by Nicci French
Now that I had decided, I was burning to act but I had a whole day and night to get through. It took about an hour to reach the gallery where Melanie and Laura worked. I pushed the door open and entered the hushed, cool interior. There were no customers, but Laura and Melanie were there. Melanie was wearing a flowery cotton dress that Astrid wouldn’t have been seen dead in. She had pink lips and looked like a child about to go off to a birthday party.
‘Davy.’ She blushed and put up a hand to check her hair. ‘I wasn’t expecting you!’
‘Why would you be?’ I asked rudely. ‘Hi, Laura.’
‘Hello, Davy.’ She looked at me appraisingly and I felt my anger mount.
‘These are a bit expensive, aren’t they?’ I said, flicking my hand dismissively at a canvas.
‘Well, not if you -’
‘Is there somewhere we can talk privately?’
‘You can go to the stock room,’ said Laura. ‘It’s not as if we’re rushed off our feet.’
Melanie led me into the back. Through the frosted-glass door I could see Laura’s shape moving around the gallery and I could hear her as well, the clack her shoes made on the wooden floor.
‘Are you all right, Davy?’ asked Melanie.
‘Why not?’
‘I didn’t think I’d hear from you again.’
‘Well, here I am.’
‘I was worried.’ As she spoke, she took a step forward and lifted her face. Her expression was anxious and hopeful. I knew she wanted me to kiss her, a chaste and tender kiss to reassure her of my affection.
I didn’t kiss her, but there under the naked bulb, among the box files, pressed against the computer that beeped and whirred, I pulled up her flowery dress and pulled down her demure white knickers, pulled them over her sensible shoes and put them into my jacket pocket. I pushed my hand between her legs. She tried to stop me. Her eyes were wild and she struggled silently, looking over my shoulder at the door. Then she stopped struggling and I unzipped my flies and pushed myself inside her. When I’d finished – it didn’t take long – she put her arms round my neck and pressed her face into my chest and told me it was all right and she understood and she loved me and she was so happy I’d tracked her down. She kissed me on the mouth, called me ‘darling’, and led me back into the shop by the hand, looking mussed and proud.
I’d tried nice. I’d tried considerate. And it hadn’t worked. But when you were cruel, when you were indifferent, they liked you for it. If you treated them really badly, they fell in love with you. It was their own fault.
Chapter Thirty-five
Making up the package was fun. It was almost a pity that nobody but me would ever see it. I collected a packet of condoms I’d taken from Owen’s room, a thong of Pippa’s, a scarf Mel had left behind, and the lip-gloss I’d nabbed from Astrid’s room. I’d also taken a padded envelope from a pile in Astrid’s room, small enough to fit through the letterbox. I addressed it to Jonathan Whiteley, the boy I’d been best friends with at school, at Century Road but a different number. The de Sotos lived at number twenty-seven. I wrote number seven. Far enough away so that she probably wouldn’t know who lived there, similar enough to be an understandable mistake by the postman.
Also, on the way back from seeing Melanie, I had gone to a shop I’d seen just off Brick Lane. It sold catapults and flick-knives to survivalists and fantasists. I chose a knife with a large, serrated blade. It needed to look scary. The man behind the counter was largely bald at the front but with a long grey ponytail behind. Who was he trying to fool? He put the knife into a paper bag. ‘Good for cutting up deer,’ he said.
‘See many deer in the East End?’ I said.
‘I seen some in the Lea Valley,’ he said.
It should have been impossible for me to sleep that night. I should have gone over and over it in my head, checking and rechecking that it could possibly work. But when my alarm went off at six, I felt as if I was being dragged out of a deep pit of sleep. At first I didn’t recognize where I was and thought I was back at home, as if London had been a dream.
As I came down the stairs of the sleeping house, I met Astrid in the hall. ‘You’re early,’ I said.
‘I’ve got to fill in for someone,’ she said, with a groan. ‘You?’
‘Same,’ I said. ‘More or less.’
