Land of the Living

by Nicci French

  But what would that evidence be like? Where would I look? I decorated my giant question mark with a filigree of baby question marks that ran down its back, round its tail, back up along its stomach then up to its head until it was entirely surrounded by a cloud of fluttering bemusement.

  Ten

  I woke with a start and for a moment I couldn't remember where I was. The room was dark and there was no sound at all. I lay in bed and waited for memory to return. I waited to hear something; a sound in the blackness. My heart was hammering fast and my mouth felt suddenly dry. Then I heard it, a gentle shuffling outside. Perhaps that was what had woken me. But who was there, outside my window? I turned and looked over at my radio-alarm clock on the table. It was ten minutes to five, and cold.

  I heard it again, the shuffling, scraping sound. I couldn't move, but lay pressed up against my pillow. It was difficult to breathe properly and my head hammered relentlessly. I let myself remember the hood and the gag, but then I pushed away the thought. I made myself get out of bed and go over to the window. I opened the curtains a crack and looked outside, through the flowers of frost on the glass. The newly fallen snow made everything brighter, and by the light of the street lamp I could make out a dark shape beneath me. A fat tabby cat was rubbing itself against the shrub by the front door, winding its thick tail round the dead leaves. I almost laughed in relief, but then it raised its head and seemed to gaze straight at me with its unblinking yellow eyes. A feeling of dread seized me. I looked down the street, dark between its puddles of orange light. It was empty. Then a car a few yards away started up; its headlights illuminated the street and I caught the glimpse of a shape in the distance. There were footprints in the new snow.

  I let the curtains drop and turned away. I was being ridiculous, I told myself sharply. Paranoid. In London someone is always awake. There are always cars and cats and figures on the street. Whatever time I woke in the night I could press my face against the window and see someone standing there.

  I climbed back into bed and curled up, wrapping my arms around myself. My feet were freezing and I tried to tuck them inside the rugby shirt to warm them, but they kept slipping out. After a few minutes, I got out of bed again and went to the bathroom. I'd seen a hot-water bottle hanging on the door. I boiled the kettle, filled it, took two pills for my head, then climbed back into bed. I lay there for a while, hugging the bottle against myself and trying to go back to sleep. Thoughts whirled round in my head, like a wild snowstorm, and tasks piled up in drifts: the phone calls I had to make, the names in the file I had to go to see, and I must try to find out where Jo was, find out more about her at least, and what about the bloody morning-after pill? Someone must know what on earth I'd been up to, and was I looking for one man or was I looking for two, and what if I was pregnant? I remembered my old life and it seemed very far away, like a picture behind glass, while this new life was sinister and insistent, and shifted whenever I looked at it.

  The radiator crackled and hummed, and after a few minutes the edge was gone from the cold. Outside, through the chink in the curtain, I could see the darkness was beginning to lift. It was no good. I couldn't sleep any more. While I lay there, dread squatted on my chest like a great toad. To shift it, I had to get started on sorting things out. That was the only thing to do.

  I had a bath, almost too hot to bear so that when I got out my skin was pink and my fingers wrinkled. I dressed in my baggy trousers and black hooded fleece and put on two pairs of socks. I made myself a cup of coffee, heating the milk for it. I boiled an egg, toasted a slice of the stale bread and buttered it liberally. I was going to look after myself. I made myself eat the breakfast at the table, dipping the toast into the yolk and chewing it slowly between gulps of milky coffee. Then I went into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. I still got a mild shock when I saw myself, my naked white face. I wet my hair and combed it, so that it wasn't so tufty and brushed my teeth vigorously, watching myself as I did so. No makeup. No jewellery. Ready for action.

  It was still only just past seven; most people would probably be still in bed. It was certainly too early to get a pregnancy-testing kit.

  I'd do that later. I settled down with my pieces of paper, going through the lists I had made last night, adding notes to myself. I rummaged through drawers, looking for Blu-Tack. I didn't find any, but there was some Sellotape in a drawer full of screwdrivers, string, fuses and batteries. I stuck the pieces of paper along the wall, leaving gaps that I hoped to fill in later. It was oddly satisfying, a bit like tidying a desk and sharpening pencils before starting real work.

