Beneath the Skin

by Nicci French

  “Tea or coffee?”

  “Coffee, please.”

  “Toast or toast?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Toast then.”

  She disappeared and I struggled out of bed. I didn't feel too bad. I didn't have anything to wear except for the clothes I'd taken off last night, so I pulled them on, feeling a bit grubby.

  After I'd eaten toast and drunk coffee, I phoned Guy to find out if anything was happening with the flat. He sounded self-conscious and warily solicitous, not a bit like his usual chirpily ingratiating self.

  “I hear you've been having a bad time,” he said. Of course, the police would have interviewed him by now.

  “Not brilliant. Any news on the sale?”

  “Mr. Shale wants to see the house again. Definitely serious. I think we've got him sniffing our hook. It's just a matter of landing him.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked wearily.

  “I think he's ready to make an offer,” Guy said. “The point is, he wonders if today, midday, would be at all convenient.”

  “Couldn't you just show him round yourself?”

  The irritating laugh again.

  “I could, but there are some questions. I'll be there as well.”

  “Yes. No more strange men.”

  So we arranged to meet at the real estate agent's office at midday, Guy and me and Nick Shale. Safety in numbers. Then the three of us could walk up the road to my flat, whiz round it, and be gone in minutes. Louise insisted on calling a cab to take me there, and we sat for half an hour in traffic, cursing the heat, and arrived late. Both men were waiting for me, Guy in a thin blue suit and Nick in a white T-shirt and jeans. We shook hands formally.

  When we reached the flat, Guy opened the door with his set of keys and went in first. Nick stood back to let me enter. There was a funny smell. Sweet but with just a touch of something unwholesome underneath it. Nick wrinkled up his nose and looked at me questioningly.

  “I must have left something out,” I said. “I haven't been here for a bit.”

  It was coming from the kitchen. I pushed open the door. The smell was stronger but still nothing I could identify. I looked on the surfaces. Nothing. I looked in the bin but it was empty. I opened the fridge.

  “Oh, God,” I said.

  The light didn't come on. It was warm. But it wasn't too bad. The milk was sour but there wasn't much else the matter. But I knew where the bad bit would be. I opened the small freezer on top of the fridge. All I could do was groan. It looked as if everything had got mixed with everything else. A tub of coffee ice cream lying on its side had spewed its contents out over an opened packet of prawns. The smell and sight of day-old prawns and melted ice cream in my hot kitchen almost made me gag.

  “Fucking hell,” I said.

  “Zoe.” Guy put his hand lightly on my shoulder and I jumped back from him. “It was just a stupid accident, Zoe.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I've got to call the police.”

  “What?” he asked, his expression puzzled, almost embarrassed.

  I turned on him.

  “Shut the fuck up. Just shut up. Don't come near me, keep off.”

  “Zoe—”

  “Shut up.”

  I was practically screaming at him now. He started to speak and then put up his hands in surrender.

  “All right, all right.”

  He glanced across at Nick with the apprehensive expression of a man watching a sale ooze away between the floorboards. It didn't matter. All I cared about now was staying alive. I knew the number by heart. I dialed and asked for Carthy, and this time he came to the phone. No more messing about. He said he would be over right away. And he was there in less than ten minutes, with Aldham and another man who was carrying a large leather bag, and started pulling on thin gloves as soon as he got through the door. They stared at the mess, muttered things to each other in the corner. Carthy was asking me questions, but I couldn't seem to understand them. He said something about police protection. The other two were in the kitchen. Guy said that they ought to leave and Carthy said no, could they wait out on the stairs.

  “He's been here again. I can't bear it.”

  Aldham came back into the room and looked over at me with concern.

  “So what are you going to do?” I asked.

  Aldham walked over to Carthy and muttered something in his ear. He looked a little shaken. Then he walked over to me, and when he spoke it was very calmly and quietly.

  “Zoe,” he said. “There was no note, was there?”

  “I don't know. I didn't see one, but I didn't look.”

