The Lying Room

by Nicci French

  The evening was now a nasty blur in which a few moments stood out clearly. What she mostly saw when she tried to recall what had happened were the faces: Bernice’s snarling fury as she had shouted at Renata; Renata’s expression of meek bewilderment as blood streamed from her wrist; Charlie’s look of stony hatred. And then Mabel of course, always Mabel – smiling at Will, staring at Bernice, glancing placidly at Neve through the shining fall of her hair, demure and unsafe.

  Neve went into the Ladies where she washed her hands and face. She was very cold, and she felt dry and hollow with exhaustion. There was blood on her grey dress and a streak of blood on her neck. It was two in the morning and the night seemed endless.

  When Renata finally appeared it was well past four. Her arm was thickly bandaged and in a sling; her face was smeared with make-up and tears.

  ‘They say I can go home.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘It’s not good at all. How can I go home? You saw Charlie.’

  Neve nodded.

  ‘He hates me. He loathes me.’

  ‘He had no idea?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore. I can’t face him right now though. I’m too—’ She stopped and her face crumpled. ‘I’m scared, Neve.’

  ‘I tell you what – let’s find somewhere to sit and I’ll get us some tea.’

  Renata nodded. She was shivering. Neve put an arm round her and steered them down a corridor, through several doors and into the Reception area. Renata collapsed on a chair and Neve went to the vending machine near the lifts. She had enough coins for two cups of tea and a packet of ginger biscuits.

  ‘Get that down you,’ she said to Renata.

  They sat for several minutes in silence, sipping at milky tea and eating biscuits.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ asked Neve.

  Renata shook her head.

  ‘Do you want to talk about what happened?’

  Renata crouched over her tea. ‘I don’t even know why I did it,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I knew it was stupid. I knew Saul wasn’t in love with me or anything. But he made me feel . . .’ She took a shuddering breath. ‘I don’t know, he made me feel young again, and desirable. Does that sound horribly vain and facile?’

  ‘No,’ said Neve softly.

  ‘And then he had all the power, didn’t he? God, I can’t believe I was such an idiot.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He was the boss. So confident, so sure of his place in the world. In a way he represented everything I don’t like, we don’t like. The establishment, that complacency. He was the kind of man who always gets what he wants – and for a few weeks he wanted me. He even gave me some gold earrings – those ones you said looked nice – as a present, from that beautiful shop in Covent Garden, the one whose window we stare into sometimes.’

  Neve nodded dully. She knew the shop.

  ‘And then suddenly he didn’t want me anymore. He fell in love with someone else – though he was kind enough to say it was because he needed to save his marriage.’

  Neve didn’t speak.

  ‘I guess he thought I was fun. That’s all there was to it.’ Renata gave a small grimace, and added, ‘All there was to me. It was like I had no agency at all; I barely made a choice. I just went along with it. And then he left. What was I doing?’

  ‘I suppose it was about you and Charlie.’

  ‘Of course it was. I’m not making an excuse for myself, but we’d got stuck in such a routine.’ She took a gulp of tea and wiped the back of her hand across her face, looking so woebegone, thought Neve, like a cartoon of desolation. ‘We took each other for granted. Sometimes we could go for days without really talking to each other – just things like, pass the salt, have you put the bins out, there’s a bill to pay, where are the keys . . .’

  ‘Could you talk about that with Charlie?’

  ‘Maybe I could have before I went and had a stupid fling with a married man. Now he’s too angry and he feels wronged.’ She sniffed. ‘Well, he has been wronged. I’m the wicked woman. He won’t forgive me. Or maybe he will – forgive me, I mean. For the rest of our marriage, he’ll be on the moral high ground because he forgave me when I betrayed him. He’ll hold it against me.’

  ‘That’s not forgiveness. That’s revenge.’

  ‘So what shall I do?’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I want to go to bed for a year and not have to think about it.’

