She began to open drawers, Bridget looking with her, but everything was innocuous. A stack of bank statements, bills, some gold-edged invitations. A handful of yellowing cuttings of reviews. They stopped, frustrated.
‘It’s all right,’ said Bridget, edgy. ‘I – we’ve got to get out of here, Carrie.’ She backed out of the room into the hall and Carrie followed her. They were at the foot of the wide, carpeted stairwell that led up to a gallery, doors off it.
Carrie looked up the stairs. ‘It’d be somewhere a cleaner wouldn’t find them, right? So not under the bed, probably.’
The panic spiralled: Bridget put her hands to her face and in the sudden dark it came to her. She’d been in his bedroom. Not this one, not off a gallery, another bedroom. He’d turned to her and said, ‘Let me show you something.’ Wordless now, she pointed up the stairs.
There were three bedrooms off the gallery but she knew which one was his without knowing.
She stopped in the doorway so abruptly Carrie ran into her. It spoke to her out of another place, out of the dark in her head. An old oil painting, of a man in a wig at a spinet or some antique instrument above, a table with silver-backed brushes, a leather-padded headboard. A big, dark wood wardrobe.
‘Gloves,’ said Bridget, holding out her hand for them. This was for her to find. As the wardrobe door swung open she almost gagged, the smell coming back to her out of the past, his smell. The most imperishable of the senses, unrecordable, yours and yours alone. Leather and aftershave and sweat: he didn’t like deodorants. He had told her that. She tried not to breathe, her head in the swinging clothes, suits, jackets, slacks. Horrible, old man slacks. It was dark, but there seemed to be sparks behind her eyes. She fumbled, one way then the other, into the wardrobe’s corners.
He’d taken it out and set it on the bed, all that time ago. Bridget could remember what she was wearing when she’d walked up those other stairs, a shirt with a peter-pan collar Mum had bought from Marks. A round-necked, pale blue jumper. He’d already done it to her twice by then. He’d put the box down on the bed and held a finger to his lips, because his wife had been downstairs. He had lifted off the lid.
Carrie wasn’t at her shoulder, Carrie knew. Carrie was way back by the door.
Then suddenly Carrie was there, Carrie was holding on to her. Everything seemed to have gone black on the edges of her vision.
The first picture had been a girl giving him a blowjob. Her fringe. Her eyes. She’d known it was him because of the pooled trousers at his feet. The shoes.
Her eyes. Bridget hadn’t known her. There had been two men in the next picture but you couldn’t see their faces.
There was no box in this wardrobe. Turning to Carrie, Bridget’s mouth moved but she couldn’t say anything, she swayed. There was a high-pitched sound in her ears, and the next thing she knew she was on the floor. Not lying down, sitting. Carrie was still holding on to her.
‘All right,’ said Carrie, gently peeling the gloves off her and putting them on. ‘We’re going now.’
She closed the wardrobe door, then the bedroom door, then shepherded Bridget down the stairs. Bridget could sense her looking right and left, checking things: was incapable of doing it herself. She felt as though if she looked anywhere but straight ahead something terrible would happen. The underworld. It was the underworld, and she was being led out of it by her little sister, padding on soft carpet.
At the back door Carrie knelt at her feet, putting her shoes on for her, then whispered, ‘Wait. Got to make sure we didn’t leave any of those drawers open.’ Bridget waited, leaning against the door, while she closed the door on the big sitting room again and put on her own shoes.
Carrie had her hand on the back door’s brass doorknob, when they heard something. The adrenaline sharpened everything instantly: Bridget understood in that second what a powerful thing it was, and dangerous. She saw Carrie’s pale face, in stripes of blue and red light that shone through the old door. They turned, and looking down the long hall saw a shadow through the front door’s stained glass. A key moving in the lock.
Then the sound stopped: it changed. There were voices. The shadow divided, a pale, larger shape behind the first one.
‘Quick.’ And then they were back out, Carrie turning the key carefully in the lock, pocketing the bunch again while Bridget waited, taking the porch stairs two at a time and running, running, soundless across the grass.
The back door latch creaked and then they were in the alley, holding each other’s hand tightly as they crept forwards. The voices murmured, on the house’s front steps, louder as they made their way back to the road. One voice foreign, the other insistently English, not loud but determined. Both female.