  “We've looked. We haven't found one.”

  “So?”

  “We checked the fridge. It had been unplugged and the kettle had been plugged into the socket.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “I think it was a mistake. It's easy to do.”

  “But I wouldn't—” And then I stopped myself and remembered Louise making me tea, pulling out a cord to plug in the kettle. Oh fuck. I felt my face going red.

  There was a silence. Aldham looked at the carpet, Carthy looked at me. I stared back.

  “You told me to be alert,” I said eventually.

  “Of course,” Aldham said gently.

  “It's easy for you,” I said. “I keep thinking I'm going to die.”

  “I know,” said Aldham, his voice almost a whisper now. He put his hand tentatively on my shoulder.

  I shook myself free.

  “You. . . you. . .”

  But I couldn't think of anything rude enough. I turned and ran out, weirdly conscious as I did so that I was leaving them all in my flat.

  THIRTEEN

  Louise was waiting for me when I got back to her flat. She had a face pack on, so her skin was dead white, except for a naked pink ring round each eye, which gave her a surprised look. As I was telling her what had happened, I realized I was assuming she would let me stay with her. But she made it easy for me.

  “Stay as long as you like.”

  “I'm taking the sofa, though.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And paying rent.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me, so the wrinkles on her forehead cracked the mask.

  “If it makes you feel better. You don't need to, though. Just water my plants. I always forget.”

  I was feeling better. The gripping fear of yesterday was loosening. I never needed to sleep in my flat again, never needed to set eyes on Guy again or show strange men round the rooms, letting them poke in my drawers and stare at my breasts; never needed to lie there in the darkness, listening, waiting, trying to breathe normally. I never needed to see Fred again, either, or his laddish friends. I felt as if I'd shed a dirty, suffocating skin. I'd stay with Louise; we'd eat supper in front of the TV in the evening, paint each other's toenails. On Monday, I'd see Dr. Schilling. She'd know what to do. She was an expert.

  Louise insisted that she had no plans for the weekend, and although I suspected that she had actually canceled everything for me, I was too relieved to make any but the feeblest protest. We bought French baguettes filled with cheese and tomato and walked to the nearby park, where we sat on the dry, baked-yellow grass. The sun was fierce, the air hot and heavy, and the park was crowded. Groups of teenagers playing Frisbee or snuggling in the shade of the trees; families with picnic hampers and balls and skipping ropes; girls in halter tops sunbathing, people with cans of beer, dogs, cameras, kites, bikes, bread for the ducks. They all wore bright, light clothes, had smiles on their faces.

  Louise tucked her shirt into her bra and lay back, arms pillowing her head. I sat beside her, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and watched the streams of people as they passed. I waited to glimpse a face I knew, or a face that was looking at me as if it knew me. But I saw no one like that.

  “You know what?” I said.

  “What?” she said dreamily.

  “I've been passive,” I said.

  “No yo
u haven't.”

  “I have,” I said. “I've wanted other people to sort this out for me. I couldn't be bothered.”

  “Don't be silly, Zoe.”

  “It's true. I think it was to do with being in London. I wanted to be lost. I didn't want anyone to notice me. I've got to look at myself. That's what I've got to do. I've got to look at myself and think why somebody would pick on me. Who would do it.”

  “Tomorrow,” said Louise. “Look at yourself tomorrow. Today just look after yourself.”

  I let the sun soak into my skin, under my grubby clothes. I was tired. More tired than I had ever been, with gritty, aching eyes, limbs that felt too heavy to move. I wanted to have deep baths, sleep for hours on clean sheets, eat healthy food, raw carrots, green apples, drink orange juice and herbal tea. I couldn't imagine that I would ever want to go to a club again, get drunk or stoned again, be touched by a man again. The hot, sweaty, frantic life I had led in London filled me with vague, pervasive horror. All that noise and effort. Maybe, I thought, I'd even give up cigarettes. Not yet.

  We passed a cheery shop selling things for children—bright cotton dungarees and stripy tops, bomber jackets in red and pink and yellow—and Louise dragged me in.

