by Nicci French
‘Have a slice of cake,’ I said. ‘That’ll make you feel better.’
He managed a sort of laugh. ‘It’s a bit early for me,’ he said.
‘That’s not very grateful of you,’ I said.
‘Later, maybe,’ he said distractedly. ‘I mean, you know that Astrid and I have a history. And Leah’s not exactly a diplomat.’
‘While you’re over there could you cut me a slice?’ I said, breaking his flow.
‘What?’
‘Cake.’
Miles looked confused. ‘Oh, all right.’ He picked up the knife and cut me a slice, then one for himself. ‘You’ve tempted me.’ He took a bite and pulled a face. ‘Bloody hell, that’s rich.’
‘Good, though,’ I said.
A few minutes later Miles left the kitchen and I heard the front door slam. I wiped the chocolate cake from the blade of the knife and put it back in the plastic bag. There was no sign of Dario or Mick. Miles’s room was a mess. Leah had been moving in while everybody else was moving out. There were piles of her clothing on the floor, makeup and little glass and plastic bottles on every surface. I pulled some drawers open in Miles’s desk. The bottom one contained old photographs and postcards, a tennis trophy from his schooldays, a couple of old electric plugs. In the end, I pushed the carrier-bag containing the knife between the two mattresses, which is where people hide things in films and where they always get found.
After I left Miles’s room I phoned Melanie at work. I told her I loved her, that I wanted to see her and that she should come straight over here after work. I wanted to see her and talk to her about things. She was so happy and excited that she was almost laughing and crying at the same time. I could hear sounds coming from Dario’s room but I didn’t want to talk to anybody at that moment so I went upstairs and lay on my bed. For a few hours I had felt completely focused. Now I felt the way I did when I came back from the dentist and the anaesthetic was wearing off. For hours there had been a numbness but now there was a prickly feeling in my head as the real world forced its way in.
By now Astrid would know. The police would know. If I’d done something really, really, obviously stupid, if I’d dropped something, left something of myself, it was too late to do anything and soon there’d be a knock on the door. Now the police were investigating three murders and it was going to be a huge deal. My head hurt. There was what had happened and there was what I had made it look like. I had to keep them separate. Now experts would be picking over every detail, every thread. I had only one advantage. They would be looking for something clever, something logical, or perhaps something insane that linked them. But I wasn’t clever and I wasn’t logical and I wasn’t insane. They were just linked by bad luck. Had I blunderingly created a trail that was impossible to follow? Except for Astrid. It always came back to her.
I felt so tired. I just wanted to go back in time to before I’d done all this. But I couldn’t go back in time, so I would need to draw a line under it, get away and start again. Start again. Again. In the meantime, I would have to live through the pantomime once more. How would it happen? Who would find out first? I imagined that Astrid would get her one phone call and would ring up the house. Mick or Dario would answer and they would spread it with that excitement, that sparkle in the eyes, that jolt of electricity people have when they’ve got really bad news to tell you. Suddenly I realized I had to get out of the house. I couldn’t be here when the first news arrived, when people were huddling around, snatching at fragments, speculating about what exactly might have happened.
I ran down the stairs, nodding at Dario on the way. He asked me if I could give him a hand. I shook my head. I told him somebody had rung me. I had urgent work to attend to.
‘This is going so badly,’ he said.
I said I’d catch him later. As I walked away from the house, I phoned Melanie at work again.
‘You’re stalking me,’ she said.
It was the first time she had ever teased me. Was I seeming needy? Putting myself in a position of weakness? ‘Is it a problem?’ I asked.
‘No, no, course not,’ she said.
I told her I’d pick her up from work. There was something I needed to talk to her about. She left her gallery at ten past five. I had more than four hours to kill and nothing to do. The day passed in a fuzzy rush. I wandered the streets looking at passers-by, men in stained trousers drinking lager and talking to themselves, people with headphones, busy shoppers. Everybody inching their way through a crowd of strangers. What did it matter if one or two or three of them disappeared? In a hundred years there’d still be a crowd here, winos talking to themselves, busy shoppers, but they’d be new. The old ones would be dead.
