Nicci French - What to do When Someone Dies

One morning I felt for the first time that I was really waking up and that I wasn’t stuck somewhere on the brink of unconsciousness. Over by the window a man was standing, looking out. I could only see his silhouette against the brightness of the sky. When he turned and I saw that it was Silvio, I was so surprised it made me feel dizzy and tired.

‘It’s an amazing view.’

‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

He walked over to the bed. ‘I brought you flowers but they didn’t let me bring them in. They think they’re some kind of risk. I don’t know whether it’s because they spread disease or the nurses don’t want them around. Or maybe they just want to take them home themselves.’

‘Thanks for the thought.’

‘I gave them away and then I went round the corner and bought some blueberries and strawberries. I don’t know if you like that sort of thing.’

‘I do.’

‘I’ll put them on something.’ He lifted the cover off a plate on the table by my bed. ‘What’s this?’

‘I think it’s my lunch.’

‘Grey sludge.’

‘There’s some fish under it.’

I felt the weight of him on the bed as he sat on the edge and offered me the blueberries. I took a couple, put them into my mouth and chewed, feeling them burst against my tongue. ‘Lovely,’ I said.

‘Healthy,’ said Silvio. ‘Someone told me that if you have a handful of them every day, you’ll never get cancer. Or anything else.’

‘Can you give me some water?’ I said. ‘There’s a jug over there.’

He poured it into a plastic cup. I took a couple of sips. It was warm and tasted stale. I drank it all anyway and handed the cup back to Silvio.

‘Do you know everything?’ said Silvio.

‘I don’t know anything.’

‘But you know about the guy in the car with you?’

‘He died.’

‘The police said you were lucky to survive. It was in the papers. I saw a photo of the car. I don’t know how you walked out of that one.’

‘I didn’t walk out of it. How did you find out where I was?’

‘I just did what you’ve been doing,’ said Silvio. ‘Detective work.’

‘I didn’t do any detective work,’ I said. ‘Mainly I found out things by mistake.’

‘You’re like one of those women scientists.’

‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I’ve been studying history of science at school. There are these women scientists, they do all the research and the important experiments and at the end the guys come in and make the final discovery and get all the credit.’

‘What discovery?’

‘You’ve been going around stirring everything up, causing trouble.’

‘You could say that. What about you?’

‘Me?’

‘Are you all right?’

He looked embarrassed; he flushed and turned to stare at the view again. ‘Yeah. I guess.’

‘I’m sorry about everything.’

‘Thanks,’ he muttered.

‘Have a blueberry.’

He popped several into his mouth. One split on his lip, leaving a dark stain. He looked about ten, angry, ashamed and full of confusion. Milena had certainly left her mark on the world she’d left behind.

Detective Chief Inspector Ramsay came to see me one more time. ‘You were lucky to survive that crash,’ he said.

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘You were wearing a seatbelt,’ he said, ‘but Mr Foreman wasn’t. I suppose there’s a moral there.’

‘I’m glad there’s one somewhere. So, is the inquiry over?’

‘More or less.’

I forced myself to think. My mind felt so slow. ‘He must have had help,’ I said. ‘Who collected the docket from the firm of solicitors? The woman who said she was me. It was Tania, wasn’t it?’

‘We’ve interviewed Miss Lucas.’

‘Did she confess?’

‘Confess?’ said Ramsay. ‘She admitted carrying out certain tasks on his behalf.’

‘Criminal tasks.’

‘She claims she had no suspicion of anything criminal.’

‘She was pretending to be me.’

‘She said that must have been a misunderstanding.’

‘Bollocks,’ I said. ‘They were sleeping together, you know.’

Ramsay coughed. ‘I’ve no evidence of that,’ he said, ‘not that it would be relevant. Except possibly to show she was in thrall to him.’

‘In thrall?’ I said. ‘You mean she’s a weak woman? So she’s not to be charged with being an accomplice to murder, interfering with the course of justice?’

‘We’ve got a file but we’re not sure there’s a reasonable chance of a conviction.’

‘What about the company?’

‘It’s currently in administration, pending investigation of certain irregularities.’

‘You mean Joe was stealing from his clients. That he was up to his neck in it.’

‘That has been suggested,’ said Ramsay.

‘And presumably Tania knew nothing about that either.’

Ramsay shrugged instead of replying. That was his reply.

‘I suppose at least you accept that Joe killed Frances.’

‘Yes, we do. We’re assuming that Mrs Shaw knew, or at least suspected, what he had done and was going to expose him.’

‘That makes sense,’ I said, remembering Frances’s agitation, the sense of guilt, how close she had come to confessing to me. If she had, she wouldn’t have been dead now. ‘She was clearly troubled.’

For a minute Ramsay stared at me gloomily, then turned to the window. A dishevelled pigeon was sitting on the other side of the glass, its beady eyes glaring in.

‘What about the deaths of Milena and Greg?’ I asked. ‘Do you also accept Joe killed them?’

‘We’ve reopened the file.’

‘You don’t sound very grateful to me.’

‘Your role in the investigation has been mixed,’ said Ramsay, ‘but at an appropriate time…’

‘Is that what you meant when you said the inquiry wasn’t completely over?’

‘Did I?’

‘More or less, you said.’

He paused, seeming shifty, ill-at-ease.

‘When this accident happened, or shortly before,’ he said, ‘you had developed suspicions of Mr Foreman’s role in the case.’

I suddenly felt under threat. ‘How do you mean?’

‘What I’m trying to say, Ms Falkner,’ said Ramsay, in a deliberate tone, as if he was speaking to a child, ‘is that I’m working under the assumption that you had suspicions of Mr Foreman and then he realized you had these suspicions and that there was some sort of struggle while you were driving. Perhaps he tried to seize the wheel. And you crashed. Accidentally.’

I thought for a moment. ‘I don’t remember,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember anything about the accident. It’s a blank. Is that all right?’

‘Yes,’ said DI Ramsay. ‘That’ll do.’

I walked to Fergus’s house with the box in both hands. It was early, a soft dawn breaking over the rooftops. Even here, in the streets of London, birds were singing all around me. At that time of the morning the volume seemed to have been turned up. I could see the blackbird on the branch of a tree, its throat pulsing.

Fergus was waiting. He opened the door before I knocked and stepped out to join me, kissing me on both cheeks and giving me a small smile.

‘Ready?’ I asked.

‘Ready.’

We didn’t talk. After twenty minutes or so we left the road and entered the Heath, making our way along the empty paths to the wilderness. We could no longer see the city glittering in the pale sunlight, or hear the noise of cars. I remembered that other dawn when I had walked there: then it had been winter, and I had come alone to talk to Greg. Standing under the boughs of an oak tree, I turned to Fergus.

‘It began like this,’ I said. ‘The alarm went and he woke and reached over to my side of the bed to turn it off, then he kissed me on the mouth and he said, “Good morning, gorgeous, did you have nice dreams?” and I muttered something thickly in reply but he couldn’t make out the words. He got out of bed and pulled on his dressing-gown, leaving me still tangled up with sleep. He went downstairs and made us both a cup of tea, and he brought mine upstairs in my stripy mug – which was what he always did, every morning. He watched me struggle up to sitting, half laughing at me. Then he had a quick shower. He sang in the shower, loudly, humming where he couldn’t remember the words. It was “ The Long and Winding Road”.