Nicci French - Killing Me Softly

‘Right, here,’ I said, for although I had not remembered the monument, now that we were here it came clearly back to me.

I led them along the narrow lane, which was more like a track. My legs felt lighter now. My body was showing me the way to go. Somewhere along here there would be a path. I looked anxiously from left to right and kept stopping to peer into the undergrowth, in case it had become overgrown by weeds since I was last here. I could sense the growing impatience of the group. Once, I saw WPC Mayer exchange a look with one of the diggers – a thin young man with a long, lumpy neck – and shrug.

‘It’s somewhere near here,’ I said.

A few minutes later I said, ‘We must have gone past it.’ We stood in the middle of the lane while I dithered, and then WD C Paget said, quite kindly, ‘I think there’s a turning up ahead. Shall we just go and look at that?’

It was the path. I almost hugged her in gratitude then set off, at a shambling trot, with the police coming after me. Bushes snagged at us, brambles whipped at our legs, but I didn’t mind. This was where we had come. This time I didn’t hesitate, but turned off the path into the trees, for I had seen a silver birch that I recognized, white and straight among the beech trees. We scrambled up a slope. When Adam and I had come here, he had held my hand and helped me through the slippery fallen leaves. We came upon a crowd of daffodils and I heard WPC Mayer exclaim in pleasure, as if we were out on a country walk.

We reached the top of the slope, the trees cleared and we were out in what was almost moorland. As if he were beside me I heard Adam’s voice reaching me from the past: ‘A patch of grass that’s off a path that’s off a track that’s off a road.’

Now, suddenly, I didn’t know where to go. There had been a hawthorn bush, but I couldn’t see it from where I stood. I took a few uncertain steps, then stopped and gazed around me hopelessly. WD C Paget came up beside me and said nothing, just waited. I took the photograph out of my pocket. ‘This is what we are looking for.’

‘A bush.’ Her voice was expressionless but her glance was not. There were bushes all around us.

I shut my eyes and tried to think myself back. And then I remembered. ‘Look with my eyes,’ he had said. And we had gazed down on the church beneath us, and the fields. ‘Look with my eyes.’

It was as if I was truly looking with his eyes, following in his footsteps. I stumbled, almost ran, along the patch of moorland, and there, in the break in the trees, I could see down to where we had come from. There was St Eadmund’s, with the two cars parked beside it. There was the table of green fields. And here was the hawthorn bush. I stood in front of it, as I had stood then. I stood on the spongy earth and prayed that the body of a young woman was lying underneath me.

‘Here,’ I said to WDC Paget. ‘Here. Dig here.’

She beckoned over the men with their spades and repeated what I had said: ‘Dig here.’

I stepped away from where I was standing and they started to dig. The ground was stony and it was obviously hard work. Soon I could see beads of sweat standing out on their foreheads. I tried to breathe evenly. With each strike of the spade, I waited for something to appear. Nothing. They dug until there was a sizeable hole. Nothing. Eventually they stopped and looked atWDC Paget, who looked at me.

‘It’s there,’ I said. ‘I know it’s there. Wait.’

Again, I closed my eyes and tried to remember. I took out the photograph and stared at the bush.

‘Tell me exactly where to stand,’ I said to WD C Paget, thrust the photo into her hand and positioned myself by the bush.

She looked at me wearily then shrugged. I stood just as I had stood for Adam, and stared at her as if she were about to take my photograph herself. She stared back through narrowed eyes.

‘Forward a bit,’ she said.

I stepped forward.

‘That’s it.’

‘Dig here,’ I said to the men.

Again they started to shift the earth. We waited in silence, the dull thump of the spade, the laboured breathing of the working men. Nothing. There was nothing, just coarse reddish earth and little stones.

Again they stopped and looked at me. ‘Please,’ I said, and my voice came out hoarse. ‘Please dig a bit more.’ I turned to WDC Paget and put my hand on her sleeve. ‘Please,’ I said.

She frowned in deep thought before speaking. ‘We could spend a week up here digging. We’ve dug where you said and we’ve found nothing. It’s time to call a halt.’

‘Please,’ I said. My voice was cracked. ‘Please.’ I was begging for my life.

WDC Paget gave a deep sigh. ‘All right,’ she said. She looked at her watch. ‘Twenty minutes and that’s that.’

She made a gesture and the men moved across with an array of sarcastic grunts and expressions. I moved away and sat down. I looked into the valley. Grasses were rippling in the wind like the sea.

Suddenly, behind me, I heard a murmur. I ran across. The men had stopped digging and were on their knees by the hole, clearing earth with their hands. I crouched down beside them. The earth was suddenly darker here and I saw a hand, just its bones, protrude, as if it were beckoning us.

‘It’s her!’ I cried. ‘It’s Adele! Do you see? Oh, do you see?’ and I started scrabbling away myself, tearing at the soil, though I could hardly see myself. I wanted to hold the bones, cradle them, put my hands around the head, which was beginning to appear, a ghastly grinning skull, poke my fingers through the empty eyes.

‘Don’t touch,’ said WDC Paget, and hauled me back.

‘But I must!’ I howled. ‘It’s her. I was right. It’s her.’ It was going to be me, I wanted to say. If we hadn’t found her it would have been me.

‘It’s evidence, Mrs Tallis,’ she said sternly.

‘It’s Adele,’ I said again. ‘It’s Adele, and Adam murdered her.’

‘We have no idea who it is,’ she said. ‘Tests will have to be carried out, identifications.’

I looked down at the arm, hand, head poking out from the soil. All the tension went out of me and I felt utterly weary, utterly sad.

‘Poor thing,’ I said. ‘Poor woman. Oh dear. Oh, dear God, oh, Christ.’

WDC Paget handed me a large tissue, and I realized I was crying.

‘There’s something round the neck, Detective,’ said the thin digger.

I put my hand to my own neck.

He held up a blackened wire. ‘It’s a necklace, I think.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, he gave it to her.’

They all turned and looked at me, and this time they were looking at me attentively.

‘Here.’ I took off my necklace, silver and gleaming, and laid it by its blackened counterpart. ‘Adam gave me this, it was a token of his love for me, his undying love.’ I fingered the silver spiral. ‘This will be on hers too.’

‘She’s right,’ said WDC Paget. The other spiral was black and clotted with earth, but it was unmistakable. There was a long silence. They all looked at me and I looked at the hole where her body lay.

‘What did you say her name was?’ asked WDC Paget at last.

‘Adele Blanchard.’ I gulped. ‘She was Adam’s lover. And I think…’ I started to cry again, but this time I wasn’t crying for me, but for her and for Tara and for Françoise. ‘I think she was a very nice woman. A lovely young woman. Oh, sorry, I’m so, so sorry.’ I put my face into my muddy hands, blindfolding myself, and tears seeped through my fingers.

WPC Mayer put her arm around my shoulder. ‘We’ll take you home.’

But where was my home now?

Detective Inspector Byrne and one of his female officers insisted on accompanying me to the flat, although I told them Adam wouldn’t be there and I was only going to pick up my clothes and leave. They said that they had to check the flat anyway, although they had already tried to ring there. They had to try to find Mr Tallis.