The Girl Before(50)

He brings us mugs of tea from the counter and spoons two sugars into his. Although I know the Architects’ Journal photo was taken less than a decade ago, he looks quite different now. Heavier, fatter, his hair thinning.

I don’t normally talk about Edward Monkford, he says. Or the rest of the Partnership, for that matter.

I know, I say, I could hardly find anything online. That’s why I phoned your office. Though I must admit, I hadn’t expected to find you working for somewhere like Town and Vale Construction.

Tom Ellis’s employer is a massive company that builds estates of near-identical houses for commuters.



Edward’s trained you well, I see, he says drily.

What do you mean?

Town and Vale build affordable homes for people who want to bring up families. They site them near transport links, schools, doctors’ offices, and pubs. The houses have gardens for children to play in and insulation to keep fuel bills down. They might not win architectural prizes but people are happy in them. What’s wrong with that?

So you had a difference of opinion with Edward, I say. Was that why you left the Partnership?

After a moment Tom Ellis shakes his head. He forced me out, he says.

How?

In a thousand different ways. Challenging everything I suggested. Ridiculing my ideas. It was bad enough before Elizabeth died, but after he came back from his sabbatical and she wasn’t there to rein him in anymore, he turned into a monster.

He was heartbroken, I say.

Heartbroken, he repeats. Of course. That’s the great myth Edward Monkford’s spun around himself, isn’t it? The tormented genius who lost the love of his life and became an arch-minimalist as a result.

You don’t think that’s right?

I know it isn’t.

Tom Ellis studies me as if debating whether or not to go on. Edward would have designed his barren little cells right from the start, if we’d let him, he says at last. It was Elizabeth who held him back—with her and me backing each other up, he was effectively outnumbered. There was David Thiel, of course, he only cared about the engineering side. Elizabeth and I, though—we were close. We saw things the same way. The Partnership’s early designs reflected that.

How do you mean, close?

Close enough. That is, I suppose I was in love with her.

Tom Ellis glances at me.

You look a bit like her, actually. But I suppose you already know that.

I nod.

I never told Elizabeth how I felt, he says. At least, not until it was too late. I thought it might be difficult if she didn’t feel the same way, given we were working together so closely. That didn’t stop Edward, of course.



If Edward wanted her, he’d have told her so, I say.

The only reason he made a play for Elizabeth was to take her away from me, Tom Ellis says flatly. It was all about power and control. Just as it always is with Edward. By making her fall in love with him, he gained an ally and I lost one.

I frown. You think it was about the buildings? You think he married her just to make sure the Partnership built the kind of houses he wanted?

I know it sounds crazy, Tom Ellis says. But Edward Monkford is crazy, in a way.

No one’s that ruthless.

He laughs hollowly. You don’t know the half of it.

But the first house the Partnership built—One Folgate Street—was originally going to be quite different, I object.

Yes. But only because Elizabeth got pregnant. That hadn’t been part of Edward’s plan at all. Suddenly she wanted a family home with two bedrooms and a garden. Doors to shut off rooms for privacy instead of flowing open-plan spaces. They argued about it—God, how they argued! To meet her, you’d think Elizabeth was a sweet, gentle soul, but she was just as stubborn as him in her own way. An extraordinary woman.

He hesitates.

One night, not long before Max was born, I found her in the office, crying. She told me she couldn’t bear to go home to him, that they were so unhappy together. He was incapable of the smallest compromise, she said.

Tom Ellis’s eyes drift away from me, unseeing. I put my arms around her, he says. I kissed her. She stopped me—she was completely honorable, she’d never have done anything behind Edward’s back. But she told me she had a decision to make.

Whether to leave him, you mean?

He shrugs. The next day, she said I should forget what had happened, that it was just the hormones making her upset. That Edward might be difficult but she was committed to making their marriage work. She must have managed to get him to compromise to some extent, because the final designs were actually quite good. No, more than good. The house was brilliant. It made perfect use of the available space. It wouldn’t have won any awards. It probably wouldn’t even have put the Partnership on the international map. Comfortable, well-thought-out architecture never does. But the three of them would have been happy there.



He pauses. Edward had other ideas, though.

In what way?

Do you know how she died? he asks quietly.

I shake my head.

Elizabeth and Max were killed when a parked digger rolled into a stack of concrete blocks near where they were standing. At the inquest, it was suggested the blocks hadn’t been stacked correctly and the pile was unstable. Plus the digger might have been parked on a slope with its hand brake off. I spoke to the site foreman. He told me the stack was sound and the digger parked correctly when he left the site on Friday afternoon. The accident happened the next day.