The Lying Room

by Nicci French

  ‘I used to drop my shopping there sometimes. I stayed there once or twice after going to the theatre. It felt like staying in a hotel room. The sheets were always fresh. He never washed the sheets at home but when I stayed in the flat, the sheets were always clean.’

  Neve looked away from her, out of the window.

  ‘You know what I think?’ said Bernice. ‘Saul married someone because she was clever and interesting and not bad-looking and gradually watched her become boring and less good-looking. He even encouraged us to move out here. He said it would be good for me. And he said the schools would be better for Matt. He was wrong about me. He was wrong about Matt as well.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Still, Saul was right about one thing. The flat was a good investment. It’s worth more than this house. So that’s something.’

  Neve left a pause that was long enough to sound sympathetic and so that she could change the subject without seeming callous. Change it back.

  ‘I was asking about the file,’ she said. ‘About why it was delivered here and not straight to the police. Did you notice it being delivered?’

  ‘It was just there on the mat when I came down in the morning. I got up pretty late.’ Bernice gave a hollow laugh. ‘I was tired after the excitements of your dinner party.’

  ‘So you didn’t see anyone deliver it?’

  ‘No. I must have been asleep.’

  ‘You don’t have one of those exterior lights that are set off by intruders?’

  ‘I was warned off those,’ said Bernice. ‘I was told they’d just be set off by cats wandering past.’

  ‘What time did you get to sleep?’

  ‘You sound like Hitching. Questions, questions.’ Her tone seemed mocking or maybe Neve was imagining that.

  ‘It’s just that it was my folder.’

  ‘I finally went to sleep at about three in the morning.’

  ‘Three. OK.’

  ‘I got an Uber all the way back here. The driver was very happy.’

  ‘And when did you wake up?’

  ‘Half past nine? Maybe a bit earlier?’

  ‘So someone pushed it through your letter box between three and nine?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Was your son here?’

  ‘No. He was with my sister.’ Bernice looked at Neve through narrowed eyes. ‘You’ve come to my home. All the way out here, as you put it. You’ve been interviewed by the police. Why did this happen? Why your file?’

  ‘That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You asked the question yourself. Why give your file to me and not to the police?’

  Neve hesitated. She spoke carefully. ‘Perhaps someone is trying to cause confusion.’

  ‘What kind of confusion?’

  ‘Suspicion?’

  ‘Suspicion of who? What for?’

  Neve had come here to ask questions and now she felt that she was the one who was being interrogated.

  ‘I was part of a small company that was taken over. Saul was our boss. Or one of our bosses. There was some bad feeling about it.’

  ‘From you?’ said Bernice. ‘Did you have bad feelings towards Saul?’

  ‘We’d been independent. We’d been our own bosses. Some people found that difficult to give up.’

  ‘And they blamed Saul?’

  ‘Some people were disappointed. They didn’t blame Saul, though. Or I certainly didn’t.’

  The conversation had become diverted. The issue for Neve wasn’t who might have wanted to kill Saul. It was who might have wanted to kill her.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something personal?’ she said.

  Bernice gave a sharp laugh. ‘It’s a bit late to mind that.’

  Neve swallowed; her throat felt painful.

  ‘How would you have reacted if you had found out about the affair? I mean, when he was alive.’

  Bernice’s eyes flickered and she looked around and put a finger to her lips as Matt entered the kitchen, opened the fridge and took out a carton of milk. He took a bowl from the cupboard and poured some cereal from a packet and added the milk and started to eat it, standing up.

  ‘This is Neve,’ said Bernice. ‘She used to work with Saul.’

  He inclined his head slightly. Suddenly, with that movement, he reminded Neve of his father. It was like a ghost had wandered past her. At the same time, it occurred to her that he was just a few months younger than Mabel.

  ‘I’m so very sorry about your father,’ she said. ‘It’s a terrible, terrible thing.’

  Matt took some time to swallow his mouthful. ‘That’s all right,’ he said.

  Neve stood up. ‘I should go.’

  Bernice followed her to the front door. They shook hands.

  ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ Bernice said.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘That photo of you inside the folder.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It was nice. You looked happy.’

  Neve looked across at Bernice. She had cut her hand at that wretched dinner party, she thought: that was where the blood had come from. Bernice had been there; everyone had been there.

  ‘I was happy,’ she said.

  ‘Funny it was in your file though.’

  ‘Yes. Funny.’

  Neve walked back to Roydon station. A crowd was flooding out of the entrance, men and women in suits, phones pressed to their ears. Rush hour was beginning, commuters returning home. She thought how most of them did this day in and day out, how Saul used to be among them. She almost expected to see him now, stepping towards her in his sharp suit. He once referred to his ‘whistle’ with an ironic smile. She had been puzzled and he’d laughed. Whistle and flute. Suit. Rhyming slang. Didn’t she know? She said she didn’t know and he laughed again and kissed her. She looked up at the departures board; a train to Liverpool Street was due in a few minutes. She turned and left the station.

