“Oh my God, yes of course.”
Robert turned off the television, his face gray and drawn.
“Did you know about this?” Eleanor asked.
“The police came round this morning,” he answered. “It appears they’ve been following up with all the authors she worked with. She’d translated four of his novels and had met him a couple of times through his publishers. Last year they both attended the same Christmas party at the publishers, which fits in with the timeline. And of course he’s called David—well, Davide, but she’d hardly have told you that, as it would have made it obvious who he was. And he’s married with two children.”
Eleanor felt inexplicably hurt that Robert hadn’t rung her earlier. “And they’re sure it’s him?”
“God knows,” he said. “They had me in again yesterday, so who knows.”
Eleanor thought she might faint. “But has he admitted it?”
“No. He’s denying everything. Says he barely even knew her. Says they did meet at the publishers a couple of times, and he was at the party a year ago, but he didn’t even see her there, let alone speak to her. The police are questioning people to see if anyone saw them together, but so far nothing.”
“But then—how? I mean, what?”
“He’s on a book tour at the moment,” Zara said. “He was in Richmond at a hotel the night it happened, and no one saw him after nine. He was meant to go to a dinner, but he said he had a headache and went to bed. And he’s had affairs before, according to his wife.”
Eleanor looked past Zara at Robert, and with each word he seemed to be sinking further into himself. “Get your dad a drink,” she said, standing and taking him by the arm. She led him to a chair and made him sit, although it wasn’t hard; he appeared easily malleable. Zara handed her two tumblers of whiskey, and they all drank in one easy gulp, the warm liquid rushing through them.
“He looks like such a fucking idiot,” Robert said.
The phone rang in the hall, and Zara went to answer it. Eleanor stood with her empty glass, looking at the top of Robert’s head.
“Ellie!” Zara shouted. “It’s Mary.”
* * *
There wasn’t enough evidence to charge Davide Boyette. Nor was there enough evidence to charge Robert. There were no fingerprints and no witnesses, which was hardly surprising, as even the most amateur of criminals wore gloves and the night Nancy died had been so cold you had to have been either mad or bad to be outside. Nancy’s phone records revealed deleted messages from her lover, which proved she’d been trying to end it and that he had been very angry. But the phone the lover had used was a pay-as-you-go that had never been connected to the internet, so couldn’t be tracked, and in her contacts he was simply listed as “D.” That phone also hadn’t been used since the night of the murder, and they’d never referred to each other by name on any text. As for Robert, there was no physical evidence linking him to the riverbank, and he maintained that he hadn’t known about the affair for sure until Eleanor confirmed it, by which time Nancy was already dead. This was all quite apart from the fact that none of Robert’s friends or colleagues thought he was capable of violence, and there had never been the hint of a suggestion of it in their marriage.
But the police made it very clear to anyone who would listen that it was definitely the husband or the lover. And everyone wanted to listen because, by then, it had become something everyone was talking about. Newspapers splashed pictures of everyone involved across their front pages for so many days, it stopped being possible to say that soon everyone would forget about it. Their lives, or at least fragments of their lives, became public property. Reporters even followed Zara back to Oxford, and she told Eleanor she felt like she was going to faint every time she went outside. Davide Boyette’s wife went on television and said, even though she was sure he wasn’t capable of murdering anyone, it had been hell living with a philanderer and she was going to do her best to make sure he didn’t see their daughters again. People in the audience cheered, people who had never met either of them. Commentators started to question Robert’s ability to make a woman as beautiful as Nancy happy, with all the intended innuendo; they discussed the perceived anger behind his cold blue eyes. It seemed like it might never stop or go away and that nothing good was ever going to happen again. And all the while, Eleanor simply missed her friend with a hollow grief that sometimes took her by surprise, even though it seemed to always be with her.
* * *
“Would you like to go to the opera tonight?” Robert asked when he rang her at work one day.
“I thought Zara was going with you.” She rubbed at the front of her head where a pain was building. Really, she needed to stay late at work and finish the reports.
“She’s just rung to cancel.” She heard him breathing down the line and imagined him shut in his office. “She’s not coming at all this weekend in fact.”
“I’m sure she’s just busy.”
“No, you know it’s more than that. She’s furious with me.”
“Well, she has no right to be.” Eleanor bent her chin toward her chest to try to ease the tension in her neck and across her shoulders.
“She blames me, and she’s probably right. I mean, if I’d been more lovable, Nancy wouldn’t have needed to have an affair with that terrible man.”
Eleanor shut her eyes against an image of Robert at his desk, a large, empty house to go home to.
“Or maybe she actually blames me. Enough people do. When I walk into meetings now, most of the women look at me through these narrow eyes, and I can tell they’ve passed judgment already.”
“Stop it, Robert. Of course Zara doesn’t think that. Look, what time shall I meet you?”
“Seven thirty, outside Covent Garden tube station.”
“Okay. See you there.”
“Thanks, Ellie,” he said, and her breath quickened because he’d never shortened her name before.
She nearly told Nancy that she’d met him first all those years ago, after a party the three of them had gone to at the end of their second year. She wondered now how life would have panned out if she had mentioned it, because Nancy would have encouraged her to go for it.
* * *
At the party, she’d been fixing herself a drink in the kitchen, while Mary and Nancy danced in the sitting room, when Robert had wandered in. She’d noticed him earlier, his tall, clean blondness so at odds with the general scumminess of the party. He was wearing a light blue shirt, chinos, and loafers, and she couldn’t help smiling, which he misinterpreted as an invitation to introduce himself. But he seemed a bit lost, so she asked him what course he was doing, and when he said law, she snorted and raised her eyebrows.
“Not like that,” he said, waving his hands in front of his face.
She laughed, turning around and leaning back against the sink, taking a sip from her drink. “I didn’t know there were different ways of taking law.”
His blush was endearing. “Well, the degree’s the same. I just mean I’m not into the idea of becoming some sort of corporate hotshot defending another oil spill, or getting a celebrity off a rape charge. I want to do good with it.”