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

they talked to me, asked questions. I told them everything.’

‘About you and Hayden?’

‘I had to. They were behaving as if they knew anyway, and I suddenly thought how petty and unfeeling I was being, worrying about my stupid little secret getting out, when someone has murdered him. So I told them everything—not that there was much to tell. And then they were really interested. They behaved as if I’d done it. And they asked about Richard, if he knew and how he’d reacted and was he the jealous type, and I think they’re going to interview him now. I know I did a terrible thing and deserve to be punished—but this feels as though the whole world is falling round my head. I slept with another man, but I’m not a monster because of it.’ She gave a violent sniff, and I put a hand on her shoulder.

‘It’s better it’s out in the open,’ I said. ‘Secrets are dangerous.’

‘They think I did it.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘Or Richard.’

‘No—they’re just following up all leads.’

‘Oh, Bonnie, I don’t know what I’d do without you to talk to.’

‘If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t have met Hayden and then none of this would have happened.’

‘Something would have, though. I couldn’t have gone on the way I was.’

‘How are things with Richard now?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, sometimes he’s very sweet to me and sometimes it’s as if he can’t bring himself to even look at me. As if I’m carrying some terrible disease.’

I nodded.

‘Sometimes he cries. Not in front of me, though. In the bathroom, when he thinks I can’t hear.’

‘Things will get better.’

‘Do you think so?’ She shivered and kissed the top of Lola’s head.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Nor do I.’ She rubbed the back of one hand against her forehead. ‘He seems a bit mad sometimes.’

‘Mad?’ Unease settled on me.

‘Wildly unpredictable, at least.’ She looked down at Lola. ‘You know the only good thing to come out of this?’

‘What?’

‘How I feel about her. I never get impatient with her any more. I just want to be with her and never let go of her. How could I have threatened all of that?’

‘These things happen,’ I said uselessly. ‘They take us unaware.’

Before

Even when you’ve split up with someone, it takes quite a long time for them to give up the rights they used to have over you. Except that in the case of Amos I strongly believed that he ought to give them all up immediately, especially the right to come to my flat unannounced and walk in as if we were still living together.

‘Is this something urgent?’ I said. ‘Because I was just about to go out.’

‘Where?’ he said.

‘You see, that’s the sort of thing you don’t get to ask any more,’ I said, ‘due to us not being together.’

Amos took a piece of paper out of the pocket of his jeans and unfolded it. ‘I’m not blaming you for this,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Disentangling possessions after two people have been living together is always a complicated business.’

‘We did this already, remember?’ I said. ‘It’s done.’

‘It’s just a few loose ends,’ he said. ‘I’ve been jotting them down as I’ve thought of them.’

‘Are you saying I took things I wasn’t entitled to?’

‘No, no, no,’ he said, as if he was trying to calm an over-exuberant puppy. ‘It’s just that we did it so quickly.’

‘What we need is to draw a line,’ I said.

He looked at the piece of paper. ‘The one-volume Shakespeare,’ he said. ‘I got it as a prize when I was in the sixth form. You couldn’t have taken that by mistake, could you?’

‘No, I couldn’t,’ I said, ‘due to it having a big label inside it with your name on, which you kept showing me and telling me about how you won it.’

‘Did you take my Steely Dan boxed set?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ I said. ‘Due to me being a woman.’

Amos looked hurt. ‘Is that one of those things women don’t like?’

‘Apparently.’

‘Oh, well, I may have lent it to someone.’ He went back to the list. ‘There was a small etching.’

‘What of?’

‘I can’t really remember. It had gone very faint. I think it had a windmill in it and a horse or a donkey. An aunt gave it to me.’

‘I don’t remember that at all.’

‘I had a blue bowl that my mother gave me. I didn’t think much of it but apparently it’s made by someone famous.’

I was going to say no again and then I felt a jolt. An uneasy jolt. I had an internal flashback of me putting the bowl into a cardboard box. I’d never thought of Amos as the sort of person who would own a decorative bowl. Or perhaps because I had been the only person who had ever got the bowl out of the cupboard and put fruit into it I had assumed that it must have been mine. Unfortunately, the first flashback was followed by a second flashback in which, with great clarity, I saw myself throwing the box onto a skip.

‘I haven’t got that,’ I said, quite truthfully.

‘It’ll probably turn up,’ said Amos. ‘Sonia’s got this thing about bowls of fruit. She keeps bringing apples and pears and oranges and then there’s nowhere suitable to put them. I must say that, for me, fruit should go in the fridge, if you buy it at all. Why put it on the table?’

‘Is there anything else?’ I asked, keen to move on.

‘Those green towels. Were they really yours?’

I thought for a moment. ‘Do you know?’ I said. ‘I’m really not sure whether they’re mine or yours. I thought we’d sorted it out, but if you want them, take them. One’s hanging over the bath, so you’ll probably need to wash it before you use it.’

‘And you checked inside the books you took away? Mostly I write my name in mine.’

‘Which is why I checked,’ I said. ‘But if there are any you want, you can take them back.’ I thought with a pang of guilt