Authors: Nicci French
‘You’re going round in circles,’ said Langley. ‘You’re wasting Miss Bell’s time.’
‘Wasting time?’ said Kamsky, with a flash of anger. ‘There have been three murders. Your client is connected to them.’
‘She’s been perfectly willing to answer your questions at every stage. If you need any information, just ask her. Otherwise I think we should bring this interview to a close.’
I expected Kamsky to get angry, to shout, but he just looked weary. He turned to McBride. ‘Can you leave us for a moment?’ he said.
McBride glanced contemptuously at Langley and me, then left, slamming the door. Kamsky didn’t hurry to speak. He ran a fingernail between a gap in his teeth as if he was trying to remove a trapped fragment of food.
‘I hope your solicitor has given you good advice,’ he said. He pronounced the word ‘solicitor’ in a slightly sarcastic tone, as if Langley was only pretending to be one and I’d obtained him under false pretences. ‘You saw that the victim’s face was mutilated in the same way as Mrs de Soto’s.’
‘Yes.’
‘But we haven’t found the knife. Who did you tell about Ingrid de Soto’s face?’
‘No one.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll spell it out as clearly as I can, so we all know what we’re dealing with here. One, you bump into Margaret Farrell’s car door and a few minutes later, if that, she’s murdered. There is the minor detail that her body seems to have vanished for a period of hours, then reappeared where it was discovered. Two, you’re sent to collect a package from Ingrid de Soto’s house and you arrive to find that, just a few minutes before, she has been killed and mutilated. There is no sign of a forced entry, no weapon on the scene, and there is no package to be collected. Three, you are then sent to collect another package from a house, and when you arrive you discover that, just a few minutes before, Leah Peterson has been murdered and mutilated in a manner similar to that of Ingrid de Soto. Again, there is no package and no knife on the scene. You can’t blame us for wanting to question you.’
‘I know,’ I said wearily.
‘People behave unexpectedly under extreme circumstances,’ said Kamsky, gently now. ‘They remember the strangest things and they forget the strangest things. They do the strangest things. It’s almost an accident. It’s as if they’ve turned into someone else. They’re not themselves.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘you don’t need to do clever things to get me to talk. You don’t need to coax me into agreeing with some scenario or other. I can’t believe I need to say these words, but here goes: I didn’t kill Leah or have anything to do with her death. I didn’t kill Ingrid de Soto, or have anything to do with
her
death. I didn’t kill Peggy either. But I’ll stay here as long as you want. I’ll answer anything you want.’
There was a silence now, which was only broken when Kamsky laced his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and gave a huge yawn. ‘You’ll remember,’ he said, ‘back in those days when there were only two murders, we wondered if they were connected. It seemed possible, because of your – well, what shall we say? Presence? Proximity? They didn’t seem to have any other connection. Only you.’
‘Is there a question coming?’ asked Langley.
‘And now we have the murder of Leah Peterson. It’s as if God has opened the clouds and is yelling down at me personally, saying; “You want a connection? All right, here’s a fucking connection you can’t miss.”’
‘Please,’ said Langley.
‘I suppose I ought to be careful,’ said Kamsky. ‘I don’t want to get on the wrong side of you.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Look at the evidence. Margaret Farrell injures you –’
‘She didn’t injure me.’
‘Ingrid de Soto irritates you.’
‘She didn’t irritate me. I didn’t really know her.’
‘And you have a falling-out with Leah.’
‘Everyone fell out with Leah.’
‘Two alternatives strike me,’ said Kamsky. ‘Either you killed these women, which doesn’t seem very likely, or someone wanted you to find them. I take it you won’t mind if we go through your room?’
Langley gestured Kamsky away, then leaned close to me so that he could speak in a whisper. ‘Think before agreeing to this,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to let them go on a fishing expedition. But they’ll get a warrant.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.
‘You’re sure there is nothing in your possession that might be problematic?’
I shook my head and spoke directly to Kamsky. ‘Just tidy up after you,’ I said.
