Nicci French - What to do When Someone Dies

‘Everything okay?’ Frances said sympathetically.

‘It’s my so-called builder,’ I said. ‘You know how it is.’

I hoped desperately that Frances did know how it was, because I couldn’t bear to lie any more. There would be too much falsehood to fit into my brain. She just nodded. I don’t think she wanted to find out too much about my life.

I really was organizing the company’s papers. I wasn’t lying about that. But at the same time I was also jotting down every reference to where Milena had been on a particular day. If I compared it to the chart I had constructed for Greg, perhaps I could find somewhere they had been together, or nearly been, or a route that had crossed. It didn’t have to be a night in a hotel, it could be a train, a petrol station. Indeed, as I worked I decided I would stop off at the stationer’s on the way home for more card and coloured pens and that I would make a separate chart for Milena.

I worked with such concentration that when I heard Frances say my name it was as if I had fallen asleep and woken up to find the world dark.

She wasn’t alone. A man was standing with her, tall, distinguished, rich. He made me feel dishevelled and a little ill-at-ease. He must have been in his mid-fifties, with short dark-grey hair, silvering at the edges. He was wearing an overcoat with a navy blue scarf.

‘This is Gwen, my good fairy,’ said Frances, and once again I had to stop myself looking round to see where Gwen was. ‘This is my husband, David.’ He gave me a slightly wry smile and held out his hand. It was beautifully manicured but, then, everything about him looked beautifully manicured, his hair, his black leather slip-ons. His handshake was dry and limp.

‘David, you’ve got to persuade Gwen to stay.’

He regarded her coldly, then gave a small shrug. ‘Don’t you see how much you’re valued?’ he said, in a voice that managed to combine sarcasm with indifference.

‘It’s just a holiday for me,’ I said.

‘Funny sort of holiday,’ he said.

‘She’s a maths teacher,’ said Frances.

‘Oh,’ said David, as if that explained everything.

‘Time to go,’ said Frances. ‘But wait a second.’ She went to her desk and scribbled on something. Then she came back and handed me a cheque.

‘I can’t take this,’ I said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I really can’t take it.’

‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘You mean the tax? David, could you give me your wallet, darling?’

He sighed and handed it over. She riffled through it, pulled out some notes and offered them to me. I wanted to say no but I thought that a person who comes and works for you, sorting out your office, then refuses any payment, stops looking like a saint and starts looking a bit creepy, maybe even suspicious. I took the money. ‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Tomorrow?’ she said.

‘Tomorrow, at least,’ I said.

We left the house together.

‘You know how we all love you,’ said Frances.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said.

‘I mean, Johnny completely adores her,’ she said to her husband, who smiled distantly and moved away from the hand she laid on his arm. I saw her wince as she registered the slight. She was too eager with him, I thought, and too anxious, while he treated her with something close to contempt. I felt a spasm of pity for Frances – a beautiful woman in her privileged life, yet she was clearly unhappy.

The old lady behind the counter at the Oxfam shop in Kentish Town Road seemed disconcerted when I gave her the banknotes and said I didn’t want to buy anything. She tried to make me take a dress or even a book, but I wouldn’t be persuaded and she reluctantly gave up. I left feeling as if I’d been shoplifting, but in reverse.

‘Do you think,’ I asked, ‘that it would be a good idea for me to go through Milena’s emails and check there aren’t any more nasty surprises waiting to jump out at you?’

Frances had just discovered that she and Milena had been expected at a client’s large house in Kingston upon Thames to discuss plans for her daughter’s wedding. Even from the other side of the room, I could hear the woman’s voice coming down the phone, high and irate.

‘Milena never mentioned it,’ said Frances, dejectedly, after she had ended the conversation and promised she would be there the following day. ‘She was supposed to write everything in the office diary.’

‘Can I see the diary?’ I asked. ‘Just to double-check things.’

‘Would you?’

I took the large, hard-backed book, which had a page for each day and was covered with scrawls, crossings-out, reminders, and tried to memorize appointments so I could cross-reference them with Greg’s chart, but I soon gave up. I’d have to write them down later.

Frances had no objection to me sifting through Milena’s messages, but the computer did. I found that to access her email I had to enter a password. ‘What was it?’ I asked Frances.

‘I haven’t a clue.’

‘Oh.’ I stared at the screen in frustration. I had this idea that the answers I needed were locked in that slim little box, if only I could find the key. Idly, I tried the names of her two step-children, with no success. ‘No ideas?’ I asked Frances.

She shrugged helplessly. ‘You could try her maiden name. Furness.’

‘No,’ I said, after a few seconds.

‘Her date of birth: the twentieth of April 1964.’

So she was forty-four, a decade older than me. I typed it in. Nothing.

‘She used to talk about a dog she had when she was a girl.’

‘What was its name?’

‘She never said. But, look, aren’t there ways round things like this?’

I couldn’t help smiling at that. ‘Probably, but if there were, do you really think I’d know about them?’

‘Oh, well, I guess we’ll just have to hope there aren’t other appointments waiting to be missed. In the meantime I need to get quotations on marquees before tomorrow morning.’

That day I had told Frances I needed to leave early. Even so, when I hurried up the road Gwen was waiting at my door, several carrier-bags at her feet. ‘Happy birthday!’ she said, kissing me on both cheeks. ‘But where’ve you been? I was worried you’d forgotten or got cold feet.’

‘Just trying to catch up with a few things,’ I said vaguely.

She looked at me curiously. ‘You’re being rather mysterious.’

I felt flustered. ‘I don’t mean to be. It’s just I’ve been having to sort out things, like – like money.’ Untrue, although, of course, that was what I should have been sorting out, and if I thought of my financial situation, I felt dizzy with anxiety.

‘Horrible for you,’ Gwen said sympathetically.

‘It’s got to be done.’ I fished my key out of my pocket. ‘Let’s get inside out of the cold. I’ll carry some of these. What’s in here? I thought you said just a few people.’ We went into the kitchen.

‘That’s right. Fifteen, twenty at most.’ She started unpacking the bag on to the kitchen table. ‘Hummus with pitta bread, and guacamole. I’ve bought the avocados for that. Tortilla chips with salsa, pistachio nuts. Nothing much to do except put them in bowls.’

‘What time is everyone coming?’ I was filled with panic. I was used to being Ellie-and-Greg facing the world together. I’d lost the ability to cope on my own – unless, that is, I was pretending to be someone else, in which case I seemed to be managing much better.

‘About six, six thirty.’

‘What shall I wear?’

‘Calm down. It’s just your friends. We’ll have a poke through your wardrobe in a moment, but it’s casual. People will be coming straight from work. You can wear what you’ve got on now, if you want.’