Nicci French - Until it's Over

‘My relationship with Leah Peterson,’ I repeated, in a voice that didn’t sound like my own. Leah Peterson: how formal that sounded.

‘Not here, Frank,’ said Kamsky. ‘Not like this.’

McBride shrugged. ‘OK then.’

Kamsky put a hand under my elbow and pulled me to my feet where I stood, swaying slightly. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘What? Where are we going?’

‘To the police station.’

‘I want to go home,’ I said, although it wasn’t true. I didn’t want to go home if that meant going back into the disintegrating wreckage of Maitland Road. And suddenly, as clearly as if he had been standing in front of me, I saw Miles’s face, his smooth, veined skull and his brown eyes. I gasped and put a hand to my chest.

‘What?’ asked Kamsky, sharply.

‘Do they know?’

‘Who?’

‘Miles. All of them.’

‘You don’t need to think about that at the moment,’ said Bradshaw, in the kind of reassuring voice that made me want to punch him.

‘But I -’

‘Astrid,’ Kamsky interrupted, and something in his tone made me feel cold, ‘do you understand your position?’

‘My position? I understand that Leah’s dead.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Margaret Farrell, Ingrid de Soto, Leah Peterson. All dead.’

‘What are you…?’

‘And all last seen by you.’

‘The car’s waiting outside,’ said McBride. ‘Let’s get this started properly. Hal, follow after us, if you would.’

They led me through the hall and out of the house into the warm, blue day. There was an ambulance, three police cars and already a gathering crowd. I had the sense that I was on a stage: everything that was happening was unreal – the clothes that had been put on to me were a costume, the audience of avid passers-by the extras in a crowd scene; the body lying in the house was just pretending to be a corpse. I looked down at the pavement, trying to avoid the bright, curious eyes of the woman nearest the car, and allowed myself to be levered into it. Kamsky sat beside me and McBride in the front passenger seat. I stared at the back of the driver’s neck: pink and spotty beneath his close-cropped hair.

‘My bike,’ I started to say. ‘Well, it’s not mine. Campbell lent it to me and…’ But I stopped abruptly. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, and turned my head to the window so I didn’t have to see Kamsky’s grave face watching me. I looked at the blur of the world passing: cars and houses and people spooling past. I tried not to think about Leah’s slashed face and her eyes, shallow and glassy, staring blindly up at me.

‘Here we are,’ said Kamsky. The policeman who’d been driving opened the door for me. He avoided my eyes as I stepped out and walked into the police station I knew too well, McBride on one side of me and Kamsky on the other as if they feared I might make a dash for it. A middle-aged woman in a long skirt was kneeling in the foyer, whimpering and scrabbling for all the objects that must have rolled out of her bag, but Kamsky steered me round her as if she was a bollard in the road, and straight into a bare room, with a table in the centre and plastic chairs placed round it. ‘Take a seat,’ he said, and I lowered myself into one. McBride closed the door and drew another opposite me, folding his arms.

‘Aren’t you going to offer me another tea for shock?’ I asked Kamsky. ‘That’s what you usually do when I’m here.’

‘Listen, Astrid, would you like to have a solicitor present?’

‘What?’

‘Would you like…?’

‘I heard what you said. I just meant, you know – What?’

‘It’s your right,’ said McBride.

A young woman came in with a tape-recorder and put it on the desk. Kamsky leaned forward and turned it on.

‘Why on earth should I want a solicitor? I haven’t done anything wrong. I found Leah dead and I called you and then I waited until you arrived.’ I shivered. ‘Sitting by her body. It changed even in that short time. It got deader, if you see what I mean. Colder and greyer and harder.’

‘Am I to understand that you do not want a solicitor?’

‘That’s right. I don’t want one and I don’t know why you should think I do, and in any case what I want to ask you -’

‘Ms Bell,’ said McBride, in his soft Scottish voice. ‘It is us who would like to ask some things of you.’

‘A few weeks ago,’ I said, ‘I’d never seen a single dead person. Not even lying by the side of the road after a crash.’

‘I want to return to the question I asked you at the house. What was your relationship with Leah Peterson?’

‘She was the partner of Miles, who’s the landlord of the house I live in.’

‘But you knew her?’

‘Kind of.’

‘Would you describe her as your friend?’

‘No.’

‘Were you on friendly terms with her?’

I glanced at Kamsky, whose face was impassive. ‘No.’

‘You were on unfriendly terms with her?’

‘That makes it sound wrong.’

‘Had you had an argument with her?’

‘You could say that. She was an easy person to argue with. She went out of her way to antagonize us. Ask him.’ I nodded towards Kamsky. ‘Why, the whole household -’

‘We’ll come to the whole household later. Answer the question. Had you had a specific argument with her?’

‘Yes.’ I took a deep breath. ‘More than one.’

‘Over what?’

‘She was getting us ejected from the house.’ I paused. ‘That’s not right. Miles was kicking us out because he’s the landlord. But it was Leah who wanted us to go and I can understand that. The way she did it felt wrong. Miles hid behind her and let her do his dirty work.’ I looked at Kamsky. ‘You saw her at work. Then there’s the fact that I used to go out with Miles. That didn’t help. And then -’ I hesitated, coughed, continued: ‘Then she tried to create an argument between me and Pippa, the other woman in the house and my friend, by telling me that Pippa and Owen had had a – what would you call it? “Sexual relationship”. Yes. And what’s more…’ I was suddenly unable to go on. ‘You get the drift,’ I said miserably.

‘Let me get this straight,’ said McBride, his voice softer than ever. ‘You were all being evicted from your house by Leah Peterson?’

‘She was the driving force.’

‘She was also the current girlfriend of the landlord, with whom you were once intimately involved.’

‘Yes.’

‘She taunted you with information concerning your current boyfriend and another woman in the house.’

‘He’s not my boyfriend.’ I paused and rubbed my face with the hand that wasn’t still bloody. ‘He was something to me, though,’ I added softly. ‘Leah knew that. Or sensed it.’

‘You argued last night?’

‘Yes.’

‘Were you angry with her?’

‘Yes. And humiliated, I guess.’

‘And now she’s dead.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you discov -’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I would like a solicitor to be present.’

There was a silence. They both stared at me.

‘Very well. Do you have your own solicitor or would you like us to contact one for you?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never been in this position before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. But no, no – I have someone I can call.’

Kamsky leaned back from his chair and reached over for the cordless phone on the shelf behind him. He handed it over.

‘Can I do it privately? No, don’t bother to answer that.’

‘Nine for an outside line.’

I turned away from the two men and punched the numbers in. My fingers seemed too big for the buttons and several times I had to begin again. Outside, the sun went behind a cloud and the room suddenly darkened. I heard the ringing tone and then a chirpy voice: ‘Rathbone and Hurst.’