Bridget stopped a little way back, where the laurels thinned out, and Carrie with her. Peering, they kept very still so as not to be seen. A young woman in cheap tight stonewashed jeans and an overall under her coat was standing in front of Carmichael’s front door, looking grimly suspicious. The woman talking to her had her back to them and all they could see of her was thick untidy hair, collar length and a dark coat. She sounded English.
Carrie was frowning, listening. Holding up a finger.
Half a profile as the woman talking turned to fish something out of her bag. Cheap bag. A notebook or something like that. From the profile Bridget saw she was older. Forty-something, maybe.
They heard snatches. No idea when—
The other one, the foreign one – Bridget could have told you she was foreign, she found herself thinking, mindless, just by the clothes – was shaking her head tightly. Meaning, No I wouldn’t tell you if I did know.
Ducking, Carrie gestured towards the end of the alley: hidden by the front hedge they slipped past and let themselves into the van. Sitting there, not daring to start the engine. The two women on the doorstep were just visible behind a large cypress.
‘That’s the journalist,’ said Carrie, suddenly. Staring through the wide window at them. The young, foreign woman in overalls was holding up both hands, palms out, shaking her head. ‘The older one. The English one.’ Swivelling to take in Bridget’s bewilderment. ‘I recognise her voice,’ she explained patiently. ‘Off the phone.’
Bridget leaned forward to get a better look at her. ‘She’s on the case, then,’ she said. ‘Asking where he’s gone.’ The woman who was the journalist stood back then, looking up at the windows. ‘She’d like to get a look in there, wouldn’t she?’
‘No doubt,’ said Carrie, drily.
Bridget stared at her hands on the wheel. ‘He told me there were photographs,’ she said. ‘Carmichael did, when he came back. If anyone – if they—’
Carrie rubbed her hands through her short hair, jittery now, evasive.
‘Maybe he was bluffing,’ she said. ‘I mean – he would need something, wouldn’t he? Leverage? To keep you quiet.’
Bridget looked at her, dumbfounded. She hadn’t thought of that. She had been a danger to him. It hadn’t felt like that, never felt like that.
‘Maybe he got rid of them a long time ago,’ said Carrie. ‘No one would recognise you, anyway,’ she said finally. ‘Back then you were – you were so ill. No one would know you.’ Uncertain.
‘I would,’ said Bridget. ‘I would know.’ Silence.
The voices on the doorstep were raised, now, and the older woman was gesticulating.
‘Let’s go,’ said Carrie, ‘While they’re busy, OK?’
Bridget turned the key in the ignition and they moved off. They hadn’t got to the end of the road when she saw it, in Carrie’s lap. As if by magic, spirited there: Carmichael’s mobile.
‘What? What are you – Carrie!’ A jab on the brakes, she couldn’t help herself. They were stationary in the middle of the empty road. In the passenger seat beside her Carrie shrugged, sheepish. Bridget looked, right to left, for witnesses.
‘I was careful,’ Carrie insisted. ‘I used the gloves, didn’t I?’
‘No,’ said Bridget, frantic. P
ulling back into the kerb beside the peeling trunk of a big plane tree, checking they were out of sight.
They were parked behind a shiny little black car. ‘Can’t you see they’ll trace it, that’s the whole point?’
‘They,’ said Carrie, sullenly. ‘You keep talking about they.’
‘The police.’ Carrie shrugged, obstinate. ‘We’re going to have to put it back,’ said Bridget.
‘I want to keep it.’ Carrie’s hands were curled around it. ‘Aren’t you curious? There could be anything on it. We could find out stuff. Useful stuff. Messages, I mean, if someone wants to know where he is. What he’s been up to.’
‘It’ll be locked,’ Bridget was pleading, now, because she knew Carrie had something. The germ of something. But the last thing she wanted was to see inside Carmichael’s life. What if there were pictures on it? She didn’t want to know. They sat, deadlocked side by side in the wide, peaceful street, the big handsome trees with their splotched and speckled trunks standing at regular intervals, the well-tended gardens. Bridget put out her hand: Carrie hesitated then put the small silver phone into it.