Chapter Twenty
When I was dropped back at the house, dazed from the repetition of my story, I felt like a traveller who had returned home after many years to find everything different. Mick was in the hall when I arrived. He looked at me with concern. ‘Police?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They’ll be wanting to talk to all of you in the house. So you’d better come up with a good story about where you were at about ten this morning.’
‘I didn’t get in until three,’ said Mick. ‘So I was asleep.’
‘Can anyone vouch for that?’
‘No.’
‘That’s not exactly watertight.’
‘I’ll see you,’ said Mick, and walked past me out of the front door.
I knocked on Pippa’s door and she waved me inside without a word. She took a half-bottle of Scotch and a tumbler from a shelf, then glanced around. There was another tumbler on her desk, next to her opened laptop. It was filled with pens, pencils, a chain of paperclips. She emptied them out with a clatter. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll have this one.’
She pulled the front of her T-shirt out from under her belt and used it to wipe the tumbler. Then she tipped Scotch into both. ‘Water?’ she said.
‘This’ll do fine,’ I said.
‘I’m tempted to say that we need clear heads,’ said Pippa. ‘But on second thoughts, I don’t see the point. Cheers.’
We gulped at the Scotch a little too deeply and both flinched, as if in pain, at the same time. Pippa smiled. ‘Was Seth all right?’
‘He spent half his time trying to shut me up. But thanks. What’s happening?’
‘Gnashing of teeth,’ said Pippa. ‘Wailing. Rending of garments. What do you expect?’
‘Who’s in?’
‘I came home early. I haven’t seen Mick or Owen, though I believe they’re both here somewhere. Miles was around, looking like a ghost. Whimpering. Dario freaked out. I went up to see him and he was scrubbing his room with bleach, terrified that Forensics were going to find traces of drugs. I tried to explain that the police would find traces of bleach more suspicious. He started raving about what he should do to get rid of the bleach. I stumbled on Mel sobbing in the kitchen with Davy comforting her. That’s suspicious behaviour for a start. Anyone who’s upset about Leah really must have a screw loose.’
‘Pippa, for Christ’s sake,’ I said, ‘she was murdered today. You can’t mean that.’
Pippa took a sip of her drink. She didn’t seem particularly chastened by what I’d said. ‘It’s a strange kind of guilt,’ she said. ‘You wish someone ill and they get more ill than you wanted.’
‘I know.’
Pippa lit a cigarette and took a drag. ‘I’m sorry she died,’ she said. ‘And shocked. But I’m not going to pretend I didn’t hate her.’
‘Don’t you think life’s too short to waste on hating people?’
‘That’s a bit Zen for me,’ said Pippa.
‘Were the police round?’
‘A couple of officers were holed up with Miles for ages. They left just before you arrived. They’ll be interviewing the rest of us tomorrow. Unsurprisingly.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ve been planning my alibi. I was at work. What’s yours?’
‘It’s that I found her body but didn’t kill her.’
‘Your friend Campbell phoned. They pulled him in for questioning too.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s the one who keeps sending you to stumble over corpses.’
‘I don’t think he has much of a motive,’ I said, ‘except for hating the clients. Which we all do. Anyway, that doesn’t explain Peggy Farrell.’
‘All roads lead to this house,’ said Pippa.
‘Except for Ingrid de Soto.’
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’ said Pippa, thoughtfully. ‘The only thing they have in common is you. Do you think someone is killing people who get on your nerves? As a sort of favour?’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But the police are already on to that one.’
I looked down at the tumbler. It was empty. How had I managed that?
‘What’s going to happen?’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’ said Pippa. ‘To us? To the world?’
‘Us. This house.’
‘I’m going to pack tomorrow,’ said Pippa.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’
‘I’m making inquiries. By the way, I’m sorry.’
‘What about?’
‘Owen.’
‘Oh, that. It all seems a long time ago. You slept with Owen, I slept with Owen. What’s to apologize about?’
