Off Script

by Graham Hurley

  This time, Malo has had enough. He’s used to H’s habit of cutting to the chase, of dismissing anything that might be mere sentiment, but this is different.

  ‘The woman deserves respect, Dad.’ He’s ignoring the offer of a menu. ‘Fucking get used to it.’

  H isn’t used to having his wrist slapped, least of all by a nineteen-year-old. I’m about to push for a ceasefire in all our interests when H leans across and places his big hand over his son’s wrist.

  ‘I’m sorry, son,’ he mutters. ‘You’re right, I’m out of order. Steak or fish?’ He nods at the surrounding diners, busily tucking in. ‘Hard to make a fucking decision, eh?’

  Malo goes for the fish. I settle for a small bowl of mussels in a white wine sauce.

  ‘Steak.’ H looks up at the waitress to complete the order. ‘With fries.’

  We eat in silence. Our armed truce isn’t helped by the fact that most of the other people in the restaurant appear to be talking about yesterday’s murder. Already, it’s featured on national newscasts, both TV and radio, and when Malo checked this morning on some of the newspaper websites, the bare bones of the story were there too. Carrie Tollman has yet to be named, which I assume reflects difficulties getting in touch with her next of kin, but there are hints that a serial killer may be at large. Tomorrow, I suspect, we’ll all wake up to shots of Moonie sitting in the train, or perhaps his photo from the custody suite. Have you seen this man? Approach with great care.

  I’ve already levelled with both Malo and H about the story I managed to winkle out of Carrie more than a week ago. For H, who’s always regarded the police as Filth, the news that they couldn’t do anything about this lunatic comes as no surprise.

  ‘Dickheads,’ he says briskly. ‘Dickheads then, and dickheads now. Never knew their arse from their elbow. In my game that did us no end of favours, but it wouldn’t have helped poor Carrie.’

  Thanks to Inspector Geraghty, I now know a great deal more about the lack of provision for people like Moonie, but neither H nor Malo are in the mood to listen. When I point out that they tried to keep the boy in custody, pending a psychiatric bed that didn’t exist, or a psychiatric assessment that no one was prepared to offer, they ignore me. Carrie’s story, they both appear to believe, writes itself.

  ‘In her own fucking interests,’ grunts H, ‘the Filth should have paid her a visit, got a statement, taken DNA samples, lifted fingerprints, all that bollocks. Then they could have something to chuck at the boy when they finally laid hands on him. He’d be inside now,’ he tells me, ‘banged up on some fucking remand wing. As it is, once the facts come out, half the women in the country will be going to bed scared fucking witless. We’ve lost it, totally lost it. I hate to say it, but you heard it here first.’

  This, once again, is less than fair.

  ‘If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,’ I say. ‘I should have been firmer with her. I should have marched her there myself.’

  ‘Bollocks. You did everything you could. Once they knew, they should have been round there like a shot. That’s what happens in real life. Sod the fucking rules. The woman’s terrified of reprisals? Respect her privacy? Brilliant. Except the bloke delivered, didn’t he? And now she’s gone.’

  H, of course, has a point. We trail back from the restaurant, only too aware that we haven’t even discussed a replacement for Carrie. For the next couple of hours, H and I draw up a list of care agencies and begin to call them. We’ve done laps around this same circuit before and the response is wearingly familiar.

  We’re naturally keen to detail the degree of nursing attention that Pavel requires, and the truth is that most of the agencies are reluctant to take on the responsibility. By the end of the afternoon, we’re looking at a single name: Ndeye. According to the agency, she’s Senegalese by birth but has been in the UK for the last twenty years. Her English, we’re assured, is perfect, she’s a treasure in all kinds of ways, and better still she has recent clinical experience in a spinal injuries unit outside Salisbury.

  I phone the agency back at just gone five and enquire how quickly she could make herself available for interview. The woman says she’ll check. Minutes later, she calls back.

  ‘Ndeye lives in Exeter,’ she says. ‘It’s rush hour. Fingers crossed she’ll be with you by six.’

  I confirm our address. Surprised and relieved, I’m about to hang up when H signals from across the room.

