Nicci French - Until it's Over

There was a buzz and a crackle. ‘Hello?’

‘Hi,’ I said, smiling into the little lens above the speaker.

‘Yes?’

‘Hi, my name’s Jonathan Whiteley. I’m from number seven. I was just talking to the postman about a package and he said he might have delivered it to you by mistake.’

‘Oh, God,’ the crackly voice said. ‘Was that you? Hang on.’

As the door opened, I stepped forward and inside.

Ingrid de Soto was lovely. That was what money did for you. She didn’t live on the same planet as the rest of us. Her expensive hair was pulled tight into a bunch. She was wearing a blue silk dressing-gown and under it I could see the swell of her breasts, the flash of a gold necklace, thin as a wire round her neck, another round one wrist, a watch. In comparison, Pippa was shabbily dressed, Astrid was dishevelled, Melanie seemed cheap. But I was on her planet now. I looked around. She was clearly alone.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I was confused. Sorry, I made a stupid mistake.’ She smiled at me apologetically, with her beautiful, expensive teeth.

Now I was the one to be confused. ‘What do you mean?’ I said. Had I slipped up?

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Here.’ She handed me the package.

I forced a smile. ‘No, really,’ I said. ‘What mistake?’

She laughed. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said. ‘We get lots of deliveries in envelopes like those. I thought it was one of those sent to the wrong address. I just rang up the courier to collect it.’ She checked her watch. ‘Bloody hell, they’ll be here in a moment.’ She smiled again. ‘It’s not your problem.’

I punched her, hard, and she fell to the floor. As I grabbed her by the neck, much of the ferocity was really against myself. I’d made this brilliant arrangement to rob someone with whom I had no connection and the result was that a courier was about to arrive and catch me in the act. I was so furious with my own stupidity that I hardly felt the flailings of her arms and hands against me and hardly heard the gurgling and choking. I forced her down, banged her head against the floor and tightened my hands around her throat until I saw that her eyes weren’t looking back at me, or at anything. I let her go.

‘You bloody idiot,’ I said, and I didn’t know if I was talking to her or to myself.

I was standing over her, panicking. She lay sprawled beneath me on the floor, hands splayed. I looked at my watch and made myself breathe slowly and calmly. Eight thirty-five. I could give myself two minutes. That was all. I looked around. It was everything I had imagined, everything I had dreamed of. But to escape now I had to do the opposite of what I’d planned. I had to make this not look like a robbery. I had to make it look as if I was insane. What did insane people do when they killed women? I thought of Owen and his fucking photographs, and it seemed like a private joke. I took the knife from inside my jacket and unsheathed it. I held Ingrid de Soto ’s head steady, then cut bold strokes on her cheeks and forehead, the way I remembered from Owen’s photograph. The incisions didn’t bleed. I took one of her earrings between my fingers, pulled it clean out of her perfectly shaped earlobe and put it in my pocket. Suddenly it was a horrible sight, the blank dead jelly eyes. I turned her over, face down, staring into the floor. I checked my watch. Time up.

I walked to the front door. I just needed to get to the gate, and then to the other side of the road, and I would be free. Then I remembered: the bloody package. I couldn’t just leave it there, could I, the thong and the condoms and scarf? I turned back, stepped over the sprawled body and looked around. There it was, on the shelf of a dresser by the door. I picked it up. A thought came to me and I also picked up an oval glass paperweight with spiralling patterns on it and an invitation on thick white card. I returned to the door, my shoes clicking on the tiles, echoing. I stepped outside, pulled the front door behind me and heard it click shut. I walked along the path, hearing the gravel under my feet. Don’t run. People would remember someone running. Out of the gate, not looking to either side. I crossed the road. What now? Concealing myself, I rested my forehead against the trunk of a tree, feeling the roughness of the bark. It was alive and that woman was dead. Then a sudden thought came into my mind: Why did I kill her? To protect myself, because it had gone wrong? No, I said, that’s not true. All you needed to do was take your package and leave. She would have apologized to the messenger. That would have been that.

It had been a stupid mistake. I hadn’t had time to think about it, I’d been in a fog of panic, and made the wrong decision. Maybe that would protect me as well. I didn’t even have a real motive. That woman was lying dead on the floor quite unnecessarily – perhaps I’d left my fingerprints everywhere. I looked warily round the tree-trunk, poised to return, and then – I guess I should have expected it, really, because it was turning into a farce – a bike came into view and, of course, Astrid was riding it. She was a distance away but I could see her face glistening with the effort of cycling up the hill, but she wasn’t panting heavily. She was used to this. She looked wonderful. Why do you always end up with the one you don’t really want? Melanie thought of me as her boyfriend. That woman was dead by mistake. That was the way life worked out.

Astrid swung off her bike in a single movement and pulled it over the gravel. It was like watching someone at school trying to solve a difficult problem. She rang the bell, then rang it again. She took out her phone and made a call. She peered through the letterbox. She’d seen something. I could watch her thinking. She looked around. I shrank further behind the tree. I heard her talking into her phone again. I couldn’t make out the words but I could hear the urgency, the hysteria almost, in her tone. This might be an ambulance or even the police. Time to go.

I edged away and walked along the other side of Century Road. Before I turned the corner I heard the loud sound of a smashing window. That Astrid. Wonderful.

It wasn’t a coincidence. It was meant to be. She might not know it yet, but I did, and once I knew it the whole world looked different. I sat in the park and took out the paperweight. When I looked at it, following the lines of colour into the clear, glowing centre, it almost felt as if I was seeing my own life. I had killed Peggy, and Astrid had been there. I had killed Ingrid, and once again Astrid was there. She was my witness; my audience, and I was doing it for her. Everyone else receded and it was just the two of us. Astrid with her laughing eyes.

I don’t know how long I sat there. The sun rose higher in the sky. The colours deepened and the shadows became shorter. I wasn’t hungry or anxious or tired. I could feel my heart beating at just the right speed, and the blood pumping round my body. I clenched my fists and felt the muscles in my forearm tighten. I sat up straight on the park bench and my body felt as it was meant to be, light and powerful. I glanced around me and my eyes took in everything: the tall trees, the sweep of the path, a woman pushing a buggy with a little frown on her face, a child with a lollipop stuck into its mouth, the three ducks waddling behind, the single cloud puffing along on the horizon, the litter lifted up on a curl of wind, the man with a tattoo on his forearm. The world was entering my skull and I could keep it there. All that I saw, all that I heard, tasted, touched, could be held inside me. I smiled and felt the smile on my face. I blinked and my eyes were a camera focusing, clicking on the image I wanted to catch.