I took Melanie for a coffee. I dropped hints about us all having to leave the house and she blushed and smiled and said maybe we could think of looking for somewhere together, and I nodded and smiled and said we should think about it and maybe we should head home.
As I opened the door, Dario was standing in the hall, wild-eyed. He walked over to us and spoke quietly. ‘Davy,’ he said. ‘Mel.’
At that moment I needed Melanie the way people sometimes need a cigarette. It’s not that you particularly want a smoke. It just gives you something to do with your hands. When you do all the stuff like taking the cigarette out of the packet, putting it into your mouth and playing with lighters or matches, it stops you feeling self-conscious. When Melanie was there, draped around me, doing what I said, agreeing with me, I turned into a new creature: Davy-and-Mel. So sweet, so young and in love. People stopped paying attention. Best of all, she could do the reacting for both of us. I pretended to be numbed by the news, so shocked that I couldn’t even speak. And I watched Melanie as if she was an actress giving a performance. And what a performance. Her pretty pale face flushed, tears filled her eyes, she stammered and asked questions and said she couldn’t believe it and held my arm tight and tried to remember when she had last seen Leah and what Leah had said. I stayed close, my arm round her, silent. I could smell her smooth, newly washed hair.
Pippa heard us and came out of her room. She seemed the most composed of anyone. Suddenly I saw how ridiculous Melanie looked, her cheeks streaked with black, weeping for somebody she hardly knew and couldn’t have cared for.
‘What’s going to happen?’ I asked.
‘How should I know?’ she said. ‘Miles is downstairs. Go and see him.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better if you did?’
She smiled. ‘No,’ she said.
So the two young lovers went downstairs and found Miles sitting alone at the table staring into the air. We made tea and opened tins of biscuits and sat and held hands and murmured and nodded while Miles babbled and cried and talked aimlessly. There was too much talk. It was too confusing, too much to keep in mind. I was worried I would say the wrong thing but I couldn’t think of an excuse to get up and leave him there. And then Astrid came in. She was wearing strange rough clothes: tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt that clearly weren’t hers. She looked exhausted and rumpled, yet she had the glow about her of someone who had been close to the action.
‘Was it horrible?’ I asked, then realized how fatuous that sounded and Astrid instantly told me so. Miles got up and I could see that he felt more intimate with Astrid than he had with us. He had made do with us because there was nobody else to talk to. He might as well have been talking to himself. Now, with Astrid, he let his guard down and hugged her and talked in a new, raw tone. We watched them curiously.
‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, then looked round at us awkwardly and said he’d talk to her outside.
They left the kitchen and Melanie turned to me. ‘What was that?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s go upstairs.’
As we walked up, I saw Miles and Astrid in a conspiratorial huddle on the stairs. I heard – thought I heard – Astrid saying, ‘I can’t take twenty thousand in cash, Miles!’ But they looked round, saw me and feel silent. Shutting me out. We eased pa
st them.
‘Everything all right?’ I asked.
Astrid turned away from me. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said.
‘If there’s anything…’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, thanks.’
But I saw the money in her hands.
Chapter Forty-one
Maybe it could be all right. Maybe I could get what I had wanted, after all. I had to keep calm, that was the main thing. Very calm. Not a single wrong move. I was scared to open my mouth in case I said something that would trip me up, and I had to force myself to meet anyone’s gaze because I thought they’d be able to see the thoughts that were swarming in my head. I could barely smile or grimace without worrying that it would be my undoing. It was hard to breathe steadily. Footsteps on the stairs made me giddy. Coming to get me. Knock on the door, hand on the shoulder. No solid ground under my feet. No clear view in front of me. But if I could grope my way through the darkness, if I could only keep my balance, I could still get out of this mess.