  How much? he mouths, rubbing two fingers together.

  I put the question, realizing that we’ve yet to discuss money, and back comes the reply.

  ‘Forty-five pounds an hour?’ I’m not sure I’ve heard properly. ‘Have I got that right?’

  I have. H rolls his eyes but has the grace not to be difficult. Moments after I hang up, Malo is back with us. H gives him a look.

  ‘It’s nursing for you, son. Nearly four hundred quid a day? Money for fucking nothing.’

  Hardly. Ndeye appears less than an hour later. She’s much younger than I’ve been expecting, and H perks up when I walk her into the lounge. She’s a big woman, with a wide face and dazzling teeth in a huge smile. Her English is indeed perfect, and we’ve already established that she also speaks French, which has to be her mother tongue. Her voice, husky, would be perfect in a number of roles I could name, and I’m still thinking a young Aretha Franklin when she apologizes to H for being out of uniform. This, it appears, is her day off. The call from the agency has caught her by surprise.

  H is shaking his head. He can’t take his eyes off the blaze of colour that is her dress. Yellows and greens and splashes of red tumble from the swell of her breasts, and I warm to the way she’s so artfully disguised the body beneath. She may be on the plump side, but I somehow doubt it. As does H.

  ‘Don’t worry about any uniform,’ he says. ‘You look wonderful.’

  She acknowledges the compliment with a tiny nod, a delicate gesture from a big woman, and we sit her down while I tally the must-do checks on which Pavel’s very survival depends. None of this appears to daunt her in the least and my heart leaps when she suggests that she and Pavel ought to take the measure of each other.

  ‘Life is a market,’ she says. ‘Your friend has very particular needs. Try before you buy.’

  H, I can tell already, is thoroughly smitten.

  ‘Someone taught you that?’ he asks. ‘Try before you buy?’

  ‘My mum. Back in Dakar.’

  ‘Great. Bang on. Wise woman.’

  At this point, I ask Ndeye why she bailed out of the Spinal Unit in Salisbury. If it’s personal, I say, she has every right not to answer my question.

  She studies me a moment. She’s been emphatic in turning down the offer of a coffee or something harder, but I get the impression that she likes us.

  ‘Personal?’ she muses. ‘Sure, you could say that. I had a flat share in the town centre. We were a minute away from that bench where it all happened. Russians. Nerve gas. Who needs any of that in their lives?’

  H is laughing. Another perfect answer.

  ‘Take the lady through.’ He nods towards the door. ‘Your Pavel’s in for a treat.’

  Pavel, of course, is denied the sight of Ndeye. We step into his bedroom and at first he doesn’t even know she’s there. The bedside chair is exactly where I’d left it earlier and I gesture for Ndeye to take a seat. She does so without making a sound. Only the faintest twitch of a nostril and a tiny adjustment of his head on the pillow suggests that Pavel might be aware of the presence of someone new in his life. A strange scent. Slightly sweet.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  I ignore the question. I tell him I want to introduce Ndeye.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ndeye. She may be helping us out for a while.’

  ‘Good.’ He nods. ‘Excellent.’

  Ndeye is gazing down at him. The fact that she takes her time, that she has no fear of silence, is a very good sign. Finally, she stirs.

  ‘Your breathing OK in there?�
� She’s picked up on Pavel’s wheezing at once. Another tick in another box.

  ‘Fifteen cigars a day.’ Pavel is smiling now. ‘I know I shouldn’t.’

  ‘You lie.’

  ‘I do. It’s an occupational hazard. I’ve lied all my life.’

  ‘So why the wheezing?’

  ‘It’s the bloody weather. I’ve never liked snow.’

  ‘Another fantasy.’

  ‘You’re right. You want the truth? Most of me hasn’t worked for a while, and what’s left has to run to keep up. Those little knots of muscle in my throat? They get a little tired from time to time. I know it’s a bit late, but they offer their apologies.’

  ‘Accepted, Mr Pavel. Tell them to have the rest of the day off. See if that does the trick.’

