The Lying Room

by Nicci French

  Fletcher came in, spreading mud from the garden over the tiles.

  ‘This is Bernice Stevenson,’ said Neve. She watched him as the realisation of who Bernice was gathered on his face. He took her hand and told her how very sorry he was while his eyes darted round the kitchen like he was looking for a getaway. Bernice nodded stiffly at him and rummaged in her complicated bag for a tissue that she blew her nose on.

  ‘Connor’s at Elias’s house,’ he said. ‘I said Elias could stay here tonight; that’s OK isn’t it?’

  Neve nodded helplessly. There was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, things being dropped heavily. Mabel, she thought.

  ‘I thought I’d have a go at the greenhouse before cooking,’ Fletcher said. ‘Neve’s always nagging at me to do it,’ he added to Bernice.

  ‘I don’t nag, I politely ask,’ said Neve, spoiling it by adding, ‘over and over again.’

  ‘Whatever. Do you know if there are any chargers for the electric drill in that bag of wires? I haven’t used it for ages.’

  Bag of wires. Hammer. Murder weapon. Neve sprang into the centre of the kitchen.

  ‘Wait!’ she said. ‘Make tea! Look after Bernice for one moment. I just have to see Rory. Hang on. Something to do.’

  She whisked into the little back room and pushed her hand into the bag. As she grasped the hammer, she thought how perhaps the murderer’s fingerprints were on it – and her fingerprints of course. And Mabel’s. She looked around for a bag of some kind but there were only the string ones, so she thrust the hammer under her shirt and hurried through the kitchen holding it in place like she had a bad stomach ache, past Fletcher and Bernice, and up the stairs, two at a time. Now where? She went into her room and pulled out the present box and inserted the hammer deep inside, covering it with a shirt that she pulled from its hanger, and then pushing it to the back of the wardrobe. She’d think of a better place later.

  Mabel poked her head out of her bedroom door. ‘What’s she doing here?’

  ‘I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘Mabel, we need to—’

  ‘Mum?’ came Rory’s voice from the floor above.

  Her uncomplaining, reclusive, silent son. She went up the stairs and found him sitting on his bed.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Have you been outside at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re going to cook with me, right?’

  He brightened. ‘Yes. What are we going to make?’

  ‘Your father’s doing his cheesecake. Do you want to make the baba ganoush? You have to set fire to aubergines.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘And tomorrow we can go for a bike ride.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They went downstairs together. Neve introduced him to Bernice, who was drinking tea, still perched on the edge of the chair.

  ‘Rory and I are going to cook dinner,’ said Neve.

  ‘I think I need to have a lie down,’ said Bernice. She stood, looking about her as if a couch would magically appear.

  ‘Of course. Do you need a bed?’

  ‘Oh no, a sofa will do.’

  So Neve took her through to the living room and Bernice set her shiny bag on the ground, took off her immaculate suede jacket, pulled off her shiny shoes and laid herself down on the baggy sofa that Connor had drawn over in indelible pink ink the day after they had bought it. She closed her eyes, and her face looked suddenly gaunt and old. Neve crept from the room, closing the door softly behind her.

  Neve and Rory cooked together. Neve made a spicy, garlicky marinade for the fish and carved the squash into thin wedges, grating ginger over the top. She made a yoghurt and lime sauce to go with it, and soaked rice in a pan so it would cook quickly. Rory scorched aubergines, setting off the blood-curdling shriek of the smoke alarm. He painstakingly mashed their flesh with tahini and scooped seeds out of the pomegranate, splattering himself with red liquid as he did so. Out in the garden, they could see Fletcher struggling with the greenhouse, like a pantomime of frustration and mishap.

  Connor and Elias arrived back, throbbing with energy. Sarah nodded at them.

  ‘Good luck,’ she said. ‘Rather you than me. And thanks. I’ve got the evening to myself and now I’ve just got to think of something to do with it. Probably I’ll just go to bed early. The exciting life of a single mother.’

