The Silent Widow

Haddon examined the card curiously. Taking a seat, he gestured to Williams to do the same.

‘What other reasons?’ He looked at Williams quizzically.

Williams cleared his throat. ‘When Doug Roberts died, I understand he had his mistress with him in the car?’

‘Ah. That.’ Haddon frowned.

‘So it’s true?’

‘Yes. It’s true. So that’s what Nikki’s hired you to investigate? Doug’s affair?’

‘That’s part of it, yes. She told me she knew nothing about this mistress’s existence until the day of the accident. Does that surprise you?’

Haddon groaned and rubbed his temples. ‘No. Not really.’

‘But you knew about her?’ Williams surmised. ‘I mean, you must have, right? You and Doug being such close friends, working together and everything.’

‘We were very close, yes,’ said Haddon, again not directly answering Williams’ question. He sounded irritated now, his earlier warmth rapidly evaporating. ‘I wish Nikki would let this go,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘For her sake and everybody else’s. Doug’s dead. Lenka’s dead.’

‘You told Nikki you’d never met Lenka.’ Williams dropped in the information as if it were a trifling detail.

‘That’s right,’ said Haddon. ‘I never did.’

‘Hmmm.’ Williams looked puzzled. ‘That’s odd.’ Pulling out his phone, he passed it across the desk to Defoe. ‘Because this looks like a picture of the three of you at a fundraiser together two years ago. Action on Addiction’s summer gala, I believe it was. You don’t remember that evening?’

Haddon looked at the image calmly, before handing the phone back. It was a grainy group shot – everybody’s features were blurred – but it plainly showed Doug Roberts with his arm around a woman who was considerably too tall and full-figured to be his wife.

‘I’m afraid not, no. I go to a lot of fundraisers. She’s the brunette, I assume?’

‘She is, yes,’ said Williams. ‘But then I’m guessing you probably knew that already, seeing as you were the one who invited her that night, and introduced her to Doug Roberts in the first place.’

Haddon Defoe smiled thinly. ‘You’ve done your homework. I see Nikki chose well when she hired you, Mr Williams.’

He’s a cool customer, thought Williams, although he noticed the small muscle twitching involuntarily at the top of the doctor’s jaw.

‘But maybe not so well choosing her husband. Or her friends.’ Williams smiled back.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ said Haddon, refusing to take the bait. ‘Doug and Nikki had a solid marriage. And while I consider myself a friend of Nikki’s, I was a closer friend to Doug. I wouldn’t feel right betraying his secrets, especially now that he’s gone. We all make mistakes, Mr Williams. Whatever wrongs Doug Roberts may have done, to his wife or anyone else, hasn’t he more than paid for them? He’s dead after all. Cut off in his prime.’

‘He’s paid for them, yes,’ Williams agreed. ‘But have you, Dr Defoe?’

Haddon’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Williams leaned back in his chair. ‘Here’s what I’m thinking: You were jealous of Doug Roberts. Your so-called “friend” beat you at everything. He scored higher on his medical exams. Got a more prestigious internship. He founded your addiction clinics and got all the glory for them, all the PR, while you played second fiddle.’

Haddon laughed loudly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, man! It’s a charity, not a competition.’

‘He married a beautiful girl,’ Williams went on, ignoring him. ‘A girl you’d always lusted after yourself. And, like you said, it was a strong marriage – unlike your own, that collapsed after what? A year?’

‘Eighteen months,’ Haddon muttered, through gritted teeth. Not even he could smile through the mention of his ex-wife, Christie, and the humiliation of being so publicly abandoned.

‘But most of all you hated Doug for landing the top position at the Addiction Recovery Clinic at Cedars. You both applied for it, and you’d been led to believe that the job was yours, hadn’t you? But then your dear friend, Mr Charisma himself, snatches that out from under you …’

‘Oh, don’t stop there, Mr Williams,’ Haddon drawled, regaining his composure as Williams paused for breath. ‘I’m a fan of good fiction. I want to know how this story ends.’

‘It ends with you introducing Doug Roberts to a woman named Lenka Gordievski. Setting up a honeytrap to destroy his happy marriage.’

Haddon shook his head. ‘Look,’ he said, putting his palms up on the table. ‘You might be right about some of this, OK? Maybe I was jealous of Doug. It was hard not to be, Mr Williams. He was an amazing, amazing man. One of a kind. But I was also his friend. And yes, I introduced him to Lenka. Nikki doesn’t know that, and I’d rather it stays that way.’