“Ms. Meakins,” Detective Sergeant Daniels said as she came in. “Please sit down.”
It felt odd to be invited to sit in Nancy’s drawing room. Eleanor perched on the edge of the chair facing them.
“So.” He looked down at his notes. “You’ve known Nancy Hennessy for twenty-eight years, I believe.”
“Yes. We met at university.”
“And you’ve always been close?”
“Oh yes, since almost the first day. Nancy, Mary, and me.”
“Mr. Hennessy mentioned Mary.” He looked down at his pad. “Mary Smithson. We’ll be contacting her today.”
“I was with her last night.” She could feel their eyes on her. Nothing she said sounded right. “She’s very upset.”
He ignored this. “Would you say the three of you are the closest of friends?”
Eleanor looked at the man in the uniform, but his stare was impenetrable. “Yes, absolutely.”
“Told each other everything?”
“Well, I suppose…”
“You see, the thing is”—he leaned forward—“when my missus gets going with her friends, there’s no stopping her. They yabber on for hours, and I don’t reckon there’s a subject that’s not discussed. If one of them was having an affair, there is no way they’d keep it quiet.”
Eleanor felt her color rise with her anger. “Not all women are the same.”
The other man coughed.
“No, of course not. My apologies, Ms. Meakins. I do have a very chatty wife.” He tried to hide his embarrassment with a laugh, but it came out all wrong, like a schoolboy’s giggle. “But I do find it hard to believe that the three of you were so close and Mrs. Hennessy told you next to nothing about the affair. Perhaps she told Mrs. Smithson more details?”
“Mary knew nothing about it. And why would I be lying? I mean, if you knew who he was, then you could arrest him, couldn’t you, and all this would be over.” She hated him suddenly, and the stupid man in the uniform who was clearly playing some pathetic power game. She turned to him. “Sorry—and who are you?”
He held out his hand. “Detective Chief Inspector Farrelly. Forgive me, I’m just observing at the moment.”
She took his hand, and it was hot and limp. “What does that mean?” She had the sensation again that this was being used as a training exercise.
“Well, this is Detective Sergeant Daniels’s case, but as the senior investigating officer, I’m in charge of the operation, as it were. There are still quite a few unanswered questions surrounding this case, and at the moment it’s a top priority for us.”
Eleanor thought he was making it sound like a sales conference.
“It’s imperative that we know the identity of the man Mrs. Hennessy was having an affair with,” Daniels said. “Sometimes we think we’re doing the right thing, protecting people, and that’s completely understandable—”
“What on earth are you saying?” Eleanor stopped herself from shouting. “Who would I be protecting?”
“How well would you say you know Mr. Hennessy?”
“Robert?” His change of tack threw her off guard. “I know him very well. I mean, I’ve known him nearly as long as I’ve known Nancy.”
“Of course, because you were all at university together, weren’t you?”
Eleanor thought she heard a sneer in his voice. “Yes. But also we work in the same field, Robert and I, so…” Eleanor found herself trailing off. She had always thought of her relationship with Robert as special; she had in fact often felt a sense of ownership around him. Once, many years before, when Nancy had such a hard time after Zara’s birth, Robert had called her, and they’d spent over an hour discussing what might be wrong with Nancy. Eleanor had felt grubby afterward, realizing that she had been way too quick to agree with Robert’s exasperated version of her friend, rather than allowing herself to tell him what it meant to be a woman. How, for women, it wasn’t simply a question of wanting to be one thing and then going about doing it. How so much got in the way, how feelings could derail you, how often life felt like a knife scratching against your skin—
“What do you do, Ms. Meakins?” Daniels asked, interrupting her thoughts.
“I run a charity that helps with overseas relief.”
He nodded. “And because Mr. Hennessy is a human rights lawyer, you see him through work, is that what you mean?”
“Yes. I’ve helped him with a couple of cases over the years. People trafficking and things like that.”
“So you must have all spent a lot of time together, you and Mr. and Mrs. Hennessy?”
“Well, I’ve traveled a lot. But yes, of course we have.”
“And you’ve never…” He blushed with his words, but Eleanor held her ground, refused to make it easier for him. She’d given up doing that for people a long time ago. “I mean, have you ever had a husband?”
She almost laughed. “No. I’ve never been married.”
“Career woman.” He smiled as he spoke, and she thought he was actually trying to be nice because he felt sorry for her. Sorry that no man had ever elevated her to that pedestal of wife. She refused to acknowledge his words, so he bumbled on. “What sort of relationship would you say Mr. and Mrs. Hennessy had?”
She felt herself blush for reasons she couldn’t place. How she answered seemed important, but it was also absurd because how on earth was she expected to sum up all she knew about Nancy and Robert in a few sentences. “They’ve had their ups and downs, like any couple. But they’ve also always been pretty solid, which I know sounds unlikely because of the affair, but it’s true. I don’t think she’d ever have left him.”
“So why was she having an affair?”
“I don’t know. Nancy was like that, impetuous. Cozy domesticity was never enough for her, even though she loved Robert and Zara.”
Daniels sat back and rubbed at a spot on the bridge of his nose; Eleanor thought it was all put on. “I have to admit I’m finding this all very confusing,” he said. “Mr. Hennessy has said the same sort of things. It’s hard to understand.”
Eleanor sat still.
“Why do you think Mr. Hennessy called you when he realized that Nancy hadn’t come home?”
“Because Nancy and I had been out to dinner that evening. He wondered if she’d come back with me.” The heat rose through her body.
“Had she ever done that before?”
“Not for about twenty-five years.”
“Yesterday you told me Nancy left the restaurant before you, and you stayed on to pay the bill. Are you absolutely sure that happened and you didn’t leave together?”
Eleanor laughed. “What on earth are you implying?”
He shook his head. “Nothing at all. It’s just we find in very distressing situations people often forget things, or get muddled.”
“Well, I’m not doing either of those things. As I said, Nancy left the restaurant on her own at about quarter to ten. I stayed on to pay the bill and left about ten minutes after her, by which time she’d gone.”