  She left. The boys charged upstairs. Neve washed the pots and pans. She was hot and sticky, hollow with hunger but nauseous with fear. Her dead lover’s wife was asleep on her sofa. Her daughter was upstairs throwing away the entire contents of her room, having removed vital evidence from the murder scene that she herself had also thoroughly cleaned. Her lawyer friend had told her that she and Mabel could go to prison for three years for what they had done. The detective in charge of the murder inquiry was interested in her in some way that she couldn’t put her finger on. The murder weapon was in her wardrobe. A birthday present to her from Saul was going to arrive in Saul’s flat. And they were about to have a dinner party.

  At just after six, Fletcher took over in the kitchen. Neve was very familiar with his air of single-minded purpose as he laid out all the ingredients and rolled up his sleeves, then opened the cookery book to minutely study it as if this was the first time he had ever seen it.

  ‘You can have a shower,’ he said. Neve was still in her muddy gardening clothes and her hair needed washing.

  She put her head round the living room door to see Bernice fast asleep, then went upstairs and ran a bath. She lay in it for a long time, listening to the sounds of the house. She heard Connor come in with Elias, heard Mabel hurling more bags down the stairs, heard the radio.

  When she finally came downstairs, dressed in a long grey shirt dress whose belt she couldn’t find, hair still damp, she met Bernice emerging from the living room with newly applied make-up. Her mask was back on.

  ‘Can I borrow a clean shirt?’ Bernice asked. ‘I feel a bit grubby.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Perhaps you can show me your selection.’

  ‘I haven’t got anything very smart,’ said Neve. And then she thought: the hammer. In the wardrobe.

  ‘Wait one moment,’ she said. ‘Just a minute. Less.’ She sped back up the stairs, fished out the hammer, pushed it into the laundry basket, and stood for a moment, irresolute. Where was safe?

  A tree is best hid in a forest she thought; a book is best hid in a library.

  She covered the hammer with the throw on their bed and went downstairs again, past Bernice, into the scullery. She opened the toolbox and laid the hammer on top, closed the lid. Her breath was coming in shallow gasps.

  ‘Come and choose,’ she said to Bernice, going out into the hall again.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. I just need some of that gin,’ said Bernice. She fished in her bag and squirted herself with perfume.

  Music was thundering from Mabel’s room. The two women went into the kitchen just as a football, punted energetically by Connor, span towards the large window and shattered it, spraying glass everywhere. Fletcher, shaving curls of white chocolate on to his cheesecake, swore loudly and picked a shard of glass from his concoction. The guinea pig pressed its earnest face against the wire. The doorbell rang.

  Tamsin was the first to arrive.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ said Neve, hugging her.

  And she did: tall and strong, wearing a tight-fitting blue dress, her dark hair piled on her head. Earrings swung in her lobes.

  ‘Really?’ Tamsin grimaced, suddenly awkward. ‘Not too much?’

  ‘Not at all. Exactly right.’

  Fletcher made four gin and tonics and then Mabel came in. She had looked like a twelve-year-old during the day, but now she seemed at least ten years older, a woman. She had put on skinny jeans, a white blouse that belonged to Neve and high-heeled ankle boots. She was discreetly made up, and hair was
hung softly round her face. Neve stared at her daughter. She looked so soft and clean and graceful, like a candle flame. The memory of their terrible morning filled her so that for a moment she couldn’t speak. Mabel cast her a demure glance. Her performed placidity was almost worse than her rage. Neve thought of the morning’s conversation. She repeated the words that Mabel had said to her towards the end: that it hadn’t been her. She hadn’t killed Saul. But she had said it in such an uninflected way, like she was performing a role. It had happened so often before, Mabel saying things that weren’t true. And Neve knew they weren’t true. And Mabel knew Neve knew. What about now?

