The Brown Cow pub, where he was due to meet Gibbs half an hour ago, was a five-minute walk away. As he strode along the High Street, smiling at any female with long legs and large breasts who looked as if she might be up for it, Sellers admitted to himself that he’d been thinking about other women a lot recently. Which had to mean he was a greedy bastard. He had two already; wasn’t that enough? And for how long would he be able to stop at thinking? How long before he gave in to the urge that was building inside him?

Sellers wasn’t good at denying himself things he wanted. He yielded to temptation instantly and gladly, and was proud of it. Much better to live for the moment and live it up than to be a puritan like Simon Waterhouse, avoiding anything that might prove to be pleasurable. Trouble was, Sellers didn’t want to be saddled with a third woman who would then feel as entitled to make demands as Stacey and Suki did. His third woman-not that he’d spent much time building a profile-should be obedient, virtually silent, and want nothing from him but sex. Mandy from Age Concern seemed unlikely to fit the bill. Keen as he was to find himself a new ride, Sellers drew the line at spending his evenings in charity shops, sitting on a grey plastic school-chair listening to some bearded vegan loser give a lecture on Africa.

He bumped into Gibbs in the pub doorway.

‘Thought you’d stood me up.’

‘Sorry. Took longer than I thought.’

‘Get a round in, then.’

Sellers ordered two pints of Timothy Taylor Landlord. At least Gibbs’ taste in beer hadn’t changed since his wedding. Everything else had, though Gibbs himself was either unaware of the changes or chose not to mention them. Sellers got his money ready, then glanced over to the small table in the corner to which Gibbs had retreated, never one to keep a mate company at the bar. He sat with two empty pint glasses in front of him, pushing a pool of spilled beer around the table-top with his index finger, trying to change its shape. Okay, so his behaviour was the same as ever but the way he looked… fucking hell, it was like being in the pub with the Madame Tussauds version of Christopher Gibbs-all bright and immaculate. What did Debbie do, put him in the washing machine?

The pub had changed too. Once it had boasted a no-smoking room; now the whole place was free of smoke. And the landlord had fallen for some wide-boy’s flannel about sandalwood logs and wouldn’t dream of putting ordinary wood on the fire any more, so the whole place was as fragrant as Gibbs’ shiny hair.

‘Nothing on the suit,’ said Sellers, putting the drinks down on the table. Deliberately, he trapped Gibbs’ finger under his pint glass before moving it and apologising.

‘I saw Norman this afternoon.’

‘Norman Bates? How’s his mother?’ Sellers quipped.

‘Norman Computer. Geraldine Bretherick’s laptop.’

‘Oh, aye?’

‘If she ordered GHB over the Internet, she did it from somewhere else.’

‘That’s possible. Maybe she went to an Internet café or used a friend’s computer.’ Though come to think of it there were no Internet cafés in Spilling and only one in Rawndesley. There were always the libraries, though.

Gibbs looked uneasy.

‘What?’ Sellers asked.

‘The diary file was created on Wednesday the eleventh of July this year, Norman said. Waterhouse-the arsehole-pointed out that the eleventh of July was the Brethericks’ ten-year wedding anniversary.’

‘Why’s he an arsehole?’ Sellers was confused.

‘He would be the one to spot it. In front of the Snowman.’

‘I wouldn’t have made the connection,’ said Sellers. ‘Water-house has got a good memory for dates.’

‘He never goes on any, that’s why. The original shagless wonder.’

‘So,’ said Sellers thoughtfully. ‘Geraldine put fake dates on the entries. Either that or she wrote them by hand on those dates, then typed them up over a year later.’

‘Why would she do that? And where’s the hard copy? It wasn’t in the house.’

‘She could have thrown it away, save on storage space.’

Gibbs snorted into his pint. ‘You saw the stately home. Could’ve stored a football team of elephants.’

‘All right, so she wrote the entries for the first time on Wednesday, July the eleventh, and put dates on them that were more than a year old. Why?’ Sellers started to answer his own question. ‘I suppose it could have been a way of saying to her husband, “I’ve felt like this for ages and you haven’t even noticed.” But then why only choose dates from a year ago? The first entry was dated 18 April 2006 and the last one 18 May 2006. Not much of a spread. Why didn’t she make the fake dates span three years instead of a month?’

‘Fuck should I know?’ Gibbs had ripped up a beer-mat and was floating small, ragged chunks of cardboard in the Landlord lake on the table. ‘Maybe someone else wrote the diary.’

‘What, someone who murdered Geraldine and Lucy? Who?’

‘Waterhouse’d say William Markes.’

‘Come on, for-’

‘Stepford’s looking shifty too-reckon he’s having his doubts.’

‘He’s still nervous because he’s new. This thing of the dates being out of kilter-it doesn’t mean the diary’s a fake. Think about it: if you’d murdered two people and wanted to fake a diary for one of them, to put them in the frame, you wouldn’t attract unnecessary attention by choosing a cluster of dates from well over a year ago, would you? You’d make it more recent. Whereas if you’re an unhappily married woman, pissed off with your husband, it’s going to hit you hardest on your ten-year anniversary, isn’t it? Ten long years of this shit, you’d be thinking-time to open a diary file and have a good bitch, let out some of the poison…’ Sellers stopped when he saw Gibbs’ face. He blushed. ‘Looking forward to your and Debbie’s anniversary, are you?’

Gibbs laughed. ‘There’s no danger Debbie’ll feel that way after ten years with me. She’s like a different woman since we’ve been married. She can’t get enough of me.’

Sellers didn’t want to hear about Gibbs being in demand. ‘Anything more on the laptop?’ he asked.

‘ Norman ’s still on it.’

The pub door opened and two young girls came in wearing strappy tops and miniskirts. One of them had a purple jewel in her navel. Sellers felt Gibbs’ elbow in his side. ‘Young enough for you?’

‘Sod off.’

‘Go on, go and drool over them. Colin Sellers the Chat-up King, with the stylish retro sideburns. “All right, love, wipe yourself, your taxi’s here. It’s four in the morning, pay for yourself if you don’t mind, love.” ’ His attempt at a Doncaster accent was appalling; it sounded more Welsh than anything else. All of a sudden Gibbs fancied himself as a comedian?

‘Cocksucker,’ said Sellers. He thought about Mandy and the Age Concern shop’s evening event, and realised he’d made the wrong choice. The way he was feeling at the moment, he’d happily sit in a grey plastic chair in a smelly shop for the rest of his life as long as Gibbs wasn’t sitting beside him.

When Charlie opened her front door and saw Simon, her heart dropped and landed with a thump on the floor of her stomach. Then, with equal speed and as little warning, it began to ascend, as if someone had filled it with helium. Simon was here; he’d made the effort to come and see her. About time.

‘Hi,’ she said. He was holding something behind his back. Flowers? Unlikely, unless he’d hired a private tutor in the social graces since Charlie last spoke to him.

‘What’s happened here?’ he asked, looking at the bare hall behind her.

‘I’m redecorating.’

‘Oh, right. Sorry, I…’ He craned his neck, looking for paint and dust-sheets that Charlie hadn’t bought yet.

‘Not now, at this precise second. I was just about to grab a spoon and have some cold, ready-made chilli from a jar for my dinner. Fancy some?’

‘Why don’t you heat it up?’ Simon looked puzzled. ‘You’ve got a microwave.’