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

the courage? Had she done what I secretly wanted to do, even if I was unable to admit it to myself? After all, I had let Hayden hit me and apologize and hit me again and still I hadn’t left him. What would I have said if I had been told about someone who had behaved as I had? I would probably have described her as weak and pathetic. If it was a friend of mine, would I have had the guts to do something about it, to help her, the way Sonia had helped me?

With the other part of my brain, the automatic part, I played along with Joakim, nodding with him, seeing how the music would work for the group. But I couldn’t give myself up to it. There were the old reasons for that. The image of Hayden dead on the floor, which never left me. The process of wrapping him up and lugging him out, like something to dump on a skip. The thought of him there in the dark, cold, deep water. I would never lose that, I knew. But even so, it was over, and I finally knew the truth, and yet it was still nagging at me, spluttering and fizzing inside my head.

It was so easy to picture. When Sonia had told him to lay off me, Hayden would have been startled at first but then he would have become angry, and the guilt he felt, the recognition that he was in the wrong, would have made him angrier still. He would have started shouting, become incoherent and, as words failed him, he would have lashed out. He’d show Sonia—he’d show the self-righteous bitch what drove men to be violent. Except Sonia wasn’t like the others. She wouldn’t put up with it. She would fight back. Hayden was a coward. His violence was directed against people who wouldn’t fight back. There was no doubt in my mind that, in the way Hayden lived his life, he had invited something like this. It was just a question of when he ran into someone like Sonia, rather than someone like me. Hayden and Sonia, an immovable object and an irresistible force.

Joakim was smiling as he watched me play and realized I was accepting his idea, that we really would be playing this funny old bluegrass tune he had downloaded from somewhere or other. I had trouble with one fiddly chord change and he laughed.

‘Are you still deferring your university entry?’ I asked.

‘You mean, now Hayden’s dead and no longer an evil influence on me?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Yeah, I’m still deferring. All my life I’ve done things just because my parents thought it was the right thing to do. This isn’t anything to do with Hayden any longer, it’s about what’s right for me.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ll never forget him, you know.’

‘That’s good too,’ I said. ‘He rated you.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

Joakim hurriedly got his stuff together. I think he had tears in his eyes.

‘So you think it’ll work?’ he asked, snapping his guitar case shut.

‘It sounds good,’ I said. ‘As long as we can write an easy enough part for Amos, we should be all right.’

‘It’ll be weird doing it without Hayden,’ he said. ‘You’re probably sick of me going on about that.’

‘I’m not going to say it’s what Hayden would have wanted, because that’s the sort of rubbish people say about the dead, but it’s probably the right thing to do. We signed up for this. We need to do it.’

The moment I shut the door I felt as if a little explosion had gone off in my head, as if a gremlin had got into my stupid, non-functioning brain and done my thinking for me while my mind had been dealing with Joakim. Sonia and Hayden. Hayden and Sonia. It wasn’t any kind of answer or even an idea. But there was something there—something that had been worrying away at me. I tried to think hard. I tried to force myself to remember. What would an intelligent person do in my situation?

First, where was the beer mat? If you’re looking for a beer mat, the best place to start is in a pile of beer mats and there it was, the beer mat on which Nat had written his number. I dialled it.

Nat didn’t seem especially pleased to hear from me. ‘It’s been a bloody nightmare,’ he said. ‘There’s this detective, this woman, she doesn’t like me. They’ve talked to me about three times. The same questions. I’ve only got the same answers.’

‘You’ve got nothing to worry about,’ I said. ‘You’re innocent.’

‘How do you know I’m innocent?’

That was a good question. Too good a question.

‘You just wouldn’t do something like that,’ I said feebly. ‘You’re not the type.’

‘That’s not much help.’

‘Actually, I need help from you,’ I said.

‘From me?’

‘I went to a party with Hayden, just a few days before he died. You were there. Do you remember?’

‘Kind of. I wasn’t completely at my best.’

‘There were old friends of Hayden’s. One was called Miriam. Dark hair, big eyes—she was smoking.’

‘And?’

‘Do you know who she is?’

‘No.’

‘You were at the party.’

‘So were about two hundred other people.’

‘Could you find out for me?’

There was a sort of groan. ‘Sure, I’ll ask around. If I hear anything, I’ll call you some time.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘This is really, really, really urgent. What I’d like you to do is phone anyone you know and ask them who this Miriam was. Then you can ring me, or they can ring me. I’ll give you my number. Do it now. I’m going to sit by my phone and I want you to ring me back within ten minutes. If you don’t, I’ll keep annoying you.’

The groan resumed. ‘Yeah, yeah, OK, I’ll do my best.’

I didn’t just sit by the phone. I changed into something smarter, some striped trousers and a pale blue shirt. Serious-looking. I found a jacket and put my purse, a pair of sunglasses and my keys into the pockets. Just as I was wondering if