  Pavel is delighted. I can see it in his face. He loves slightly surreal dialogue like this and over the last year or so I’ve noticed that he uses it to put passing strangers to the test. Most fail, because they’re slow off the mark as well as slightly frightened, but this woman is already fluent in Pavel-speak.

  ‘One last favour,’ he says. ‘Then I’ll stand the guys down. You mind?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I have a tiny itch on my cheek, my right cheek, level – I think – with the middle of my nose. Might you oblige me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Ndeye extends her forefinger and a perfectly shaped nail settles on the paleness of Pavel’s cheek.

  ‘Down,’ he murmurs.

  The nail, a deep, rich shade of red I can only describe as labial, tracks very slowly towards the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Now, up again.’

  Ndeye hesitates a moment, teasing him, then the nail does his bidding. This is bonding with a very special twist, I think. Any woman of my age should know a thing or two about seduction, but I’ve never seen anything as artful, and as effective, as this. In a movie script, especially one of Pavel’s, this scene would end with him lifting his hand and finding hers. Alas, that’s never going to happen, and Ndeye knows it.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘We have a deal?’

  Pavel nods, and then sighs.

  ‘We do,’ he whispers.

  EIGHTEEN

  After Ndeye’s departure, H and I conference around Pavel’s bed. All three of us agree that Ndeye seems – on the face of it – to be a perfect replacement for poor Carrie, and I make the call to the agency. We’re very happy to offer her a month’s contract, I say. After that, if the arrangement’s in good shape, we could be looking at something more permanent. The woman at the agency is delighted, as is Pavel. When I tell him she’s Senegalese by birth, it appears to come as no surprise.

  ‘French blood in her veins,’ he says. ‘I can feel it, smell it. Bonne nouvelle, quoi?’

  Good news? We all hope so. The last two days have left me with a feeling of profound exhaustion. The shock of finding Carrie in her basement flat has gone, but – like the child I doubtless am – I want to be comforted, talked to, held. In this respect, I tell myself, I’m lucky because the two key men in my life, my son and his father, are both within touching distance.

  We’re all back in the lounge and I’m about to suggest a very large drink when it occurs to me that H wants to leave. He keeps checking his watch. It appears he has an important meeting back at Flixcombe Manor, something he can’t afford to duck. This, of course, is a fiction. H gets profoundly unhappy in the presence of grief, or even need. I’ve never quite understood why, and once or twice in what passes for our relationship there have been exceptions to the rule, but this isn’t one of them. He needs to be back on the road. Pronto.

  Malo nods. He, too, doesn’t fancy an evening with his fraught mother. He’s been on the phone to Clemmie. She knows how upset he is about Carrie and she wants him back in London where she can look after him.

  ‘Fine,’ I say numbly. ‘Best be off, then.’

  Minutes later, after the briefest pecks on the cheek, they’ve both gone. I pour myself a large glass of Sancerre and take it out on the balcony. Thin sunshine bathes the gleaming spaces of the estuary and despite everyone’s expectation that this first bank holiday of the year will be semi-tropical, it’s cold enough to warrant a thick sweater. I linger on the edge of the view for a moment or two, somehow expecting Malo’s kite to appear, but of course there’s no sign of him among the dozens of novices trying to master their unruly rigs. Malo, like his father, has fled the scene. Neither, I realize, can I see Jean-Paul.

  This troubles me. I was the one who gave the police his name. It was my fault they detained him – doubtless politely – down there by the Duck Pond. What did they ask him? How did he account for all the stolen hours he’d shared with Carrie? Did they demand an alibi for the night she lost her life? Was he tucked up with his wife at the family home? And – most important of all – how could he possibly explain their interest in him?

  These are questions to which I have no answers and I find myself once again at Pavel’s bedside, partly because – aside from Felip – he’s the only person left to talk to, but mostly because he’s so consistently able to unpick the knottier tangles in my life.

  I find him listening to something hopelessly plaintive. The swell of an orchestra behind a solo violin fills the room. I stand in the open doorway for a moment, wondering whether this is the time to break the spell, but a whispered command to Sesame lowers the volume.

