White Bodies: An Addictive Psychological Thriller

by Jane Robins

  “The photos mean nothing. . . .”

  “Of course, sweetness. That was stupid of me.”

  I return to my chair behind the shop counter and am about to send Tilda yet another text asking whether she’s okay. At least, on this holiday, she’s still speaking to me—and my main aim is to keep our channel of communication open.

  I’m pressing send when the bell jangles and an older guy comes into the shop. He has an unruly gray beard and a baggy checked shirt and, unlike most of the customers, he doesn’t ignore Daphne—he raises his eyebrows at her and with a tentative grin says, “Okay to disturb you while you’re working—just for a minute?” At the same time, he produces from behind his back a bunch of flowers—pink roses, cosmos daisies, and a sprig of white lacy hydrangea. “From my garden,” he says. Daphne is blushing an unseemly blotchy red color, and gets up from her chair, bashing her leg against the worktable.

  “Douglas, you’re a darling!” She takes the flowers. “I’ll put them in a glass and have them on my table.”

  He exits, with a cheery wave, saying, “Not stopping. Just wanted to drop those by.”

  Daphne says, “You see, Callie, romance does happen. Life can be uncomplicated sometimes.”

  “Uncomplicated! Are you sure? Don’t you have complicated doubts about Douglas’s beard, and your compatibility?”

  She snorts: “You know what—good sex can sort everything out—the complexity falls away.”

  “You haven’t!”

  “Oh yes I have.”

  “You’re going to hate this . . . but what about all that research he did on you before he met you? It was practically cyberstalking. Don’t you find that worrying?”

  She leans her chin on her hand, is gazing at me in a benign, smiley way. Sort of kind, sort of patronizing. “Actually no. Everyone does internet research on everyone these days and, you know what? He’s rather lovely. A widower with three grown-up children, and a house in Somerset . . . I think I’ve done well.”

  “Sometimes there’s a fine line between romantic and sinister.”

  “Sure. But this isn’t one of those times.”

  I realize that I’m projecting my fearful state onto Daphne, which is unfair. So I ask, “Would you like an iced bun?”

  She says yes, and I make tea for us to have with the buns. Just as I’m serving up, the bell clangs again. It’s Amy Fishwick, the girl that Wilf likes, saying, “Hi. It’s Callie, isn’t it? We met at the Willesden Estates party? I want to buy a book for Wilf—can you recommend something?”

  I inspect her, up and down. Extravagant blond hair extensions, styled into a wavy tussled look (bedhead?), white pencil skirt, tight. Discernible cleavage. High-gloss magenta fingernails. Heels. She’d be a disaster in the Bishops Avenue garden, digging and pulling out weeds.

  “He likes psychological thrillers. Murder stories. He’s read all of Harlan Coben, and has just started on Jo Nesbø.” In a grumpy way, I pick out a book called Nemesis, and give it to her. “He’ll like this.”

  She flashes me a puzzled look, like she thinks I’m sending her a covert message, or the book is a trick.

  “Really, he’ll like it.”

  “Thanks, Callie,” she says sweetly, tilting her head and widening her eyes, like she’s speaking to a small child.

  When she leaves Daphne says, “I don’t believe it. She’s not his type.”

  “We don’t know that. I mean, we don’t know him that well.” I’m thinking that Daphne’s wrong, that she hasn’t witnessed the sharp little looks that Wilf and Amy exchange; hasn’t taken into account Amy’s spray-tanned legs or her come-hither smile.

  I don’t want to think about her, so I go online and log onto Controlling Men. I want to discuss Tilda’s letter and I write:

  Pink has confided that she thinks X will kill her. And she actually wants him to do it. She tries to provoke him.

  Within seconds I’m bombarded with advice. I’m told that the situation is “critical,” “highly dangerous.” That it’s not uncommon for women to become so psychologically broken that they become complicit in the violence. Lemon-and-Lime is back, and she writes about “the gaslight effect,” which is when an abuser manipulates situations so cleverly that his partner doubts her own sanity. “This is often the modus operandi of a sociopath.”

