Beneath the Skin

by Nicci French

  “We'll talk tomorrow,” I said.

  “What?” he said miserably.

  “About arrangements,” I said.

  He looked sharply at me, then gave a shrug and left. Almost with surprise, I found myself alone with Lynne. I hadn't even thought of what I would say to her after speaking to Cameron.

  “Want a drink?” I asked.

  I'm not the sort of person who ever needs a drink, but God, I needed a drink.

  “Tea would be great.”

  So I bustled off and put the kettle on. I seemed to be always making tea for her, as if I was her grandmother. Just a mug and tea bag for her. In the back of a cupboard I found a bottle of whiskey that somebody had once bought in duty-free for me as a present. I splashed some into a tumbler and topped it up from the cold tap. We walked out into the garden. Although it was now the early evening, it was still fiercely hot.

  “Cheers,” I said, clinking my whiskey against her mug and taking a sip of my drink, which stung the back of my throat and I could feel sizzling all the way down the inside of my body into my tummy. The garden was a disaster, of course, but just because it was so overgrown, it felt like a refuge from all that horrible stuff outside, which I could still hear: the traffic, music from a sound system in a flat along the road. We walked across to a corner where there was a plant that looked like a bush trying to become a tree. It was covered in cone-shaped clusters of purple flowers. White and brown butterflies were fluttering around it like tiny scraps of paper blown about by the wind.

  “I love to stand out here in the evenings,” I said. Lynne nodded back at me. “I mean in the summer. I don't do it in the rain. I like looking at the flowers and wondering what their names are. Do you know anything about gardening?” Lynne shook her head. “Pity.” I took another sip. Now for it. “I owe you an apology,” I said, just as she was lifting the mug to her lips, testing the heat of the liquid with that delicate first sip. She looked puzzled.

  “What for?”

  “Yesterday I was asking you whether all this—I mean all the protection—wasn't a bit much. I wondered why you were doing this. But in fact I knew.”

  Lynne froze in the act of lifting the mug of tea to her mouth. I continued.

  “You see, a funny thing happened. Yesterday at the children's party I got talking to the nanny of one of the children. And then completely by chance I discovered something. She worked for, I mean used to work for, a woman called Jennifer Hintlesham.” I had to give Lynne credit. She gave no visible reaction at all. She wouldn't catch my eye, that was all. “You have heard of her?” I said.

  Lynne took some time to answer. She looked down at her tea.

  “Yes,” she said, so quietly I could hardly catch the words.

  A thought—actually more a feeling than a thought—occurred to me. I remembered that strange sensation when I'd gone somewhere with Max and he would say something that would make me realize that he'd been there before with an earlier girlfriend. And, although I knew it was stupid, things would go a bit gray and sour.

  “Did you do this with her? With Jennifer? Did you stand in her garden with her, drinking tea?”

  Lynne looked trapped. But she couldn't run away. She had to stay here, looking after me.

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “It felt bad not telling you, but there were strict instructions. They thought it might be traumatic for you.”

  “Did Jennifer know about the one before?”

  “No.”

  I felt that my mouth was flapping open. I was aghast. I just couldn't think what to say.

  “I . . . you lied to her as well” was all I finally managed.

  “It wasn't like that,” said Lynne, still not catching my eye. “It was a decision made from the beginning. They thought it would be bad to panic you.”

  “And to panic her. I mean Jennifer.”

  “That's right.”

  “So—let me get this straight in my mind—she didn't know that the person sending her letters had already killed somebody.”

  Lynne didn't reply.

  “And she couldn't make decisions about how to protect herself.”

  “It wasn't like that,” Lynne said.

  “In what way wasn't it like that?”

  “This wasn't my decision,” Lynne said. “But I know that they've been acting for the best. What they thought would be the best.”

  “Your strategy for protecting Jennifer—and the first one as well, Zoe—it didn't quite work out.” I took a gulp of the whiskey, which made me cough. I wasn't really used to spirits. I felt so miserable and frightened and sick. “I'm sorry, Lynne, I'm sure that this is awful for you, but it's worse for me. This is my life. I'm the one who's going to die.”

  She moved closer toward me.

  “You're not going to die.”

  I recoiled. I didn't want these people to touch me. I didn't want their sensitivity.

  “I don't understand, Lynne. You've been sitting here with me for days. You've been here in the house, drinking my tea, eating my food. I've talked to you about my life. You've seen me barefoot, slouched on the sofa; half-naked, wandering around. You've seen me believing you, trusting you. I can't understand it. What were you thinking?”

  Lynne stayed silent. I didn't speak, either, for a time. I reached for my whiskey and sipped at it.

  “Do you think I'm being stupid?” I said. “It's just that I have this problem with everybody knowing something about me and me not knowing it. What would you feel, if it was you?”

  “I don't know,” she said.

  I took another sip of the drink. It was starting to work on me. I have a startlingly low resistance to any kind of drug. I would like it to be because I have a perfectly attuned body, but I think it's just a weak head. It was getting harder to maintain my feeling of fury, although the fear was still throbbing away somewhere deep inside. But I could feel the alcohol all over my body and outside it as well, making the world seem softer, fuzzier in the golden light of this summer evening right in the middle of north London.

