White Bodies: An Addictive Psychological Thriller

by Jane Robins

  “Not a boy! Let’s change the subject.”

  “Ah,” says Daphne. “I do have something I need to ask you about. I’ve been invited to a literary festival in Denmark. It’s a last-minute thing, someone dropped out. Anyhow it’s next week—can I leave you in charge of the shop?”

  She leans forward and, with her big, manly fingers, moves a strand of hair that’s fallen across my face and tucks it behind my ear.

  “Of course—my pleasure.” It happens occasionally—that Daphne goes away—and I like being in charge: the ritual of “opening up,” turning the three locks on the door, the feeling of being in command when the customers come in. But then I remember—Monday.

  “When are you going?”

  “Tuesday. So you’d have to do Tuesday to Friday, is that okay?”

  “I’ll enjoy it.”

  “I hate the bloody things,” she says, “but my publisher—Mr. Nearly Right—likes me to do them, and I’ll enjoy Denmark.”

  “Scandinavia—crime capital of the literary world.”

  “Yes, of course. At least I’ll be with my people. . . .”

  Because we’ve been talking, I’ve forgotten the mail that I’d put into my bag, and when Daphne returns to her desk I take out the brown parcel and unwrap it, and as I realize what’s inside, I almost start crying again. It’s Belle’s bee bag, with a note from Tricia saying “her mother gave it to me, along with much else. I thought you might like to have it.”

  The white envelope is still in my bag—and I know I’m avoiding it, the thought of it making me feel cold inside. Reluctantly I reach down, but before I pick it up, I’m distracted by Wilf coming into the shop. He ignores Daphne, and the books, and makes no effort to pretend he’s looking for something to read. Instead he comes straight to the counter, where I am, and he’s ruffled and bleary as though he’s just got out of bed. We’re eye to eye.

  “Three things,” he says. “One—I can’t stand all this moodiness. Something’s going on, and you’re not being straight with me. Two—I’m angry with you. Angry. Because you don’t trust me. Three . . . No, I’ve changed my mind about three. I’m sticking with two.” Then he walks out, with a brief “Hi, Daphne,” as he reaches the door.

  “Bloody hell,” she says. “You’d better find out what three was, sweetness. If you don’t, it will kill me.”

  But I sense a horrible finality. “I’m not sure I will . . . I think that was Wilf’s way of saying he won’t be coming back for another Jo Nesbø.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I bite my lip painfully, trying to suppress my emotions, and pick the envelope out of my bag. I don’t want to open it, and when I do, it’s with a ghastly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, partly reflecting my bad night, partly my row with Wilf, but mainly my anticipation of the contents. Tilda Farrow and Felix Nordberg, I read, will be married on the twenty-second of July at a church in Berkshire. I’m invited to the ceremony and the celebration afterwards at a country-house hotel.

  21

  I’m folding my orange scarf around my head, trying to make it look authentically Islamic. It takes a few attempts, and I only get it right after watching a hijab how-to video on YouTube. I put on aviator sunglasses and look at myself from all angles. Scarlet’s a genius—it really works—I’ve become a different person, and I’m attracted to the idea of playing a role, walking down the street in disguise. I dress in a loose-fitting blue shirt, and jeans with trainers. And, as I leave the flat, I pick up the bee bag to take with me.

  I feel self-conscious as I wait for the bus, even though nobody is giving me a second glance. And I’m worried that Wilf might come by—although the bus stop is several roads away from Willesden Estates and it’s possible that, if I keep my head down, he wouldn’t recognize me anyway. I’m nervous too, about Muslim girls spotting that I’m a fake. Maybe I did something wrong when I folded the scarf, or there’s some detail about my clothes that jars with them. On the bus a woman wearing a hijab sits next to me and I half expect that we’ll exchange a look, a moment of recognition, but there’s nothing, and I sit perfectly still, my arm lightly touching hers, reading my book.