  “You're a child size,” she said, looking at me. “You've lost too much weight; we've got to fatten you up again. But in the meantime, let's buy you a couple of things.” So, while the salesgirl looked on rather disapprovingly, I selected a few objects off the rack and took them into the changing room. I pulled the ribbed gray shift, aged thirteen, over my head and examined myself in the mirror. Fine. It made me look flat-chested and sexless. That would do me. Then I took it off and put on a lovely white T-shirt, decorated with tiny stitched flowers.

  “Let's have a look,” shouted Louise. “Come on, you can't go shopping with a friend if you don't make it into a fashion show.”

  I pulled the curtains open, giggling, doing a turn for her.

  “What do you think?”

  “Take it,” she ordered me.

  “Isn't it too small for me?”

  “It will be after you've been staying with me for a few days, and sharing my slobby habits. But now, no, it looks lovely on you.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “Like a flower, sweetheart.”

  Later, Louise and I went in her rattling car to the supermarket to stock up. I had gone for a long time living hand to mouth, chips here, a bar of chocolate there, ready-made sandwiches in the smoke-filled staff room. It had certainly been weeks, probably months, since I had actually cooked anything, with a recipe and real ingredients that you have to put together.

  “I'll make us a meal tonight,” I said boldly. I felt as if I was playing at domesticity. I put fresh pasta into our trolley, Spanish onions, large garlics and Italian plum tomatoes, a little screw-top jar of dried mixed herbs; lettuce hearts, cucumber, mangoes, and strawberries. A tub of single cream. A bottle of Chianti. I bought an economy pack of knickers, some deodorant, a washcloth, a toothbrush and toothpaste. I hadn't cleaned my teeth since yesterday morning. I'd have to collect stuff from the flat.

  “Tomorrow,” said Louise decisively. “Leave it for now. We'll go together tomorrow morning, in my car. You've got your children's clothes till then.”

  I picked up some cellophane-wrapped yellow roses from the checkout area, which I added to our trolley.

  “I don't know how to thank you, Louise.”

  “Then don't.”

  A friend of Louise's, called Cathy, came round for supper. She was extraordinarily tall and thin, with an aquiline nose and tiny ears. Louise had obviously told her about me, for she treated me very carefully, kindly, as if I were an invalid. I overcooked the pasta but the tomato sauce was fine, and anyone can chop up mangoes and strawberries and mix them together in a bowl. Louise lit candles and melted them onto old saucers. I sat at the kitchen table, in my new gray shift, light-headed, unreal. There was a hollow feeling in my stomach, but I couldn't eat very much. I couldn't speak very much, either. It was enough to sit there, listening to them; words buzzing lightly over the surface of my mind. We drank my Chianti, then most of the white wine that Cathy had brought, and watched an old film on TV. A thriller of some kind but I wasn't able to concentrate on the details of the plot. My mind would drift away in one scene so in the next scene I didn't know why the hero was breaking into that warehouse, what he was planning or what he was hoping to find. Outside, it started to rain, and the rain clattered on the roof and rattled on the window. I went to bed before Cathy left. Lying curled up on the sofa in the tiny sitting room, wearing Louise's skimpy nightdress, I could hear them talking in the kitchen, the comforting hum of conversation, occasionally a peal of laughter, and I drifted off to sleep feeling safe.

  The next morning, after breakfast, we went to my flat to collect a few clothes. I wasn't going to pack everything just yet, although I had no intention of ever living in the flat again, just some basic essentials. It was still raining steadily. Louise couldn't find anywhere to park near the flat so she stopped on a double yellow line a few yards down from the front door and I said I'd run up.

  “I won't be more than a couple of minutes,” I said.

  “Sure you don't want me to come with you?”

  I shook my head and smiled.

  “I'm just going to say good-bye.”