I couldn’t afford to loiter outside the house this time. It wasn’t necessary either. I waited at the other end of the street for the postman to arrive. From a distance I saw Mr de Soto ’s Jaguar pull out of his drive and felt a lurch in my stomach. This was what it must feel like to be a boxer about to enter the ring, a rock star making his way to the stage. That feeling of a humming, expectant crowd out there, waiting for you to deliver an experience to them. Except in this case the audience didn’t know they were going to be an audience. They didn’t know their life was going to be changed.
The postman appeared in the road just after eight. It was as if I was pushing them around like counters on a board. It was going to be so simple: just get into the house, check she’s alone. If she isn’t, leave, no harm done, try again somewhere else. If she’s alone, threaten her, immobilize her, steal what I want at leisure. Walk away, untraceable.
The postman went from house to house, up and down the paths, up, down, up, down. What a job. A job, you can’t do well or badly. Just deliver the mail or don’t deliver it, that’s all.
I waited until he was a couple of houses away, then started to walk up the street. As I walked, I pulled on my surgical gloves and took the package from the plastic carrier-bag. I timed it perfectly. The postman emerged from the de Soto drive and turned away from me. I waited until he had disappeared round the corner. Then I walked quickly up the drive and pushed the package through the letterbox. It just fitted. No turning back now. I walked to the road, pulling off the gloves. I needed to give it ten minutes to make it took convincing. I glanced at my watch. Exactly eight twenty-seven. I timed myself walking away from the house. At eight thirty-two and thirty seconds I turned and walked purposefully back to the house. I pressed the doorbell. Time to go onstage.
There was a buzz and a crackle. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi,’ I said, smiling into the little lens above the speaker.
‘Yes?’
‘Hi, my name’s Jonathan Whiteley. I’m from number seven. I was just talking to the postman about a package and he said he might have delivered it to you by mistake.’
‘Oh, God,’ the crackly voice said. ‘Was that you? Hang on.’
As the door opened, I stepped forward and inside.
Ingrid de Soto was lovely. That was what money did for you. She didn’t live on the same planet as the rest of us. Her expensive hair was pulled tight into a bunch. She was wearing a blue silk dressing-gown and under it I could see the swell of her breasts, the flash of a gold necklace, thin as a wire round her neck, another round one wrist, a watch. In comparison, Pippa was shabbily dressed, Astrid was dishevelled, Melanie seemed cheap. But I was on her planet now. I looked around. She was clearly alone.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I was confused. Sorry, I made a stupid mistake.’ She smiled at me apologetically, with her beautiful, expensive teeth.
Now I was the one to be confused. ‘What do you mean?’ I said. Had I slipped up?
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Here.’ She handed me the package.
I forced a smile. ‘No, really,’ I said. ‘What mistake?’
She laughed. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said. ‘We get lots of deliveries in envelopes like those. I thought it was one of those sent to the wrong address. I just rang up the courier to collect it.’ She checked her watch. ‘Bloody hell, they’ll be here in a moment.’ She smiled again. ‘It’s not your problem.’
I punched her, hard, and she fell to the floor. As I grabbed her by the neck, much of the ferocity was really against myself. I’d made this brilliant arrangement to rob someone with whom I had no connection and the result was that a courier was about to arrive an
d catch me in the act. I was so furious with my own stupidity that I hardly felt the flailings of her arms and hands against me and hardly heard the gurgling and choking. I forced her down, banged her head against the floor and tightened my hands around her throat until I saw that her eyes weren’t looking back at me, or at anything. I let her go.
‘You bloody idiot,’ I said, and I didn’t know if I was talking to her or to myself.
