'Not for Gerry. Word soon got round that she'd moved down here. The invitations came in thick and fast.'
'Did you get invited, too?'
'Quite often. I couldn't usually join her. I had a brand new department to set up, and that took up most of my time. I gradually got to know the crowd she spent her time with. We had the occasional party here.'
'People from Bath?'
'Bristol. All around, I gather.'
'You gather? You didn't get to know them that well, then? Weren't they your sort?'
Jackman gave him a cold stare. 'People don't have to be my sort, as you put it. Anyway, I didn't make a point of asking them where they lived. If you want their names and addresses, I dare say I can find her address book.'
'You mean you don't even know the names of your wife's friends?'
'I didn't say that. There were some people called Maltby. They were from Clevedon, I believe. Paula and John Hare. Liza somebody. A tall fellow by the name of Mike -I'm not sure where he lived.'
'Don't bother,' said Diamond. 'I'll go through the address book, as you suggest. Did your wife ever mention falling out with any of the friends she made?'
'Not that I recall.'
'Shall we move on again?' Diamond started back in the direction of the house by way of stepping-stones across a lawn still damp with dew that would probably remain all day. 'I sense from what you've been telling me about your marriage that she might not have discussed her friends with you,' he commented as he picked his way gingerly across the path.
'Probably not,' the Professor answered from behind him. Nothing appeared to wrongfoot him.
Ahead, virtually in the centre of the garden, was a solidly paved area, darker at the centre. Diamond mistook this at first for a flower-bed, but as he got closer he saw that the blackness was the burnt-out foundation of a building, roughly octagonal in shape. 'Looks as if you had a fire some time,' he said conversationally.
'It was quite a feature of the garden,' Jackman responded with the urbanity of the practised host. 'A summerhouse. It burned down on the night Gerry tried to kill me.'
Diamond stopped with such suddenness that he practically lost balance. When he managed to find his voice again, it sounded quite different, shocked into a flat, breathless delivery. 'I don't know if I heard right, Professor, but I think we've jumped ahead a bit in the story.'
PART TWO
Gregory
Chapter One
IT WAS 5 AUGUST WHEN my wife Geraldine attempted to murder me.
The killing of a husband calls for a degree of disaffection, not to say loathing. Gerry was known to everyone as a warm, exuberant personality, a charmer. She was extremely good-looking, too. She had reached the stage of her life when 'beautiful' was beginning to give way to words that were no less appreciative, merely more dignified: words such as 'elegant' and 'soignee'.'air was gathered and fastened high on the nape of her long white neck. The fact that she favoured black skirts and blouses was in no way sinister; that was good dressing.
I'm bound to say that in the privacy of home it was a different story. In the last six months she had become increasingly difficult to live with. Her moods were unpredictable. She was subject to fits of temper, irrational outbursts when she would blame me for little things that thwarted her. I recall that she accused me of tampering with her car when it failed to start, of hiding her newspaper and of emptying the hot water tank when she had clearly left a tap running herself – silly, domestic things that she inflated into major incidents, claiming blatant evidence of malice on my part. Yet at other times she swung to moods of gaiety and amusement that could be almost as difficult to take, followed often by black, silent depression. All this worried me, naturally, but it stopped a long way short of personal violence, or so I believed.
With hindsight, I can see that the first intimation that Gerry was planning something came indirectly, from the doctor. Towards the end of July I went for my annual check-up, a routine that my employers at the university insisted upon. After the nurse had weighed me, checked my blood pressure, water, reflexes and every function on her list, I was ushered into the consulting room for the verdict. My regular GP was not available, so for the first time I met the senior man in the practice. Dr Bookbinder is one of the old school, pitted and grizzled, with a bow-tie and cufflinks. He's the sort who refuses to go near a computer. Although he had an anti-smoking poster on his wall and kept the window open, his room reeked of cigars.
'How do you feel in yourself?'
'Fit as a butcher's dog,' I answered, and although I say it myself I looked it, clear-eyed, sturdy and cheerful.
'What aretly – indecently young for a professor. What's your subject? Nothing in the medical line, I hope?'
'English.'
'Fine.' Dr Bookbinder's brown eyes glittered as he looked at me over his glasses. 'You won't be telling me my job. I didn't know they bothered with the mother tongue up at Claverton.'
'I'm in the process of building up a department. The chair was created a couple of years ago.'
'Chair of English, eh? Sounds all right, but don't be tempted to sit in it too long. The sedentary life can lead to constipation and piles.'
'It's not all sitting. I stand up and stretch at intervals.'
'Splendid. Is it stressful?'
'The standing up?'
'The running,' said Dr Bookbinder. 'Of the department.' 'Not really. I don't have many students yet.'
The doctor glanced through the form containing the nurse's findings and stuffed it ham-fistedly into the buff folder that represented all of my life in medical terms. 'Haven't read anything so boring since that book about the hobbits – or was it the rabbits? In insurance terms, Professor, I would describe you as a ruddy good risk so long as you don't burn yourself out. You're married to that enchanting young woman who used to play Candice Milner on the television, aren't you? She's a patient of mine.'
I nodded.
'She was in here on Monday,' he went on. 'It's one of the perks of this job that I tend to see the ladies more often than the husbands. No insult intended.'
'None taken. I make a point of avoiding doctors unless it's inescapable,' I riposted, uncrossing my legs prior to making my exit. 'And since I'm not here to wangle a week off work, I shan't take up any more of your time.'
Dr Bookbinder made a downward movement of his hand to signal to me to remain seated. 'When Mrs Jackman makes an appointment they go bananas in reception.'
'The power of the box.'
'Want to know why she came to see me?'
Indiscretion was in the air. I didn't care for it. I remember saying guardedly, 'My wife and I respect each other's privacy.'
'Do you sleep together?'
My eyes widened. I pulled myself up in the chair in a formal attitude. 'Does that have some relevance?'
'I wouldn't ask it otherwise, would I?' said Dr Bookbinder.
After a moment's consideration, I said, 'If you mean in the same room, the answer is yes.'
'In that case I'm not being unprofessional. You must have noticed it.'
'Noticed what, Doctor?'
'Your wife's insomnia.'
'My… wife's… insomnia?'