  There was an air of general squalor and neglect about the place, though I'd only been gone one day, as if the flat knew that nobody cared about it. I went into my bedroom and gathered a few dresses from the wardrobe. Two pairs of trousers, four T-shirts, several knickers, bras, and pairs of socks. Some trainers. That would do for now. I shoved them all in a large hold-all. Then I went into the bathroom, took off the dirty clothes I was wearing, and threw them into a corner. I would collect all my laundry later. Another time.

  I heard a click, like a cupboard door closing. It's nothing, I said to myself. Imagination plays nasty tricks. Back in the bedroom I found some clean underwear. I closed the curtains and stood in front of the mirror to put them on. I saw my face reflected there, smudges under my eyes. My naked body, tanned arms and legs, white belly. I pulled my knickers on and took my new T-shirt—the one Louise said made me look like a flower—out of the bag I had brought with me and pulled it over my head. It was stupid, but I couldn't quite face wearing anything that smelled of the flat, of my old life. I wanted to be clean and new.

  As I pulled the shirt over my breasts, without any warning at all, I felt a grasp around my neck, around my body, and a weight on my back, someone on me. I lost my balance and fell hard with the weight on me, pushing my covered face hard into the carpet. I was stunned, in pain. I felt the hand through the shirt holding my mouth, a warm hand smelling of soap, apple soap from my bathroom. An arm wrapped round my rib cage, just under my breasts.

  “Bitch, you bitch.”

  I started to writhe, twisting my limbs this way and that, trying to scream, to howl. I couldn't reach anything—my arms were held—couldn't do anything. He made no sound, just breathed his hot soft breath into my ear. At last I stopped struggling. Outside someone shouted, the wail of a siren came closer, then faded away. Going somewhere else.

  The grip on my neck slackened, I tried to move and to scream, but then it was on my throat. There was nothing I could do. Couldn't move. Couldn't fight. Couldn't scream. I thought about Louise sitting in the car outside, waiting for me, though she didn't seem near to me now; she seemed a long long way off. Soon maybe she would come to find me. Not soon enough. How stupid, to die like this, before I'd even begun. Before I had had a life. How stupid.

  Very slowly, the floor came up to meet me. I felt my head bounce on floorboards, my feet slide across the wood. I heard the rain on the window, pattering gently. I couldn't speak, no words left to be said now, no time to say them anymore, but somewhere deep inside a voice that was saying: No, please no. Please.

  PART TWO

  Jennifer

  ONE

  Everything seemed to be happening, but t
hen our house at breakfast time always seems to be rather like one of those medieval castles with donkeys and pigs and all the serfs coming in for shelter at the first sniff of trouble. In the weeks since our move, it had got even more chaotic, if that's possible, and the medieval castle had a building site slap bang in the middle of it.

  Clive had left the house at six, which is even earlier than usual because at the moment he's working on some sort of horrific takeover bid. Just before eight Lena drags the two older boys into the Espace for the school run. Lena's our nanny-slash-au-pair thing; lovely-looking girl, Swedish, infuriatingly blond and slim and young, though she has this thing through her nose that makes me wince every time I see it. Goodness knows what it must feel like when she blows her nose.

  Then people started arriving. Mary, of course, our priceless cleaner, who came with us to Primrose Hill. She's a treasure, except that I have to spend so much time standing over her and telling her what to do and then checking she's done it that I've said to Clive I might as well do the cleaning myself. And then there's all the rest of the people who were meant to be improving the house but instead have been reducing it to a slum full of brick dust. The rewiring and replumbing had been finished at the end of the week before, and the best that could be said about the house at that point was that anything from then on had to be an improvement.

  I was satisfied, though, despite everything. This was what I had always wanted, what Clive had always promised me. A project. The house was down to bare boards and walls, back to the beams and rafters, practically. Now I was going to turn it into a home we could be proud of. I know you're supposed to fall in love with a house but this house wouldn't be worth falling in love with for another six months at least. There had been two old dears living there before in what looked like a secondhand bookshop that nobody had gone into since the fifties. The question wasn't what to change, but what on earth one could possibly keep.