  “Did you look after the first one?”

  “Zoe? No. I only met her once. Just before . . . well . . .”

  “And Jennifer?”

  “Yes. I spent time with her.”

  “What were they like? Were they like me?”

  Lynne drained her mug of tea.

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm sorry you were kept in the dark like this. But it's completely forbidden to divulge details of that kind. I'm sorry.”

  “Don't you understand what I'm saying?” I raised my voice in some bitterness. “I've never met these two women. I don't even know what they look like. But I've got something very big in common with them. I'd like to know about them. It might help.”

  Lynne's face had gone blank now. She suddenly looked like a bureaucrat behind a desk.

  “If you've any concerns, you'll have to raise them with DCI Links. I'm not authorized to make any disclosures.” There was a flash of human concern on her face. “Look, Nadia, I'm not the one to ask. I haven't seen the files on the case. I'm just on the edge of it, like you.”

  “I'm not on the edge,” I said. “I wish I were. I'm in the black hole at the center. So that's it? You just want me to trust you, to have faith that you're getting better at this?”

  Fuck her, I thought. Fuck all of them. We walked inside, hardly looking at each other. She made some sandwiches with bits of ham that were left in the fridge and we sat watching the TV and not talking. I hardly noticed the program. At first I thought angrily, playing through scenes from my recent life, conversations with Lynne, Links, Cameron. I remembered lying in bed with Cameron, the way he gazed at me. I tried to imagine the erotic charge of a naked body like mine, the body of a woman who was going to die soon and didn't know it. What was it like to be a lover whose only rival was a murderer? Did that make sex more exciting? The more I thought of it, the thought of him nuzzling my body made me want to vomit, as if there had been rats gnawing at my breasts and between my legs
.

  I hadn't ever really been scared before. I don't think I am someone who scares easily. I fall in love easily, and get angry quickly, and happy too, and irritated, and excited. I shout, cry, laugh. These things lie close to my surface, and they bubble up. But fear is deep down and hidden. Now I was scared, but the feeling didn't obliterate all other emotions the way rage does, for instance, or sudden desire. It felt more like walking out of the sunlight into the shadow: stony cold, eerie. A different world.

  As the night wore on, I realized that I didn't know who to turn to. I thought about my parents but quickly dismissed them. They were old and nervous. They had always been anxious about me, before there was any real need for anxiety. Zach, darling glum Zach. Or Janet, maybe. Who would be calm, strong, a rock? Who would listen to me? Who would save me?

  And then, without meaning to, I started to think about the women who had died. I knew nothing about them except their names, and that Jennifer Hintlesham had had three children. I remembered her little son's belligerent cherub's face. Two women. Zoe and Jenny. What had they looked like, how had they felt? They must have lain awake in their beds in the dark, as I was doing now, and felt the same icy fear flowing round their bodies that I was feeling now. And the same loneliness. For now of course it was not two but three women, joined together by one madman. Zoe and Jenny and Nadia. Nadia: That was me. Why me? I thought, as I lay there and listened to the sounds of the night. Why them, and why me? And just why?

  But even as I lay there, curled up in my covers with my heart thumping and my eyes stinging, I knew I was going to have to move on from this blind and helpless state of terror. I couldn't just huddle up and wait for something to happen, or for other people to rescue me from the nightmare. Crying under the sheets wasn't going to save me. And it was as if a small part deep inside me clenched itself in readiness.

  I fell asleep in the early hours, and the following morning, when I woke dazed with tiredness and strange dreams, I didn't exactly feel braver or safer. But I did feel steelier. At ten o'clock I asked Lynne if she could leave the room because I had a private phone call to make. She said she'd wait in the car, and when she had gone, pulling the door firmly shut behind her, I phoned Cameron at work.

  “I'm feeling desperate,” he said as soon as he came on the line.

  “Good. So am I.”

  “I'm so sorry that you feel betrayed. I feel terrible.”

  “That's all right,” I said. “You can do something for me.”

  “Anything.”

  “I want to see the files on this case. Not just about me, about the other two women as well.”

  “That's not possible. They're not available to the public.”

  “I know. I still want to see them.”

  “It's completely out of the question.”

  “I want you to listen to me very clearly, Cameron. In my opinion you behaved badly about the whole sex thing. Presumably the thought of having sex with a potential victim is some kind of sicko turn-on. But I enjoyed it as well and I'm a grown-up and all that. I'm not interested in punishing you. I just want to make that clear. But if you don't bring me the files I will go and see Links and I will tell him about our sexual relationship and I'll probably cry a bit and talk about having been in a vulnerable state.”

  “You wouldn't.”

  “And I'll contact your wife and tell her.”

  “You wouldn't—that would be . . .” He made a coughing sound, as if he was choking. “You mustn't tell Sarah. She's been depressed; she couldn't deal with it.”

  “That doesn't matter to me,” I said. “I'm not interested. Just get me the files.”

  “You wouldn't do it,” he said in a strangled voice. “You couldn't.”