I walked into the kitchen and saw Davy, Mel and Miles in a huddle around the table.
‘Was it horrible?’ asked Davy.
‘Next stupid question,’ I said.
‘The police are going to talk to all of us,’ said Mel.
‘I know.’
‘We were shopping,’ she said. ‘Will they want to know that?’
‘I’m sure they will. Anyway, that lets you off the hook,’ I said. I really wasn’t interested in hearing everybody’s alibis.
Miles stood up. He looked years older; his face had lines and creases in it that I’d never seen before. I walked over to him and hugged him hard. His arms went round me, and as he held me, I felt his entire body shake. After a few moments we stepped back from each other. He started to speak but his voice cracked and he didn’t manage anything intelligible.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.
Miles stared at me, still unable to speak. He swallowed. ‘Our last words were bitter ones,’ he said. ‘Whenever I try and remember her, I think of that.’
‘It’s not the last moments that count,’ I said helplessly. ‘It’s all of it.’
He shook his head from side to side, like a wounded animal. ‘You saw her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she look…?’ He stopped.
‘She looked quite peaceful,’ I said, as I had said to Andrew de Soto about Ingrid. It’s what you’re meant to say about dead people. It comforts the living, supposedly.
‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’ Tears welled in his eyes. ‘She was so… so alive. So forceful.’
‘That’s true.’
‘I’ve got something for you.’ He tugged a fat envelope out of his pocket and looked at it as if he was surprised to see it, then glanced at Davy and Mel. ‘I wanted to ask you a favour.’
‘Of course, Miles.’
‘Not here,’ he said. He led me out of the kitchen and up the stairs. When we reached the hallway he took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know if everything has changed. I can’t think properly. But I’ve done this. Leah said I had to. It was the last thing she said, almost. It was what we were arguing about.’
‘What? What is it?’
‘Here,’ he said. He pushed the envelope into my hands.
I opened it and saw it was bulging with money. I looked more closely: they were fifty-pound notes. Lots of them, thick like a paperback book.
‘What’s this?’
‘It’s the twenty thousand pounds,’ he said. ‘It’s for you all. A sort of down-payment. Maybe you should all stay. I don’t know anything. Take it anyway. I don’t care any more. I didn’t know who to give it to.’
‘I can’t take twenty thousand in cash, Miles!’
‘You share it out. I don’t care how you do it.’
‘But it’s ridiculous. I can’t walk around with all this money. I’ve never seen so much.’ Miles didn’t seem as if he was really listening to me. ‘I’ll put it somewhere,’ I said, ‘and then we can talk. You shouldn’t be thinking about this now. You shouldn’t be making decisions about anything.’
‘I feel like a murderer,’ he said.
‘Don’t. We all behaved badly but –’
I stopped when I heard footsteps on the stairs. I closed the envelope and Miles and I stood silently, like two people with a guilty secret, as Davy and Mel pushed their way past us.
‘Everything all right?’ asked Davy.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ I said.
‘If there’s anything…’
‘Yes,’ I said, too quickly. ‘Yes, thanks.’
Mick came past. He didn’t say anything, but his feet echoed loudly on the uncarpeted stairs.
Chapter Twenty-one
I returned to my room and sat on my bed and contemplated the envelope full of money. I lifted it to my nose. It had a sour odour as if the notes had been contaminated by all the unclean fingers that had grasped them. How many were there? I tried to do the sum in my head and kept failing, then finally got it right: four hundred fifty-pound notes in a plump, bendy, scary pile. I looked around the room. Where could I put it? A drawer, behind the books, in the box of tissues, under my mattress? They all seemed hopeless and then I thought of Dario, bleaching his room in anticipation of the police search that would be coming any time now. If I hid the money in my room, the police would inevitably find it and then what? Was it a crime to have that much cash? Would I be legally obliged to explain it? They might think it was the contents of the missing package from Ingrid de Soto’s house. Of course, Miles could explain what the money was for but, still, it wouldn’t look good.
