Beneath the Skin

by Nicci French

  Something occurred to me. I looked in the pile of files where these two had come from. As I thought, there was a file with my name on it. I opened it and was looking at a picture of myself. Nadia Elizabeth Blake, b. 1971. I shivered. Maybe in a few weeks this file would be fatter and another would have been opened.

  I looked at my watch. What on earth next? And what was the point of this, apart from curiosity? When I was eleven years old there was a five-meter board at our local swimming pool. I never dared jump from it until one day I just climbed the steps as if I happened to be climbing a ladder for no reason and stepped over the edge of the board without thinking and I'd done it. I did this now.

  I reached down for the first album of pictures, bound in gaudy red plastic. It should have contained pictures of little girls blowing out candles and people kicking balls along the beach. I opened it and mechanically turned the pages one after another. Not that much to see, really. I turned back to the beginning to check. Yes, this was the scene of the murder of Zoe Haratounian. Her own flat. And then there she was. She was lying facedown on a carpet. She wasn't naked or anything like that. She was wearing knickers and a T-shirt. And she didn't look dead. She could have been asleep. There was a ribbon or tie or something pulled tight around her neck and there were photographs showing it from various angles. I just kept looking at the knickers and the shirt. It was the thought of her putting on those clothes that morning and not knowing that she'd never take them off. It's the sort of stupid thought you can't get out of your mind.

  I put it down and picked up the second book. The crime scene at Jennifer Hintlesham's house. I began to flick dutifully through it as I had the previous one, but then I stopped. This looked completely different. It was a single photograph, it was a single scene, but I saw it in fragments: staring open eyes, wire around the neck, clothes ripped or slashed off, legs splayed, and something like a metal bar pushed into her, I couldn't see into what bit of her. I threw the book down and ran to the sink. I got there just in time, vomit spluttering out of my mouth. My stomach heaved and heaved, painfully emptying itself. I looked down and it was almost funny. The sink was full of dirty dishes. Even dirtier dishes.

  I washed my face in warm and cold water and then embarked on the most disgusting washing-up of my life, and I'm speaking as someone who shared a house with a girl and two boys at college. The activity made me feel steadier. I was able to walk back to the table and close the photograph album without looking at it.

  I didn't have much time. I would have to be selective. I rummaged through the files quickly, checking their contents. I saw plans of Zoe's flat and Jennifer's house. I skimmed through witnesses' statements. They were so long, rambling, and diffuse that it was almost impossible to extract any sense from them. Zoe's boyfriend, Fred, talked about the increasing fear she had felt and his efforts to calm her. Her friend, Louise, seemed distraught. She had been the one who had actually been sitting outside the flat in her car while Zoe had been strangled. The witness statements for Jennifer's murder filled ten bulky files. I could do little more than identify the interviewees, mainly people who worked for her. The Hintleshams seemed to have been major employers.

  I paid a little more attention to the pathologist's reports on the two dead women. Zoe's was much simpler: ligature strangulation with the belt of her dressing gown. There were some minor contusions, but these were only related to the force required to hold her down while she was strangled. Vaginal and anal swabs showed no sign of sexual assault.

  The report on Jennifer's death was far longer. I did nothing more than note details: ligature strangulation, a thin deep furrow on the neck consistent with the use of wire; incised wounds and stabbed wounds; blood splashes, pools, smears, trails; tearing of the perineum; a copious amount of urine. She'd pissed herself.

  There was a fat file dealing with the analysis of the letters. They included photocopies of the letters sent to Zoe and Jennifer, and I read them with a macabre guilty sense that I was reading stolen love letters. But they were love letters, with their promises and their vows. And there was a drawing as well of a mutilated Zoe. Strangely, of all the horrors I saw that day, it was that vile, crude drawing that made me cry. It was the one that made me dwell on the crazed ingenuity that one person was putting into destroying another. I skimmed through the analysis of the documents. There had been attempts to associate the letters with people Zoe knew: her boyfriend, Fred; an ex-boyfriend; a real estate agent; a potential buyer of her flat. However, incised marks on the drawing (confirmed, a note added, by injuries inflicted on Jennifer Hintlesham) showed conclusively that the murderer was left-handed. The above suspects were all right-handed.