  “Listen carefully to what I'm saying. There is a man who has killed two women and is now going to kill me. Just at this moment, I don't care about your career and I don't care about your wife's feelings. If you want to try playing poker with me, try it. I want the files here tomorrow morning and enough time to read through them. Then you can take them away again.”

  “I can't do it.”

  “It's your choice.”

  “I'll try.”

  “And I want everything.”

  “I'll do what I can.”

  “Do,” I said. “And think of your career while you're doing it. Think of your wife.”

  When I put the phone down I expected to cry or feel ashamed, but I surprised myself by catching sight of my reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. At last, a friendly face.

  TWELVE

  I cleared my big living room table but there still wasn't enough space. After Cameron had got rid of Lynne, it took him three trips to bring in the files from his car. There were two bulging cases and two cardboard boxes. He unloaded the red, blue, and beige files onto the tabletop and, when there was no more room, onto the carpet as well. When he had finished, he was panting, his face pale and slimy with sweat. His skin had a tired gray deadness.

  “Is that all?” I asked ironically as the final pile was dumped at my feet.

  “No,” he said.

  “I said I wanted everything.”

  “You'd need a small van for everything,” he said. “These are the active files from the office, and the others that I've got direct access to. Anyway, I don't know what good you think this will do you. You'll find most of it incomprehensible.” He sat in the uncomfortable wicker chair in the corner. “You've got two hours with this. And if you mention to anybody that you've seen any of this at all, then that's my job.”

  “Hush,” I said, picking up files at random. “How are these arranged?”

  “Don't get them out of order,” he said. “Mostly the gray files are for statements. The blue files are our own reports and documents. The red files are forensic and crime scene. It's not completely consistent. Anyway it's all written on the outside.”

  “Are there photographs?”

  “There are pictures of the crime scenes in the albums on the floor by your feet.”

  I looked down. It seemed strange that police would put pictures of murders into the same sort of album that people use for their holiday snaps. I felt cold suddenly. Was this a good idea?

  “Maybe in a minute. I just wanted to see what they looked like.”

  Cameron came forward and started rummaging on the table, muttering to himself.

  “Here,” he said. “And here.”

  As I reached for it he took my hand.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  I pulled away from him. I was in a hurry.

  “Go away,” I said. “Go into the garden. I'll call you when I'm ready.”

  “Or what?” he said wearily. “Or you'll ring my wife?”

  “I can't read with you here.”

  He paused. “It doesn't make nice reading, Nadia.”

  “Leave me.”

  Slowly and reluctantly, he left the room.

  I had a moment's hesitation in opening the first file, in even touching it, as if there were an electric current protecting it. I was going to open a door and go into a room and somehow things would always be different. I would be different.

  I opened the file and there she was. A snapshot was pinned to a piece of paper. Zoe Haratounian. Born February 11, 1976. I looked closely at the picture. She must have been on holiday. She was half sitting on a low wall with an intensely blue sky behind her. The fierce sunlight was making her squint slightly (she was holding a pair of sunglasses in her hand) and she was also laughing, saying something to whoever was taking the photograph. She was wearing a green vest and floppy black shorts. She had blond hair that came down to her shoulders. Was she lovely looking? I think so, but it was difficult to tell. Certainly she looked nice. It was a happy picture, the sort that should have been pinned on a cork notice board in the kitchen next to the shopping list and the card of the local taxi firm.

  Also in the file were some typed notes. This was what I'd been looking for. Boyfriend, friends, employer, references to other file
s, contact numbers, addresses. I had a notebook ready for this. I jotted down some names and numbers, looking round to check that Cameron couldn't see me. I flicked through the files. There was another photograph, a black-and-white portrait that looked as if it had been taken for some kind of identification. Yes, she was lovely. I'd seen in the previous picture that she was slim but there was a slight roundness to her face. She looked very young. Although she had a basically serious expression, there was a glint of something in her eyes as if, the very moment that the picture had been taken, she was going to break out into a naughty smile. I wondered what her voice had sounded like. Her name sounded foreign but she had been born somewhere near Nottingham.

  I closed the file and put it carefully to one side. Now for the second. Jennifer Charlotte Hintlesham, born 1961, looked completely different from Zoe. Admittedly, it was a more formal photograph, taken in a studio. I could imagine it standing on a dressing table in a silver frame. She was more striking-looking than Zoe. She wasn't exactly beautiful, but she was a woman who would catch your attention. She had large dark eyes and prominent cheekbones that were made more prominent by her long, thin face. There was something old-fashioned about her: She was wearing a round-necked sweater with a necklace of small pearls. Her dark brown hair was brushed so that it shone. She reminded me of one of those minor British movie stars of the fifties who were a bit left behind when the sixties started.

  I had felt that Zoe was much younger than me; Jennifer Hintlesham seemed a generation older. It wasn't that she had an older-looking face than me. The only faces that look more haggard than mine, especially first thing in the morning, have been dug out of a peat bog after two thousand years of mummification. She just seemed grown-up. I felt I'd like to have met Zoe. I wasn't sure I'd have been Jennifer's type. I looked at the file again. Husband and three children, names and ages. Fuck. I wrote down details.