened her back, folded her handkerchief and pushed it into the sleeve of her jumper. ‘By the way, what did you make of the police press conference? The scientist was pretty cool, I thought.’
‘I never understood it being a terrorist attack on a pizza parlour,’ said Edward. ‘What about you, Kim?’
‘I just feel so sorry for the parents of that poor girl,’ she said. ‘I’ve no idea what the motorbike rider was doing.’
‘Perhaps he just slipped,’ said Wendy. ‘A terrible accident.’
‘The Nina Lopez funeral is on Saturday,’ said Edward. ‘I guess the police might even release the body now. The parentssent a message to the radio station saying they had been helped by my radio show and would like me to be at the church.’
‘Oh Edward,’ Kim said, ‘you can’t though. You’re not free.’
Kim was not able to explain, because at that moment a tall man with a shock of white hair arrived at the table. Edward, recognizing one of the Hurst twins, could not immediately remember if this was Hubert or Charlie.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hube!’ Wendy said, lurching to her feet to embrace him. ‘Hubert is – was – a friend of Jonathan’s. Hubert, this is Kim and you’ve met Edward of course, and they’ve been incredible. They’ve worked out exactly what happened—’
As if the enormity of the revelation had descended on her like a swarm of bees, Wendy swished her hand left and right in front of her reddening face and her eyes welled with tears.
‘My dear,’ said Hubert Hurst, ‘are you okay?’
As she cried, Edward said to Kim: ‘Mr Hurst was a friend of Wendy’s husband. He had a lot of doctor friends.’
‘Oh, you have a brother,’ said Kim, who had been told about the Hursts when she met Wendy at the Clock Tower Café. Hubert didn’t hear her. He had drawn closer to Wendy Wrigley. As he squatted beside her, she clutched his upper arm. ‘They’ve explained what happened. No one killed Jonathan. But it’s just so sad.’
‘How did they work it out? You must tell me everything,’ said Hubert, his face shining with compassion.