  She didn’t know where she was going but her feet took her down a little road with houses petering out, then a sunken land, and suddenly, improbably, she was in countryside. There were blackberries in the hedgerow; beyond it a stubble field. Brown and yellow leaves drifted down from the oak and ash trees. She remembered how as a child she and her brother would try to catch them as they fell: a caught leaf meant a day of happiness.

  She heard a sound and at first she thought it was the wind in the trees, but realised it was water, and saw that in the crease between two fields ran a small, brown river. She climbed over a gate and walked across the field to get to it. A bit further down it was shallower and full of eddies, but here it was slow and quite deep, and when she leaned forward to trail her fingers in the water, she found it was cool but not cold. She took her clothes off and laid them on the grass and slid in. Her feet touched the soft muddy bottom and she pushed herself clear, diving under the surface.

  She often swam, but usually in swimming pools, counting off the lengths. This was different. This was a release from the self. Just her and the water and the trees and the sky. She swam very slowly against the current, and then she let herself drift with her eyes half closed. She didn’t think, but thoughts and images flowed through her.

  The photo in the folder that someone had taken from the corkboard in the last few days.

  The blood that frantic evening: blood everywhere, Charlie in a foul temper, Bernice glassy-eyed, someone with a roll of kitchen towel. Her own minor cut, and her own blood. Someone tending to it?

  The poem she had written out for Saul and hadn’t been able to find in the flat. Was that going to be next?

  The present, a piece of jewellery engraved with her name, on its way to the flat. A little package, a ticking bomb.

  She lay back, looking up at the shifting grey sky. Hammer. Photo. Folder. Blood. Poem. Present. Each of these objects were pieces of evidence that could incriminate her. Taken together, they could be made to look like proof that she had murdered Saul. They had bee
n lovers, she had been at the flat on the morning of his death, she had cleared up the crime scene. Every single thing she had done since then, every lie she had told and every truth she had concealed, would confirm it.

  All she could do now, her only hope, was to find out who was the real killer. And then the thought slid into her mind again, clean as a blade: unless it was Mabel. If she knew it was Mabel, she would go to prison in her place without hesitation.

  She swam back to the bank and scrambled out, shaking off excess water. She felt cold and had difficulty pulling on her clothes. They stuck unpleasantly to her skin. The river looked uninviting now. She was wet and cold and muddy, and the day was darkening.

  7

  Closing Time

  When she reached Liverpool Street, she didn’t go straight home. She took the train to King’s Cross and a bus, wishing she was on her bike. Gary’s flat was above a fruit and veg shop in Crouch End. She realised with a stab of guilt that she hadn’t been there for ages; she couldn’t remember the last time. Years ago, they all used to gather there quite regularly, drink wine and beer, smoke, play poker, order in takeaways, argue about politics till the early hours. Nowadays Gary spent most of his time with Jane and made it clear Jane didn’t want people round, or he went out without her, usually to Neve and Fletcher’s house. She couldn’t remember the last time she had actually seen Jane, though they used to be quite close.

  Gary had said he was going straight home from the printer’s, so she assumed he’d be there now. It was nearly six o’clock and there were three messages on her phone from Fletcher, asking what time she’d be back. She didn’t want to think about Fletcher, about Fletcher and Sarah. About her and Fletcher. Everything like that had to wait. Even while she was pushing the thought of Fletcher away, she was asking herself if he would visit her in prison, and at the thought of a trial and prison, a terror rose in her so sharp and pure it tasted like hot metal in her mouth and she couldn’t move for a moment.

  She rang the doorbell and Gary’s voice crackled on the little intercom.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me, Neve.’

  ‘Neve? What are you doing? Is everything all right?’

  ‘Can I come up?’

  ‘I’ll come down.’

  She waited. The door swung open and Gary was there in a ratty old tee shirt and jogging trousers. He blinked at her.

  ‘Can I come in for a minute?’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Does anything have to be up? I was near and so I thought I’d come and see you. It’s been ages.’

  He didn’t reply, just stared at her with a strange expression.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Neve. ‘I know I should have come before now, I know you’ve been having a hard time, but I wasn’t sure if Jane wanted visitors and then everything with Mabel, and now all that’s been happening . . .’ She trailed off. Gary still didn’t move.

  ‘A cup of tea, maybe,’ said Neve.

  ‘We could go to the place on the corner,’ said Gary.

  ‘Is Jane in bed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then let me at least say hello.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a tip.’

  ‘Since when has that mattered to me?’

  Neve went up the steep stairs whose threadbare carpet had been there when Gary moved in over twenty years ago. Gary followed her slowly, muttering something under his breath. The door to the flat stood open and she went into the main room. Stopped dead.

  ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said Gary behind her.

  It wasn’t just that it was a mess. It was squalid. And Neve had three children. She was used to squalor but this was different. Just seeing it made Neve depressed. All the mugs and glasses on the surfaces were dirty, some furred with mould. There were takeaway containers everywhere, empty wine bottles, half-crushed beer cans. Dirty clothes. The air was foetid. Neve went over to the window and opened it wide. She turned to Gary.

  ‘We all want to help,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, fuck off, Neve.’

  ‘Where’s Jane?’

