Nicci French - Secret Smile

I phoned Laura's parents. I talked to Laura's mother. She sounded tired and spoke slowly as if she had been woken from sleep in the middle of the day. She was probably on something, the poor woman. Like my mother. I told her my name and that I was an old friend of Laura's.

'Yes,' she said. 'I think Laura mentioned your name.'

'I was at the funeral,' I said. 'I'm so sorry. It's a terrible thing.'

'Thank you,' she said, as if I had paid her a compliment.

'I wanted to get in touch with Brendan,' I said. 'I wondered if you might know where I could reach him.'

'I don't know,' she said.

'Is he staying in Laura's flat?'

'No,' she said. 'It's being sold.'

'I'm sorry for bothering you, but do you have an address for him?'

'We haven't seen him. He said he needed to go away.'

I couldn't believe that Brendan had left his parents-in-law without even a forwarding address. What would happen with Laura's estate? Would he get half of it? All? But these weren't questions I could pursue with Laura's numb, mourning mother. I could think of only one thing to do, but I felt a lurch of apprehension as I did it. I phoned Detective Inspector Rob Pryor and indeed he sounded a long way from pleased to hear from me.

'Don't worry,' I said. 'I've just got a simple question. I know you've become friendly with Brendan. I need to get in touch with him and I wondered if you could tell me where he is?'

'Why?'

'What do you mean "why"? Is it such a big deal?'

'You told me I should be investigating him for – what? – murder? Why do you want to see him?'

'Are you his receptionist? I just need an address.' There was a pause. 'All right,' I said. 'I've got some stuff he left behind in a flat he lived in.'

'Your flat?'

'A flat.'

'How did you get it?'

'What is all this?' I said. 'What business is this of yours?'

'I don't know what's going on with you, Miranda, but I think you should give it up and move on.'

'I just want his address.'

'Well, I'm not going to give it to you.' Another pause. 'I'll tell him to call you. If I speak to him.'

'Thank you.'

'And don't call me again.'

I put the phone down. That hadn't gone very well.

Why do phones always ring when you're in the bath? I left it for ages, but it went on, insistent, until at last I wrapped myself in an unsatisfactorily skimpy towel and headed for the living room, at which point it stopped. I swore, and returned to the bathroom where I stepped gratefully back into the warm, soapy water and submerged myself. At which point it rang once more. I got there quicker this time, trailing water.

'Hello?'

There was a short pause, during which I knew for a certainty who was on the other end. I flinched and pulled my damp towel more tightly around me.

'Mirrie?'

At his voice, just the utterance of that single word, I felt the familiar, choking disgust. It was as if the air were suddenly thick and dirty, and I could barely breathe. Sweat prickled on my forehead, and I wiped it away with a corner of my towel.

'Yes.'

'It's me.'

'What do you want?'

'What do I want?'

'Look

'It's what you want, I think.'

'I don't

'Or what you have for me.'

I clutched the receiver and didn't reply.

'Rob just called me,' he went on. 'I hear that you're looking for me.'

A kind of groan escaped me.

'You want to see me.'

'No.'

'You want to give me something. Something I left behind. I wonder what that can be.'

'It's nothing.'

'It must be important, if you're going to all this bother. Mmm, Mirrie?'

'A book,' I stuttered feebly.

'A book? What book would that be?' He waited and when I didn't answer said: 'Would the book be an excuse, perhaps? You just can't let go, can you?'

For a moment, everything went misty.

'Cut the crap,' I said. 'This is me. Nobody else is around. You know what I know about you. You know and I know you know and every hour of every day I think about what you did to Troy and Laura and Kerry, and if you think…'

'Hush,' he said in a soothing voice. 'You need help. Rob thinks so too. He's very concerned about you. He says that in his opinion there's a word for what you've got. For your syndrome.'

'Syndrome? Syndrome'? I just want to send you this fucking book.'

'The book,' he said. 'Of course. The one whose name you can't remember.'

'Give me your address and then piss off.'

'I don't think so.' I could hear him smile.

'Jesus,' I said, with a sob of rage. 'Listen…'

But I was talking on a dead line. Brendan had put the phone down. I gazed at the receiver in my hand, then rammed it down on its holder.

I climbed back into the tepid bath. I ran hot water and then, holding my nose, slid under the water. I listened to the booming of the pipes and the beating of my heart. I was so violently angry that I felt I would fly apart.

I came up for air with a thought that made me leap from the bath and run naked and slippery back to the phone, crouching low as I passed the window so no one would see me. I dialled 1471 and waited until the automated voice told me the caller's number. I'd forgotten to have a pen ready so I held the digits in my head, chanting them as I scrambled in the drawers looking for pen and paper. I jotted them down on a stray playing card I found, then dialled 1471 again, just to check it.

It was a 7852 number. Where was that? Somewhere in South London, maybe. It wasn't a code I rang often, that was for sure. I shuffled on all fours under the window, then went to my bedroom, yanking out the bath plug on my way. I dressed in baggy cotton trousers and a loose top and then started flicking through my address book, looking for those four digits, trying to find out which bit of London Brendan was in now. There had to be a better way of doing this. I found a telephone directory and ran my finger down the lines and lines of names looking for the area code. My eyes were starting to swim with the effort until I found it: Brackley. That was reasonably accessible.

What now? I couldn't wander around Brackley looking for him. Maybe I should call the number and – well, and what? Talk to Brendan again? I couldn't do that; just the thought of it made me tremble. I poured myself a large glass of red wine and then turned on my laptop. Two minutes, a couple of search engines and I was looking at the name Crabtrees, a cafe in Brackley. I toasted my perseverance with a gulp of red wine that tasted rather vinegary. I looked at my watch: 7.35.

Now that I knew it was a cafe, I did risk calling the number. It rang and rang and just when I was about to put the phone down, someone answered.

'Yes?'

'Is this Crabtrees?'

'Yes. It's the payphone. You want someone?'

'Oh – well, can you tell me the opening hours?'

'What?'

'The opening hours of the cafe.'

'I dunno exactly; I've never been in here before. It's new and I thought I'd give it a go – eight till late, that's what it says on the board outside.'

'OK, thanks.'

'It's not a pub, though.'

'No.'

'You can't get drinks – it's all cappuccino and latte and those herbal teas that taste like straw.'

'Thanks.'

'And vegetarian meals. Organic this, that and the other.'

'You've been very helpful

'Alfalfa. I always thought it was cows that ate alfalfa.'

I didn't stop to think. I poured the wine down the sink, picked up my denim jacket and left. No underground goes to Brackley, so I drove there, through the balmy evening. The sky was golden and even the dingy streets were softened in its glow.

Crabtrees was in the upmarket bit, between a shop that sold candles and wind chimes and a shop that sold bread 'made just as the Romans used to make it'. I drove past it and then found a place to park a few minutes' walk away just in case Brendan was around.