  ‘Can I have a gin as well?’ Mabel asked, and then when Neve made a face at Fletcher: ‘I know what that means.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That expression. It means give Mabel a gin and tonic with almost no gin in it.’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ said Neve. ‘Anyway, there wasn’t any expression.’ Both statements were lies.

  Neve went to the kitchen to get something to go with the drinks. Tamsin followed her.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, gesturing at the plastic that was taped over the broken window.

  ‘Connor broke it. Crisps or olives?’

  ‘How many people are coming?’

  Neve did the mental arithmetic. Tamsin and Bernice and Jackie Cornfield and Will Ziegler and Mabel and Fletcher.

  ‘Six,’ she said. ‘And me of course. Seven. I ought to warn you: there’s someone rather unexpected here who—’

  ‘That reminds me,’ Tamsin interrupted, ‘I hope you don’t mind. I was talking to Renata and she might pop round. So that makes eight.’

  ‘Renata?’ said Neve, her mind racing. She needed to call her at once and tell her she absolutely mustn’t come.

  ‘I think we all need to stick together at a time like this.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘So crisps and olives would probably be a good idea.’

  Neve took a carton of olives from the fridge. She tore open two different bags of crisps and emptied them into bowls. Tamsin took one from the bowl and put it in her mouth.

  ‘I remember that Will Ziegler from college,’ she said. ‘I had a feeling that we were going to get together, but it never quite happened.’

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t mind if you sat me next to him at dinner.’

  ‘There’s nothing formal about this,’ said Neve. ‘Just sit yourself wherever you want.’

  She picked up her mobile, went into the hall with it, found Renata’s number and rang. It went to voicemail. She tried the landline: no reply. She sent a text: Bernice is here. Don’t come!

  There was a ring at the door and when Neve and Tamsin returned to the living room Jackie and Will were standing there. Jackie was wearing a voluminous orange garment and holding out an extravagant bunch of flowers that almost hid her face; Will had two bottles of wine.

  ‘We went to the wrong house,’ said Jackie, as if it was a hilarious joke.

  ‘Well, you’re here now.’

  ‘This tiny man opened the door. He practically only came up to my waist. He looked like a garden gnome, didn’t he, Will?’

  She clapped Will on the shoulder. Will nodded, shrugged at Neve. He’d shaved and put on a crisp white shirt. Suddenly she could imagine him running a company, living in a big house in the countryside with his wife and his rescue dogs.

  Bernice came down the stairs, gripping the banisters as if she might tumble. From upstairs Neve could hear sounds of a computer game.

  ‘I got white and red,’ Will said. ‘I didn’t know what you were serving.’

  Fletcher distributed gin and tonics all round. Neve looked at hers a little warily. She still had barely eaten or slept and would have to pace herself. When she introduced Bernice to everyone, Tamsin was visibly shocked.

  ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t even begin to think what to say.’

  ‘Then don’t say anything,’ Bernice replied. Her tone was sarcastic, almost venomous. Neve heard Tamsin give a small gasp. ‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she continued. ‘I’ve never been a grieving widow before. I’m not sure how to behave. Neve has been good to me though.’

  Neve took a gulp of her drink. Her cheeks were burning. Hot flush, she thought. Hot flush of shame.

  ‘It’s the least I could do,’ she said.

  She excused herself saying she needed to check the food. She went upstairs with some pizza that she’d put in the oven for the boys, who were all clustered round the TV screen in Connor’s room, playing some game that they couldn’t even look up from. She put the pizza on the little desk, knowing it would soon be daubed around the room.

  ‘I’ll save you some baba ganoush,’ she said to Rory.

  When she returned to the living room, she saw them all clustered in a group. Bernice was talking with that same air of brittle control that might split apart at any moment. Jackie and Will were looking at her with expressions of both sympathy and fascination. Neve thought to herself that they were getting more than they bargained for out of their visit to London. And she also thought of a saying she had read somewhere that there is something in the misfortunes of others that doesn’t displease us. That was maybe putting it a bit strongly but they would certainly have something to tell people about when they went back to Newcastle and to Bristol.