I was standing over her, panicking. She lay sprawled beneath me on the floor, hands splayed. I looked at my watch and made myself breathe slowly and calmly. Eight thirty-five. I could give myself two minutes. That was all. I looked around. It was everything I had imagined, everything I had dreamed of. But to escape now I had to do the opposite of what I’d planned. I had to make this not look like a robbery. I had to make it look as if I was insane. What did insane people do when they killed women? I thought of Owen and his fucking photographs, and it seemed like a private joke. I took the knife from inside my jacket and unsheathed it. I held Ingrid de Soto ’s head steady, then cut bold strokes on her cheeks and forehead, the way I remembered from Owen’s photograph. The incisions didn’t bleed. I took one of her earrings between my fingers, pulled it clean out of her perfectly shaped earlobe and put it in my pocket. Suddenly it was a horrible sight, the blank dead jelly eyes. I turned her over, face down, staring into the floor. I checked my watch. Time up.
I walked to the front door. I just needed to get to the gate, and then to the other side of the road, and I would be free. Then I remembered: the bloody package. I couldn’t just leave it there, could I, the thong and the condoms and scarf? I turned back, stepped over the sprawled body and looked around. There it was, on the shelf of a dresser by the door. I picked it up. A thought came to me and I also picked up an oval glass paperweight with spiralling patterns on it and an invitation on thick white card. I returned to the door, my shoes clicking on the tiles, echoing. I stepped outside, pulled the front door behind me and heard it click shut. I walked along the path, hearing the gravel under my feet. Don’t run. People would remember someone running. Out of the gate, not looking to either side. I crossed the road. What now? Concealing myself, I rested my forehead against the trunk of a tree, feeling the roughness of the bark. It was alive and that woman was dead. Then a sudden thought came into my mind: Why did I kill her? To protect myself, because it had gone wrong? No, I said, that’s not true. All you needed to do was take your package and leave. She would have apologized to the messenger. That would have been that.
It had been a stupid mistake. I hadn’t had time to think about it, I’d been in a fog of panic, and made the wrong decision. Maybe that would protect me as well. I didn’t even have a real motive. That woman was lying dead on the floor quite unnecessarily – perhaps I’d left my fingerprints everywhere. I looked warily round the tree-trunk, poised to return, and then – I guess I should have expected it, really, because it was turning into a farce – a bike came into view and, of course, Astrid was riding it. She was a distance away but I could see her face glistening with the effort of cycling up the hill, but she wasn’t panting heavily. She was used to this. She looked wonderful. Why do you always end up with the one you don’t really want? Melanie thought of me as her boyfriend. That woman was dead by mistake. That was the way life worked out.
Astrid swung off her bike in a single movement and pulled it over the gravel. It was like watching someone at school trying to solve a difficult problem. She rang the bell, then rang it again. She took out her phone and made a call. She peered through the letterbox. She’d seen something. I could watch her thinking. She looked around. I shrank further behind the tree. I heard her talking into her phone again. I couldn’t make out the words but I could hear the urgency, the hysteria almost, in her tone. This might be an ambulance or even the police. Time to go.
I edged away and walked along the other side of Century Road. Before I turned the corner I heard the loud sound of a smashing window. That Astrid. Wonderful.
Chapter Thirty-six
It wasn’t a coincidence. It was meant to be. She might not know it yet, but I did, and once I knew it the whole world looked different. I sat in the park and took out the paperweight. When I looked at it, following the lines of colour into the clear, glowing centre, it almost felt as if I was seeing my own life. I had killed Peggy, and Astrid had been there. I had killed Ingrid, and once again Astrid was there. She was my witness; my audience, and I was doing it for her. Everyone else receded and it was just the two of us. Astrid with her laughing eyes.
I don’t know how long I sat there. The sun rose higher in the sky. The colours deepened and the shadows became shorter. I wasn’t hungry or anxious or tired. I could feel my heart beating at just the right speed, and the blood pumping round my body. I clenched my fists and felt the muscles in my forearm tighten. I sat up straight on the park bench and my body felt as it was meant to be, light and powerful. I glanced around me and my eyes took in everything: the tall trees, the sweep of the path, a woman pushing a buggy with a little frown on her face, a child with a lollipop stuck into its mouth, the three ducks waddling behind, the single cloud puffing along on the horizon, the litter lifted up on a curl of wind, the man with a tattoo on his forearm. The world was entering my skull and I could keep it there. All that I saw, all that I heard, tasted, touched, could be held inside me. I smiled and felt the smile on my face. I blinked and my eyes were a camera focusing, clicking on the image I wanted to catch.