  I wrote down the names and addresses of the men I planned to visit today. They were all names I knew well, and I assumed they were the men I'd gone to visit after I'd left Jay and Joiner's. I had phoned them, or their staff, daily during the last weeks at work and I knew we had mistreated them. Some of them I'd met, but that frantic period was a blur, a time of abstract urgency, as if I'd been moving too fast to see, or as if the amnesia had somehow oozed backwards. Perhaps, I thought, my memory loss is like ink spilt on to blotting paper. It has a central point of greatest darkness, and it gets gradually lighter as it spreads outwards, until finally the stain is imperceptible.

  I looked up each address in the road map, planning my route and which person to go to first. I lifted the phone and started to dial the first number then put it down again. I should arrive unannounced. I had no advantage except unpredictability. I put on my woollen hat and drew it down low over my brow, I wrapped my stripy scarf round the lower half of my face and then I turned off all the lights, and drew the curtains in my bedroom, as they'd been before I arrived.

  The long day yesterday, and the unsatisfactorily short night, had made me extra jumpy this morning. There was no back way out, so I had to use the front door. Just before opening it, I put on my dark glasses; now there was scarcely a strip of my face showing. I took a deep breath and marched out, into the blasting wind. It was the coldest day yet, a cold to scour the skin and ache in the bones. The parking ticket was still under iced wipers on my car but that didn't matter. Today I'd be using public transport.

  Ken Lofting's shop wasn't open yet, but when I pressed my face to the glass doors I could see that the lights were on at the back. There didn't seem to be any kind of bell, so I pounded with my fist and waited. At last I saw a shape appear. The lights in the shop went on and when I say they went on, I mean they lit up in a dazzling display and suddenly it was like Christmas all over again and the bulky figure of Ken came walking ponderously towards me, frowning at my impatience. He didn't immediately open the door. He looked at me through the glass then recognition dawned slowly on his heavy, florid face. He unlocked one set of bolts, then the next, and pulled open a door. My mouth went dry with apprehension but I kept on smiling steadily at him.

  "Abbie?"

  "I just had my hair cut, that's all. Can I have a word with you?"

  He stood back, still staring at me until I felt self-conscious. "I was hoping to see you," he said. I listened to his voice. Was the accent right? "You've been on my mind."

  "I thought you'd be open by now," I said, glancing around nervously. The lamps and chandeliers and spotlights shone, but there seemed to be no one else here.

  "In five or ten minutes' time."

  "Can we talk?"

  He stood aside and I stepped into the shop. He locked and bolted the door behind us. The sound made me shiver. I couldn't stop myself.

  Ken isn't just any old electrician who puts wires behind skirting boards; he's a maestro. He's competent with wires but he's obsessed with lights the way light falls, the depth of its field, the quality of contrast. In his shop in Stockwell you can buy weird discontinued Norwegian bulbs, and he can spend hours discussing up-lighting and down-lighting and over-head lighting; sharp beams and soft diffusions. He often did. The lights we put into Avalanche's office were works of art. Each desk was brightly lit, and each individual office, but there were areas between that were mo
re shaded. "Contrast," he'd said, over and over again. "You've got to have contrast, give shape and depth to a room, bring it to life. The golden rule is never make lighting flat and glaring. Who can live with that?" The Avalanche directors loved that kind of talk.

  "Why were you hoping to see me, Ken?"

  "First things first. Tea?"

  "Lovely."

  He made tea in his back office, which was full of cardboard boxes. I sat in the chair and he sat on a box. It was very cold in there, and I kept on my coat although he was in shirt-sleeves.

  "Why did you want to see me?"

  "Biscuit? Ginger nut?"

  "No, I'm fine. Thanks."

  "To thank you."

  "Thank you for what?"

  "For saving me from losing three grand, that's what."

  "I did that?"

  "Yep."

  "How?"

  "What?"

  "Sorry, Ken. Bear with me. There's just some things at work that need clearing up."