  ‘Dvořák,’ Pavel says. ‘Romance for violin. Tanja Sonc. The orchestra is Slovenian. These people understand the Bohemian soul.’

  This, I know, is my cue to join him. I slip into Ndeye’s chair and kiss him softly on the forehead.

  ‘You’re upset,’ he says. Statement, not question.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘H?’

  ‘Gone.’

  ‘Malo?’

  ‘Gone.’

  ‘Not good.’ He closes his eyes, shakes his head. ‘Dvořák may help.’

  It does, a little. Towards the end of the piece I start to well up again, glad that blindness has spared Pavel the sight of me in tears. Finally, the music comes to an end and we sit in silence. I’m back in the darkness of Carrie’s bedroom. However hard I try, the image of her body sprawled on the bed won’t leave me.

  ‘I told the police about Jean-Paul,’ I say at last. ‘I had to.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’ve taken him in for questioning.’

  ‘About Carrie?’

  ‘I assume so.’

  Pavel nods. He seems deep in thought. Finally, he turns his head towards me.

  ‘She told me that his marriage was over.’

  ‘Jean-Paul’s?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Did you believe her?’

  ‘I believed she believed him. That’s not the same as saying it was true.’

  ‘You think Jean-Paul might have been lying?’

  ‘Men will do anything to get what they want, what they think they need, what is rightfully theirs. A broken marriage suited Carrie. And it probably eased her conscience. Jean-Paul would have known that.’

  I nod. I need to know more.

  ‘So how long was all this going on?’

  ‘Since Christmas. They’d danced at a party together. They’d known each other for a while and Carrie said she’d always fancied him but after that they started meeting. All they needed was a flat, and she had one.’

  I sit back on the chair. All of this is news to me. Not for a moment had I suspected anything.

  ‘You once told me she was troubled,’ I say softly. ‘Troubled about what? About what was left of the marriage? About whatever guilt she might have felt? And how come she was talking to you about all this?’

  ‘Because I’m safe. Because I don’t get out much. And because she thought I’d understand.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She asked for advice?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘About calling it off?’

&nbs
p; ‘Not at all.’

  ‘What, then?’

  Pavel takes his time. One of his own film scripts would, at this point, call for a chord or two of anticipatory music and some tell-tale body language. Being Pavel, all he can manage is a turn of the head on the pillow.

  ‘By last week, she was ten weeks pregnant,’ he mutters. ‘She didn’t know whether to have an abortion or not.’

  This is a bombshell. Carrie pregnant? Already, I’m trying to think it through. The police will know already from the post-mortem. Hence, I’m assuming, their eagerness to lay their hands on Jean-Paul. Thanks to me, Malo’s favourite kite instructor has become the putative father of Carrie’s child. All they need to prove the link is a DNA test. I know about DNA tests. That’s how we finally established that H, and not Berndt, was Malo’s natural father.

  ‘You’re shocked?’ This from Pavel.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Don’t be. Jean-Paul didn’t kill Carrie.’

  ‘But he has a motive, doesn’t he? And isn’t that supposed to matter?’

  ‘Of course. And the police will work it through. It won’t be pleasant for Jean-Paul, to say nothing of his wife and kids, but people are always more resilient than you think.’

  If this little aperçu is meant to comfort me, it fails completely. I ask Pavel how he can be so sure of himself. I know that writers adore playing God. I know that control freakery is embedded deep in their genes. But sometimes life doesn’t quite obey the script and now might just be the perfect example.

  ‘You’re telling me Jean-Paul had nothing to do with Carrie’s death?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘So, does that take us back to Moonie?’

  ‘It may.’

  ‘May?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pavel permits himself a tiny smile. ‘We live in the world of the subjunctive, Enora. May. Might. Dismiss the notion of possibility and we rob life of its richness. Carrie, oddly enough, understood that at once. Which makes her passing all the more regrettable.’

  Enora. I can’t remember the last time Pavel called me by my Christian name. It has a formality that chills me to the bone. This man has been my friend, and then my lover. Now, very suddenly, he seems remote and slightly forbidding. Especially in his choice of language.