  I walk the last part of the journey, and when I reach the heath, a path takes me through a wooded area, dappled with pools of shade, dry leaves and twigs crackling underfoot; and I pass people walking their dogs, couples arm in arm, mothers with young children; it almost feels as though I’m one of them—an innocent person taking an afternoon stroll. Then I emerge into the open and see Kenwood House, a white mansion on a hill, spread wide with an orangery to the west and a long, low library to the east. I’ve been here many times, coming with my book to sit and read, and as I walk up the hill, across the wide lawn, I look at the familiar benches in front of the house, hoping to see Scarlet’s red head scarf.

  I don’t spot her until I’m pretty close. At the last bench before the café, her head bent down, reading—not looking out for me at all. She makes a tight shape, clenched in, focused on her book, and I can’t see her face. And yet, I know instinctively that it’s her—and I think I would have known even if she wasn’t wearing the scarf. I had always thought of Scarlet as intense, somehow electrically charged, and that’s how she seems now. I draw near and she looks up, sternly saying my name. No hint of a question, just a matter of fact; no recognition that there’s an element of absurdity in our encounter.

  “Did you come down from Manchester today?” I’m trying to start a normal conversation. “Was it easy to get away from Luke?”

  “Yes, I came down this morning. Luke thinks I’m on a training course.”

  I look down at her hands, which she holds in her lap, resting on her book. Her nails are bitten down and there’s a roughness to her skin; not what I expected from someone who works in a beauty salon.

  “It’s strange to see you in person,” I say. “But you’re just as I imagined.”

  I thought my observation would prompt some reaction—maybe “Really? What do you mean?” or some comment about me, how she had imagined I would be. But she doesn’t seem curious at all, and while I observe her white, freckled face and stained red lips, she stares ahead at the lake and the heath, and the city in the distance.

  “I thought you wouldn’t come. . . . You’ve been disengaged recently.”

  She’s right. Before Belle died, I was having doubts about Controlling Men; and since her death I’ve found it hard to connect with anything—even important things, like the split with Wilf, and Tilda’s wedding.

  “Look at this.” She pulls up her sleeve and shows me three burns on her skinny forearm, raised circles of mottled red.

  “And you have more on your back?”

  “That’s right. Each week it gets worse—burns, kicks, punches. And if I run—what? I have to live in fear that he’ll follow me, that he’ll go mad like Joe Mayhew. And it’s no good thinking the police can protect you—they can’t.”

  “I know . . .” Then: “My sister’s marrying Felix . . .” Scarlet’s burns are stoking up my paranoia.

  “Fuck.”

  “What are we going to do?” I watch a man and his small son throwing sticks for a golden retriever. “Really, Scarlet. You’ve been talking about taking control somehow . . . but I don’t know what you mean. It seems so impossible.”

  The dog bounds up to our bench and sniffles at some crumbs by our feet. I stroke its fur, but Scarlet shivers and moves away until the dog runs back to the lawn and the sticks.

  “I have an idea,” she says, sounding tentative, like she hasn’t made up her mind yet about revealing it to me.

  “It’s going to freak you out, Callie. But do listen. Have a cool head . . . and think of the alternatives.”

  “Tell me. . . .”

  She leans forward, and a dark strand of hair falls out of her head scarf. She takes off her sunglasses and turns her face to mine, and I see how blue her eyes are. Deep set, with black lashes.

  “I’ll get rid of Felix,” she says, “if you get rid of Luk
e. We’ll make a pact.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do. I’m saying I’m prepared to destroy Felix, to save your sister—but you must do the same for me. Nobody will find out, because I’m unconnected to Felix, no motive, nothing—and you’re the same with Luke.”

  Her voice has changed—she sounds resolute, like she’s telling me what to do, not asking me. And I fear her answer to my next question.

  “What do you mean—destroy?”

  “I mean kill in order to prevent a killing. Kill in order to save a life.”

  I slump backwards, wanting to get my face away from hers.

  “That’s insane. It’s a movie plot, not real life.”

  “Think carefully . . . women die every week because they do nothing, because they let these fuckers take control. It doesn’t need to be like that, not if people like you and I are strong.” She lays her rough hand on my arm and lowers her voice. “You should know that Belle agreed with me, and look what she did for us.”

  She doubles up to reach a leather bag that’s under the bench, and pulls it onto her lap.

  “Here . . .”

