Nicci French: What to do When Someone Dies

© 2009

Moments when your life changes: there will always be a before and an after, separated, perhaps, by a knock at the door. I had been interrupted. I was tidying up. I had cleared up yesterday’s newspapers, old envelopes, scraps of paper, left them in the basket by the grate ready to make a fire after supper. I had just got the rice bubbling nicely. My first thought was that it was Greg and he had forgotten his keys, but then I remembered he couldn’t have because he had taken the car that morning. Anyway, he probably wouldn’t knock but shout through the letterbox. A friend, perhaps, or a neighbour, a Jehovah’s Witness, a cold call from a desperate young man trying to sell dusters and clothes-pegs house-to-house. I turned away from the stove and went through the hall to the front door, opened it to a gust of cool air.

Not Greg, not a friend, not a neighbour, not a stranger selling religion or domesticity. Two female police officers stood in front of me. One looked like a schoolgirl, with a block fringe covering her eyebrows and jug ears; one was like her teacher, with a square jaw and greying hair cut mannishly short.

‘Yes?’ Had I been caught speeding? Littering? But then I saw an expression of uncertainty, even surprise, on both their faces and felt the first small prickle of foreboding in my chest.

‘Mrs Manning?’

‘My name’s Eleanor Falkner,’ I said, ‘but I’m married to Greg Manning, so you could say…’ My words trailed away. ‘What is it?’

‘Can we come in?’

I led them into the small living room.

‘You’re the wife of Mr Gregory Manning?’

‘Yes.’

I heard everything, I noticed everything. I saw how the younger one looked up at the older one as she said the words, and I noticed she had a hole in her black tights. The older officer’s mouth opened and closed but didn’t seem synchronized with the words she was speaking so that I had to strain to make sense of them. The smell of risotto reached me from the kitchen, and I remembered that I hadn’t turned the ring off and it would be dry and ruined. Then I remembered, with a stupid dullness, that of course it didn’t matter if it was ruined: nobody would be eating it now. Behind me I heard the wind fling a few dry leaves against the bay window. It was dark outside. Dark and chilly. In a few weeks’ time the clocks would go back. In a couple of months it would be Christmas.

She said, ‘I am very sorry, your husband has been in a fatal accident.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Though I did. The words made sense. Fatal accident. My legs felt as if they didn’t know how to hold me up any more.

‘Can we get you something? A glass of water, perhaps?’

‘You say…’

‘Your husband’s car left the road,’ she said slowly and patiently. Her mouth stretched and shrank.

‘Dead?’

‘I’m very sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry for your loss.’

‘The car caught fire.’ It was the first time the younger woman had spoken. Her face was plump and pale; there was a faint smudge of mascara under one of her brown eyes. She wears contact lenses, I thought.

‘Mrs Falkner, do you understand what we have said?’

‘Yes.’

‘There was a passenger in the car.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He was with someone else. A woman. We thought… Well, we had thought it might be you.’

I stared dumbly at her. Did she expect me to produce identification?

‘Do you know who that would have been?’

‘I was just cooking supper for us. He should have been home by now.’

‘Your husband’s passenger.’

‘I don’t know.’ I rubbed my face. ‘Didn’t she have her bag with her or anything?’

‘They couldn’t recover much. Because of the fire.’

I put a hand against my chest and felt my heart beating heavily. ‘Are you sure it was Greg? There might have been a mistake.’

‘He was driving a red Citroën Saxo,’ she said. She looked down at her notebook and read out the registration number. ‘Your husband is the owner of the vehicle?’

‘Yes,’ I said. It was hard to speak properly. ‘Perhaps someone from work. He sometimes took them when he went to visit clients. Tania.’ I found, as I was speaking, that I couldn’t bring myself to care if Tania was also dead. I knew that later this might disturb me.

‘Tania?’

‘Tania Lott. From his office.’

‘Do you have her home number?’

I thought for a moment. It would be on Greg’s mobile, which was with him. I swallowed hard. ‘I don’t think so. It might be somewhere. Do you want me to look?’

‘We can find out.’

‘I don’t want you to think me rude, but I’d like you to go now.’

‘Have you got someone you can call? A relative or friend?’

‘What?’

‘You shouldn’t be alone.’

‘I want to be alone,’ I said.

‘You might want to talk to someone.’ The younger woman pulled a leaflet out of her pocket: she must have put it there before they’d left the station together. All prepared. I wondered how many times they did this in a year. They must get used to it, standing on a doorstep in all weathers with an expression of sympathy on their faces. ‘There are numbers here of counsellors who can help you.’

‘Thank you.’ I took the leaflet she was holding out and put it on the table.

Then she offered me a card.

‘You can reach me here if you need anything.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Will you be all right?’

‘Yes,’ I said, more loudly than I’d meant to. ‘Excuse me, I think the pan might have boiled dry. I should rescue it. Can you let yourselves out?’

I left the room, with the two women still standing awkwardly in it, and went into the kitchen. I took the pan off the hob and poked at the sticky mess of burnt risotto with a wooden spoon. Greg loved risotto; it was the first meal he had ever cooked me. Risotto with red wine and green salad. I had a sudden clear picture of him sitting at the kitchen table in his shabby home clothes, smiling at me and lifting his glass in greeting, and I spun round, thinking that if I was quick enough I could catch him there.

Sorry for your loss.

Fatal accident.

This is not my world. Something is wrong, askew. It is a Monday evening in October. I am Ellie Falkner, thirty-four years old and married to Greg Manning. Although two police officers have just come to my door and told me he is dead, I know that can’t be true because it happens in a world meant for other people.

I sat down at the kitchen table and waited. I didn’t know what I was waiting for; perhaps to feel something. People cry when a loved one dies, don’t they? Howl and sob, tears running down their cheeks. There was no doubt that Greg was my loved one, my dear heart, but I had never felt less like crying. My eyes were dry and hot; my throat ached slightly, as if I was coming down with a cold. My stomach ached too, and I put my hand on my belly for a few seconds and closed my eyes. There were crumbs on the surface, from breakfast. Toast and marmalade. Coffee.

What had he said when he left? I couldn’t think. It had been just another Monday morning, grey sky and puddles on the pavement. When had he last kissed me? On the cheek or on the lips? We’d had a stupid argument on the phone that afternoon, just a few hours ago, about what time he was coming home. Had those been our last words? Little bickering phrases before the great silence. For a moment I couldn’t even remember his face, but then it came back to me: his curly hair and his dark eyes and the way he smiles. Smiled. His strong, capable hands, his solid warmth. It had to be a mistake.