Nicci French: Secret Smile

'I don't mind any of this,' I said. Polly looked puzzled. 'It's all crap. Brendan was always going to outwit me at something like this. If you're as good a liar as Brendan is, you'll always make someone like me sound like she's lying. I think you gave me good advice. I had to sign that document. So I should thank you for saving me from going down in flames. But I need to ask one thing: do you believe me?'

Polly seemed unwilling to speak.

'Well, do you?'

She made an unhappy gesture.

'How can I be sure?' she asked.

'Because you're my friend,' I said. 'If you were a real friend, you would know me and you would trust me.'

'I'm sorry, Miranda,' she said. 'Even friends get ill.'

I held out my hand and shook hers and said goodbye. That evening Polly rang me, cancelling our drink.

I went to a newsagent along the road and bought a pad of notepaper. The only shade they had was some awful sort of violet. But, after all, what did the colour matter? I opened it on my table. The first ballpoint I found didn't work. I licked it and shook it and held it under hot running water and then snapped it and threw it in the bin so that it couldn't cause me pain again. It took a lot of rummaging around in drawers to find another one. I made another resolution. When I found my new home, wherever it was, I would buy a hundred – no, two hundred – pens and I would scatter them around it like little chocolate eggs at Easter. I would hide them in drawers and at the back of shelves and in cupboards and behind books and down the back of sofas and in the pockets of my coats and jackets, so that I would always be able to find one.

I didn't feel in the right mood now. I made myself a cup of coffee and I disproved the saying that a watched pot never boils. I filled it with cold water and stood looking at it, in a dream, until I heard the hissing and saw the lid rattling. I held my hands around the hot mug, feeding off its heat, and stood by the window, seeing nothing. I turned to face my room. Soon everything would be packed in boxes and in storage somewhere and then later it would be unpacked and rearranged somewhere else. For the moment they looked as if everything was normal, but I already felt like an emigrant leaving my old life behind. But there were one or two things I still had to do, and this was the most important. I sat at the table and began to write.

Dear Naomi,

If you're reading these words, that means at least that you

didn't throw the envelope in the bin, so that's something.

As you probably know, if you give this to Brendan/Ben or to the police – it amounts to the same thing – then I'll be arrested and charged with harassment. That's what they told me. I hope you don't. I don't want to go to prison. But if you do hand the letter over, could you read it first? And I want you to read this promise as well: this is my last message to you. I'll never contact you again. It's up to you now.

I'm not going to attempt some defence of my behaviour to you. It would all be too complicated and this letter would have to be as long as a book and I probably wouldn't have the words to explain it, anyway.

All I can do now is to be as clear as possible. I've been accused of being a threat to Brendan. I happen to believe that it's the other way round. I wake in the night and every creak I hear, I think he may have come to finish me off. Well, that's not your concern. I'm frightened for myself but I'm even more certain that you are in danger. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but if things go wrong, the way things go wrong in relationships. I don't think Brendan can take it when things don't go the way he has planned.

What am I saying to you? I was going to send you a sort of checklist. Do you think he is telling the truth? Is he caring for you or controlling you? Is he being secretive? Are there hints of anger? Violence? Do you know what he's doing when he's not with you? How much do you really know about him? Do you believe what he tells you?

But this is all rubbish. Forget all I've said. You'll know.

You'll never hear from me again and I wish you happiness and that you'll never want to contact me. I'm about to leave my flat. I don't know where I'm going, yet. But if you ever want to contact me, I'll put some numbers of various people at the bottom of this letter. One of them should be able to put you in touch with me.

I'm afraid that I think you've had bad luck. But I wish you good luck.

Miranda

Before I could change my mind I put the letter in an envelope, addressed it to her care of Crabtrees and walked out and posted it in the box on the corner.

It's a rule of life that the way to find your missing sock is to throw away the sock that isn't missing. And if you want to know why you shouldn't post a letter, you'll realize it the moment you post it, the very second your thumb and finger release it. As I heard the letter to Naomi clatter down on to the other letters inside the pillar box, I realized there was another alternative I hadn't yet considered. With Brendan, there generally was. I had thought that Naomi might throw the letter away unread or keep it to herself. In either case I would hear nothing. She could give it to the police or to Brendan, who would give it to the police. In either case, I would receive a very unpleasant visit from a police officer in a day or two.

Now I thought of another possibility. Naomi would give it to Brendan and he wouldn't pass it on to the police. He would read the letter and he would realize that I was implacable and he would tell Naomi that it wasn't worth bothering about and he would decide that something would have to be done.

I stood by the postbox for forty-five minutes until a red van pulled up and the postman emerged with a large grey canvas sack. I told him that I'd posted a letter by mistake and that I'd like to get it back. He unfastened a catch on the side of the pillar box and emptied dozens and dozens of letters into his sack. Then he looked at me, as so many people had looked at me, as if I were insane, and shook his head.

'Hello! Miranda?'

His voice boomed up the stairwell, and then I heard his footsteps, taking the steps two at a time. I applied one last precise lick of gloss paint along the skirting board then laid my brush down on the lid of the paint pot.

'The paint's still wet,' I said as he came through the door, loosening his tie as he did so. 'Don't touch anything.' I stood up and crossed the beautiful bare room.

'Except you,' he said. He put his hands on my aching shoulders and kissed me and bit by bit all my stiffness eased away. I thought: how is it possible to feel excited and safe all at the same time; to know someone so well and yet feel there's so much more to know?

'Good day?' I asked.

'This is the best bit. I've got exactly fifty minutes before I have to get back to work. I've bought us some sandwiches from the deli.'

'Shall we have those in a bit?' I said and took him by the hand. I led him up the next narrow flight of stairs, along bare boards and fresh-painted walls, into the small attic room I was using as a bedroom, where a mattress lay under the window and my clothes were stacked in wooden boxes. I took off his jacket and tie and he unbuttoned my overalls and we laughed at each other because here we were on an ordinary Wednesday lunchtime, about to make love in an empty, echoey house. Light fell through the blinds in bars across the room. I hung his suit on a hanger for him. He tossed my paint-stained gear into a corner of the room.

'I'd like to stay here the rest of the day,' I said a bit later, stretched out on the mattress while he lay propped up beside me and stroked my hair.