One Hundred Names (Special Edition)

even less, but what I do know is Constance, so allow me to give you a lesson in Constance.’ He looked upward at the light, his eyes shining as he brought her to life in his mind. ‘Do you remember that awful murder around fifteen years ago on Ailesbury Road, where the multimillionaire business mogul husband was suspected of bludgeoning the wife to death with an odd cleaning implement?’ Kitty shook her head. ‘You were probably too young to remember it but it was rather big news. They never caught him, by the way, though all assumed it was him. He moved away, sold the house, and not much has been heard of him since, but Constance pored over every word of that case and something about it resonated with her, excited her, really, and not just because it was the usual educated wealthy man who should know better accused of murdering his wife. Constance, like every other journalist, was desperate to get an interview with the young maid who had found the wife in the bedroom, alerted the police and who had been the star of the trial that he walked away from. She was a young beautiful thing from the Philippines or Thailand – I can’t remember where exactly – but Constance kept going to the house to try and speak to her, and whenever Constance was busy meddling in something else, which was often, as you know, she sent me around to the house to try to convince the maid to speak to us. I assumed, like everyone else, it was to talk about the case, what she saw, what she had found, what kind of a man her boss was, what kind of relationship the husband and wife had, what were her personal suspicions, that kind of thing …’ Bob stared into the distance and laughed, thinking of what came next. ‘It turned out that what struck Constance as interesting was not the murder story but the item that the husband had used to murder his wife. It was an old cleaning implement – I can’t remember what it was called – which had been brought to Ireland by the housemaid and, doing a story about old traditional cleaning methods, Constance had been desperate to speak to the young woman about the implement.’
    Kitty smiled, shaking her head.
    ‘And she spoke to her too. Ours was the only magazine that year to get an interview with the most popular housemaid, and we didn’t even mention the murder at all. So the point is, my dear, you may think Constance is leading you down one track but in reality, it is most likely a completely different track altogether. With Constance, it’s never about what you think it’s about. Whatever
you
think is logical, forget about it, it is not logical to Constance. Start trying to see it from her eyes, try to feel it from her heart, for it was a big and complicated one, but it will find you her story.’
    Kitty sat back in the armchair and took another slug of her bottle. Bob watched her while her mind ticked over the story he had just told her and then over the new stories Constance had led her to.
    And then she got it. She finally got it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
    After spending a further few hours with Bob and another of Constance’s homegrown bottles of red wine, Kitty felt far more relaxed about approaching Pete. With a plan in her head, she was ready to pitch to him how she was now going to focus on the people she had met so far and
only
the people she had met. That particular part had been Bob’s idea. He had helped her to see that despite the fact she had figured out what the link was, she didn’t need to meet ninety-four more people in order to reach the same conclusion. There simply wasn’t the time to do all that dear Constance had planned for them to do. And she had really done it this time: Constance had come up with something grand and wonderful, so entirely full of her teachings, which made Kitty both excited and emotional. It was almost as if this was Constance’s parting message, her final words from the grave, and what perfect words to leave behind.
    Kitty wasn’t so nervous about going to Pete with her pitch, knowing Bob was behind her all the way, and also their relationship had evolved so much over the past few days. She smiled again to herself, that schoolgirl feeling of butterflies in her stomach. She was suddenly aware of how she looked, the flush in her cheeks from the wine, the jeans, the blouse, the flats she’d been wearing all day. Should she have changed? She fixed her hair and quickly rooted in her bag for her lipstick and powder. The door to the office opened and