Old-school, maybe five years old. Not a smartphone – that was good. It meant there’d be less on it. Less technology. No email or Facebook or anything like that, no location services. It occurred to Bridget that he might have another phone somewhere, for that kind of thing. But she didn’t need to see that.
‘We’re going to have to put it back in the house.’ She stared through the windscreen blankly.
The little black car in front of them had sheet music on the back shelf.
‘Look,’ Carrie began.
‘Wait,’ said Bridget. Turning to her. ‘You’ve got his keys.’
She took them from Carrie, no more than the briefest tremble in her fingers, and there it was. A little leather fob, a car key. ‘That’s his car,’ said Bridget.
‘What are you—’ Carrie began, bewildered. Bridget pointed the key through the windscreen and pressed: the car’s indicators flipped jauntily.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Bridget.
Chapter Nineteen
When Bridget pushed her way inside, at first she could only see Laura’s back: she was on her knees on the carpet re-packing boxes of stock. Then she heard a throat being cleared and turned to see a man in a suit on the sofa, hands clasped in his lap. It took her a moment to recognise him: she’d only met him once. Nick.
‘Oh, Laura, I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ said Bridget with a pang of guilt. Distracted. ‘Get up, you don’t have to do that.’ She couldn’t work out why the man was just sitting there.
Laura turned, scrambled round, flushed. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ Her eyes darted to Nick. ‘This is my – do you remember my – he just came to see—’
And then Nick shifted on the sofa at last, forwards, smiling, getting to his feet. ‘We have met,’ he said. Something faintly belligerent in his tone, challenging her not to remember him. He was about to hold out his hand to her and Bridget stepped back abruptly, on instinct.
‘Yes, it’s Nick,’ she said hastily. ‘Of course,’ then turned away from him to help Laura to her feet. She seemed uncomfortable, short of breath.
‘Nick came to, came to—’
‘She left her phone at home,’ said Nick. ‘Forget her head if it wasn’t screwed on. Pregnancy brain, isn’t it?’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Behind her Laura made a sound of assent, but Bridget was fairly sure she’d had the phone when she got in, remembered her checking it as she removed her coat. She opened her mouth to say so, frowning, but Nick was moving off, quick and easy, heading for the door. ‘Don’t keep her late, now,’ he said, and was gone.
‘Laura?’ she said, the bell over the door still tinging in his wake, but Laura waved her off.
‘Just need the—’ She was heading for the toilet.
Bridget stood, staring down at the half-packed boxes on the floor. Knelt.
Carrie had tried to persuade Bridget to leave her at the pub but Bridget dropped her at the house. ‘You said you’d buy stuff for tea, remember?’ she said, fishing some cash out of her pocket. ‘You know where the supermarket is. Borrow the bike.’ Carrie had pouted but she hadn’t said no. The plan was for later.
There were things she would need to do. Clean everything all over again. The shop and the garage and the back of the van. Would there be an end to it? She had no idea.
Go back to Carmichael’s house. The thought of it, of the wide hall and the smell of lilies, made her feel sick, and worse than sick. Frightened.
From behind the toilet door came the sound of water running and Bridget sat back on her heels. When eventually Laura reappeared, her nose was red and she was fiddling with a sodden bit of tissue.
‘What is it?’ said Bridget, but she knew. If not what, then who. ‘Is it him? Is it Nick?’ Laura subsided on to the sofa, an ungainly heap. Bridget got her some water. ‘Tell me, Laura,’ she said.
He’d come in late, he’d been drinking, she could smell it on him. Sniffing, the limp shredded tissue at her nose again.
Re-stacking the stock, Bridget listened, although there was so much else to think about. She was going to have to get hold of Carrie straight out of work, they’d need two hours at least. But Laura’s voice kept tugging at her.
Voice raised, querulous. And not just that. Standing on a stool as she pushed the box of T-shirts on to a high shelf behind the till, Bridget paused, hands over her head. She hadn’t liked him the first time she met him, the sharpsuited salesman, too beefy for his jacket. Too smooth for Bridget’s liking – smooth and edgy at the same time. Bouncing on the balls of his feet. But it took all sorts, she’d told herself then, you can’t judge a book by its cover.
All that rubbish people say.
