Beneath the Skin

by Nicci French

  I spent four months with Jeremy, our clever architect, head down over plans, tanking him up with espressos. It was just a matter of being simple. Rip out everything. Put new roof on. Then kitchen and dining room in the basement, living rooms on the ground floor, Clive's study on the first floor at the back, then bedrooms all the way up. Attic conversion for nanny to get up to whatever nannies get up to without scaring horses. Lavatories left, right, and center. A suite for Clive and me. Power shower for the boys in hopes it might persuade them to wash occasionally.

  So this morning Jeremy popped in at around half past eight with Mick to go over a problem with an arch or beam or something. Closely followed by Francis, who we've brought with us to do—by which I mean completely redo—what passed for the garden. Hundred and twenty foot, which isn't bad for London, but it looked like a giant rabbit run until Francis got at it. The ruck of electricians and plumbers have gone, thank God, but Mick comes with his entourage. Tea and coffee all round, of course, as soon as Lena gets back to make it. Somewhere in the middle of it I pop Christo—who's four—along to his play-school thing, which he'd joined when we moved in. I'd become a bit dubious about it: no proper uniform, just blue sweatshirts, and wall-to-wall sandboxes and finger painting. But it was hardly worth chopping and changing. He'd be at Lascelles Pre-Prep in September anyway and, what is more, off my hands, which would be something of a relief.

  Then it was back to the house and finally a sit-down, a coffee, and the quickest of glances at the paper and the mail before getting down to work—i.e., walking around stopping people knocking through the wrong wall and doing some liaising. Leo, my faithful handyman, was going to be dropping in and I'd been sweating over a list of things that needed doing. And I needed a serious discussion with Jeremy about the kitchen. That had been the really hard part of our planning. The thing is, in any other part of the house, if you get something wrong, you can live with it. But if the fridge door opens and blocks the cutlery drawer, you're going to be irritated by it twenty-five times a day until you're old and gray. What you ought to do ideally is build the kitchen, live in it for six months, then do it again properly. But even Clive isn't rich enough for that. Or at least not patient enough.

  Lena wandered in and I gave her some instructions. Then, while she got going properly, I sipped some coffee and finally got down to the paper and the post. I have a strict rule of never giving the paper more than five minutes, if that. There's nothing in the papers anyway. Then the mail. In general, ninety percent of the mail is for Clive. The remaining ten percent is divided among children, pets, and me. Not that we've got any pets just at present. Our grand total of pets for 1999 consisted of one cat, missing and presumed dead, or having a better time in someone else's house somewhere in Battersea. One hamster, buried in unmarked grave at end of Battersea garden. I'd been thinking of getting a dog. I'd always said that London wasn't a place to keep dogs, but now that we were two minutes from Primrose Hill I can sometimes be caught with a wistful expression on my face considering it. Haven't mentioned it to Clive yet, though.

  Hence, mail was speedily dealt with. Immediate pile of anything with Clive's name on it or variations thereof. All bills ditto. I can spot a bill at fifty feet, usually without even needing to open it. Anything addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Hintlesham, ditto. As usual, I put these letters in a pile, carried them upstairs, and deposited them on the desk in Clive's sanctum for him to deal with when he got home or, more likely, over the weekend.

  That left two letters to Josh and Harry, duplicated messages from Lascelles about sports day; various advertisements and solicitations that I filed straight in the bin. And then after all that there was one letter, addressed to me. Now, whenever there's a letter addressed to me it almost always turns out to be a bill from a mail-order company that goes straight into Clive's pile. If not that, then it's a letter from a mail-order company who have obtained my address from another mail-order company.

  But this was different. The name and address were neatly handwritten. And I couldn't recognize the handwriting. It wasn't Mummy's or a friend or relative. This was interesting and I almost wanted to savor it. I poured another cup of coffee, took a sip, and then opened the envelope. It contained a folded slip of paper that was much too small for the envelope, and I could see straightaway that it didn't have much writing on it. I smoothed it out on the table:

  Dear Jenny,

  I hope you don't mind if I call you Jenny. But you see I think you're very beautiful. You smell very nice, Jenny, and you have beautiful skin. And I'm going to kill you.

  It seemed like the silliest thing. I tried to think if someone was playing a practical joke. Some of Clive's friends have the most awful sense of humor. I mean, for example, he once went to this stag night for a friend of his called Seb and it really was awful, with two stripper-grams and lipstick on everyone's collar. Anyway, Jeremy came down and we started talking about some of the problems with the kitchen. In these last horribly hot days I'd been worrying about the Aga and I wanted to see if the skylights above could be made to open. There were these funny window catches I'd seen in House and Garden that could be opened with string. I showed the picture to Jeremy but he wasn't impressed. He never is unless he's thought of it himself. So we had a big bust-up about that. He was very funny about it, really. Stubborn, though. Then I remembered the letter and I showed it to him.

  He didn't laugh. He didn't find it funny at all.

  “Do you know who might have done this?” he said.

  “No,” I said.

  “You'd better call the police,” he said.

