The Stone Wife

‘Who was the lecturer?’

‘You think I’m going to say Gildersleeve, but you’re wrong. It was a guy called Archie Poke.’

Diamond did his best to hide his surprise. He’d heard nothing from Monica about a friendship with Poke. She’d spoken of him only with contempt. ‘He’s known to me. In fact, I’ve met him.’

‘I can save my breath, then,’ Bernie said. ‘He’s told you all this.’

Diamond shook his head. ‘It’s new to me.’

‘There isn’t much more to tell. After a bit, they started meeting Friday nights as well as Wednesdays.’

‘In the pub?’

‘And sometimes people’s houses. Like I said, they called it a club and gave it that crappy name. One Friday night I had a call from Monica saying she thought she was over the limit and unfit to drive, so she was staying over. I was a mug. I still thought nothing of it. It sounded like the right thing to do. These were college people. I thought they spent their time talking about stuff I’d never get my head round.’

‘Is that what she told you?’

‘They studied bits of ancient writing. She called it texts. I thought a text is what you send on a mobile. It was brain-fagging work, but they all liked it because they knew Anglo-Saxon and stuff. After a couple of hours of this they had to unwind, so they’d have a drink and a laugh and sometimes another drink. She had the sense not to get into her car.’

‘That sounds believable,’ Diamond said. ‘In your shoes, I wouldn’t have been suspicious.’

‘Yep, she said when she got home in the morning it had been like her student days, bedding down on someone’s floor. I swallowed it. I don’t have time to question everything. Maybe if I didn’t have a business to run I’d have seen a warning light. Anyhow, this happened a few times. Not every week. But one evening the call didn’t come from Monica. It was one of the others. I didn’t know her, but I could tell from her voice she’d had a skinful. She wouldn’t give her name. She said she was one of the Diphthongs and Monica — she called her Mon, which I never did — Mon had asked her to say she wouldn’t be home that night. There was giggling in the background as if a bunch of them were listening to this. I asked her to put Monica on the phone and she said she’d already left with Arch. I asked who Arch was and she just laughed and put the phone down.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Nothing that night. I didn’t sleep much, I can tell you. I’m not used to being treated like some schoolkid. I’m a major player, a managing director. I get respect wherever I go. When she came home next day we had a real set-to. She gave me some bilge about feeling ill with stomach pains in the pub the night before and Archie — that was the lecturer, Dr. Poke — had driven her to hospital to A&E and she’d spent most of the night there. I didn’t believe a word of it. The others wouldn’t have been pissing themselves laughing if she was on her way to hospital. I went over to the university and found Poke and got the truth of it. They didn’t go near a bloody hospital. He’d taken her back to his flat and shagged her and it wasn’t the first time.’

‘He used those words?’ Diamond said in disbelief.

‘That’s what he meant. He said when an attractive grown-up woman like that came on to him he wasn’t going to say no.’

‘Did you hit him?’

Bernie scratched his head. ‘It’s strange. I don’t know how to explain it. Educated people like him have a way of talking to you that stops you in your tracks. I didn’t like what I was hearing, but it came across as the truth. If he’d bullshitted me, I would have landed one on him for sure. He didn’t.’

‘So did you take it out on Monica?’

‘Not that time, no. Well…’ He grinned at a secret memory. ‘Not really. We had a run-in for sure. I’d caught her out big time. She cried buckets and said she’d been scared to tell me the truth. She’d got in with this crowd and there was heavy drinking and most of them were pairing off. She was chuffed when this Archie started chatting her up rather than any of the other women, telling her she was the star of his class and he might be able to get her a higher degree or some such. She said it made her feel young, like she was a student all over again. I was broken up, but I knew where she was coming from. It was a part of her life I’d never be able to share. But I didn’t want to lose her. So we patched it up.’

‘How?’

‘Do you really want to know?’ Bernie said, his face reddening. He glanced in Tess’s direction. ‘Cover your ears, sweetheart. I pulled her pants down and smacked her bare arse, followed by the best fuck we ever had. She was amazing. Squealed like six pigs, but didn’t shed another tear. After it, she said I should spank her more often and I was the only man she’d ever loved. She promised to leave the course and never go drinking with them again. She meant it. She could have killed Poke for telling me everything.’