I walked from the park and into a shop where I bought a large bottle of water, which I drank on the spot, every last drop. I could feel the cold liquid running into me. I started to walk back towards the house, but I knew it would be some time before the police were finished with her, so I changed my mind and went to Melanie’s gallery instead, to kill time. She couldn’t believe it when I pushed the door open and went inside. The second day in a row! Her face lit up with a kind of dazed happiness that made her look even younger than she was. She didn’t struggle this time, even though I was rough with her. There were red marks and bruises on her skin when I’d finished. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see her looking at me. I left before she’d finished buttoning her shirt.
They should have listened to themselves and then they’d have realized how stupid they sound. Yabber, yabber, yabber. Miles being pompous and wounded all at once, and Pippa going on about tenants’ rights. Dario whining between toxic clouds of smoke, Mick grunting, Leah putting in her poisonous remarks. Owen didn’t really say anything, but that was probably because he was so busy trying to look like a film star who’d wandered into the wrong movie and now had to sit it out. I was Mr Nice Guy, of course, but I didn’t put much effort into it. My mouth smiled, my eyes made contact with the others round the table, I nodded in agreement, frowned in thought. Every so often I heard myself saying bland, reasonable phrases, but it was all happening at a great distance from me.
Because I was waiting for Astrid. Every cell in my body was alert, each little sound vibrated through me. I heard every car that slowed down as it passed the house, every door that slammed, each footstep falling on the pavement outside.
At last it was her. Nobody else seemed to notice that the front door had opened, then closed softly. I strained my ears but could hear nothing. She must be standing in the hall, hesitating, wondering whether to go to her room or to come down and face us. Perhaps she wouldn’t come downstairs at all. I didn’t think I could stand that.
‘You’re behaving like a silly little schoolboy,’ Leah snapped at Dario.
I nudged Pippa. ‘I think I heard Astrid come in,’ I whispered. ‘Should we ask her to join us?’
‘Astrid? Is that you?’ she yelled immediately. Her voice was surprisingly loud for such a willowy girl. ‘Come here, will you? We need you.’
‘Bollocks to you,’ roared Dario. ‘You’re deliberately twisting things, but you won’t get away with it, you know.’
Her footsteps were light on the stairs. I tried not to stare at the doo
rway where she would appear so at first I caught only a burning glimpse of her, bundled up in oversized jeans and a large blue jumper. Like a waif. Like an orphan. I allowed myself to look properly as she came across and sank into the large armchair, mumbling something inane to cover my stare. Her face was pale, her dark eyes enormous. There was a pulse in her throat and a tiny blue vein in her temple, just visible behind her black hair. She’d never looked more beautiful; it was all I could do to stop myself going over to her and taking her in my arms. But everybody else was so caught up in the quarrel that they hardly took any notice of her. Blind, deaf fools, all of them. She just sat there, silent and blank, listening to them baying at each other. I saw how she put up one hand and brushed the hair away from her face. She had long, slender fingers, bare of rings. Her nails were cut very short. Every so often, she closed her eyes briefly. Her thick lashes lay against her smooth skin.
What was going through her head? Finally I couldn’t bear it any longer. I went over to her, squatting down near enough to breathe in the smell of her, and asked her if she was all right. She turned her head and half smiled at me. Our eyes met, and I was looking right into her, deep down, and I knew then that if she didn’t understand the connection between us yet, one day she would.
When she spoke at last, her words cut through the noise. ‘What a cunt you are,’ she said to Leah. She said she didn’t care about the money. She made everyone ashamed of themselves. And then she told them. I watched her. The way her fists clenched when she spoke. The little lights in her pupils. How she bit her lip before giving details. Everyone gathered round but I had been there first. In all the excited clamour, I let myself reach out a hand and touch her shoulder, where the jersey stopped and her skin began. Mine, mine, mine.