Nicci French - Until it's Over

‘I don’t want to dig up your garden, Astrid,’ Miles said to me.

‘I can always make another.’

‘I tell you what, Pippa.’ Miles turned to her. ‘I should get the house valued, then come up with a proposal. Maybe I’ll get outside advice, just so we can try to keep everything as neutral as possible. I want to be fair. I hope you know I’m not out to rip you lot off.’

‘But are they out to rip you off?’ muttered Leah. ‘That’s what you’re not considering.’

Miles ignored her. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t always have the whole household in on the discussions. It gets so heated. If you and I discuss things first, Pippa, then put it to the group… What d’you say?’

‘OK,’ said Pippa. ‘Why are you wearing those clothes, anyway, Astrid? Where did you get them from? A skip?’

‘I got them from the police,’ I said reluctantly.

It was a very strange sensation. It was as if I was suddenly a magnet drawing each element in the room towards me. Everyone turned to me, waiting for me to continue.

‘There was an accident,’ I said, then paused to consider the word. ‘Not an accident,’ I corrected myself. ‘There was a death. Someone died. I saw her. She was… she was dead in front of me.’

‘Again?’ breathed Davy.

‘What do you mean, not an accident?’

‘She was murdered,’ I said. ‘I saw her through the letterbox and I smashed the window and climbed in and she was lying on the floor. I touched her.’ I gave a little shudder. ‘I touched her and then I turned her over and her face was all…’

‘It’s all right,’ said Davy. ‘It’s all right. You don’t need to say.’

‘Cut up,’ I finished. ‘I’ve never seen a dead body close up before.’

‘But -’ began Miles.

‘Oh, fuck,’ breathed Dario.

‘You poor, poor thing,’ said Pippa.

‘I don’t want to talk about it any more,’ I said. ‘I just want to go to sleep.’

‘It’s still daytime,’ said Dario. ‘And we’re going to the pub.’

Davy cast him a ferocious look.

‘Who was she?’ asked Owen. The expression on his face was one of curiosity. ‘Did you know her?’

‘What?’ I shook my head. ‘No, I didn’t know her. I’d seen her before. She was just a client.’

‘Wow,’ said Dario. ‘Blimey. First Peggy and now this woman. What is it with you?’

‘Shut up, Dario,’ Pippa said. ‘Have a bit of tact.’

‘It doesn’t matter. He’s only repeating what the police have been saying half the day.’

‘It must have been terrifying,’ said Davy.

‘Yes.’

A brief silence fell. I could see that everyone was struggling to find the right questions without seeming too ghoulish.

‘You lot go to the pub,’ I said. ‘I’m not really in the mood.’

‘I’ll stay with you,’ said Pippa.

‘No. You go. I’d quite like to be alone for a bit.’

I was summoned again to be interviewed. It sounded urgent and I had to cycle up to Kentish Town in the middle of a working day, infuriating Campbell. But after I had locked my bike and been signed in, there wasn’t much of an interview. Kamsky asked me a few questions but I had nothing new to say and mainly he walked up and down in silence. When he said something it was as much to himself as to me.

‘These are the essential questions,’ he said. ‘One: why did the house show no sign of forced entry, unless Mrs de Soto knew her killer? Two: where was the package you were supposed to collect? Three: why were you present at both murders?’

‘I wasn’t present.’

‘Four,’ he continued, showing no sign of having heard me. ‘Who else knew that you were going to Mrs de Soto ’s house?’

‘Nobody. Campbell. I don’t know. I’ve told you everything.’

‘I don’t think so. I think you know something but you don’t know you know it.’

‘That sounds too clever for me.’

‘What were you doing the day before yesterday?’ I asked Owen, as we walked towards the Downs. The men of the house were going to play football with a team who called themselves the Hackney Empire against another team from Enfield. Pippa, Mel and I were going to watch. I had planned to spend the entire day in bed, trying to shut out the horror of the day before yesterday, but the familiarity of the outing was comforting. It was like going back to a time before the horrible things started happening. Except that walking there with Owen was unsettling. I wasn’t like Pippa: I couldn’t just go back to being a friend as if nothing had happened, as if sex was like a day we’d spent at the seaside. I was trying to act casually, speak to him in a friendly and neutral fashion, but my throat felt dry and my stomach lurched when I looked at him. Everything about him, which had been so familiar for months, now seemed mysterious to me. He’d become a beautiful stranger, grim and infinitely desirable. But I still wasn’t going to take my clothes off and sit in front of him while he took unsettling photographs that turned me into an inanimate, tortured object.

‘The day before yesterday?’

‘Were you busy?’

‘Why?’

‘The police will probably ask. You’ll need an answer.’

‘I was at a magazine in the morning with the picture editor and -’

‘Which magazine?’

‘Bella.’

‘Fake alibi?’ said Davy, cheerfully, appearing at my side with Mel in tow.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ But I could feel myself blush.

‘I was with Mel, so I’ve got a witness,’ continued Davy.

Mel giggled shyly and put her arm through his.

‘Here,’ said Davy, ‘can you lend me a fiver, Astrid? I’ve left my wallet at home and I want to pick up a paper or two.’

I fished my purse out of my bag and opened it. ‘I’ve only got some change. I thought I had loads of money. I only took some out a couple of days ago.’

‘Never mind.’

‘I’ve got money,’ said Mel. She was ridiculously eager to please, like a little panting dog. A sleek, pretty dog with large, woebegone eyes.

‘Thanks.’ He pocketed the note and bounded into the newsagent on the corner.

We loitered outside, while Pippa, Mick, Miles and Dario ambled towards us. Dario fished a packet of cigarettes out of his back pocket and stuck one in the corner of his mouth.

‘Doesn’t it make your chest hurt during football?’ asked Mel.

‘Sure,’ said Dario. ‘If I run.’

‘Dario doesn’t run much,’ explained Pippa. ‘He kind of loiters and puts his foot out to trip people up.’

Dario ignored them. He looked at me. ‘I was thinking, I don’t know which is worse. If it’s a coincidence or if it’s not a coincidence.’

‘If it isn’t a coincidence,’ said Miles. ‘That’s clearly worse.’

‘It can’t not be a coincidence,’ I said.

‘Unless you killed them both,’ said Dario, drawing deeply on his cigarette and cackling at the same time. ‘No, no, don’t worry, Astrid, I was just winding you up.’

‘I’m glad someone can laugh at it,’ I said.

‘It can be to do with a sort of energy,’ said Dario.

‘What?’ I said.

‘It’s like a forcefield,’ said Dario, ‘where terrible things happen, or have happened, or are going to happen. They’re like a kind of spiritual magnetism and certain very sensitive people – such as you – are attracted to them.’

‘I collided with her car,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ said Dario.

‘And I wasn’t exactly attracted to the other woman. My boss radioed me and asked me to collect a package.’

Dario took another deep drag and looked mysterious.

‘The attraction doesn’t have to be direct,’ he said. ‘There are collections of forces and they act on particular people. There’s something special about you, Astrid. An aura. We might not be able to see it, but we can feel it.’ I heard Owen give a small sound, almost like a snort, and turned to glare at him, but he looked away. Dario took a last drag on the cigarette and dropped it on the pavement, grinding his heel into it as Davy came out of the shop carrying a bulging plastic bag.