  Neve knew that as Renata’s friend, she should invite her to stay with them for as long as she wanted. But as Mabel’s mother, Fletcher’s wife, Saul’s other lover, and as the woman who’d tampered with evidence and was now in all sorts of trouble, she knew she mustn’t. She held her tongue.

  ‘So what happens now?’ she asked.

  ‘I have to go home.’

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  ‘I’ve got to do this on my own. What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly five.’

  ‘So it’s Sunday.’

  ‘Yes, it’s Sunday.’

  5

  The Garden Party

  It was still dark when Neve put Renata in a taxi. A faint drizzle hung in the air.

  Now what? She began to walk, not sure which direction she was going in and wishing she was wearing her walking boots. She needed to go home but home felt immensely far off, like a place that she had left long ago. They would all be in bed, fast asleep. She knew how they each slept, the position they lay in and the way their faces looked when they dreamed.

  She was tired to her bones, but thoughts spun through her, febrile and disconnected. She suddenly remembered that Whisky hadn’t been fed. And she needed to think about Rory’s birthday: perhaps they should all go to the Natural History Museum together, which was his favourite place. But of course, Mabel was supposed to be gone by then. Was that even possible now?

  The sky had become paler; the drizzle thickened. Neve realised that she was walking away from home, rather than towards it. Ahead of her lay the marshes. She slowed to an aimless drift. She was remembering what Renata had said about Saul: how he was a man who was used to getting what he wanted. Neve was sure there had been several women before the two of them; he was a serially unfaithful man. And she knew there would have been others after her. She had thought of their affair as a joyful escape from the distress of her life, but now it seemed tawdry. Saul, she thought, with his irony and elegance and laughter, Saul who had looked at her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world, was also tawdry, sleazy. And she’d gone along with it. Neve the mother, Neve the wife, Neve the worker and the friend, Neve who everyone thought was so straightforward and trustworthy. For a moment she let herself imagine everyone’s reactions when the fragile secret split apart and they heard what she had done. The disbelief and the glee: Neve Connolly! Who would ever have guessed?

  She came to a halt. The hem of her dress was wet and her shoes muddy. Rain dripped down her face. A heron was sitting on a post a few yards away, like a creature carved in stone. If she went to the police, they’d charge Mabel too; they’d put her in prison. If she didn’t go to the police they’d come to her, sooner or later, and the longer she waited the worse it would be. Her secret was like a monstrous thing, growing bloated in the dark. She thought of Hitching’s unblinking eyes as he watched her. What did he know? About her. About Mabel.

  The heron opened its wings, then slowly took off, batting its way impossibly upwards. She followed its flight. A thought dropped like a pebble into her mind and she stood quite still and waited for the ripples. Something about Bernice. What? Something Bernice had said. It was no good. She let it go and continued walking.

  She looked at her watch and saw it was just past seven. If it was a weekday, their radio alarm would be going off, the working day beginning. And at this thought, Neve felt that she’d been violently prodded with an electric rod. The alarm. Yes, that was it. She knew now what she had been searching for, and for a few seconds she let t
he fact of it fall through her, changing everything it touched.

  Yesterday, in the supermarket, Bernice had told her about the last morning of Saul’s life, and about the sex – the good sex – they had had before Saul rushed off to catch his train to London. That’s what Neve had remembered every time she had replayed the conversation in her mind: immediately before coming to meet her, Saul had made love to his wife. What had dominated her thoughts had been the picture of Saul naked with Bernice, entangled with her, just hours after he had been naked with Neve, entangled in Neve.

  She could still remember it. She could almost smell it. And it had obscured the real importance of what Bernice had been saying.

  Bernice had given her a timeline of their last hour. She had said that their radio alarm went off just before seven, Saul went downstairs to make tea and then returned to the bedroom with it. They had had an argument about a fundraising dinner – and then, unexpectedly, they had kissed each other, Saul had taken off his clothes and they had made love.