  There were files of crime-scene reports on dust and fabric and hair and much else. Many of them were so technical that I couldn't work out whether anything significant had been found. It didn't look like it. There was a single-page summary report at the front, which was copied to Links, Cameron, and other members of the murder inquiry. What was clearly stated was that no significant links had been found among the forensic traces recovered from the two murder scenes. The hair and fiber samples found on the clothes that the dead Zoe was wearing, and also found on the carpet, bedclothes, and other items of clothing, were only those of the recent inhabitants of the flat: namely her boyfriend, Fred, and Zoe herself. The hair and fiber analysis of the Jennifer Hintlesham crime scene was more complicated. There were numerous unidentified samples due to the sheer number of people who had been on the premises. There was, however, no forensic link between the two scenes, apart from Jenny's locket found in Zoe's flat, and Zoe's photograph found in Jenny's house. More awful news.

  I also read through a bundle of internal memos, which outlined the various stages of the inquiry, including the result of an informal internal inquiry that was marked “Most Secret.” It was there I learned that Jennifer Hintlesham's guard had been removed because her husband, Clive, was in the process of being charged with the murder of Zoe Haratounian. What a fuck-up.

  Just as I was about to call Cameron back I started flicking through a routine-looking file. It consisted of rosters, minutes of meetings, holiday assignments. But then at the bottom a photocopied memo caught my eye. It was from Links to a Dr. Michael Griffen, with copies to Stadler, Grace Schilling, Lynne, and a dozen other names I didn't recognize. It began by apparently responding to a complaint by Dr. Griffen that the two murder scenes, especially in the flat of Zoe Haratounian, had been compromised by faulty procedures by the first officers on the scene:

  I will make every effort to ensure that the scene of any future scene will be swiftly and effectively sealed. I realize that in all probability, and in no small part because of the practical difficulties of personal protection, the solution of this case will lie in the hands of the forensic scientists and we will furnish you with all possible cooperation.

  I shouted for Cameron and he was in the room in a few seconds. Had he been watching through the window? What did it matter?

  “Look,” I said, handing him the note. “ ‘Any future scene.' Not exactly a vote of confidence in your own abilities.”

  He looked at it, then replaced it in the file.

  “You asked to see the files,” he said. “Obviously we have to plan for every eventuality.”

  “Maybe it looks different from where I'm standing,” I said. “That's me: any future scene. Me.”

  “So what did you think?”

  “It was horrible,” I said. “And I'm glad I know.”

  Cameron started gathering up the files, putting them in boxes, cramming them into the briefcases.

  “We're not very alike,” I said.

  He paused.

  “What?”

  “I thought we'd all be the same type. I know it's hard to tell from photos and a few particulars, but we seem completely different. Zoe was younger, sweeter than me, I bet. Also, she had a real job. And as for Jennifer, she looks like a member of the royal family. I don't think she'd have had much time for me.”
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br />   “Maybe not,” said Stadler wistfully, and at that moment I felt a stab of jealousy. He'd seen her, talked to her. He knew what her voice sounded like. He had seen her funny little gestures, the sort that would never get written down on a form.

  “You're all small,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You're all short and light,” he said. “And you live in north London.”

  “So that's where you've got to,” I said. “Nearly six weeks and two women dead and you know that this murderer doesn't choose six-foot bodybuilders and he doesn't choose women who live randomly all over the world.”

  He was finished packing up.

  “I've got to go,” he said. “Lynne's about to arrive.”

  “Cameron?”

  “Yes.”

  “I won't tell your wife, or Links or anyone.”

  “Good.”