  Felix is screwed up, probably sadistic, but he isn’t a sociopath, I know that—Lemon-and-Lime doesn’t understand. Oh how I’d love to discuss this with Belle! I’m missing her so badly.

  I log off and scroll through the dossier instead, looking at the write-ups I did after chatting to Belle online, and after meeting her in York. I’m looking for evidence that moral, kind Belle was actually cooperating with Scarlet, signing up to her insane murder plan. I don’t want to believe that she was; but as I read through my notes, I realize that she was endlessly referring to Scarlet’s superior status as prey, being “closer to the danger” than us. And in Pizza Express Belle had used the actual words: “Scarlet has asked me to help her, and I am. I want to play my part.” Reluctantly, I write: I do believe that Belle did it—that she stole diamorphine and syringes and needles from York hospital.

  I research diamorphine, and discover that it’s a cleaned-up form of heroin that’s given to cancer patients in agonizing pain, and if you inject an overdose into a vein, death follows pretty quickly. It was how Dr. Harold Shipman murdered more than two hundred of his patients. There were tons of it in Scarlet’s bag—maybe enough to kill an entire village.

  I return to Controlling Men, looking for Scarlet. She’s there, and we move to the Zone.

  I want to ask you about the contents of your bag.

  Don’t do it. Some things can only be discussed in person.

  I’m worrying about everything. You, Pink, Felix.

  Stop . . . You need to know that the violence is getting worse here. I will give you more information about Luke soon.

  Get out of there Scarlet. Go to a refuge.

  Not possible. There’s no funding for refuges these days. No available spaces. We both know that. What’s the latest on Pink and Felix? (We’re going through the charade of calling her Pink still?)

  They’re away, back in a week . . .

  I don’t want to go over Tilda’s letter again. It’s too exhausting.

  Then they’ll be around for a while? In London?

  Yes, they’ll be here for ages. I don’t think they’re going to travel anywhere—Felix works too hard. Even when he goes away somewhere nice, it’s for work.

  Oh?

  Yes, in October he’s off to some flash country-house hotel for a conference.

  Where?

  Berkshire I think.

  What’s the hotel called?

  Not sure. Ashleigh something; something like that. Why?

  Might be important.

  I have to go, I’m at work.

  Customers have come into the shop, and I sell a Napoleon Bonaparte book to an older man who looks a little like Daphne’s Douglas, and a book on crochet and mindfulness to a young mother with two babies in a buggy. Then I write up my findings about diamorphine. And I note that I’ve told Scarlet about Felix’s conference trip.

  28

  Tilda’s been back from her honeymoon for two months and I haven’t seen her. She phones and keeps me updated on how happy she is and how perfect Felix is, but makes excuses not to see me in person, so that I can verify the authenticity of her gushy claims. Then, at last, I’m invited to Curzon Street for a movie night. She calls while I’m at home, online, gorging on Controlling Men; and because I’m alert and in the mood to register every little inflection in her voice, every slight hint of fragility, I do notice. An element of woundedness, definitely, but something else also—maybe hope, or optimism.

  “Single White Female,” she says. “It’s a film from the 1990s about two young women, Hedy and Allie. Hedy’s obsessed with Allie, insanely jealous of her, and it all gets deliciously creepy. You’ll love it.”

  I hold the ph
one too hard against my ear, stuck for words. I suppose she’s making a point about my obsession with her. I’m about to protest that I’m not jealous—that’s not it at all, then:

  “Callie? Are you still there?”

  “Yes . . . I’ll come. I’ll bring brownies.”

  “It’s a special film,” she says. “And I’m excited about you seeing it. I’ll tell you why when I see you.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “No! You have to see it first.”

  So I arrive at Curzon Street, clutching my bag of brownies (homemade!) and my Strongbow, and I’m reminded of that day in the spring when I met Felix for the first time. Now, as then, Tilda answers the door, and Felix is in the kitchen space, arranging things in cupboards.

  I make my entrance as positively as I can manage, with a cheerful “Welcome home, Mr. and Mrs. Nordberg!”

  Felix takes my cider and pours our drinks, while I notice the subtle glow he gained from the Greek sun—just enough to emphasize sharp cheekbones, and the limpid paleness of his eyes. He hands me my glass, and as our hands touch I start, and realize how on edge I am. I mumble “Sorry,” and Felix mops up spilled cider. I try to start an uncontroversial conversation.