I tucked the money into the inside pocket of my jacket. It was ridiculous. I couldn’t walk around with it like that. I could almost feel it hot against my chest. I needed to sort this out as quickly as possible, before everybody dispersed. I sat on my bed for a few moments, putting my head in my hands and trying not to see the faces of Ingrid de Soto and Leah – both faces beautiful and mutilated, with eyes that had stared accusingly up at me. I thought of Kamsky (‘You want a connection?’) and of Ingrid de Soto’s father (‘What do you know, Ms Bell?’) and my brain fizzed uselessly. If I was the connection, then how – why? If I knew something without knowing it, what could it be? Was it somehow, beyond the shores of my comprehension, my fault?
I needed to speak to someone. That wasn’t right. I needed to speak to Owen. No one else would do. I stood up from the bed, suddenly realizing how exhausted I felt – hollow and shaky with tiredness – and stepped out of my room, where I almost collided with Dario who was manoeuvring a large cardboard box along the corridor.
‘What are you doing?’ I said.
‘I told Miles I was moving out,’ he said, his eyes darting around him nervously. ‘I can’t be in this place any more. But he said I had to get rid of my stuff first. I said he could keep it but he didn’t want any of it. It’s going to take days, and I don’t have days. I don’t have hours. Anything could happen. Everybody’s after me. They’re getting me one by one.’
‘I’m not after you,’ I said.
‘What time was it?’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When you found it. I mean her, Leah.’
‘About half past ten.’
I saw an expression of intense concentration on his face. ‘I think I saw Mick,’ he said.
‘Mick told me he was asleep.’
‘I was doing stuff in the house,’ said Dario, frantically. ‘Everyone had gone to work. I met the postman. He made me sign for something.’
‘I don’t care, Dario. Tell the police, not me,’ I said. ‘By the way, I’ve got the money. I’ll give you your share before you go.’
Dario’s whole expression changed. ‘Really?’
‘I’ve got to work out the exact amount. By the way, have you seen Owen?’
‘He just got in.’
It took a few seconds of hovering nervously outside Owen’s door before I steeled myself to knock. There was no reply, but I pushed open the door. A travelling bag was gaping wide, with clothes spilling out. The doors of the wardrobe were ajar, revealing rows of empty hangers. Photographs that had been stacked along the walls were now in piles on the large desk. I sat down beside them, and idly lifted a few while I was waiting. Some I had seen before, others were unfamiliar. One, near the bottom of the pile, made me gasp. I put my hand against my heart. There was a sharp pain in my chest and for a few seconds I could do nothing but breathe raggedly.
The image was of the same woman Owen had photographed several times: perfectly bald, with a high-cheekboned unsmiling face and close-set eyes. But this time the eyes were shut. She was arranged like a corpse and on her face were marks. I stared while the image blurred, then resolved. Slashes scored firmly over her alabaster skin. Unequivocally like the slashes… Bile rose in my throat.
‘Hello.’
I spun round, letting the photos drop back on to the table and fan out.
‘Owen,’ I said. Fear was rippling through me and my mouth was dry.
‘You look done in.’ He gave me a smile that at any other time would have filled me with pleasure.
‘Yes.’
‘Horrible,’ he said. ‘I mean for you.’
‘You mean for her.’
‘For you. Do you want to tell me?’
‘No.’ I felt cold to the bone. Cold, tired, scared, wretched and sick. I wrapped my arms round my body and hugged myself.
‘Sometimes it’s better to…’
‘No.’
‘All right.’
‘Owen, I want to show you something.’ I shuffled through the photos on his desk, noticing that my hands were trembling, until I came to the one of the slashed face. ‘There.’
‘So?’ He looked at me, his face hardening.
‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I want you to tell me – to tell me –’ I found I was having difficulty in forming words; they felt thick and unwieldy in my mouth. I pressed my hands together and continued: ‘To tell me why the marks on this woman’s face match the marks on the faces of Ingrid de Soto and Leah.’
