The Other Side of the Door, Nicci French [new reading .TXT] 📗

her mane of auburn hair fell in a muss over her flushed face. ‘We’ll have to think what wedding present to get you. Something unusual.’

‘There’s only one thing I want from both of you,’ Danielle said, leaning forward so I could see tiny drops of perspiration above her upper lip. For a moment, I thought she must have a wedding list and that I would have to buy an electric kettle or half a silver teaspoon. ‘I want you to play at the party.’

‘What?’ Liza and I spoke at the same time, an identical note of incredulity and dismay in our voices.

‘I’ve been dying to ask you. Honestly, it would mean so much to me. And to Jed.’

‘You mean, play music?’ I said stupidly.

‘I’ve never forgotten the evening when you played at that uni fund-raiser. Gorgeous. It made me cry. It was one of the happiest evenings of my life.’

‘Not of mine,’ I said, which was an understatement. ‘Anyway, Danielle, we haven’t played together for—well, probably not since that evening.’

‘Definitely not since that evening,’ said Liza, with a snort. She’d been the singer and even then, nearly a decade ago, her voice had been hoarse from smoking. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like now—something like a rook with twigs in its mouth. ‘I don’t know where half of them have gone.’

‘And don’t want to know,’ I added.

‘Ray’s in Australia.’

‘You can get together again,’ said Danielle. ‘Just this once. It would be fun. Nostalgic.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘For my sake?’ she said winsomely. She didn’t seem to understand that we had no intention of playing at her wedding. ‘You only get married once.’

‘It’s impossible,’ said Liza, happily. She waved her hands in the air exuberantly. ‘I’ve got my sabbatical and you won’t see me for dust. I’m away for four whole weeks in Thailand and Vietnam. I get back just a couple of days before your wedding. Even if we could persuade the others, which we couldn’t, I wouldn’t be around to rehearse. Neither would most of them. It’s summer, after all.’

‘Oh,’ said Danielle. She looked as if she might weep, her cherished plans gone awry. Then she brightened again, propped her small chin on her hand and directed her words at me. ‘But you’re here, Bonnie. All summer. Doing your flat up.’

I don’t know how it was that I said yes, when I really meant no no no no. On no account. I don’t know how I allowed my lovely six weeks of pottering about between bouts of decorating to be invaded. But I was a fool, and I did.

After

I didn’t know what to do next, and although I understood that every second might matter, that time was running out, I simply stood in the living room, not looking at where he lay face down in the puddle of his own blood. I tried to think, but there were spaces in my brain where thoughts should have been. At one point, I put my hand on the bolt ready to leave, to run into the road and breathe in the night air, but I stopped myself. I wiped the bolt clean with my sleeve, rubbing at the smudge, imagining the spirals of my fingerprints disappearing. I couldn’t leave. I had things to do. Tasks. I swallowed hard. I breathed, in and out, as deeply as I could. It was difficult. My breath jammed in my windpipe so that for a moment I thought I would suffocate. I imagined my body falling, coming to rest beside his on the floor, my eyes staring into the tufts of carpet, my hand over his.

I got a plastic bag from the cupboard under the kitchen sink and put in my CD, the toothbrush and the wedding invitation. I started in the bedroom, where most of his things were. I had to do this right. I had only one chance. I found his passport in the drawer of the bedside table, as well as a packet of condoms, and I took both of these and dropped them into the bag. What else? I went into the bathroom and took his razor, his deodorant and his empty sponge bag. His jacket was hanging on the back of a chair in the living room. I felt in the pockets and found his wallet. I thumbed through it. There was a credit card, a debit card, a tatty paper driving licence, a twenty-pound note (that I’d lent him), a small photograph of a woman I didn’t recognize, a passport-sized photograph of him. His glowing eyes, his sudden smile, his hands on my body. Even now, with his body dead on the floor, my skin tingled with the memory. I dropped the wallet into the plastic bag. What else? He owned so little. ‘You,’ I heard him say, as clear as if he was by my side. ‘I possessed you, Bonnie.’ And I felt clammy and cold all at once, goose-bumps on my skin and sweat on my forehead as if I was going to be sick. I pressed my fingers against my temples to stop the pounding.

As I stood there like that, I heard the phone, not the flat phone, not my mobile, which I had turned off anyway. So that was what I’d forgotten. His mobile. I knew where it would be and the muffled sound of the ringing tone confirmed it. I waited until it stopped, then made myself go back to the body and squat beside it. With half-closed eyes I pushed my hand under it and felt for the rectangle shape. I wriggled my fingers down into the pocket and drew out the mobile. I didn’t put it into the bag, though. I turned it off without looking at who had called him and slid it into my pocket.

I looked down at him. At it, huge on the floor. Now what? Because I knew that I couldn’t do this alone.

Before

Keeping a class of teenagers under control is a bit like