  “Was your family home like this?” I say. “I mean, shades of white, and spotless?”

  “God, no. Growing up, my parents’ place was all burnished oak paneling, dark furniture, rugs the color of port wine. Pieces of impressive art—ceramics and paintings. Kinda like a gentleman’s club.”

  “Sounds formal.”

  “I guess it was. More suited to decorous cocktail parties than to two small boys running around and jumping on the furniture.”

  Although I fear Felix, and think he’s deranged, it’s hard to totally hate him. Maybe I even feel a little sorry for him—I’m imagining that he was screwed up by his boyhood, spent in a world designed and constructed by Alana with the primary purpose of making Erik feel important, a big beast. I imagine, too, that Erik might like to be called “sir” by his children and that, even when the boys were young, he was endlessly pontificating on interest rates and productivity statistics, spouting his views on the global economy.

  We move to the sofa, and I want to ask Felix what it was like to be the son of a renowned “thinker.” But Tilda says I must see the honeymoon photos, and then we’ll watch the film. She opens her laptop, and I admire pictures of her in neon-colored cotton kaftans, lounging about at their villa. Eventually there are a couple of photos of her in a bikini, but she’s turning to one side, looking flirtatiously over her shoulder at the camera. It’s useless. I can’t tell anything.

  “It’s hard to be back in London,” Felix says. “Work and everything.”

  “Did you manage to switch off while you were away?” I’m still trying to do normal, not wanting to be thrown out of the flat.

  Tilda laughs. “Of course he didn’t. Zillions of calls to the office, and constant checking online.”

  “Hey! I wasn’t so bad. What I mean is, I’m back to long hours away from you, and I have this wretched conference on Friday.”

  “How long will you be away?” Tilda asks.

  “Two days.”

  “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too, babe.”

  The babe makes me get up from the sofa, unable to stomach being close to him, and I sit by myself. Tilda presses the remote.

  She’s right. The movie’s atmospheric and brilliant. Jennifer Jason Leigh as Hedy is a dark-haired, quiet observer (like me), and Bridget Fonda is fair-haired and successful (like Tilda). You might think that is just coincidence, but there’s another element that gives me the creeps—it turns out that Hedy is a twin, her sister having died years ago. So at first it seems like she’s tormented, looking for a lost soul. Everything gets darker and darker, because it’s that sort of film, and by the end I feel winded—and still suspect that Tilda’s making a point about me.

  “It was amazing,” I say. “The character of Hedy is so intense, she was riveting.”

  Tilda and Felix are lying together on the sofa, she cradled in his arm. She eases herself away, sits up straight, mushing up her hair. “Well, guess what, Callie? Guess fucking what?”

  “Yeah?”

  “They’re making a new film—same themes as Single White Female—a close study of two young women, one of them slightly unhinged, always observing the other. One of them envious, the other glamorous and successful.”

  A stab of pain in my chest.

  “Sort of like Rebecca too, then?”

  “Absolutely. The working title is Envy. Two main characters, Evie and Helen. And—amazing fact—it looks like I’m going to be cast as Helen!”

  I’m looking nervously back and forth, at Felix and Tilda. “The glamorous one?”

  She gulps her wine. “Yes, the glamorous one. I auditioned the week before the wedding—and I’ve got the job!”

  Felix is sitting there looking stunned. Wooden. And I snap, becoming high-pitched and shrill: “Don’t you dare stop her! I know you hate her being successful—but if you do anything to harm her—anything—I’m going to the police!”

  Felix gets up from the sofa, and says angrily, “This is too much. I’m going out. I need wine.”

  “We have wine,” says Tilda nervously.

  But he’s gathering up his keys and his jacket and leaves, slamming the door.

  In an instant, everything has changed. I know this sudden exit is a prelude to violence later on, and I imagine gripping and punching and suffocating. For an instant, I imagine her death.

