Nicci French - Until it's Over

‘Thanks, Davy. You’re up early.’

‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Me neither. At least it’s Friday.’ She went over and pushed open the door leading into the garden. ‘It’s going to be a lovely day.’

‘Is it?’

‘Sure. Look at the way the mist’s burning off the grass. This is the best time of year.’

I could tell she was making an effort to be cheerful after the calamity of yesterday evening, but I gave her a chance anyway. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened last night, Astrid.’ She shrugged, but I kept on: ‘If you want to know, I think Owen was an idiot and -’

‘But I don’t want to know,’ she said firmly, coolly.

There. Her last chance was gone. She didn’t realize what she had done. My cheeks flushed.

‘Toast?’ I managed to say.

‘I’ll grab something later. Have a good day.’

‘Right. Um, you too, Astrid. Take care on that bike of yours.’

‘I don’t have a bike any more,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Borrow Campbell ’s. Again.’

‘I’m going to do some shopping and then I’m seeing Mel,’ I said. ‘Do you need anything?’

She laughed and shook her head. ‘Sorry if I snapped just then.’ She smiled at me sweetly, and then she was gone, striding out of the kitchen and taking the stairs two at a time. I heard her opening the door, then closing it behind her.

I stayed where I was. I saw Miles leave, without even his usual cup of tea. I made coffee for Pippa when she emerged, dainty and demure. Leah strode into the room, all business and briskness: dark brown wrap dress, discreet eyeshadow, slim briefcase, generally contemptuous.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

She paid no attention.

‘Coffee? No milk, right?’

She started slicing an apple into a bowl, then added a handful of bran and a spoonful of yoghurt.

‘Healthy,’ I said.

She didn’t reply.

‘Busy day at the office today, then, Leah?’

‘Very,’ she said, despatching the sawdusty mess into her mouth.

‘There all day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you all right about yesterday?’

She stopped and looked at me. ‘How could I possibly be?’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘Don’t get me started,’ she said, standing up and rinsing her bowl in the sink. ‘I’ll be off, then.’

‘See you later.’

‘Maybe.’

And she was gone too.

I went back upstairs. Dario and Mick were still in bed, but I could hear Owen moving around in his room – which was probably lucky for him, because, in my mood, I could have changed my mind and chosen him instead, to pay him back for getting his grubby hands on my Astrid. I put on my gloves and rummaged in the back of my underwear drawer for the little tissue parcel of Ingrid de Soto ’s earring. I took out the paperweight and Ingrid’s invitation, and pulled Peggy Farrell’s dainty watch and necklace from a balled-up pair of black socks in the same drawer. So much information. All these carrots that I was dangling in front of their stupid noses. I polished them with a tissue, wiping them clean. I went down the stairs as silently as possible and entered Miles’s room, closing the door behind me. I shook the earring into a matchbox with only a few matches in it and put it on his mantelpiece; pushed Peggy’s stuff into a pair of his socks instead. Nice symmetry, I thought. I put the paperweight inside one of his shoes. I heard Owen coming down the stairs towards the kitchen and stayed still for a moment. By the bed was a black notebook. I knew it was Miles’s address book because I had copied Leah’s address out of it days earlier. I tucked Ingrid de Soto ’s invitation into it, like a bookmark. Was it too blatant? When I was confident that nobody was around, I returned to my room to collect my jacket, checking to make sure that Leah’s key was in the pocket. Time to go.

Leah’s house was already up for sale. To my irritation, the nearest public phone box wasn’t working, so I had to walk for about ten minutes to find another one. I called Campbell at his office and when he answered, said, ‘Hello, is this the messenger service?’

‘That’s right. How can we help?’

‘I looked you up in the Yellow Pages. I want a parcel collected, please. As quickly as possible.’

‘Where are you?’

I gave him Leah’s address.

‘And where’s it going to?’

‘Holborn,’ I said, feeling the cogs in my brain spinning.

‘House or flat?’

‘House. There’s a bell. But I have a request to make. I won’t be there, I’ve got to leave at once, but my wife will be in. Now I hope you don’t think this is odd, but she hasn’t been well, and I think she’d feel much safer if you could send a female messenger. Would that be possible?’

Campbell was clearly irritated by this and tried to insist it didn’t matter but I played the part of the neurotically concerned husband, and I was the customer and the customer is always right, and Campbell finally admitted that, yes, he did have a female messenger and, yes, he would send her. My wife would have to wait a bit longer. That would be fine, I said, fine. My wife had nothing else to do.

Leah lived in a terraced house in Kentish Town. It was smaller than the house in Maitland Road but it still looked too big for one person. As I let myself in, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Could there be lodgers? House guests? But I knew there weren’t. She’d talked about living alone. Miles had talked about her rattling around in her huge empty mansion. How could she afford it? Where did these people get their money from? Rich parents, probably. It didn’t matter. I had other things to think about.

I looked around her hallway. I needed to find something heavy. Astrid wasn’t like Ingrid de Soto. She was tall and strong, stronger than me, probably. But a blow from a heavy object would take anyone down.

Leah was in the process of moving out. Paintings had been taken down and were leaning on the walls ready to be hung in Maitland Road. I walked through to the kitchen at the back of house. There was a small patio behind. I pulled open a couple of drawers and found a breadknife. That would do for afterwards. But I couldn’t find the right heavy object. I walked back and into the living room. A rug was rolled up. On a coffee-table there was a piece of lined paper headed ‘To Do’, followed by a list of items, each one neatly ticked off. Bloody Leah.

On the mantelpiece I found what I was looking for. There was a small symbolic-looking sculpture, a rock with a hole in it and in the hole was a bronze figurine. I weighed it in my palm, felt its cool, rough mass. It was perfect.

I returned to the hallway and sat on the stairs. I placed the breadknife on the step and balanced the sculpture in my hands, moving it from one to the other, and waited. I could feel my heart beating fast, I could feel it in my chest and arms and legs and throbbing through my ears. All it would take was this one decisive act, the removal of the person who could betray me, and I’d be free.

I had little sense of time passing, but it felt quicker than I’d expected when I heard footsteps outside and saw an outline through the frosted glass of the front door. I stepped forward, holding the sculpture in my right hand. There would be a ring at the door, I’d open it with my left hand from behind the door so Astrid wouldn’t see me, she’d step inside, push the door shut, a single blow.

But the bell didn’t ring. I heard some fumbling and then there was the rattle of a key in the lock. I froze. I was unable to think or move. The door opened and Leah stepped inside. She shut the door, turned, saw me, and gave a start that was almost comic. Her eyes widened.