I had done all this, killed all these women – no, that wasn’t me, not the real me; it wasn’t my fault, just a stupid accident – and each time come away empty-handed. But now Astrid had all that money. I had seen her go upstairs with it. Twenty thousand pounds in cash. Astrid was in my way and Astrid had the money. My head still hurt, but it also felt as if there was an itch inside it that I couldn’t get at. Get rid of Astrid, take the money. But everything was the wrong way round now, because at any minute the police would descend on the house and they’d find the stuff in Miles’s room and I couldn’t blame another death on him, could I, not if he was in the police station? Shit, shit, shit. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Find another person as well. Owen. That was it. Serve him right. Get him out of the way. Me and Astrid in Brazil. But even through the wild duststorm of my thoughts I could see that it would be pushing it to try to find another fall-guy as well as Miles. Two killers in one house. No. It wouldn’t do.
Chaos in my mind; chaos in the house. People were packing and crying. Dario was bumping a large cardboard box down the stairs and talking to himself. Pippa was throwing clothes out of her door, until the threshold of her room was strewn with them. I opened my window and pushed my head outside, and I could hear voices filtering towards me from Owen’s room. Astrid was in there. She really shouldn’t do that: it only made me angrier. I couldn’t hear everything, only fragments of their talk. Something about leaving. Something about photographs. Photographs. I strained to make out more. Their voices dropped, then rose again. Something about Pippa. That was good. However much time passed, Pippa would always be there, that first lie in the relationship.
The photograph. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and swallowed hard. He was going to the police with the photograph, that was it. Everything closing in. I couldn’t breathe. No air left for me. Had to keep calm. Now their voices dropped again. A low murmur. I couldn’t make out the words. Silence. Were they kissing? Touching? Fucking? Were they? Who cared? It didn’t really matter any more. That was all going to come to an end.
Melanie came into the room carrying a mug of tea. Kind, sweet Melanie, sweet enough to make me gag. A look of womanly concern on her face, but she was happy now, I could tell that. She sat beside me on the bed and I buried my face on her shoulder because if I saw her expression of sympathetic tenderness I would have to hit her to make it go away.
‘Here, my love, drink this.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Everyone’s in shock.’
I muttered something. My mind was whirling. Astrid. Money. Brazil. I wanted the money. Anyone would want the money. That was it. She was everyone’s target now. Yes. The hiss in my head subsided, like static being gradually tuned out. Stir up the mud, I thought. Stir up the fear. Make sure everyone else felt the confusion and terror I was feeling now.
‘Come on,’ I said, jumping up from the bed and taking Melanie’s hand.
‘What?’
‘Let’s go downstairs.’
‘But I made you a cup of tea.’
‘I can’t just sit here.’
I pulled her downstairs, meeting Dario coming up. I nodded at him. ‘The police will be here soon,’ I said in a whisper. ‘You’d better be ready. They’ll take your room apart, you know.’
His eyes widened and he stared wildly at me, then ran up the stairs.
Melanie and I went into the kitchen and I sat her at the table. I could hear Miles weeping in his room. Yes, mate, weep. You don’t get it yet.
‘Mel,’ I said loudly.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you understand why I’m so upset?’
‘Of course,’ she said excitedly. ‘You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t shocked by what’s happened. Leah practically lived in this house. And in spite of everyone’s difficulties, she was so full of -’
‘No,’ I said, cutting into her drivel. ‘I mean, do you understand?’
I could hear footsteps coming down the stairs. Just from their light swiftness, I knew it was Astrid.
‘Don’t you get it yet, Mel?’ I continued even louder. ‘They think it’s one of us.’
I heard Astrid come to a halt outside the door. That’s right, my girl. You stay there and listen, the way I want you to. Call yourself free? Nobody’s free. They’re all part of a plan.
‘And that’s not all,’ I went on, over Mel’s wail of protest. ‘That’s why Owen’s packing his bag. That’s why Dario’s running round like a headless chicken. That’s why Miles was throwing up in the bathroom and putting those letters from Leah into the garbage before he’s marched off to the police station. That’s why Astrid looks completely distraught.’