  “Oh don't be so silly,” I said. “It's probably just someone playing a joke. I'll make a fool of myself.”

  “Doesn't matter. And it doesn't matter if someone's playing a joke. You must call the police.”

  “I'll show it to Clive.”

  “No,” Jeremy said firmly. “Call the police now. If you're too embarrassed then I'll do it for you.”

  “Jeremy . . .”

  He was an absolute pig about it. He rang directory inquiries himself and got the number of some local police station and not only that—he then dialed the number himself and then handed me the phone as if I was a toddler talking to her granny.

  “There,” he said.

  The phone rang and rang. I put my tongue out at Jeremy.

  “Probably nobody's home. . . . Oh, hello? Look, this is going to sound really stupid, but I've just been sent this letter.”

  TWO

  I spoke for a few minutes to a girl who sounded like one of those people who rings you up and tries to give you a quote for some dreadful metal window frames. I was dubious and she sounded bored and she said she'd arrange for somebody to call round, but there might be a bit of a delay and I said it didn't matter to me and I ended the conversation and thought nothing more of it.

  I went back to Jeremy, who was helping himself to more coffee from the Hintlesham self-service canteen, as Clive has christened the commune we're perched in at the moment. The old dears had knocked through left, right, and center, replaced all the paneled doors, hacked out every chimney piece, and hunted every surviving cornice into extinction. I know that everybody was doing that in the sixties, but it looked as if they were trying to pretend they lived in a council flat at the top of an apartment block rather than in a semidetached house on the end of an early Victorian terrace.

  Much of the job was restoring the house to a style that suited its history. The only place where I drew the line was in the kitchen. The Victorian kitchen was a place for scullery maids and cooks, and we hoped to do ourselves a little better than that, but I still wanted a period atmosphere. The tricky bit was not to end up with the style that Jeremy calls farmhouse Ikea. I'd made Jeremy redo the plans about eight times. There also happened to be a tricky pillar that we had to work around. I wanted just to take the wretched thing away, but Jeremy said the back of the house would fall down.

  We were right in the middle of discussing his latest bit of clev
erness when there was a ring at the door. As usual I left it to Lena, since the only people coming into the house were carrying pots of paint or radiators or strange copper pipes. I heard her yelling for me at the top of the stairs. Being shouted at in my own house is an experience I rank alongside chewing tinfoil. I walked up to the ground floor. Lena was standing at the open front door.

  “If you've something to say to me, could you come and tell me?”

  “I did tell you,” she said in an innocent tone.

  I gave up and walked toward her. I saw now that there were two policemen in uniform standing on the front step. They looked young and uneasy, like a couple of Boy Scouts who were asking to wash a car and weren't sure what reception they'd get. My heart sank.

  “Mrs. Hintlesham?”

  “Yes, yes, it's very nice of you to come round. But I can't think that it's necessary.” They looked even more awkward. “But come in. Since you're here.”

  They both wiped their feet with immense care on the mat before following me inside and down the stairs to the rudiments of our kitchen. Jeremy made a face at me that basically meant, Should I make myself scarce? I shook my head.

  “This will only take a minute,” I said. I pointed out the letter where it still lay by the stove. “You'll see it's just something stupid. It's really not worth any trouble. Can I get you some tea or something?”

  One of them said, “No, madam,” and the two of them looked down at the note while I got back to work with Jeremy. After a few minutes I looked up and saw that one of the officers had stepped just outside the French windows into the garden and was talking into his radio. The other was looking around at the room.

  “New kitchen?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said and pointedly turned back to Jeremy. I wasn't in the mood for a conversation about interior decoration with a junior police officer. The other one stepped back inside. I don't know whether it was the uniform, or their black boots, or that they'd removed their caps, but they made this really rather large basement room feel small and cramped. “Are you finished, then?” I asked.

  “No, Mrs. Hintlesham. I've just been talking to someone back at the station. Someone else is going to come over.”

  “What for?”

  “He wants to have a look at your note.”

  “I was actually planning to go out later this morning.”

  “He'll only be a minute.”

  I gave a sort of huffing sigh.

  “Really!” I said in a reproving tone. “Isn't this just a waste of everybody's time?” They answered only with lumpish shrugs that were difficult to argue with. “Are you waiting here?”

  “No, madam. We'll be in the car outside until the detective sergeant arrives.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  They shambled out shamefacedly. I went up with Jeremy, which was just as well because a tin of National Trust paint in entirely the wrong shade had arrived. One of my main discoveries during this whole horrific process has been that to make sure that the actual things you've ordered actually arrive, and then that the actual things you've asked to be done with them are actually done, is more than a full-time job. While I was on the phone trying to sort it out with a gormless female at the other end, I heard the doorbell ring and while I was still talking a ratty-faced man in a gray suit was shown into the room. I gestured toward him while trying to get some sense out of, or, to be more accurate, into, the woman on the phone. But it's embarrassing to get cross with somebody you've never met while someone else you've never met stands right next to you looking expectant. So I brought the call to a close. He introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Aldham and I took him down to the basement.

