Jane Robins - White Bodies - A gripping psychological thriller for fans of Clare Mackintosh and Lisa Jewell

My sister, Tilda, was the person on show and she walked slowly up the aisle like a melancholy bride. I tried hard, really hard, to get inside her head at that moment, and I conjured up a spectacular array of emotions – from profound grief and loss, to exhilarating release and relief. But nothing felt right. As always, I found her confusing, and I was reduced to noticing her expensive clothes. The black silk dress, the tailored jacket, doubtless costing a thousand pounds or more. And I watched her take a place in the empty front pew. On her right, in front of the altar, was Felix’s coffin, under a cascade of white lilies; and to her left, on a wooden stand, a giant photo of his smiling face. A few minutes later, Felix’s mother and father slipped in beside Tilda and then his brother, Lucas. There was the slightest of nods towards my sister who sat perfectly still, gazing at the floor.

The first hymn was a thin rendition of ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ – but I found that I couldn’t sing. Instead I slumped against the back wall, feeling faint and nauseous, overwhelmed by the occasion. Not that I was mourning Felix, although the sight of his hunched-up, grieving family was upsetting. It was more that I was sick with knowing too much. On the day of his death, I’d waited for the police to turn up at my flat or at the bookshop. It was the same on the morning of the postmortem. And now, at the funeral, it seemed certain that police officers were waiting for me outside the church, stamping their feet to keep warm, sneaking an illicit cigarette, and that as soon as I stepped out of the gloom into the autumn sun I would hear my name. Callie Farrow? Do you have a minute?

SPRING 2017

1

The branches outside my window are spindly and bare, and Tilda stands across the room looking like a waif-woman, saying, ‘How can you stand it? All those broken fingers tapping at the glass.’ She’s opening the door, is halfway out. ‘Anyhow, I want you to come to Curzon Street this evening. I’m ordering Thai food and a DVD. Strangers on a Train . It’s an Alfred Hitchcock.’

‘I know that.’

‘Come about eight. There’ll be someone else too. Someone I want you to meet.’

The invitation sounds innocuous, but it isn’t. For a start, Tilda always comes to my flat for movie nights. Also, it’s unknown for her to introduce me to her friends. In fact, she rarely even talks about her friends. I can name only two, and those are girls she’s known since childhood. Paige Mooney and Kimberley Dwyer. I’d be surprised if she saw them more than once a year, so I’m curious and am about to say, ‘Who?’ but she’s leaving as she’s speaking, disappearing down the communal stairs.

At Curzon Street, I’m clutching my bottle of cider, knowing full well that Tilda won’t have cider. And I’ve brought brownies.

She’s waiting on the second floor, at the open door of her flat. Then she’s greeting me with uncharacteristic enthusiasm, kissing my cheeks, saying brightly, ‘Callie!’ Behind her a tall, fair-haired man is in the kitchen area, sleeves rolled up, busying himself with things in cupboards. He comes to say hello, holding out a thin hand, and from the way he stands, so firmly inhabiting his space, I realise that he’s accustomed to being there. Tilda gazes at him proprietorially, glancing at his hair, his shoulders, his bare forearms. She says, ‘Callie, meet Felix. Felix Nordberg.’

‘I’m opening a bottle of white,’ he says. ‘Will you have some?’

‘No, I’m fine with cider.’ I hold up the Strongbow bottle for inspection and take it to the kitchen counter, thinking that Felix seems to be in command of things. The kitchen, the wine. Then he starts asking me polite questions in a soft, moneyed voice that makes me think of super-yachts and private islands. Where do I live? Do I enjoy my work at the bookshop? I ask him about his work, which is for a Mayfair hedge fund.

‘I don’t even know what that means. Except that it’s a sort of gambling.’

He laughs. ‘You’re right, Callie. But our clients prefer to call it investing, so we humour them.’

I sense that he’s humouring me too, and I watch him pouring our drinks with precision, examining the label of a French Chablis, checking that the wine reaches the perfect level in the glass. And he’s careful with my cider, treating it like precious nectar, even though it’s in a plastic bottle with a gigantic red sticker saying £3.30. He hands Tilda her wine, and she flashes him a half-smile as their hands touch. Then Felix gets back to the kitchen cupboards, taking out plates and bowls, wiping them with a cloth and sorting them into piles, at the same time telling me how to short a market.

‘Think of it like this, I’ll sell you this plate for the current price of ten dollars, agreeing to deliver it to you in three months’ time. Then, just before the three months is up, I’ll buy-in a plate for nine dollars. You see? I’m betting that the plate market will go down and I’ll make a profit of a dollar.’

‘That’s an expensive plate.’

‘Felix likes expensive things,’ Tilda offers from her position at the end of the sofa. She’s decoratively arranged, her feet tucked up, hugging a velvet cushion with one hand, holding her glass with the other, and she’s observing us, wondering how we’re getting along.

I look at Felix, to see if he’ll say That’s why I like your sister, but he doesn’t. He just grins as if to say Got me there! and opens the cutlery drawer, taking out the knives and forks and polishing them. I don’t comment. Instead I ask Felix where he comes from, and how long he’s been in London. His family is from Sweden, he says, but he grew up in Boston, USA and considers himself to be a citizen of the world. I snigger at the phrase, and he tells us that he’s trying to get to grips with England and London.

‘What, queuing and minding-the-gap and apologising all the time, that sort of thing?’

‘Yes, all that. And the self-deprecation, and the way you guys make a joke of all situations, and find it difficult to accept compliments… Did you know, Callie, that those dark eyes of yours are enigmatic, soulful even?’

Feigning a serious expression, he looks right into my face and I feel embarrassed because he’s so handsome and so close to me. But I feel he’s including me in the joke, not laughing at me.

‘Whatever.’

I move away, hot-cheeked, and as I pour myself more cider, I think that he’s intelligent and funny and I like him.

Tilda says, ‘Come and watch the DVD,’ so I pick up my glass and head for the other end of the sofa, intending to recreate the movie nights at my flat, when we sit like that, at each end, passing brownies back and forth and making little comments like ‘Keanu Reeves looks sad in this,’ or ‘Look at the rain outside, it’s going sideways.’ Nothing that amounts to conversation, but enough to make things seem companionable, like we’re children again. But I’m too slow. Before I can establish myself, Felix has taken the space next to Tilda, making it obvious that I should be banished to the old armchair. So I flop down and put my feet up on the coffee table, while Tilda presses the start button on the remote.

Felix and I haven’t seen Strangers on a Train before, but we both like it, the chilling effect of the black-and-white, the clipped 1950s voices and mannerisms, and we all have comments to make as the drama unfolds. Tilda, being an actress, and some sort of expert on Hitchcock, chips in more than Felix and me. Hitchcock put his evil characters on the left-hand side of the screen, she tells us, and good characters on the right. I laugh. ‘So I’m evil, because I’m sitting over here, and you’re good.’