  He didn’t answer. She went to the kitchen and opened the door, flinching at the state of it. She went to the main bedroom and looked inside. The sheets were in a knot in the middle of the bed and there was a wine bottle lying on the beige carpet in the centre of a red stain. No Jane. Nor in the second bedroom.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  Gary shrugged.

  ‘Gary. Please.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Where’s Jane?’

  ‘She left.’

  ‘Left,’ repeated Neve stupidly.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Gary. He shrugged his bony shoulders. His face looked very thin and his mouth was working.

  ‘Is she in hospital?’

  ‘She’s with her parents.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s very simple. Jane. Has. Left. Me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m up to my ears in debt. Because I can’t cope with anything any longer. Because I’m depressed and grumpy and a miserable git. Because this isn’t a very nice place to spend the last days of your life. Because it’s over.’

  ‘But you’ve looked after her for years.’

  ‘Well, now her parents are looking after her.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘May.’

  ‘May! Why didn’t you say anything?’

  He kicked a beer can out of his way. ‘I was ashamed.’

  ‘Oh, Gary—’

  ‘Don’t.’ He stepped back. ‘Don’t go pitying me. That’s exactly what I mean. I can’t bear that.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘You with your big house and your three children and your adoring husband and everyone saying, oh Neve’s so lovely, so motherly and comforting, Neve will understand, let’s tell Neve.’

  She felt like someone had hit her hard in her stomach.

  ‘I didn’t mean it to come out like that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does. I know how it’s been with Mabel, but oh Christ, I don’t know what to do.’ He glared at her. ‘I literally do not know what to do next.’

  Tears began to roll down his face, into his untrimmed beard. Neve looked at him: a small, scruffy, humiliated man helpless in the wreckage of his life. She took his hand and held it.

  ‘I’m going to make us that tea,’ she said.

  ‘Very English of you.’

  She filled the kettle. Waiting for it to boil, she sent a text to Mabel, asking her where she was.

  She thought: he is furious with the world; he’s resentful of me; he’s in debt; he’s been lying to us for months; he lives alone and so his alibi is false; he could have taken the photo and the blood-soaked tissue; he could have taken the hammer.

  She thought: he’s my dear friend. If I can’t trust him, I can’t trust anyone.

  She thought: I can’t trust anyone.

  Her mobile rang; it was Mabel but at first Neve couldn’t work out what she was saying because she was sobbing and gasping and her words made no sense.

  ‘Slow down,’ she said, turning her back on Gary. ‘Take some deep breaths and then tell me. What is it?’

  ‘He came and saw me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That detective. He asked about my alibi. I told him what you said. And he asked me what we’ve got there at the moment. I don’t know. I said potatoes or something and then just I couldn’t speak. He was so creepy. He kept smiling at me and not talking and waiting for me to say something stupid.’

  ‘OK,’ said Neve carefully.

  ‘And he’s so big,’ wailed Mabel.

  ‘He’s gone now. It’s over.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘He thinks it was me. He thinks I killed him.’

  The room swam slowly around Neve. She picked her way over the debris on the kitchen floor, past Gary, and out on to the land
ing. She closed the kitchen door.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ she managed to ask.

  ‘I know he does. I could tell. He thinks you’re covering up for me. He kept talking about you being such a protective mother, things like that. He knows I’ve had a hard time. How does he know? Did you tell him?’

  ‘Of course not. Listen to me, Mabel. He doesn’t know anything.’

  ‘He thinks it was me.’ Mabel’s voice was rising again.

  ‘He’s trying to rattle you.’

  ‘What shall we do?’

  ‘If he really suspects you, then I’ll tell him everything and we’ll just have to face the consequences,’ said Neve.

  ‘No. Don’t you see? If you do that, he’ll know I’ve told you he suspects me, and he’ll think you’re just making up a story to cover up for me. It will only make him more sure. It’ll make everything even worse.’

  Mabel was crying again.

  ‘No,’ said Neve. ‘Stop that. It’s going to be all right.’

  ‘Do you promise?’ Mabel spoke like a small child.

  ‘I promise,’ she said and her voice was firm, even though she knew the promise was meaningless.

  ‘Are you back soon?’

  ‘Half an hour,’ she said. ‘No more.’ And she ended the call.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Gary was behind her.

  ‘I’m going to have to postpone that tea. I need to go.’

  He shrugged. ‘Of course. Your busy life.’

  ‘It’s Mabel,’ she said uselessly. ‘But we need to talk this through properly. And let’s make a date for us to clear up your flat together.’

  ‘Sure.’ The anguish had gone out of him, and what was left felt worse: he seemed parched and hollowed out and disconnected.

  She wanted to hug him but he had become untouchable.

  She had to take two buses to get home. On the second, staring out at Clissold Park, a thought came to her.

  Whoever had killed Saul had sent her a text and then they had let themselves into his flat to wait for her. The door hadn’t been forced, so they must either have gone prepared to break in but had found Saul, who wasn’t supposed to be there, or they’d had a key. The second of these scenarios made more sense: it would have been too much of a risk to break in; there were people who lived above and below. How did the killer have a key to the flat?