When Astrid finally entered, Mel had her fingers in her ears like a toddler, blocking out what she couldn’t bear to hear. I smiled sadly at Astrid. I was the reluctant truth-teller, the loyal good friend. I was the one who saw what no one else could bear to look at.
The police arrived like an army, some in plain clothes and some in uniform, carrying bags and cameras. My hands weren’t steady so I put an arm round Melanie. My heart pounded so hard that it hurt in my chest. I could feel beads of sweat prickling my forehead and points of light jabbed behind my eyes. It was hard to make sense of the sounds around me, separate them out into words.
‘Could you show us your room, sir?’
He was talking to me. I made myself look at the face that loomed towards me. I nodded gravely. ‘Of course.’
I led him up the stairs, and his footsteps fell heavily behind me. Was I about to find out that I had made some terrible mistake?
‘Here,’ I said. My voice sounded quite natural.
‘Thank you.’
‘I – er – I’ll wait downstairs, shall I? I’m not sure how this kind of thing works.’
A hint of a smile on his stiff face. I left him and went into the kitchen. Astrid was outside with Kamsky. They were standing by her vegetable garden and she was looking up at him with the expression of frankness I knew so well. I watched her. I went on watching her as a police officer strode past me and pushed his way out into the garden. He almost ran towards them. When Kamsky stepped forward to join him, I could see his face tensing. He turned back to Astrid and said something to her, then left her there. For several moments, she didn’t move, but she put her hand against her heart as if it was hurting her. Then she walked towards the kitchen and when she lifted her head her gaze went right through me. As if I wasn’t there at all.
If you can get through a door just as it’s banging shut. If you can find the one gap in the fast-moving traffic and make it to the other side. If you can time it just right. Too soon and you’ll expose yourself. Too late and you’ll be trapped. One moment. I had to get it right.
When the police interviewed me, I could tell they weren’t really interested in me. They didn’t fire questions at me and try to trip me up. They just wanted to know stupidly easy things like my movements yesterday morning. Who had I seen in the house when I returned from my shop
ping expedition for Melanie? Now, let me think. Hmm. Well, I’d seen Miles. That’s right. Miles. I’d thought it strange that he wasn’t at work. What did he say? Ah, let me think: yes, he had said he knew Leah was going back to her house to get something. I was certain, yes. Was he upset? Oh, yes, Officer, he was very nervous and jumpy indeed. And that was before he heard about Leah’s death? Oh, yes, Officer, even before that he was noticeably agitated. But – sudden frown – why are you asking me that? Surely you can’t think it was Miles? Yes, Officer, I’m afraid Miles had argued with Leah. Absolutely. Yes, I don’t want to betray house confidences, but he seemed obsessed with Astrid.
Out on to the street at last, into the drizzle. Pippa was there already and we sat on the low wall. She put her arm through mine and leaned her head on my shoulder. ‘What a fucking nightmare,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I said. I kissed the top of her head.
‘Isn’t it horrible when everything you’ve done or said becomes suspicious? I tell you what, I’ll be better at my job after this.’
So she didn’t know yet.
Owen joined us and I could tell he didn’t know either. He stood moodily in front of us, kicking bits of gravel on the pavement, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. He scowled at Pippa when she reached out a hand, and moved a step backwards, then sat on the wall on the other side of me. She shrugged, stood up and pulled her mobile out of her pocket. Dario reeled out of the police station. His hair stuck up in orange peaks and his face was a chalky white. ‘I wanted to confess,’ he said, ‘just to stop them. To make it all go away. Is there a word for it, feeling guilty for something you didn’t do?’
‘Shut up,’ said Owen, who was rolling himself a cigarette.
‘Right,’ said Dario, as if Owen had given him useful advice. He started pacing up and down, muttering to himself.
Then Astrid arrived. She was pale and the spring had gone out of her step. She sat between me and Owen. Owen passed her the cigarette. I put an arm round her. She let her weight rest on me. Her hair was against my cheek. I could feel her breathing. I could feel the crisp thickness of the cash in her jacket.