  He seemed satisfied with that. "You told me I'd been underpaid and I should make a fuss."

  "And you did?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "When did I tell you, Ken?"

  "It must have been the Monday morning. Early like this."

  "Which Monday?"

  "Well, the one three weeks back or so."

  "Monday the fourteenth?"

  He thought, then nodded. "That would be the one."

  "And I haven't seen you since?"

  "Seen me? No. Should you have done?" A little glimmer of comprehension appeared on his heavy face. "Do you want to have seen me for your company records, to make up the hours, is that it? Because I owe you, so you just tell me when you saw me and for how long."

  "It's not that. I just want to clear up a muddle. Have I really not seen you since?"

  He seemed disappointed. "No. Though I've been wanting to say thank you." He leant forward and put one hand on my shoulder. "You put your neck on the block for me, didn't you?"

  I shuddered at that, then said, "So you're sure? Monday the fourteenth? You remember it clearly?"

  "I remember you could hardly stay still for a single second, you were that angry." He laughed a bit chestily.

  "You need to be opening up soon," I said. "I should go. You've been very helpful, Ken."

  "Yes," he said. He didn't move from his box, but perhaps that was simply because he was a big, slow man. And he looked at me in a way that might have been entirely friendly. But I didn't know. Doubt crawled through my entrails.

  "So maybe you could unlock the doors for me, please?"

  He lifted himself up and we walked very slowly through the dazzling shop. He opened the doors and I was out into the cold day. There were beads of sweat on my forehead and my hands were trembling.

  "Oh, no! What now? Something not working? Something gone wrong, something crashed? Some idiot who doesn't know how to use the system? I tell you this." He practically jabbed me in the chest with his forefinger. "I am not doing any work for your company ever again. I've already told your lot that. Not ever. Not if you went down on your bended knee. It's not worth it. First that man who looked like he was about to cry every time he saw me and then that blonde woman who seemed to have a rocket up her arse, pardon my language, even though she did turn out all right in the end. You've probably got rid of her, haven't you, just for having a sense of justice?" He was a skinny, hot-tempered man. I liked him at once.

  "It was me who told you about being underpaid, Mr. Khan," I interrupted.

  "No, no, no. No way I'm having that. It was her. The one with long blonde hair. Abbie something, that was her name. I've never met you."

  Was it really true that he didn't recognize me? I took off my black woollen cap. His expression didn't alter. So I gave in and pretended to be someone else. Abbie's friend.

  "When did you last see her?" I asked, trying to sound businesslike.

  "Friday January the eleventh," he answered promptly.

  "No, I mean when did you really see her?"

  "I just told you."

  "It won't get her into any more trouble than she's already in, Mr. Khan."

  "So she is in trouble? I knew it. I told her she would be. She didn't seem to care at all."

  "Did you see her afterwards?"

  He gave a shrug and glared at me. I wanted to hug him.

  "I'm Abbie's friend," I persisted. At any moment he'd recognize me and then he'd think I was fraudulent, malevolent or quite simply mad. "I'm on her side."

  "That's what other people say too," he said.

  What did he mean by that? Bewildered, I just stared at him and he continued, "All right, then. I saw her the next Monday. And then I went straight to my lawyers. She did me a big favour."

  "Monday the fourteenth."

  "Yes. If you see her, thank her from me."

  "I'll do that. And, Mr. Khan

  "What?"

  "Thanks," I said. For a brief moment his expression wavered. He looked at me more closely and I turned away, putting the glasses back over my eyes and the cap back on my head. "Goodbye."

  I had lunch in a warm, dimly lit Italian cafe in Soho. They gave me a table tucked into the corner, at the back. I could see anyone who came in, but felt invisible. The cafe was full of tourists. I could hear people speaking Spanish, French and German, just from where I was sitting. A shudder of happiness ran through me. I took off my coat, hat, scarf, dark glasses, and ordered spaghetti with clams and a glass of red wine. I ate slowly and spent nearly an hour there, listening to fragments of conversation, breathing in the smell of cigarettes, coffee, tomato sauce and herbs. I had a cappuccino and a slice of lemon cheesecake. My toes thawed out and my head stopped aching. I could do this, I thought. If I can find out what happened to me, make people believe it, if I can make myself safe again, then I can come to places like this and sit among the crowds and be happy. Just to sip a cup of coffee and eat some cake and feel warm and safe, that's happy. I'd forgotten about such things. I left the cafe and went and bought a pregnancy test.