  “But I would have done.”

  “That's what I thought.”

  We were both acting a bit embarrassed with each other now. For me it was that embarrassment of being with someone who you've been naked with and now don't fancy in the very least. Added to it was a very strong feeling that all I wanted to do was retreat into my bedroom and cry and think about dying for a few hours.

  “Nadia?”

  “Yes?”

  “I'm sorry about everything. It has all been so . . . so.” He stopped and rubbed his face, then looked around as if he thought Lynne might already be in the room without either of us knowing. “I've got something else.”

  “What?” I could tell from the tone of his voice that it wasn't good news.

  He reached inside his jacket and took out a paper. In fact it was two sheets of paper. He unfolded them and flattened them on the table.

  “We intercepted these in the last few days.”

  “How?”

  “One was sent as a letter. I think the other was pushed through the door.”

  I stared at them.

  “This was the first,” he said, pointing at the sheet on the left.

  It read:

  Dear Nadia,

  I want to fuck you to death. And I want you to think about that.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “This came two days ago,” Stadler said.

  Dear Nadia,

  I don't know what the police are saying to you. They can't stop me. They know that. In a few days or a week or two weeks you'll be dead.

  “I wanted to be honest with you,” he said.

  “You know, it had been a very small comfort to me that there was just the one letter. I thought maybe he was going to kill someone else.”

  “I'm sorry,” he said, looking around. “I've got to get this stuff into the car. But I'm very sorry.”

  “I'm going to die, aren't I?” I said. “I mean, at least that must be what you think.”

  He already had a box in his hand.

  “No, no,” he said, moving toward the door. “You'll be fine.”

  THIRTEEN

  “I'm going to Camden Market,” I said. “Straightaway.”

  Lynne looked confused. It was Saturday and only just past nine o'clock, and I guess she'd got used to my staying in my bed till late, trying to find ways of being alone. For the past two days I had been locked into my nightmare, seeing those photographs over and over again in my mind. Zoe, looking as if she had simply gone to sleep; Jenny, obscenely mutilated. Yet here I was, washed and dressed and strangely friendly, and ready to go.

  “It'll be crowded,” she said doubtfully.

  “Just what I need. Crowds, music, cheap clothes and jewelry. I want to buy lots of useless things. You don't need to come with me.”

  “I'll come, of course.”

  “You've got to, haven't you. Poor Lynne, trailing round after me, having to be polite all the time, having to lie. You must miss your normal life.”

  “I'm fine,” she said.

  “I know you don't wear a wedding ring. Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Yes.” Her familiar blush spread over her pale face, her birthmark flamed.

  “Hmmm. You must be wishing this was all over. One way or another. Come on. It's only five minutes' walk away.”

  Lynne was right. It was a hot day, the sky a faded dirty blue, and Camden Market was packed. Lynne was wearing long woolen trousers and heavy shoes. Her hair hung down her face in sweaty little tails. She must be sweltering, I thought to myself with satisfaction. I had put on a lemon-yellow sundress and flat sandals; my hair was tied back. I felt cool, light-footed. We pushed our way through the crowds, and the heat rose from the pavements. I looked round as we walked and felt a wave of euphoria rise in me, that I was among this great sea of people again. The dreadlocks, the punks, the bikers, the girls in bright dresses or tie-dyed skirts, the men with pitted faces and watching eyes, the teenagers slouching by and being cool in that self-conscious kind of way you lose, thank God, as you get older. I tipped back my head and breathed in the patchouli oil and dope and incense and scented candles and good honest sweat.

  There were stalls selling freshly squeezed juices on the corners and I got us each a tumbler of mango and orange and a pretzel. Then I bought twenty thin silver bangles for £5, and slipped them onto my wrist, where they clinked satisfyingly. I bought a floaty silk scarf, a pair of tiny earrings, some flamboyant clips for my hair. Nothing I couldn't put on immediately. I didn't want to be carrying anything. Then, while Lynne was examining wooden carvings, I slipped away. It was as easy as that.