  Then – Neve pressed her fingers to her temples, concentrating – Bernice had said that the radio was on and that she heard the half-past-seven news. It was only when the alarm on Saul’s mobile went off downstairs that he had hurriedly got dressed once more and hastened from the room.

  Neve had also heard the news at half past seven on that morning. It had been precisely at that moment that the text had arrived. I’m free until midday. Come as soon as you can.

  At half past seven, Saul had been in bed with his wife. His mobile was downstairs. He couldn’t have sent the text.

  But he had to have done. Who else would have sent her that message? She made an effort that felt physical to wrench the new knowledge this way and that to make it fit with the old narrative she had constructed in her mind.

  She couldn’t. Saul had not sent the text.

  There’d been no caller ID, but that hadn’t seemed odd at the time: they had never phoned or texted each other, and anyway Bernice had made it clear that he had had several mobiles.

  But if it wasn’t Saul, then that meant – what did it mean? She felt dizzy and slightly sick. Her breath was coming in shallow gasps. Saul had told her, told Bernice, told colleagues at work, that he was going to the conference that morning. He hadn’t planned to be at the flat. Presumably he had dropped in to pick something up. Nobody knew he was going to be there. Nobody at all.

  Neve made herself concentrate. Someone who was not Saul had sent her a text telling her to come at once. Why on earth would they do that?

  There was an obvious answer, but it was farcical, nonsensical. She searched for another and couldn’t find it. Her legs shook and her stomach felt liquid. There was a nasty, metallic taste in her mouth. She clutched at her stomach and let out a moan.

  A man walked towards her dragging several branches behind him. He had long white hair and a patchy beard, and he looked old and grubby and melancholy. He stopped in front of Neve and said in a voice that was like a rumble coming from somewhere deep in his chest: ‘Can I help?’

  She stared wildly at him. He was like a figure from a fever dream.

  ‘No. Nobody can.’

  ‘My boat is up there.’ He jerked his head. ‘Come and have tea. Out of the rain.’

  Without waiting for an answer, he picked up the branches and walked away from her. In a daze, she followed him until they reached a small boat whose roof was piled with wood, and dying plants in their pots. Everything looked neglected. The windows were narrow smeared slits of glass. What was she thinking? She couldn’t go into that narrow, dank space with this man who looked like he hadn’t had a bath in decades and who might be a bit mad.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I need to get home.’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘To my family.’

  ‘I thought you were alone,’ he said and at that, she felt tears starting.

  ‘Thank you for being kind.’

  She turned and walked away from him and made herself breathe slowly, in and out, in and out, willing herself to be calm. She let the revelation settle until it was heavy inside her, and then said it out loud to make it real.

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be Saul. It was meant to be me.’

  Killing Saul had been a mistake. Whoever killed Saul had been expecting Neve.

  It felt like a moment of terrible clarity in a dense, dense fog.

  What had this person wanted with Neve? And why the flat? Nobody knew about the flat.

  Almost nobody.

  She knew. Bernice knew. Renata knew. Mabel knew.

  Neve walked towards her house very slowly. Every step was an effort, and she felt like an old woman shuffling along in the blustery rain. When she looked at her watch, she saw it was past eight. She didn’t know what to do next, where to go, how to continue.

  She stopped at the family-run Portuguese deli where she always bought cheese and coffee beans and spices, and sat down at one of the little tables in the corner, next to the shelves of mangoes and plums. When the owner came over, a burly man in a tiny apron, he tutted at her.

  ‘Neve! You’re all wet.’

  ‘Hello, Erico.’ She smiled at him, wanting to weep. ‘I got caught in the rain. Can I have some coffee?’

  ‘And a pastry?’

  ‘Just coffee,’ she said. ‘I’ll buy breakfast to take home to the family when I leave.’

  She opened her sodden backpack and pulled out a pen. Reaching across, she took a brown paper bag from the shelf and straightened it out on the table in front of her. She stared at the paper bag and then out of the streaming window. How long had she been awake? How many hours had she slept in the last four days? But if she lay down on her bed and closed her sore, gritty eyes, she knew she wouldn’t sleep.