There was an absolute silence. His face grew grim, as if the lighting had been turned down in the room, and he stared at me.
‘Well?’ I asked at last.
He took a step forward and, though I shrank back, he grasped my arms so hard that I felt his fingers digging painfully into my skin. ‘What are you saying?’
‘They were mutilated like that,’ I whispered.
‘Leah and the other?’
‘Yes. Let go, you’re hurting.’
He dropped his hands but didn’t move away.
‘Nobody knows. I wasn’t allowed to tell. How did you know?’
‘Shut up for a moment. Let me think.’
‘You must have known. Unless.’ I stopped.
‘Unless it was me?’
‘Yes.’
He gave a sour smile. ‘You think I took the photographs, then went and killed a woman – no,
two
women to make them look like that. Do you want to make a run for it now, before I attack you too?’
‘Stop it, Owen. Tell me.’
‘What?’ He gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘Tell you I didn’t kill them? That would be enough for you, would it? A denial?’
‘They’re identical.’
‘You need to decide whether or not you trust me.’
Without knowing what I was going to do, I lifted my hand and gave him a stinging slap on his cheek and he reeled back, lifting a fist. ‘This isn’t about us, you idiot,’ I said. ‘This is about women who are being murdered. You have to explain.’
Owen looked at me. He lowered his fist, unclenched it, and took a step backwards. His face lost its hard look, and instead became weary and bleak. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re right.’
‘So?’
‘I don’t know.?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘The only explanation I can think of is that it’s a nasty coincidence. But I guess you’re sick of coincidences.’
‘If I were a detective, I’d want to know when you took the photograph. What day, what time.’
‘If you were a detective, I’d tell you I don’t know,’ said Owen. ‘I could tell you within a few days.’
‘Isn’t the time printed on the image?’
‘I don’t use digital for this. We were both shooting dozens of rolls of film, day after day. This one was taken…’ Owen paused for thought ‘… between something like the beginning of May and a week or two ago.’
‘That’s not good enough. Would…’ I hesitated and pretended to search for the name of the woman I’d seen in his photographs ‘… Andrea remember more precisely?’
‘I doubt it.’ He crossed to the window and stared out. ‘You say exactly the same?’
‘Pretty much.’
He picked up the photograph, looked at it, then said, ‘I guess I have to take this to the police, don’t I?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m going out now,’ he said. ‘I might be some time.’
‘Owen?’
‘Mmm?’
‘Who else has seen these, apart from me?’
‘Nobody. Not even my agent. Not even Andrea. They’ve been here in the folders.’
‘I guess it could be a coincidence,’ I said doubtfully.
‘Maybe it’s just the way men see women,’ said Owen. ‘That’s what you think, anyway, isn’t it?’
I frowned at him. ‘Do you think this is funny?’
‘No, I don’t. Why do you think I’m leaving?’ He gestured towards his overflowing suitcase. ‘You should leave too.’
‘You think so?’
‘There’s a curse on this house.’
I shivered. ‘Sometimes I’m so scared I can’t breathe,’ I said. ‘And sometimes it doesn’t seem real and I tell myself that soon I’ll wake up and none of it will have happened.’
‘So who can you trust? Astrid, who do you trust?’
I stared at him for a moment and he stared back. Something about him seemed different, darker than I’d known. ‘Terrible coincidences happen, don’t they?’ I said.
Owen took a step towards me and scrutinized me. It was as if he was trying to see something that even I didn’t know was there. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘But…’
‘About Pippa.’
‘Things like that don’t mean anything to Pippa,’ I said. ‘But they do to me, and I thought…’ I stopped and turned away from his burning gaze.
‘You thought they did to me too?’
‘I guess.’
‘If you need to know,’ he said, ‘it was before anything happened between us. I wanted you to know that. It’s important to me.’
‘I knew that,’ I said. ‘For what it’s worth.’
‘Right, I’m off to the police with this. Why don’t you start packing?’