by Nicci French
‘I’ll call you if there’s anything,’ I said.
‘The police have been round twice.’ He sounded rattled. ‘They keep asking me questions about my private life, my sex life, when I last saw Skye, if I slept with her. Do they suspect me?’
As if I was the one who would know.
‘I’m sure it’s just procedure,’ I said blandly, meaninglessly.
‘Do you?’
‘What?’
‘Suspect me?’
‘Why would I suspect you?’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘I don’t suspect you.’
I took the cap out of the bag and looked down at it.
‘That photo you sent Peggy, of Skye in a flat cap,’ I said.
‘Did I?’
‘Yes. Where did she get it from?’
‘How would I know?’
‘It didn’t belong to you?’
‘I don’t wear things on my head. I don’t even know what cap you’re talking about.’
‘It’s on your phone.’
‘Hang on.’
There was a silence. I knew he was scrolling through his photos.
‘It didn’t belong to me,’ he said. He sounded suddenly sombre, perhaps because he was looking at Skye’s face laughing out at him.
* * *
I went into the garden, turning my back to the window so I couldn’t see Bernie. I took out my mobile and found the number. My finger hovered above it.
Emily was young, younger than her years even, and she seemed guileless and nice. She was living with – was married to – a man who had been serially unfaithful when he was with me, and who was serially unfaithful now he was with her. He was having affairs and he was sexually harassing a member of his staff. She was pregnant and there he was, kissing one of his teachers while parked outside the house. Again, the image of Poppy standing pressed against the window, staring down, came to me and I felt that someone was clutching my throat. I thought of Emily’s face, puffy from crying.
The right thing to do was to tell her what I knew.
But at the same time, I thought that if I told her and she told Jason, he would do what he had said he would do.
I put the mobile into my pocket, feeling boneless with dread and indecision. All that I had done was cause damage. I had found reasons to distrust every man I knew. Shouldn’t I have found reasons to trust people? The very idea made my head spin, it was so novel and strange. How did you do that? I tried to remember the circumstances of Skye Nolan’s death. I wanted to be sure but how could I be? Who had an alibi for the early hours of a Monday morning?
I took out my phone and looked at the calendar, scrolling back through the weeks until I got to the day of the murder and then, for the first time in what seemed for ever, I smiled. I almost laughed.
But it wasn’t enough. I rang Kelly Jordan. When I had finished, I rang another number.
‘Aidan, it’s me. Sorry, this is probably a bad time to ring. But I need to talk to someone. I don’t know what to do.’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘This evening.’
‘If you’re busy—’
‘I’m not.’
I knew that even if he had plans, he would cancel them and I felt a small spasm of guilt.
‘Shall I come to yours then?’
‘Six-ish?’
‘Good.’
FIFTY-FOUR
I watched the clock. It ticked past the time that Poppy would be finishing at school, that Emily would collect her and lead her away, that she would be back in the house in Brixton. Ben would be there – he was probably always there, padding from room to room, staring at the TV, opening the fridge – and his dog, which I had last seen growling at me from the top of the stairs. Soon Jason would arrive home and Poppy would run to him and he would pick her up and lift her high.
I left the flat at half past five, even though it was only a fifteen-minute walk, and meandered along the road in the warmth of early evening. There were crowds of people clustered round pub doors and outside little restaurants.
I hadn’t often been to Aidan’s, he had almost always come to mine, even when Poppy wasn’t there. His flat was on the first floor and small – one bedroom, one tiny bathroom, a galley kitchen tacked onto the living room – and he kept it very tidy. There was a calmness about the space, books in alphabetical order, work piled neatly on the end of the table, a fridge where nothing was past its sell-by date, a spice rack next to the block of knives.
When he let me in, he didn’t try to hug me or anything, just led the way into the living room where there was a bottle of white wine, beads of moisture on its cool glass, and a bowl of olives.
‘Or would you prefer tea?’
‘No—’
‘Or I have tomato juice, or cordial.’
‘A glass of wine would be lovely,’ I said.
I felt suddenly awkward and self-conscious; I was very aware of his eyes on me.
He poured us both a glass of wine and we sat on the sofa. He was wearing a grey soft-cotton shirt and jeans and his hair had been recently cut. I was seeing him double: as someone I knew intimately and as a stranger.
‘Maybe this was a bad idea,’ I said.
He didn’t answer, just raised his eyebrows slightly, waiting.
‘The truth is, I’m scared and I don’t know what to do. I needed to talk through it all and now I don’t know what to say.’
I picked up my glass, but my hand was trembling and wine slopped over the brim. Aidan leaned over, took it from my hands and put it back on the table.
‘I know some of it already,’ he said. ‘But why don’t you start from the beginning.’
I nodded.
‘When did it start?’
That was easy.
‘It started with a drawing,’ I said. ‘Poppy’s drawing in black crayon, of a figure falling.’
I told it like a story, but it was a story with holes and gaps in it, one that didn’t fit together, and all the time I looked down at my hands, as if I was in a therapy session and talking only to an audience of myself, and all the time I was aware of his eyes watching me.