Laura looked up at her now from the sofa with her big blue eyes brimming, her little sharp red nose, shoulders hunched miserably over her knees. She’d been twenty, when she came to work for Bridget, carefree, pretty. Wore the teenage uniform, tight tops, jeans, boots with heels clomping around, flicking through the stock carelessly like she could take it or leave it: that had changed since the sainted Nick. More ladylike, now, more careful, and pregnancy – or something – had made her quieter.
As Bridget watched she rocked a little and there it was: a little wince of physical pain.
‘Are you all right?’ And then Bridget was off the stool and kneeling beside her.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Laura, head down, pulling at the shredded tissue.
‘Is it the baby?’ Laura shook her head, sniffing. But she wouldn’t look up. Bridget took her gently by the shoulders. ‘Laura?’ And at last Laura looked back up, her mouth trembled, open. She didn’t know how to say it.
Bridget knew. ‘Did someone hurt you?’
‘He – I don’t think he meant—’ Searching Bridget’s face for understanding, so she didn’t have to say.
Nick. ‘What happened?’ said Bridget. ‘Nick came home late. You said that.’
Nodding, head back down. ‘He wanted to – to have sex with me.’ So quiet she was almost inaudible but Bridget just leaned close and listened to her whisper. Their heads together, and Laura’s words a mumbled litany, once sharpening to a shocked whisper. I told him I didn’t want to. I told him. Then Laura raised her head, her face blank and bewildered.
‘He isn’t what I thought he was going to be,’ she said, lips pale. ‘He was never like this. He said all these things about putting me on a pedestal, when we first, when he—’ She broke off, trembling. ‘And he was just disgusting.’
Nick, who’d been sitting there when she walked in. Just sitting watching his wife work.
Bridget took her by the shoulders so she wouldn’t look away. ‘Did he force you?’ she said. ‘You said to him you didn’t want it?’
Laura ducked, evasive, she let her hair fall over her face. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s not his fault. He said sorry.’ Looking toward the door, the outside w
orld, looking for escape. Then back at Bridget, pale and frightened. ‘It’s just – what if he’s hurt the baby.’ Mumbling.
‘Is there bleeding? Pain? Cramps?’ Laura shook her head stiffly. Bridget took her gently by the wrist. ‘Babies are tough,’ she said. ‘I think the baby is fine.’ Laura looking down. ‘I think it’s you he’s hurt.’ Laura pulled her wrist away.
‘You should talk to someone,’ said Bridget. ‘The doctor. The midwife? What if it happens again?’ Then, not having the faintest idea how it would actually work, but determined: ‘Look. You can come and live with me and besides—’
But Laura was on her feet then, shaking her head, stepping back from her as if she was the dangerous one. ‘No, no, no – really.’ And smoothing the wool of her maternity dress down, brushing at herself, dabbing below her eyes. ‘It’s fine. We’re fine.’
Bridget stood, helpless, watching Laura compose herself. She folded her arms, holding herself by the elbows. Had she overreacted? But she’d said it. Laura had. He was just disgusting.
She knew about that. The things they did that seemed to come from a different place: the grunting, the forcing her under him. In love. Bridget hated in love. And the way she’d felt afterwards.
Matt didn’t do in love. Not flowers or dates. He did tea in bed and bikes and knowing when she was sad. Knowing when she was frightened.
She and Laura weren’t the same: she needed to remember that.
‘As long as you know,’ Bridget said, clearing her throat and Laura glanced at her sideways, then looked away. ‘There’s helplines.’ Nothing. ‘As long as you know there’s somewhere you can go if you need it. You can come to me.’ Standing behind the desk with her hands flat on the day book, Laura didn’t look at her. ‘All right?’ And slowly Laura nodded.
A couple were outside the window, holding hands. Middle-aged. He pointed, she smiled.
Bridget sighed. ‘So how was the day?’
Laura looked blank, a frown chasing across her face, then she shrugged. ‘OK. A few customers. Sold—’ she looked down in the book. ‘A white blouse.’ The frown deepened. ‘She was a pain. I don’t even think she wanted – well. She came in right after you left.’ She shrugged again. ‘And he came back. The man.’ Tapping with a fingernail on the big exercise book where they wrote everything down, the customer requests, the email addresses, sales, and Bridget came round beside her to look. ‘What man?’ Running her finger down the page.
What We Did_A gripping, compelling psychological thriller with a nail-biting twist Page 19