Nicci French - Until it's Over

Pippa heard us and came out of her room. She seemed the most composed of anyone. Suddenly I saw how ridiculous Melanie looked, her cheeks streaked with black, weeping for somebody she hardly knew and couldn’t have cared for.

‘What’s going to happen?’ I asked.

‘How should I know?’ she said. ‘Miles is downstairs. Go and see him.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better if you did?’

She smiled. ‘No,’ she said.

So the two young lovers went downstairs and found Miles sitting alone at the table staring into the air. We made tea and opened tins of biscuits and sat and held hands and murmured and nodded while Miles babbled and cried and talked aimlessly. There was too much talk. It was too confusing, too much to keep in mind. I was worried I would say the wrong thing but I couldn’t think of an excuse to get up and leave him there. And then Astrid came in. She was wearing strange rough clothes: tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt that clearly weren’t hers. She looked exhausted and rumpled, yet she had the glow about her of someone who had been close to the action.

‘Was it horrible?’ I asked, then realized how fatuous that sounded and Astrid instantly told me so. Miles got up and I could see that he felt more intimate with Astrid than he had with us. He had made do with us because there was nobody else to talk to. He might as well have been talking to himself. Now, with Astrid, he let his guard down and hugged her and talked in a new, raw tone. We watched them curiously.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ he said, then looked round at us awkwardly and said he’d talk to her outside.

They left the kitchen and Melanie turned to me. ‘What was that?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s go upstairs.’

As we walked up, I saw Miles and Astrid in a conspiratorial huddle on the stairs. I heard – thought I heard – Astrid saying, ‘I can’t take twenty thousand in cash, Miles!’ But they looked round, saw me and feel silent. Shutting me out. We eased past them.

‘Everything all right?’ I asked.

Astrid turned away from me. ‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said.

‘If there’s anything…’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, thanks.’

But I saw the money in her hands.

Maybe it could be all right. Maybe I could get what I had wanted, after all. I had to keep calm, that was the main thing. Very calm. Not a single wrong move. I was scared to open my mouth in case I said something that would trip me up, and I had to force myself to meet anyone’s gaze because I thought they’d be able to see the thoughts that were swarming in my head. I could barely smile or grimace without worrying that it would be my undoing. It was hard to breathe steadily. Footsteps on the stairs made me giddy. Coming to get me. Knock on the door, hand on the shoulder. No solid ground under my feet. No clear view in front of me. But if I could grope my way through the darkness, if I could only keep my balance, I could still get out of this mess.

I had done all this, killed all these women – no, that wasn’t me, not the real me; it wasn’t my fault, just a stupid accident – and each time come away empty-handed. But now Astrid had all that money. I had seen her go upstairs with it. Twenty thousand pounds in cash. Astrid was in my way and Astrid had the money. My head still hurt, but it also felt as if there was an itch inside it that I couldn’t get at. Get rid of Astrid, take the money. But everything was the wrong way round now, because at any minute the police would descend on the house and they’d find the stuff in Miles’s room and I couldn’t blame another death on him, could I, not if he was in the police station? Shit, shit, shit. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Find another person as well. Owen. That was it. Serve him right. Get him out of the way. Me and Astrid in Brazil. But even through the wild duststorm of my thoughts I could see that it would be pushing it to try to find another fall-guy as well as Miles. Two killers in one house. No. It wouldn’t do.

Chaos in my mind; chaos in the house. People were packing and crying. Dario was bumping a large cardboard box down the stairs and talking to himself. Pippa was throwing clothes out of her door, until the threshold of her room was strewn with them. I opened my window and pushed my head outside, and I could hear voices filtering towards me from Owen’s room. Astrid was in there. She really shouldn’t do that: it only made me angrier. I couldn’t hear everything, only fragments of their talk. Something about leaving. Something about photographs. Photographs. I strained to make out more. Their voices dropped, then rose again. Something about Pippa. That was good. However much time passed, Pippa would always be there, that first lie in the relationship.

The photograph. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and swallowed hard. He was going to the police with the photograph, that was it. Everything closing in. I couldn’t breathe. No air left for me. Had to keep calm. Now their voices dropped again. A low murmur. I couldn’t make out the words. Silence. Were they kissing? Touching? Fucking? Were they? Who cared? It didn’t really matter any more. That was all going to come to an end.

Melanie came into the room carrying a mug of tea. Kind, sweet Melanie, sweet enough to make me gag. A look of womanly concern on her face, but she was happy now, I could tell that. She sat beside me on the bed and I buried my face on her shoulder because if I saw her expression of sympathetic tenderness I would have to hit her to make it go away.

‘Here, my love, drink this.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Everyone’s in shock.’

I muttered something. My mind was whirling. Astrid. Money. Brazil. I wanted the money. Anyone would want the money. That was it. She was everyone’s target now. Yes. The hiss in my head subsided, like static being gradually tuned out. Stir up the mud, I thought. Stir up the fear. Make sure everyone else felt the confusion and terror I was feeling now.

‘Come on,’ I said, jumping up from the bed and taking Melanie’s hand.

‘What?’

‘Let’s go downstairs.’

‘But I made you a cup of tea.’

‘I can’t just sit here.’

I pulled her downstairs, meeting Dario coming up. I nodded at him. ‘The police will be here soon,’ I said in a whisper. ‘You’d better be ready. They’ll take your room apart, you know.’

His eyes widened and he stared wildly at me, then ran up the stairs.

Melanie and I went into the kitchen and I sat her at the table. I could hear Miles weeping in his room. Yes, mate, weep. You don’t get it yet.

‘Mel,’ I said loudly.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you understand why I’m so upset?’

‘Of course,’ she said excitedly. ‘You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t shocked by what’s happened. Leah practically lived in this house. And in spite of everyone’s difficulties, she was so full of -’

‘No,’ I said, cutting into her drivel. ‘I mean, do you understand?’

I could hear footsteps coming down the stairs. Just from their light swiftness, I knew it was Astrid.

‘Don’t you get it yet, Mel?’ I continued even louder. ‘They think it’s one of us.’

I heard Astrid come to a halt outside the door. That’s right, my girl. You stay there and listen, the way I want you to. Call yourself free? Nobody’s free. They’re all part of a plan.

‘And that’s not all,’ I went on, over Mel’s wail of protest. ‘That’s why Owen’s packing his bag. That’s why Dario’s running round like a headless chicken. That’s why Miles was throwing up in the bathroom and putting those letters from Leah into the garbage before he’s marched off to the police station. That’s why Astrid looks completely distraught.’