I didn’t leave anything out: I told him about Poppy’s mangled swear words, her night terrors, her strange behaviour; about going to see Alex at the Warehouse clinic, my trips to the police station, my investigations into Skye, meeting Charlie, meeting Peggy, seeking out dog walkers, trying to find connections. I told him about the cap, the photo of Poppy that had disappeared from the fridge. I told him about the watch.
And then, taking a deep breath and looking away so I wouldn’t see his expression, I told him about breaking into the Brixton house, creeping around, hacking into Jason’s computer, seeing Ben in his underwear. About the emails I’d read, the women Jason was having affairs with. About how I’d sent those emails to my own computer. And then Jason’s visit with the lawyer and the threats he had made and how he didn’t yet know about me breaking into the house but might so easily find out, and if he did, I was done for. At this point my voice became thick with tears. I told him about Inga coming to see me, with her tale of humiliation and her offer to pass on the emails of another woman.
I told him about going to Peggy’s house and finding her dead – my voice cracked at this point. I had to stop for a moment. Aidan still didn’t say anything, just waited. I told him about realising that the watch Skye had been wearing when she died had gone from Peggy’s house.
I took a hefty mouthful of wine, then another. I cleared my throat and said that I had been suspicious of every man in Poppy’s life – Jason, Ben, Laurie, Bernie, Charlie… and Aidan himself. I didn’t look up when I said this, but I paused and the silence was like a skin stretched between us.
When I finally came to a halt, he didn’t speak immediately, just poured us both more wine.
‘Well,’ he said at last. ‘You have been through the mill.’
‘You don’t think I’m mad?’
‘No, Tess, I don’t think you’re mad.
’
‘So you believe me?’
‘Wait a minute. Before I answer that, I want to ask you something?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you still suspect me?’
This was the question I had been waiting for him to ask me. I knew the answer I was going to give but I still found it difficult to say out loud.
‘What would you like me to say? Would you like me to say that I trust you because I love you?’
He seemed to find it difficult to answer this.
‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘That is what I’d like you to say.’
‘I felt I’d lost my trust in everyone. I was looking for some reason, any reason, not to distrust someone and then I remembered. I checked it in my calendar. On the day when Skye Nolan was murdered, we weren’t together. I took Poppy to visit my mother. And you went to a conference out of London.’
‘And that’s enough to trust me?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘No?’ said Aidan, looking shocked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Anyone can say they’re going to a conference. I rang the detective. I knew that after the Peggy Nolan murder, they’d checked people’s alibis. I know that you really were there. You signed in at an event.’ Aidan half-turned away. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘It was the only way forward. I’d stripped my trust in everyone I know. I’ve almost driven myself mad. I wonder if I can now do the opposite. If I could show that people were innocent, one by one, then I’d be left with the one person I can’t prove innocent and he would be the one.’
There was a long silence. Aidan was looking dissatisfied.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult to prove people innocent.’ He looked at me more intently. ‘What if I hadn’t been at that conference? What then? Would you be here?’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought I should be honest.’
‘Is that what a relationship means to you? Assume the worst unless it’s proved otherwise?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I think I can learn to do better than that. But it will take time. All I can say is that when I was thinking about whether to call Emily, and awful thoughts and pictures were going round and round in my head, I desperately needed to talk to someone. I thought I would go mad if I didn’t. And you were the person I wanted to talk to.’
‘Because I was at a conference when this woman died. I’m honoured.’
‘That sounds sarcastic.’
‘Sorry, it was a little sarcastic.’
‘So now I’ve said I believe you. Do you believe me?’
There was a pause. He had a pleat between his brows. He took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes, put them back on again.
‘I believe that Poppy witnessed something,’ he said slowly, carefully. ‘And that it was connected to Skye Nolan’s death in some way. Yes.’
‘Is it Jason? Does it sound like it was Jason?’
‘Honestly, Tess, how can I answer that? I don’t know the man. I know he deceived you, but that doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.’
‘I guess not.’
‘I can say that you are well out of his life. And I’m sorry for all you’ve been through.’
‘Thank you.’ I stared down at my plaited hands. ‘This is not about us getting back together, you know.’ It came out more brusquely than I intended.
‘I know that.’
‘I need to sort things out.’
He nodded. ‘After everything you’ve just told me, of course I see that. I just—’
He stopped, passed a hand in front of his face.
‘Me too,’ I said softly, because he looked so frail and because I shouldn’t have come. ‘I just too.’
* * *
I don’t know who kissed who, who took the other by the hand and led them into Aidan’s orderly bedroom, dove-grey duvet cover and white pillows, a black-and-white photo of a man skating in top hat and tails above the bed. I know that he undressed me as he had done so many times in the past, folding my clothes neatly, watching me with his serious eyes. And then he took off his own clothes and folded those too, taking off his glasses last and putting them on top of his shirt. We held each other, whispered the other’s name; we said we were sorry, we said it was all right now. It didn’t feel like desire, not exactly – more like a kind of rescue. But I don’t know who was rescuing whom.