  I look inside and see several syringes and medical-looking boxes.

  “I brought these to show you, so that you would know Belle was committed. She stole them from the hospital so that we could use them.”

  “I don’t believe it. . . . I don’t believe that Belle would do that.”

  “You have to—these drugs and these syringes are the proof. I have diamorphine here—if it’s injected in a vein, it will kill someone in minutes.”

  I feel myself collapsing into the bench, battered by Scarlet’s words. She’s so extreme, so crazy—and yet, as I look at her hunched body, her cold gaze, I believe she’s serious.

  “That’s not all, Callie . . . I know who Felix is. You’ve dropped enough hints and it’s an unusual name—and I read the papers.” She’s putting her book into her bag, preparing to leave, telling me that she’ll take care of Felix, and she’ll find a way of telling me about Luke, and how I can keep my part of the bargain. She turns to leave, and I say, “Wait, let me walk with you. . . .”

  “No. That’s all I had to say—we don’t need to talk further, not now. But take this, and look after it.” She pulls a plastic bag out of her leather bag, and passes it to me, then she walks off, along past the benches and right, taking the path that goes towards the parking lot.

  I look inside the bag, and see that she has given me diamorphine and three syringes. I take off my orange scarf and stuff it in the bee bag, feeling I’m discarding Scarlet along with it. She’s evidently mad, and I wonder whether I should go to the police. I wish that Belle was here so that I could seek her advice. Maybe she’d tell me to lighten up; that she hadn’t stolen drugs from the hospital; that Scarlet is a fantasist and the best course of action is simply to cut myself off from her. As I walk back down the hill and through the woods I feel suddenly lonely—Belle dead, Scarlet insane, Wilf gone—even Daphne is going away, off to Denmark.

  When I reach the bus stop, I throw the drugs and syringes into a bin.

  22

  I call Tilda. I’m suppressing thoughts of needles and diamorphine and murder pacts; I’m also ignoring her hysterical letter to me (that’s how I’m thinking of it now).

  For once, she answers her phone, but she sounds vague, as though I don’t have her full attention. As sincerely as I can manage, I ask her about her wedding preparations and say that I can’t wait to have Felix as a brother-in-law. I ask whether Mum’s attitude is softening (she’d been cold with Tilda, and asked her whether she “was sure” about Felix, and about getting married). Tilda informs me that, yes, “she’s coming to terms with it.”

  “She’ll come round,” I say, “like I did.”

  “Hang on a second.” I can tell by the muffled silence that she’s put her hand over the phone, and then she’s back on the line, sounding almost friendly.

  “Lucas is here . . . Felix’s brother. He’s visiting from France. Would you like to come to Curzon Street for supper?”

  “Absolutely!” The relief’s bursting out of me; it’s like Tilda’s decided to play along with my new approach. A life more ordinary.

  • • •

  I’ve been to a trendy shop in Hoxton and splurged, so I dress up in new black jeans and an apple-green silk top; I wear the suede boots again, and do smoky eyes and pale lipstick, and I set off. At Curzon Street it’s Lucas who answers the door, with an easy handshake and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Hey,” he says. “How does it feel to be tying yourself to the Nordberg clan?”

  His accent is broader, looser than Felix’s—he sounds properly American, sounding the r in Nordberg, whereas Felix always sounds a little Scandinavian, hard to place.

  “You’re the first member of the clan who I’ve met, apart from Felix, obviously.” I hand over my Strongbow (it seems like he’s the host) and he says, “Bold choice,” and pours me a glass. I watch, assessing him. His hair’s blond, like Felix’s, but thicker and wavy, and his eyes are the same shade of metal gray. Generally, though, he’s unlike his brother, wearing artsy clothes, having a brash manner and sporting a light brown hipster beard.

  Felix and Tilda are out, buying wine, and they return just as I’m saying to Lucas—“So you’re an architect, and you work in France?”

  Felix kisses me and says, “You’re so stylish these days,” making me feel like his special girl, just as he’d done at the Wolseley. Tilda does her usual thing—draping herself over the sofa, hugging a pink cushion (one of the few items that’s survived Felix’s makeover of the flat).