  He also looked at the note and I heard him swear under his breath and he leaned down very close to it as if he were desperately short-sighted. Finally he gave a grunt and looked up.

  “Have you got the envelope?”

  “What? Er, no, well, I think I chucked it in the bin.”

  “Where?”

  “It's in the cupboard there, by the sink.”

  I couldn't believe it, but he went and pulled the bin out, lifted the top off, and started rummaging in it like some down-and-out.

  “I'm sorry. I think there may be tea and coffee grounds in there as well.”

  He lifted out a scrunched-up envelope that looked a bit damp and brown and generally worse for wear. He held it very delicately, by a corner, and put it on the side near the letter.

  “Excuse me a moment,” he said, and took out a mobile phone.

  I retreated across the room and put the kettle on. I heard fragments of his conversation: “Yes, definitely” and “I think so” and “I haven't talked to her yet.” Apparently from then on it was bad news for Sergeant Aldham. Because his side of the conversation turned into squeaked questions: “What?” “Are you sure?” At last he gave a resigned sigh and replaced the phone in his pocket. His face was red and he was breathing heavily as if he had just jogged here. He was silent for a while.

  “Two other detectives are on their way,” he said in a sullen tone. “They would like to interview you, if that's possible.” Aldham was mumbling now. He looked miserable, like a dog that had been kicked.

  “What on earth's going on?” I protested. “It's just a silly note. It's just like an obscene phone call, isn't it?”

  Aldham perked up for a moment.

  “Have you had any phone calls?”

  “You mean obscene ones? No.”

  “Can you think of anything that might be connected with this letter? Other letters maybe, or someone you know—anything?”

  “No, of course not. Unless it's some stupid joke.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might play a joke like that?”

  I was nonplussed.

  “I'm not very good on jokes,” I said. “That's more Clive's subject.”

  “Clive?”

  “My husband.”

  “Is he at work?”

  “Yes.”

  Things were a bit sticky after that. Aldham hung around looking embarrassed. I tried to get on with things, but his doleful, drab face put me off. It was quite a relief when the front doorbell rang, not much more than a quarter of an hour after Aldham had first arrived. I went to answer it and Aldham trailed me in a slightly absurd way. This time the front door was positively crowded. At the front were two slightly more upscale-looking detectives and with them were a couple more uniformed officers and two other people, one of them a woman, coming up the steps behind them. In the street I could see two police cars and two other cars with them, all double-parked.

  The older man was balding, with gray hair cut very short.

  “Mrs. Hintlesham?” he said with a reassuring smile. “I'm Detective Chief Inspector Links. Stuart Links.” We shook hands. “And this is Detective Inspector Stadler.”

  Stadler didn't look like a policeman at all. He looked more like a politician, or one of Clive's colleagues. He had a smartly cut dark suit, a discreet tie. He was rather striking looking, in a way. A bit Spanish, maybe. He was tall, well built, and had very dark hair that was almost black, combed back. He shook hands as well. He had a curious soft handshake that pressed my palm with his fingers as if he were finding out something about it. It was rather disconcerting. At any minute, I thought, he would lift my fingers to his lips and kiss them slowly.

  “There are so many of you,” I said.

  “Sorry about that,” Links said. “This is Dr. Marsh. He's from our forensic department. And he's brought his assistant, Gill erm . . .”

  “Gill Carlson,” said the woman gamely. She was a pretty little thing, in an un-made-up sort of way. Dr. Marsh looked like a scruffy schoolteacher.

  “You're probably wondering why there are so many of us,” Links said.

  “Well . . .”

  “A letter of the kind that you have received is a kind of threat. We need to assess its seriousness. In the meantime we have to ensure your safety.”

  Links had been looking me in the e
yes. But with that he slowly shifted his gaze toward Aldham, who began to look even more abjectly embarrassed.

  “We'll take over from here,” he said quietly.

  Aldham mumbled something to me. I think it was good-bye. Then he eased his way past us and was gone.

  “Why did he come?” I asked.

  “A misunderstanding,” said Links. He looked around. “You've recently moved in?”

  “In May.”

  “We'll try not to cause too much disturbance, Mrs. Hintlesham. I'd like to see the letter and then I'd like to ask you one or two questions and that will be all, I hope.”

  “Downstairs,” I said faintly.

  “Beautiful house,” he said.

  “It will be,” I said.

  “Must have cost a bit.”

  “Well . . .” I said as a way of not getting into a discussion about property values.

  And so, a few minutes later, I found myself sitting at my table with two detectives in the middle of a half-completed kitchen. For reasons that I didn't remotely understand, the two uniformed officers were wandering around the house and garden. The letter had been read by everybody and then lifted with tweezers and inserted into a transparent plastic folder. The crumpled, sodden envelope was put into a small polyethylene bag. There was one item for each scientist, and they left clutching them.

  Before speaking to me the two men whispered to each other, which I found mildly irritating. Then they turned to me.

  “Look,” I said. “Can I just say that I don't think there's anything remotely I can tell you? It's a horrible silly letter and that's all there is to it. I don't know anything about it.”