And after, tangled in each other’s arms, Aidan lifted himself onto one elbow and looked down at me.
‘Jesus, I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you too,’ I said.
It was still light outside. I thought of Poppy in Jason’s house; I thought of her standing at the window staring out at the mysterious world.
‘And I’ve missed Poppy,’ he added, as if he could read my thoughts. ‘How is she?’
‘Maybe a bit better than she was.’
‘When’s she back?’
‘Tomorrow mid-morning. I’ll meet Emily halfway.’
‘Shall we go on a picnic after that, the three of us? I can bring everything.’
‘That would be nice,’ I said, though I wasn’t really listening. Instead, I was hearing how he assumed it was just going to go back to the way it had been – we’d broken up and then we’d made up. I was hearing how happy he sounded.
‘Are you hungry?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know. What time is it?’
He reached out for his phone and looked at it.
‘Just gone nine-thirty. There’s some cheese and smoked salmon in the fridge – we could have that.’
‘OK,’ I said.
‘Or we could go out and grab something.’
‘No. I’d like to stay here.’
I watched him as he got out of bed, pulled on a dressing gown, put on his glasses; he smiled over his shoulder as he left the room. I lay under the duvet, listening to him in the kitchen, the chink of knives, of glasses. I felt neither glad nor sad, waiting to know what had just happened and what it meant.
FIFTY-FIVE
I went to sleep early, wiped out by emotions, and when I woke, soft grey light was showing through the thin curtains. For a moment, I wondered where I was and then I remembered. I turned over and saw Aidan, deeply asleep beside me. He looked young and peaceful. I reached across him for my phone, to look at the time. It was not yet half past five.
Aidan shifted, put a forearm across his eyes. He had thin wrists. A memory – or a memory’s fragment – reached into my mind like a long finger. Something about telling the time, something that belonged to the past. A barbecue. Aidan in a denim shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, looking at his wrist and telling me when the food would be ready.
The way he always took his watch off before he got into bed, laying it on top of his folded clothes. Such a neat man. A man of habit.
I lay still. Very, very still, like an effigy. I didn’t breathe. Hook in my throat. A jam of fear, and my heart stuttering and my skin crawling.
I told myself I was going mad, I had gone mad, would always be mad now.
It wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t true. I feared it only because if it was true, then every last thing I trusted would be reduced to ash. I had turned myself into a creature of paranoia, an echo chamber of my own fantastic dark imaginings, and every dread was chaotic, free-floating, attaching itself to whatever object lay at hand.
Aidan had been at a conference when Skye had died. His missing watch was just a missing watch.
But I held the thought in my mind and around it, things gradually clicked into place. Skye had stalked the man she thought had rescued her, followed him, found out about the ‘complications’ in his life. And Skye had come to the restaurant where we were having a meal, had stood in front of us, and what if all the time she hadn’t been speaking to me but to him?
Skye had died after I had shown him the mutilated rag doll. I remembered his expression as he stared at it.
He had come to see me on the eve
ning of the day that Peggy had been killed, because he knew, or thought he knew, that he was in the clear now.
He had stood by the fridge, pouring elderflower juice out for everyone that day, right next to the photo of Poppy in the cap.
And Poppy – my chest ached – Poppy didn’t like him. I realised in a rush how every time he had come to our home, she had refused to be with him, had clung to me.
I looked again at Aidan. He was almost smiling, as if his dreams were pleasing ones. He shifted slightly and his breathing deepened.
Slowly, I slid from the bed. My mouth was open in a silent yell. My legs felt hollow, a string puppet’s legs, disarticulated. I picked up the clothes and tiptoed from the room. If I turned round, he would be sitting up in bed and watching me creep away, as if I could ever escape from the horror that grew inside me.
I had brought out Aidan’s clothes, not mine. Edging into the bathroom, I took a large towel from the hook on the door and wrapped it round me. I sat on the edge of the bath and tried to take long deep breaths, but they hurt my throat and my lungs. I was having a panic attack, I told myself. That was all. It will pass. Breathe in and breathe out; only think about your breathing.
I screwed up my eyes and tried to picture the watch that had been among the things Skye had been wearing when she fell. Nothing was clear to me anymore; nothing made sense.
I stood up and stubbed my toe against the base of the sink, almost cried out, stuffed a hand to my mouth to stop sound escaping. The towel loosened and fell to the floor and I bent to pick it up. My breath was coming in little whooshes and I was aware of moving jerkily. The ends of my fingertips were tingling, as if I had pins and needles.
I went into the living room and stared around. I needed to find Aidan’s watch, even while at the same time I knew there probably wasn’t a watch to find and I was stumbling frailly around in the dim light like a fool.
His desk had lots of small drawers. I pulled one open. It was full of stationery: a stapler, paper clips, post-it notes, highlighters, a bundle of thin-nibbed pens held together by a rubber band, a book of first-class stamps.