  There was another ring at the door and Renata raced into the room in a state of excited disarray. She hugged Neve and then Tamsin. Fletcher poured her a drink, though Neve didn’t think she needed one. Suddenly it felt more like the hum and buzz of a party rather than the little evening meal she had had in mind. Now Fletcher was topping up the gin and tonics from a jug.

  ‘I’m so sorry for barging in like this,’ said Renata to Neve. ‘I couldn’t face an evening alone.’

  ‘Isn’t Charlie there?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie is there.’ The door rang. ‘That’ll be Gary.’ Renata noticed Neve’s expression. ‘Sorry. I was about to say. I was talking to him and mentioned this and I assumed he would be here. So I said he should come along. Is that all right?’

  ‘What if I said it wasn’t?’

  Renata nudged Neve on the shoulder playfully. ‘It’s always all right,’ she said. ‘You’re the rock we all cling to.’

  ‘You’d better let him in,’ Neve said. She gave up on averting disaster. It was going to happen anyway.

  Gary came in clutching a bottle of wine that he handed to Neve and then hugged her.

  ‘You forgot to invite me,’ he said with a smile that wasn’t entirely warm.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Renata. ‘You were invited by someone who wasn’t invited either, so stop sulking. Anyway, Neve probably assumed you’d be with Jane on a Saturday evening. You usually are.’

  Gary shrugged. ‘Well, I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘How do you think? Not good.’

  Renata’s eyes immediately filled with tears. She put a hand on his shoulder, looked around and then spoke to Neve in a hiss. ‘Oh Christ. Is that—?’

  ‘I sent you a text telling you not to come.’

  ‘I can’t face her,’ said Renata. ‘If I’d known, I would never have come. What shall I do? It’s too late now, isn’t it? I can’t leave. I’ll just have to stay away from her. Oh God.’ Tears stood in her eyes.

  Neve thought that actually it would be a good idea if Renata did leave, so she didn’t answer. She saw Mabel picking up the jug of gin and tonics where Fletcher had put it down and starting to fill her glass. She moved into the room and Jackie drifted into her view, coming to a halt in front of her.

  ‘So. What have you been doing in London?’ Neve asked her.

  ‘So much. I haven’t stopped. I can’t even remember where I was today. It’s just a blur.’ She gave a cheerful laugh.

  ‘You can just look on your phone,’ said Will, overhearing and turning towards them.
‘It’ll show where you’ve been today.’

  Neve turned away, sweat prickling on her skin. Her phone could give away her movements. Did that mean if she threw her phone away, then she would be all right, or was it stored somewhere? She took another gulp of her gin. She was going to be caught, she thought. It was just a matter of time.

  ‘I think we can all sit down now,’ she said loudly. ‘I’ll bring the food out. Just seat yourselves.’

  When she got to the kitchen, she was horribly tempted to keep on going, leave the house and not come back. Perhaps taking the guinea pig with her.

  She and Fletcher brought the food through and placed it on the table to theatrical gasps and cries of admiration. Neve sat down and saw that Mabel had sat herself on Will’s left. Tamsin was on his right. Neve sat at the end of the table by Tamsin. Bernice was on her other side then Renata, Jackie and Fletcher at the far end of the table. Then Gary came in carrying a chair from the kitchen and inserted himself between Renata and Jackie. Neve looked at the various combinations with some alarm. Will was leaning down towards Mabel who was saying something that Neve couldn’t make out. More obviously worrying was that Bernice and Renata were sitting next to each other.

  Wine was poured, food spooned out, compliments made.

  ‘This is just great,’ said Jackie. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done all this. If it was me, I would have just sent out for a takeaway.’

  There was the ringing sound of metal clinking on a wine glass. Neve saw with a sinking feeling that Fletcher was going to say something. She felt that there had been enough speeches that week.