Nicci French - Secret Smile

I looked at the piece of paper and I wished I'd never seen it. If I'd had a friend – a friend like Laura – sitting with me now she would have asked me what I was doing, and I would have said to her: 'I don't know.' She would have said: 'He's gone. Let him go.' 'What's it to do with you?' I might have said: 'I'm in a zoo and by mistake I open a cage and let a dangerous animal escape. He scratches and bites me and then he is gone. Should I just be glad and get on with my life or is it still my responsibility?' My friend might say: 'You didn't let him into the world. You stumbled into him. It was bad luck. He did terrible things to you and he's gone. What are you going to do? Are you going all the way to Chelmsford to see someone you don't know for some reason you don't understand?'

At that point I would have thought for a long time and I would have said:

'I wish that that man Tom had just thrown all this in the bin and that would be the end of it. But I keep thinking of those people back at the skating rink last year. They knew there was something weird about Brendan. And if they didn't know, they fucking should have. They saw him flirting with me and they saw us getting on. One or two of them were my friends and they should have told me about him.'

My friend would say to me: 'You're worrying about people you don't know, people you'll never see.'

And I would say: 'Yes. Stupid, isn't it?'

It was as if God himself were trying to discourage me. It rained all the way up the A12. and I missed the turn off because I was looking at the map on my lap. It was difficult to find St Cecilia's, a grimy pebble-dashed square building at the end of a row of houses, and I had to park in the next street so that I was soaked. St Cecilia's was a residential home. As soon as I opened the swing door I was hit by a smell of cleaning fluid and all the odours that the cleaning fluid was trying and failing to cover up. Nobody was at the front desk. I looked around. There was another door which led to a corridor. An obese woman in a light blue nylon housecoat was mopping something up. When she dipped the mop into her metal bucket it clattered, as if she couldn't see it properly. I cleared my throat and she looked round at me.

'Hello,' I said. 'Have you got a Mrs Block here?'

That was a guess. I wondered if Nan was a relation.

'No,' said the woman.

'Her first name's Nan,' I said.

'There's no Nan here,' she said and returned to her mopping.

I took the letter from my pocket.

'She's in room three, Leppard Wing.'

The woman gave a shrug.

'That's Mrs Rees. Along the corridor, up the stairs, first floor, along the corridor past the TV room. She might be watching TV.'

I went upstairs. There were three old women and one old man watching a cookery show on the TV. Another woman was sitting with them, but looking to one side.

'Is Mrs Rees here?' I asked.

They looked up, irritated at the disturbance.

'She's in her room,' said one of the women. 'She doesn't go out much.' As if this counted as going out.

In room three there was a bed and a chair and a table in the corner. There was a sink, a wastepaper basket, a window with a crack in the top corner and a nice view over a playing field. Mrs Rees was sitting in the chair with her back to the door. I walked around. She was in her dressing gown. Her face was directed towards the grey light outside, but she didn't seem to be looking at it.

'Mrs Rees?'

I moved into her line of sight, but she didn't respond. I knelt by her chair and put my hand on her arm. She looked at the hand, but not at me.

'I'm here about Brendan,' I said. 'Brendan Block. Do you know him?'

'Tea,' she said. 'It's tea.'

'No,' I said, more loudly. 'Brendan. You know, Brendan.'

'It's tea,' she said.

'Can I get you some tea?' I said.

'It's tea.'

'Your nightie?' I said.

She just gave a whimper. This was a disaster. I didn't even know if this was Mrs Rees. I didn't know if Mrs Rees was the woman referred to in the letter. Maybe she was a new occupant of the room. I didn't know if the woman referred to in the letter was really connected to Brendan. If she was connected to him, I wasn't at all clear what I wanted to know. And if this was the right woman, it was immediately obvious that she wouldn't be able to tell me anything about anything. In desperation I stood up and walked around the room. There were plastic dishes and cups, nothing sharp, nothing that could be dropped and broken. Above the table, stuck on the wall with tape were two photographs. The first was an old picture of a man in uniform. He had a moustache and a roguish look. He wore his cap at a jaunty angle. Husband probably. In the other a woman stood holding the hands of two children. I looked closely. It was the woman in the chair, years ago when her hair was grey rather than white. The boy, about ten years old, smart in his school blazer, grinning at the camera, was unmistakably Brendan. I took the picture from the wall and showed it to the woman.

'Mrs Rees,' I said, pointing at the photograph. 'That's Brendan.'

She frowned and stared.

'That's Simon,' she stated.

'Simon?'

'Simon and Susan.'

I tried to ask more questions, but she started talking about tea again. I tried to stick the picture back on the wall, but the tape was too old and dry. I just leaned it against the wall. I tiptoed out of the room and then ran down the stairs. The woman was gone from the corridor. I found her in a room behind the front desk. She was pouring water from a kettle into a mug.

'I talked to Mrs Rees,' I said.

'Yeah?'

'I need to talk to her daughter, Susan.'

'Granddaughter.'

'Yes, of course. I've got something important for her. Could you give me her address?'

The woman looked at me, her mouth half open. I wondered if she had heard me. But she started to rummage through a box of filing cards with her chapped fingers.

Susan Lyle lived at 33 Primrose Crescent, which was on the eastern outskirts of the town, near a cemetery. It was a row of beige and grey houses. Number 33 had closed curtains, a peeling red door and its bell, when I pressed it, rang out a tune: a few notes from 'How Much is that Doggie in the Window?'

Because I hadn't let myself think about what I was doing, and because I had imagined that anyway Susan Lyle would not be at home, I was taken aback when the door opened almost immediately and a woman stood in front of me, filling the entrance. For a moment, all I could think of was her size. She had a vast stomach that looked misshapen in blue leggings; her white T-shirt, on which was written in bold pink 'Do Not Touch!', was stretched across her bulky chest; her neck was thick; her chin fell in folds; her hands were dimpled. I felt myself blushing with a kind of shame as I tried not to look anywhere but into her eyes, small in her wide, white face; at the person beneath the mountain of flesh. In her grandmother's photograph she had been skinny and knock-kneed; what had happened in life to make her like this?

'Yes?'

'Susan Lyle?'

'That's right.'

I heard a child's wailing come from behind her.

'I'm sorry to disturb you like this. I was wondering if I could have a quick word with you?'

'What's this about? Are you from the council? They already checked the premises, you know.'

'No, not at all. Not the council, nothing like that. You don't know me – I'm – my name's Miranda and I know your brother.'

'Simon?' She frowned. 'You know Simon?'

'Yes. If I could just…'

I took a small step forward, but she didn't budge from the entrance. The wailing inside grew louder, joined by another more high-pitched shrieking.

'You'd better come in before they kill each other,' she said at last and I followed her into the hall, where the radiator was hot even though the day outside was mild.