Nicci French - Beneath The Skin

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure what I was doing there. It was probably stupid, but it felt important. I talked to Zoe’s friend, Louise. She was nice. It brought me closer to Zoe.”

Morris took a sip of coffee.

“Can you really care about somebody you’ve never met?”

“Well, you know, I feel slightly connected to Zoe and Jenny.”

“Did you see the news report about the landslip in Honduras last week?”

“No.”

“They recovered more than two hundred bodies. They don’t even know how many people are missing.”

“That’s awful.”

“It was a very small news item on the foreign pages of my newspaper. If it had happened in France it would have been a big story. If it had happened to people who speak English it would have been on the front page.”

“Sorry,” I said. “You’ll excuse me if I’m a bit self-obsessed at the moment. It’s the constant feeling of fear and nausea all the time. It does that to you.”

Morris leaned forward and put his coffee down delicately, on a magazine, as if the value of my crappy table could be reduced any further.

“Do you really feel that?” he said sympathetically.

“Yes,” I said. “I try to forget about it or cover it up, but it’s always there. You know when you’re a bit ill and everything you eat has a slightly curious undertaste? That’s what it’s like.”

“If you want to talk about it, that’s all right. You can tell me what you’re feeling. Anything.”

“That’s nice of you, but there’s nothing complicated about it. I just want it to be over.”

Morris looked around. Josh was still engrossed in the game.

“What are your plans?” he said.

“I don’t know. I had some stupid idea that I could try and look for clues myself, but I think it was a waste of time. The police have combed through everything.”

“What were you looking for?”

“I’ve no idea, isn’t that the most ridiculous thing of all? Looking for a needle in a haystack is one thing, but what about looking through a haystack without even knowing what you’re looking for? Maybe I’m looking for a bit of hay. I had a brief look at some of the police files.”

“They let you look at their files?” said Morris sharply.

I laughed.

“Well, sort of.”

“What were they like? Were there autopsy reports?”

“Mostly bureaucratic stuff. There were some horrible pictures. What was done to Jenny. You don’t want to know. I still see it when I close my eyes.”

“I can imagine,” Morris said. “Did you learn anything?”

“Not really. Oh, lots of information, but nothing that would help me. It was horrible, but it was pointless, really. I suppose I was hoping I would recognize something, some connection, that would link us: Zoe, Jenny, and Nadia, the three strange stepsisters.”

“You found me ,” he said with a smile.

“Yes. Don’t worry, Morris-I’ve still got my eye on you. And there was also the estate agent, Guy, who may have been a link between Zoe and Jenny. He seemed pretty weird. But I know a little bit about probability. We all live in north London. It would be strange if there weren’t connections between us. We must have gone to the same shops, we must have passed each other in the street. But that’s not important. It’s just that I keep worrying away at it in my head. There must be something. There must be. I talked to this psychologist and she mentioned some principle that the criminal always takes something to the scene of the crime and always takes something away with him. It’s a haunting idea, isn’t it?”

Morris shrugged.

“Well,” I continued. “It haunts me . I feel I’ve got it all in my head. I’ve got the haystack inside my head and I feel there are two straws in there and if I bring them together, maybe I’ll save my life.”

“Of course you will,” Morris said. “You mustn’t give up hope.”

“I sometimes think I should. You know what the real pain is? It’s the occasional moment when I have a feeling of what it might be like to get through all this and live a normal life and grow old.” I had to stop and pull myself together before tears started running down my cheeks. I was aware of a presence next to me. It was Josh. I poured him some coffee. “This evening has been a bit like that,” I said. “Something unexpected and casual.”

We were silent for a moment. Josh looked grown-up again, sitting on the sofa with two adults. We all sipped our coffee and caught each other’s glances and smiles.

“So what you’ve been doing,” Morris said, “is trying to make a connection between you and the other two women, Zoe and… er… Josh’s mum.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve been thinking about it-and would you mind if I said something that was really dumb but it was a thought?”

“Go ahead,” I said. “It’ll make a change from me prattling away.”

“It’s just that there is an obvious connection between the three of you.”

“What?”

“It’s a trick question, really, but who are the people you have in common?”

“Who?”

I looked from Morris to Josh. Suddenly Josh’s face lit up in a smile. “I know,” he said smugly.

“Well who? Tell me then.”

“I think you should guess for a bit longer.” Josh was actually teasing me now, like an irritating younger brother.

“Fucking tell me, Josh, or I’ll tweak your nose.” I held up my hand threateningly.

“All right, all right,” he said. “The police.”

“Has it been the same lot?” Morris asked.

“I think so,” I said. “But really…”

“Actually,” he said, “there’s a major flaw in my brilliant theory.”

“What’s that?”

“The first one, Zoe. The police would only have become aware of her after the first note.”

“Oh, yeah.”

We relapsed into silence. Suddenly I felt a small charge in the back of my head. It was the sort of thing I’d been looking for.

“That’s not true,” I said.

“What?” said Morris.

“What you said, that they only came on the scene after the first note.”

“What do you mean? How could they know about her earlier?”

“It was in the files. Zoe was in the papers just before it happened. She tackled a mugger in the street. She hit him with a watermelon. She was famous; she had her picture in the paper. The police did know about her.”

“I didn’t mean it completely seriously,” said Morris. “But still… It might be worth thinking about whether there’s been any strangeness about the way they’ve treated you. I suppose it’s just been the normal detached sort of police style.”

I looked up slightly nervously. I must behave as if there were nothing to feel odd about.

“Yes,” I said. “Just the normal sort of style.” I know I’m not a good liar. Is that what a person would have said who was telling the truth?

“Are you all right?” Morris asked.

“Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t I be?” My mind was now racing. There was too much to think about, too much to go over in my mind. “I mean, it couldn’t be a policeman, could it?”

“What do you think, Josh?”

Josh was shaking his head in puzzlement. “No, it couldn’t be. It’s just too weird. Except, I was… no, it’s stupid.”

“What?” I said. “Out with it.”

“I don’t know if you heard that before my mum… well, you know, they actually picked up my dad because of something belonging to my mum that had been planted in the flat of the other woman, Zoe. Who else could have done that?”

There was a silence like a dark cavern.

“I’ve got to get my head round this,” I said. “It’s like a crossword puzzle. I’m not intelligent enough.”