Read Online The Other Woman’s House by Sophie Hannah - Free Book Online

‘I know everyone hates estate agents, but you’ve taken it to a whole new level. What you haven’t done is considered the why.
Why
would some evil genius estate agent, sitting in his office in Cambridge, want to include an elusive dead woman complete with own pool of blood on the virtual tour of a house he’s trying to sell? Is it, what, a daring new marketing technique? Maybe you should see which agent the house is on with, ring up and ask them.’
    â€˜No,’ I say, feeling calmer as he loses his cool. ‘It’s the police who ought to do that.’ I won’t let him turn this into something to be laughed at.
    â€˜You say she was murdered. Most murderers want to cover up what they’ve done, not broadcast it via one of the country’s most popular websites.’
    â€˜I’m aware of that, Kit. I also know what I saw.’ I need to ask him something, but every question I ask is another opportunity for him to lie. ‘Why didn’t you tell him?’
    â€˜Tell him?’
    â€˜Sam. That I was obsessed with 11 Bentley Grove long before last night. The whole story.’
    Kit looks caught out. ‘Why didn’t
you
tell him? I assumedyou didn’t want him to know, because…’ He stops himself, looks away.
    â€˜Because?’
    â€˜You know damn well why! If I’d told him what’s been going on since January, he wouldn’t have given your dead woman the time of day – he’d have assumed the vanishing body was a figment of your imagination, just like the rest of it’s a figment of your imagination!’
    â€˜Would he? Mightn’t he have assumed the opposite – that something must be going on, something involving 11 Bentley Grove and you?’ I wasn’t willing to take the risk; perhaps Kit wasn’t either.
    His eyes fill with tears. ‘I can’t take much more of this, Con. I keep telling you, and you don’t listen.’ He falls into a chair, rubs his temples with his fingers. He looks so much older than he did six months ago. His face has new lines; there’s more grey in his hair; his eyes are duller. Have I done that to him? The alternatives are too horrible to contemplate: either he’s the kind, funny, loyal, honourable man I fell in love with and I’m slowly but surely destroying him, or he’s a stranger who has been wearing a disguise for months, maybe years – a stranger who will eventually destroy me.
    â€˜I love you, Con,’ he says in a hollow voice. I start to cry. His love for me is his most effective weapon. ‘I always will, even if you succeed in driving me out of this house and out of your life. That’s why I didn’t tell’ – he gestures towards upstairs – ‘the whole story. If you want the police to take you seriously, if you want them to go to 11 Bentley Grove and check there’s no dead woman lying on the carpet, then, however crazy it is, that’s what I want too. I want you to feel better.’
    â€˜I know,’ I say, numb inside. I don’t know what I know any more.
    â€˜Do you have any idea how hard it is, living under a cloud of suspicion when you’ve done nothing wrong? You think I don’t know what you’re thinking? “Kit’s a computer geek. Maybe he can make a body appear and disappear in a matter of seconds. Maybe he killed the body himself.”’
    â€˜I don’t think that!’ I sob.
Because I didn’t let myself go that far
. ‘I hate being suspicious of you, I
hate
it. If 11 Bentley Grove was anywhere but Cambridge…’
    Sam K is back, standing in the doorway. How much has he overheard? ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ he says. ‘I’m going to speak to Cambridge police myself. They’re more likely to pay attention if I make the initial contact.’
    My heart jolts. ‘Did you…?’ I point upwards, towards our