  I went quickly down the staircases that led to the canal and ran along the path until I got to the main road. It was still crowded and I was just another body in the crowd. I ducked and weaved between them. If Lynne came this way, looking for me, she wouldn't be able to see me now. Nobody would be able to see me. Not even him, with his X-ray eyes. I was on my own at last.

  I felt free, quite different, as if I'd shaken off all the rubbish that had been clinging to me over the past weeks: The fear and the desire and the irritation fell away. I felt better than I had in days. I knew where I was going. I had planned the route last night. I had to be quick, before anyone worked out where I was.

  I had to ring the bell several times. I thought maybe he had gone out, although the curtains in the upstairs windows were still closed. But then I heard footsteps, a muffled curse.

  The man who opened the front door was taller and younger than I had expected, and more handsome. He had pale hair flopping over his brow, pale eyes in a tanned face. He was wearing jeans and nothing else. He looked bleary.

  “Yes?” His tone wasn't exactly friendly.

  “Are you Fred?” I tried to smile at him.

  “Yes. Do I know you?” He spoke with a languid self-assurance. I imagined Zoe beside him, her eager, pretty face looking up at his.

  “Sorry to wake you up, but it's urgent. Can I come in?”

  He raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name's Nadia Blake. I'm here because I am being threatened by the same man who killed Zoe.”

  I thought this would surprise him, but it clearly hit him like a physical blow. He almost fell backward.

  “What?” he said.

  “Can I come in?”

  He stepped back and held the door open. He looked utterly dazed. I was past him before he could say anything more. He followed me upstairs to a small cluttered living room.

  “I'm sorry about Zoe, by the way,” I said.

  He was looking at me intently.

  “How did you hear about me?”

  “I saw you on a list of witnesses,” I said.

  He ran his hand through his tousled hair and then rubbed his eyes.

  “Want some coffee?”

  “Thanks.”

  He went into the adjoining kitchen and I stared around me. I thought there might be a photograph of Zoe, something that would remind me of her, but there was nothing. I picked up some of the magazines lying on the floor: horticultural manuals, a guide to London club life, a TV
guide. There was a heap of round stones on one of the shelves and I picked up a marbled one that looked like a duck's egg and held it in the palm of my hand. I put it carefully back and picked up a brown felt hat that was hung on the edge of the chair, swung it round on my forefinger. I wanted to feel close to Zoe, but she felt utterly absent. I picked up a carved wooden duck from a shelf and examined it. When Fred came back into the room I hastily restored it to the shelf.

  “What are you doing?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Just fidgeting. I'm sorry.”

  “Here's your coffee.”

  “Thanks.” I had forgotten to tell him I don't like it with milk.

  Fred sat on a sofa that looked as if it had been retrieved from a dump and motioned me into the chair. He held his mug in both hands and stared into it. He didn't speak.

  “I'm sorry about Zoe,” I said again, for want of anything better.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  He shrugged and looked away. What had I been expecting? I had felt that there was a bond between us, because he had known Zoe and that made him, in a quite irrational way, closer to me in my imagination than any of my friends.

  “What was she like?”

  “Like?” He looked up sulkily. “She was nice, attractive, happy, you know, all that, but what do you want from me?”

  “It's stupid, I know. I want to know silly things about her: her favorite color, her clothes, her dreams, what she felt like when she got the letters, everything . . .” I ran out of breath.

  He looked uncomfortable, almost disgusted.

  “I can't help you,” he said.

  “Did you love her?” I asked abruptly.

  He stared at me as if I had said something obscene.

  “We had good fun.”

  Good fun. My heart sank. He hadn't even known her, or didn't want me to know her through him. Good fun: what an epitaph.

  “Don't you wonder, though, all the time what she must have felt like? When she was being threatened, I mean, and then when she died?”