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

with keys in, which didn’t really count. All flats have phones and bowls with keys in, don’t they? She’d mentioned the guitar case. And I’d forgotten the little brass Buddha and the green bottle and the laptop, and there were various sculptures, which I remembered now. And the mail on the floor. Sonia was amazing. As I read through her list the room really started to take shape again in my mind.

‘I’m done,’ said Neal.

‘Now what?’

‘Now we need to go through the objects and work out where they were. Then you can try to remember which ones you moved and we can work our way back to where everything was when you walked in and found the body. Let me have a look at yours.’

I passed the two lists to Neal and he ran his finger down each one, item by item, like a small child who has just learned to read. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘Sonia’s way better at this than you are.’

‘I didn’t know it was a competition,’ I said.

Neal held our two lists, one in each hand, and studied them intently, first one then the other. He tossed them onto the table and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. His chair rocked. I worried for a moment that he might tip over and do himself a mischief. Finally he let it down with a bump. ‘I don’t even know why we’re doing this.’

‘It was your idea.’

‘It was a stupid one.’

Before

Hayden was crying in my arms. He was crying like a baby cries, he was crying the way he made love and the way he ate and the way he laughed—with abandonment and a lack of self-consciousness that astonished and moved me. I held him against me and I felt how emotion was making his entire body quake. He gulped and groaned and bit by bit he calmed down until at last he was lying still and heavy, like a dead man. I stroked his damp hair and bent to kiss his shoulder.

‘Do you want to tell me?’ I asked at last.

He sat up and used the hem of my shirt to wipe his cheeks. ‘That’s better,’ he said, as if he’d had a long drink of water after great thirst.

‘Hayden?’

‘Mm?’

‘What was that about?’

‘I’m hungry.’

‘Hayden?’

‘You were going to cook me that meal, weren’t you? You even brought your mother’s old cookbook with you. You’ve never cooked for me before. I like firsts.’

‘You might not like this one.’ I stood up and put on the apron I’d also brought—I was wearing a pale grey sleeveless dress I’d picked up on a market stall that morning and didn’t want to ruin it with my incompetence. ‘Sea bass with spices I’ve failed to buy so we’ll have to do without, and rice. OK? Don’t you want to talk about it?’

‘I want to eat. I’m ravenous.’

After

The phone rang and rang. In my dreams, it was the sound of bells. I was trying to walk up a hill towards a small grey church but was hardly able to move. I realized I was in a wedding dress, but one that was ripped, badly fitting and covered with mud, and I was trying to reach Hayden, who was standing near the entrance with water streaming from his hair and a rug around his shoulders. He was smiling at me, or maybe grimacing, but however hard I tried, I couldn’t reach him. My legs dragged. The bells became louder and more insistent, pealing out. I forced myself up out of the sheets and reached for the phone, fumbling in the darkness and still half tangled in the dream. I barely knew where I was, who I was. I found it and lifted it, jabbing at the buttons to answer, but the sound continued and I realized it wasn’t the phone after all. Someone was ringing the doorbell.

I stumbled out of bed and went to the front door, which I opened. Everything seemed unreal. Neal’s face, looking at me through the gap, seemed unreal, something from long ago.

‘We’ve got to talk,’ he said.

‘What time is it?’ I felt jet-lagged—perhaps I’d slept for many hours and it was the next day, but it was dark outside, or as dark as it ever gets in London, not even a band of light on the horizon.

‘I don’t know. Let me in.’

I stood back, suddenly aware that I was wearing just an old singlet over some knickers.

‘Wait here,’ I said in the kitchen, and went into my bedroom for jogging pants and an old top that covered me properly.

‘I had to see you,’ said Neal, as I came back into the kitchen and sat down opposite him.

‘You only just saw me. Remember?’

‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘You should have been sleeping instead.’

‘I was sleeping, and then I woke with a jerk. Do you ever do that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And it occurred to me.’

‘What did? Hang on.’ I stood up and opened the fridge. ‘I need something to calm me down.’ I pulled out a carton of milk. ‘Do you want some hot chocolate?’

‘No.’

‘Whisky?’

‘No. I need to keep a clear head. So do you.’

I poured the milk into a mug and drank it cold. ‘That’s better,’ I said. ‘Now. Why do I need a clear head?’

‘Look.’ He handed me a piece of paper. ‘Talk me through this,’ he said.

‘Am I still dreaming, or didn’t we already do this earlier?’

‘Go on, look,’ he insisted.

‘This is Sonia’s list.’

‘I want to check that our memories coincide on this.’

I started to read the list out loud. ‘Really, it’s all pretty straightforward. Sonia’s got more things because she’s got a bigger brain than I have. But I’ve no problem with any of it. I only have a problem with you waking me in the middle of the night to go over it again. Because I’m tired, Neal, I’m so tired that I feel as if everything’s fraying inside me.’

Neal leaned forward with his elbows on the table, rubbing his head with his hand as if there were an itch deep inside