Nicci French - Secret Smile

Behind them was Brendan. He almost made me gasp, he looked so handsome. Everything about him was right. He was holding his hands together in front of him, slightly clenched, as if he were in pain but trying not to show it. His black suit was beautifully brushed, without even a hair or a speck of dust on it. He had on a white shirt and a rather gorgeous crimson tie with a large knot. His hair was tousled, which clashed slightly with the care and precision of his dress, but that was appropriate too, as a signal of his grief and his passion, a note of elegant disarray. His face was very pale, his dark eyes were fixed in front of him, so he didn't see me.

The parade passed by and out through the door. There was some awkward shuffling and murmuring while we waited to be sure that the family members were gone and safely away. Last in, I was one of the first out, blinking in the sunshine. My eyes were dazzled and I realized that I was crying. In the church it had all been too intense, but outside I saw the acres of graves. For some reason the obvious thought that they had all been people once and that they were gone and that my friend Laura had now gone with them – it just made me cry. Crying again. My eyes were getting used to this. I felt a touch on my shoulder.

'Miranda?'

I turned to discover that it was the woman whose name I'd forgotten. Laura had shared a house with her in her first year at college. Lucy. Sally. Paula.

'Hello,' I said.

She came forwards and gave me the warmest of hugs. Kate. Susan. It was something quite common. Tina. Jackie. Jane.

'It's so good to see a friendly face,' she said. 'It's so long since I've seen Laura. I thought I wouldn't know anybody.'

Lizzie. Frances. Cathy. Jean. Alice. No.

I couldn't manage much more than a shrug.

'Isn't it unbelievably sad?' she said. 'I just can't believe it.'

'I know,' I said. I should have asked her name straight away and apologized. It was too late now. Julia. Sarah. Jan. Maybe someone else would come up and address her by name. As long as I didn't have to introduce her to anyone.

'Are you coming along to the house?' she said.

'I don't know,' I said.

'You must come,' she said. 'Just for a bit, at least. I want to talk to you.'

'All right,' I said, and we set off. She had a card with the instructions written on it. I had a moment of inspiration. I asked her if I could have a look at the instructions and she handed me the card. I turned it over. Written in pen in the corner was the name ' Sian '. Of course. How could I possibly have forgotten that? What a relief. Finally something in my life had gone right.

'It's funny,' she said. 'This is the first time I've ever been to the funeral of anyone my own age.'

'Yes, Sian,' I said, just to show her that I knew her name. 'It's strange.'

I didn't say anything about Troy. His death seemed something too precious to be brought out and bandied around in conversation as something interesting to talk about with someone I hardly knew and would probably never meet again. Sian talked about Laura and how they hadn't met for over a year and how she had heard about her marriage from mutual friends. They had just got married at the register office without telling anyone.

'She married someone I've never heard of,' Sian said. 'It must have been so sudden.'

I didn't want to say anything, but I knew that if I didn't it was an absolute certainty that someone would come up to us and start talking about Brendan and me and it would make me look ridiculous again.

'I knew him,' I said. 'It was pretty sudden.'

'He must have been the one walking behind the coffin.'

'That's right.'

'He was very good-looking,' said Sian. 'I can see why she might have fallen for him.'

'I'll introduce you,' I said.

Sian looked embarrassed.

'I didn't mean…' she started and then stopped. She seemed unable to say what it was she didn't mean.

The house was crowded. It was a big party, though I couldn't see Tony anywhere, the one person I wanted to see and to hug. There was a table with sandwiches, boiled eggs, dips, chopped vegetables, crisps. There was tea, coffee, juice. I thought of Laura's mother superintending the preparations. She wasn't invited to the wedding, but here she was, just a few weeks later, organizing the funeral. I looked around for someone I knew. I still saw no sign of Tony. I assumed he must have slipped away after the ceremony. Laura's parents were leading a very old woman across the living room into a corner and helping her into an armchair. I considered offering my condolences and then thought how could I possibly without getting myself lost in horrendous explanations, and then told myself I ought to talk to them anyway. This argument with myself was still going on when I became aware of someone's presence beside me. I looked around. The face I saw was so unexpected that for a moment I had trouble placing him. It was the detective, Rob Pryor.

'What on earth are you doing here?' I asked.

He didn't answer, just handed me a cup of tea.

'I'd sort of hoped for something stronger,' I said.

'There isn't anything stronger.'

'All right.'

'I know what you're going to say,' he said.

I took a gulp of tea. It was scaldingly hot and it burned my mouth and almost everything else as I swallowed it.

'What am I going to say?'

'I thought you'd be here,' he said. 'I thought it was important that I head you off.'

'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'I've looked into this,' Rob said. 'Laura's death is terribly sad. But that's all.'

'Oh, for fuck's sake, Rob,' I said. 'Do you mind if I call you Rob?'

'Go ahead,' he said.

'Come off it,' I said. 'Don't insult my intelligence.'

'I know what you mean,' he said. 'I thought of you as soon as I heard. I made calls. I talked to the investigating officer.'

'Forget all that,' I said. 'Just think about it. I come to you with my suspicions about Troy. You pooh-pooh them. Fine. Then Brendan dumps my sister for my best friend and runs off with her. A few months later she's dead. Do you see a pattern here?'

Rob sighed.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm not very interested in patterns. Facts are stubborn things. Laura died by accident.'

'How many twenty-five-year-olds drown in the bath?' I asked.

'She'd been at a party,' Rob said. 'She was clearly intoxicated. She had some sort of altercation with Mr Block. She left early. She returned to their flat alone. She ran herself a bath. She slipped and struck her head while the bath was running. She drowned. The bath overflowed and, at just before twenty past midnight, Thomas Croft, who lived in the flat beneath, became aware of water coming through the ceiling, ran up, found the front door of the flat unlocked and discovered Mrs Block dead in the bath.'

I hated to hear him call Laura 'Mrs Block'. It was another way that Brendan had got his clammy hands into somebody's life. I looked around to make sure nobody could overhear us.

'That's exactly what he did when he and Kerry were living in my flat.'

'What?'

'He deliberately let the bath overflow. It's a message.'

'A message?'

'To me.'

Rob Pryor looked at me almost with an expression of pity.

'Mrs Block's death was a message to you'?' he said. 'Are you insane?'

'It's easy to bang someone over the head,' I said. 'Hold them under the water.'

'That's true,' said Rob.

'And it wasn't a dinner party, was it?' I said. 'There must have been lots of people around. In the house. In the garden. Were people keeping track of Brendan every minute?'

Rob gave an impatient frown.

'It's a twenty-minute walk from the party at Seldon Avenue back to their flat. Maybe twenty-five. Anybody who left the party to kill her would have been away for about an hour.'