  “Well?” she says.

  “Well, what?”

  She sweeps her arm about in an actressy gesture. “The flat of course—what do you think?”

  I sit with her and she puts her legs and bare feet across my lap. “I don’t know . . . It’s a little . . . psychiatric. Or like living in a fridge.”

  Felix raises his eyebrows at us genially. “I think it’s wonderful,” Tilda says. “It’s so chic and well designed. The attention to detail is amazing.”

  “I’m sure it is . . . Where’s all your mess? Old Biros and bits of string and magazines and old electrical cables, all that stuff.”

  She flicks her wrist, like she’s batting away a fly. “Gone, Callie . . . all gone.”

  For a second I find myself identifying with bits of string, feeling their pain.

  In the kitchen area the brothers Nordberg are making a dish with squid that’s come from the market, and Lucas grabs a knife and lays the squid out on a chopping board.

  “Can I make a suggestion,” Felix says, and starts rearranging the squid, lining them up. “If you put them this way, it’ll be easier to remove the tentacles.”

  “Here we go . . . ,” Lucas says with a huff.

  “And then you cut just below the eyes, like this . . . and remove the quill.”

  “Hey, Felix . . . I know, I know!” Lucas leaves the kitchen and comes to sit with us, saying, “I’ll let him play head chef. . . . It’s his kitchen after all.” Then: “How do you deal with it, Tilda?”

  “Oh, he’s not so bad.” I detect a fragile tone in her voice.

  “Really?”

  “Well . . . he did give me a Power Point presentation of our trip to Martinique—before we went! What we’d do on each day . . .” We laugh, and Felix shrugs and says, “Okay, guys, laugh at me if you will—but it was an awesome vacation, wasn’t it, darling?”

  She purrs. “Yes, darling. And beautifully planned . . . I adored your Power Point presentation.”

  I squirm at the darlings and turn to Lucas. “Tell me about your work.” Tilda asks him to fetch his architectural drawings from the bedroom.

  Lucas returns with three rolls of heavy white paper that he opens up on the limestone floor, using books to hold down the corners, and I kneel next to him, immediately immersed in his confident fluid lines, delicate cross-hatchings, sweeps
of watercolor. It’s the design of a house that sits in a landscape of rolling hills, marked as Provence.

  “It’s beautiful.” I mean it.

  “The wood cladding is perfect for the setting,” says Lucas. “It will become silver-gray as it weathers—and I’ve stressed the relationship between the interior and exterior—this internal bridge crosses the double-height kitchen and leads straight from the living room to the balcony. There’s glass on the two long sides—to the south and west.”

  “And who gets to live here? You?”

  “Sadly not. I’ve designed it for a British couple.” He pronounces it “Briddish.” “It’s a second home.”

  “Another world,” I say. “Have you seen these, Felix?”

  “Oh, yes.” He doesn’t look up, and I sense that he’s being competitive—Felix’s squid versus Lucas’s drawings.

  “It’s my first house. Until now it’s been all extensions and alterations, and supplementing my income with teaching . . . It’s not built yet, though. We’re laying foundations right now.”

  “Drawings away,” says Felix, “supper’s ready.”

  Lucas collects up the papers while Felix puts his dish in the center of the dining table. “Squid with chili and mint . . .”

  “That looks wonderful.” Tilda’s being wifey, sending him a quick admiring grin. She circles the table, straightening the knives and forks, putting the wineglasses in exactly the right place.

  “Oh, look, you’re turning into Felix,” I say, and she flashes me hostile eyes.

  Over dinner, Lucas entertains us with stories of the couple who’d commissioned the house. “Corporate lawyers, more cash than they know what to do with; he’s monosyllabic, keeps his verbal brilliance for the courtroom, and she’s one of those tiny brittle women who has a session with her tennis coach before breakfast. . . .”

  “They have good taste, though,” I say. “If they’ve commissioned you.”

  “Yeah . . . That’s what matters. But I worry that my beautiful house will stay empty most of the year; they both work all the hours. It’s a building that’s been designed to be used, lived in. Still—I’m grateful—creatively, I’ve never been so engaged, so fulfilled . . .”