Simone
SIMONE
J onah Kofi Mensah had just turned thirty-two when he made partner at his law firm.
With the number of hours he had to work, Jonah hired Simone because the women he desired did not want anything casual, and the women who didn’t mind, he had no interest in. This made Simone and the girlfriend package perfect for him.
And because their relationship was not real, Jonah was the perfect boyfriend.
Whenever he booked Simone for the evening, they always started with dinner.
Tonight, they were at a restaurant with a dark-wood interior lit by warm orange bulbs that hung from the ceiling.
He brought Simone a bouquet of flowers and pulled her chair out from under the table; he kissed her cheek and they shared a few seconds of eye contact.
Simone swallowed, and the back of her neck felt warm.
Across the table, Simone could smell the cologne he wore and remembered when they’d gone shopping together to buy it—how the sales assistant had watched Jonah kiss the top of Simone’s head before telling her to pick something out for herself.
Simone confidently walked toward the perfume she’d had her eye on as soon as she’d stepped onto the shop’s floor, knowing Jonah would offer.
The sales assistant had performed a subtle assessment of him before doing the same to Simone; she ended with a subtle nod: Yes, they made sense as a couple.
Jonah was tall and dark with an impressive build.
His ears pointed at the top and his dark eyes would gleam when he laughed, as if tears sat right on the edge.
He loved a three-piece suit but changed into trainers as soon as he left the office because, no matter what size he bought, his leather oxfords always pinched his feet.
His tie always matched his socks and Simone found that inexplicably attractive.
After dinner, Jonah called an Uber, and once through his front door, Simone took his hand and led him to the bedroom.
Languid and exhausted afterward, Simone was glad to have reached her second favorite part of her evenings with Jonah. As they lay in bed in his high-rise in Canary Wharf, she rested her head on his chest, taking in the view of a black-and-gold piece of London below.
“What case are you working on at the moment?” Simone asked him.
He gently squeezed her wrist and said, “I’ve been saving this one for you. When I heard it I just knew : Sim’s going to love this.”
Simone hid her smile.
“So, Cambridge University,” Jonah started. “Dead female student, code name: Blond, and three suspects. As usual, I’ll give you the info, their code names, and you tell me who you think did it. Suspect number one is the boyfriend—”
Simone scoffed and Jonah laughed. “I haven’t told you about the others yet!”
“Statistics are not on his side,” Simone said, “but go on.”
“The boyfriend,” Jonah continued. “Code name: Varsity. He and Blond had been dating for only ten months, but apparently were totally in love, you know, like nineteen-year-old couples always say they are. Varsity’s friends say he would never hurt her and even Blond’s friends agree.
However, the night before she’s murdered, they’re seen having an argument in a restaurant.
When questioned, Varsity says it was just about standard couple things, he can’t even remember because they’d been drinking, but we interviewed the diners who were at the table next to them, and apparently Blond had been trying to break up with him. ”
“I knew it,” Simone said. “I’ve already condemned him, but out of fairness, who are the other suspects?”
“Suspect number two is Varsity’s half brother, but not on the rich side of the family—code name: Scholarship. Suspect number three is the lonely new girl who swears she’s good friends with the victim—code name: Newbie—but Blond’s actual friends have never heard of her.”
Simone had spoken too soon; usually in Jonah’s cases, the culprit was obvious, but tonight’s suspects caused her to close her eyes in thought as she weighed the possibilities. “Motives,” she requested.
“The boyfriend’s half brother, Scholarship, doesn’t have one.
In fact, until DNA samples were taken from all three suspects, the brothers didn’t even know they were related.
Turns out the dad had an affair with a woman who lived in a different city, so the brothers had never met.
They both landed at Cambridge, which seems suspicious, but they don’t attend the same lectures or participate in the same extracurricular activities, and the half brother was only accepted on a scholarship.
However, he’s the last known person to have seen the victim alive; Blond was seen leaving his shared flat the morning of her death. ”
Simone lifted her head. “Wait, Blond was leaving the flat of her ex-boyfriend’s half brother? Were they friends? Sleeping together?”
Jonah smiled, relishing her interest. “He insists that they weren’t, and cameras in the area show that Blond arrived at his flat and left within a couple of minutes.
She lived on the other side of town, and I’d find it hard to believe that an extremely short quickie is worth the early morning hassle. ”
“The plot thickens,” Simone said, returning her head to Jonah’s chest. “Well, how does Scholarship explain her short visit?”
“He says she came to see his flatmate—he doesn’t know what about—but when he told Blond that the flatmate wasn’t in, she left.”
“You’ve questioned the flatmate to corroborate?”
“We will as soon as he’s back in London.”
“Okay… Tell me about the lonely girl. Codename: Newbie?”
“She moved to the UK two years ago and has no friends.”
“That’s fair enough—it isn’t easy making friends,” Simone said. “How are she and Blond connected, then?”
“According to Newbie, they spent a lot of time together in the library. The victim was failing her classes—which is true—and Newbie was helping her. Blond’s professors say her marks had taken a sudden leap forward over the last few months, so that checks out.
CCTV in the library also confirms this. However, Blond never mentioned the study sessions to any of her actual friends. ”
“Why not?”
“Exactly,” Jonah said. “They were all being tutored by someone so it wouldn’t have been embarrassing.”
Simone took her time with this one. “I still think it’s the boyfriend. Varsity.”
“You always think it’s the boyfriend!”
“And aren’t I usually right?”
“Still, you have an obvious mistrust toward boyfriends.”
Simone thought briefly of Dominic. “Who is your team defending?” she asked.
“The richest one, of course.”
“Let me guess—Varsity?”
Jonah nodded. “His parents make Scrooge McDuck look poor.”
Simone pinched his arm and playfully said, “Soulless.”
Jonah smiled and didn’t respond. Instead, he flipped Simone onto her back in one soft motion, trailed kisses down her stomach, before hooking her legs around his neck and burying his face between her thighs.