  ‘Coffee,’ said Erico, placing a mug beside her. ‘Hot milk on the side. And here.’ He handed her a small towel. ‘For your hair. Or you will be ill.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s kind.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you look a bit tired.’

  ‘The morning after,’ Neve said.

  ‘And that bruise.’

  ‘I know. It’s turning yellow.’

  She poured the steaming milk into the coffee then took a sip. Oh, that was good. She let the warmth of it comfort her. Her mobile buzzed: it was her mother and she declined the call. Then she picked up her pen. She frowned at the absurdity, the enormity, of the question she had to ask: who would want to confront and punish Neve for her affair with Saul? That was the person who had killed him.

  Bernice, she wrote at the top – partly because that was easy; it would be the answer that cost her least. If Bernice knew that she was having an affair with Saul, she might very well want her dead – or Saul. And her steeliness and her control made it imaginable that she could plan it in advance, carry it out without faltering. Neve pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger for a moment, trying to work out the implications. Thoughts swam up from the murk of her mind. She wrote Text???? next to the name. If Bernice had sent that early morning text to Neve, she could have made up the story about her and Saul making love at the exact time it was sent, in order to cover herself, or even to goad Neve. She could have sent it from anywhere. From the flat itself.

  She thought back to the previous evening, when Bernice had learned about Renata. Neve felt sure that it had come as a surprise – and yet Bernice had known Saul was having an affair and she had implied that she suspected someone in particular. Neve remembered Bernice putting a hand on her arm, remembered the way she cast her those assessing glances. Did she know? Had she contacted Neve and told her about that last morning with Saul and come to her house because she didn’t know where else to turn – or because she had known all along and had lured her to the flat, but then come face to face with her husband instead?

  She realised that there was another person who knew about the flat and who had particular reasons to resent Neve. She wrote it down.

  Katie.

  Neve finished her c
offee. She went to the counter and asked Erico for another and then returned to her seat and her brown paper bag of lists. She hesitated then wrote firmly: Renata. She stared at the name. Her closest friend, her exuberant, outspoken, needy ally. Even suspecting her felt like a form of gross betrayal.

  She made herself consider it. If Renata had been dumped by Saul for Neve, and if Renata knew that to be the case, and if she was smitten with Saul – then it was at least possible. She could have texted Neve from some pay-as-you go phone, then waited for her in the flat. Maybe she still had a key. And then of course, Saul had turned up instead.

  The coffee arrived and she paused to drink some. Her feet were wet and her hair was damp and she felt shivery. Out of nowhere, she heard Gary’s voice from last night: this is what you do, isn’t it? What had he said next? It was like the merger. We were worried we were going to lose our jobs. You just seemed fine about it all. He’d seemed resentful of her, just as he had often seemed angry over the past weeks and months. Angry with the company, the management, anyone with money or security or luck. He was badly in debt, his partner was dying of MS, the world seemed against him and the future bleak. If he’d discovered she was sleeping with the enemy his anger could have got out of hand.

  She thought of him as a young man, small and quick-witted and full of energy; she thought of him now, thin-skinned and battered by life. She wrote: Gary.

  Then, slowly, her pen like a knife scoring letters in a rough wall, she made herself write the next name. Fletcher. If Fletcher knew about her affair with Saul, her betrayal of him, then he would be full of rage and also of humiliation. And Neve knew how humiliated he already felt by his lack of work and the fact that she was the main earner.

  Tears pricked in her eyes. For he was Fletcher, her life partner, the man she had got together with over the crazy weekend they’d all been remembering the night before. He was the father of her children. He loved her. She swallowed hard. There was a jab of pain in her throat and her eyes throbbed. Didn’t he love her? Or did he hate her because she’d been fucking her boss while he’d been sitting in his study failing to make his art and brooding on failure?