  “Oh God,” she says shakily, struggling to articulate the words. “I didn’t tell him that I’d gone to the audition . . . I thought that when he saw Single White Female, he’d realize what a fabulous film it is and be pleased that I’m doing something similar. Something that could be totally brilliant for me . . .” She curls up into a fetal position, making herself tiny, and I make a mental note—she’s being honest. For the first time, to my face, she’s blaming him and not me! I think she’s sobbing now, silently, her face hidden, and it’s hard to believe that the evening has fallen into this state; it’s gone so suddenly from pretended conviviality to utterly broken.

  I kneel beside her, placing my face so that it touches the back of her head. Softly, I say, “He can’t do this to you. You can still leave him. . . .” I’m about to tell her that I’ve read her letter, that I know Felix might kill her at any moment. But she turns, leaps up and screams at me, a frenzied, piercing screech: “I will not leave him! I will not! Just shut your fucking mouth!”

  She stumbles towards the bedroom and even in this moment of crisis, I’m heartbroken by her beauty, her physical fragility. Those thin white legs, thin hips.

  Now she’s locked in the bathroom and I feel that we’re reliving the scene from early in the summer, when Felix stormed out in search of fizzy water. Except then he was faking it—this time it’s all too real. I’m in a heap at the foot of the bathroom door, and I call out, “I’m staying here. I’m not leaving you alone with him.” Then I haul myself up, pacing the bedroom, desperately searching for something of Tilda’s to eat. My shaking hand grabs a red lipstick in a gold case, and I chew off the end and swallow. I see in the mirror that I’ve made a ghastly crimson mess of my teeth.

  29

  Two hours later, Tilda and I are lying in her bed. She’s sleeping gently, and I’m listening to the even tones of her breath, wondering how she can sound so peaceful when her life is being torn apart. Like me, she’s wearing just her underwear, and I carefully pull down the duvet, trying to check her skin, though it’s hard to see by the feeble light of the bedside lamp. I think her shoulders are fine, devoid of blemishes—her skin is milky white, her bones making smooth contours, like soft stone. Like the contours of the lamb’s skull, years ago. Her back, too, is clear, apart from the mole on her left shoulder. I want to inspect her arms and thighs. But I don’t want to wake her, so I inch the duvet down gradually, and she doesn’t stir.
I see maybe one little ink-spot bruise, and I think I can make out scratch marks too, on her forearm, which is thin and speckled with freckles and fine blond hairs. I wish I could see the other side, her inner arm.

  I pull the duvet up, so that she isn’t cold, and I stroke the golden hair that is lying across the pillow, and try to bury my face in it without disturbing her. I breathe in her smell, which is thick and heady, and I think of childhood, of eating her hair and her teeth. Carefully, I shape my body so that it is like a protective shell, following the outline of her back and her legs, and for a while I close my eyes, and allow my breaths to follow hers, in and out, in and out. Then, I roll over, away from her, because I need to check, and I feel under my pillow, or rather, Felix’s pillow, and I’m reassured as my fingers slide along the cold hard blade. I’ve placed a kitchen knife there.

  I glance up and see the clock. It’s two fifteen. I suppose Felix isn’t coming back tonight, and I turn to face Tilda again, feeling calm and sleepy. On the memory stick, Tilda wrote that Felix made her feel lit up inside, like some dreadful wound had gone away—and that’s the way I feel now. Or rather, I don’t feel healed exactly. It’s more that I feel complete. Just Tilda and me together. Felix safely out of the house.

  I’m drifting off to sleep, wanting to stay like this forever. But I’m jolted out of my complacency by a noise. The door to the flat being opened, Felix returning after all, and I sit bolt upright, my hand under the pillow. My sharp movement wakes up Tilda, just as Felix enters the bedroom. He looks pale and wasted, and he steadies himself with his hand on the wall. He’s been drinking.

  “Get out, Callie.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “Fucking get out! Leave Tilda and me alone!”

  He lunges at me, grabbing me by the arm, yanking me out of the bed. I pull the knife with me, and it brushes against his side, swiftly and lightly, like I’m an artist tracing a line with a red-inked pen. Seeing the blood seeping through his shirt, he grips my arms, holding them up above my head, slamming me against the wall, repeatedly, so that my head thumps on the edge of the window frame.