  I couldn't remember ever meeting Ben Brody before, though I'd been to his workshop in Highbury once. I made my way there now, through a fine icy drizzle. I could feel my nose the only bit of me that was exposed turning red again. His workshop was up a small alleyway off the arterial road. His name was on the door: "Ben Brody, Product Designer'. How do people become product designers? I wondered. Then I felt stupid. How do people become office-space consultants, for God's sake? It struck me what a ludicrous job I'd been doing. If I ever got through this, I could become a gardener, a baker, a carpenter. I could actually make things. Except I'm useless with my hands.

  Ben Brody did make things. Or, at least, he made prototypes. He'd designed the office desks and chairs for Avalanche, and the screens that made the vast open space of the floor less intimidating. And we'd underpaid him then overcharged our clients.

  I didn't knock. I just opened the door and went in. The large room was lined with workbenches. Two men were standing near the skeleton of a bicycle. There was a drilling sound from the far end. The place smelt of sawdust. It reminded me of the way Pippa smells when she wakes up and her crinkly pink face stretches and yawns. Sweet and woody.

  "Can I help you?"

  "Mr. Brody?"

  "No. Ben's out the back." He jerked his thumb towards a door. "Doing accounts. Shall I fetch him?"

  "I'll do it."

  I opened the door and the man sitting at the desk looked up. I kept my woollen hat on but removed my dark glasses. In the dark little room, I could hardly see with them on.

  "Yes?" he said. He stared at me. For a moment he looked as if he'd sucked on a lemon. He took off his glasses and laid them on the desk. He had a thin face, but I saw that his hands were large and strong. "Yes?" he said once more.

  "You probably don't remember me. We've only met a couple of times. My name's Abbie Devereaux and I'm from Jay and Joiner's."

  He looked at me blankly. "I haven't entirely forgotten you,"
he said. "What are you doing here?"

  His manner was almost rude. I pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him. "I won't take up your time. I'm just trying to clear up some confusion with the office."

  "I don't understand," he said. Indeed, he looked grimly baffled. "Why are you here?"

  "I just want to sort things out." He just looked at me. I tried again. "There are some dates I don't understand, it's too complicated to go into the reasons."

  "Too complicated?"

  "Don't ask. You don't want to know, I promise. I just wanted to ask you when we met. The last time we met."

  The phone rang behind him, and he swivelled round in his chair to pick it up. "Absolutely not," he said firmly. "Rubber. No. No. That's right." He put the phone down and turned back to me. "You came here on Monday, three weeks ago, to tell me about concerns you had with the Avalanche contract."

  "Thank you," I said. The back of my neck prickled for I was starting to feel that I recognized his voice. Not the tone of it, something about the intonation maybe. I dug my nails into my palms. "You're quite sure I came on that day?"

  "Yes," he replied, in imitation of me. "It's too complicated to go into the reasons, but I'm quite sure."

  I felt myself flushing. I got up and he stood too.

  "I'm sorry to have taken your time," I said formally.

  "Not a problem," he said. "Goodbye. And I hope you get better soon." "Better?"

  "Yes. You've been ill, haven't you?" "I'm all right now," I said hurriedly, and left.

  I had not seen Molte Schmidt, the plumber, on the fourteenth, but I had called him on the phone. I had been very helpful, he said.

  I must have had quite a day of it on that Monday, I thought -and then it occurred to me that in fact today was its replica and I was playing Grandmother's Footsteps with myself.

  I quite enjoyed my twenty minutes with Molte because he was young and beautiful and friendly, with long hair tied back in a pony-tail and startling blue eyes. And because, as he told me, he was half Finnish and half German, and had an extremely thick accent.