Until it's Over

by Nicci French

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We know. Do you feel dizzy, sick, anything like that?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Do you know where you are?’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got to ask some stupid-sounding questions. I’ve got to assess whether you’re in a fit state to be interviewed. So, you’re perfectly clear about who we are?’

  ‘I’ve got a rough idea,’ I said.

  ‘No, really. Do you know who we are?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  He looked across at Kamsky.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Kamsky, as if I wasn’t there.

  ‘It should be all right,’ said Bradshaw. ‘But I should be present.’

  ‘All right,’ said Kamsky. He looked at an officer standing by the door. ‘You can get Frank now.’

  The officer left the room and Kamsky and Bradshaw waited in silence until a man came in. He wore a grey suit and was a few years older than Kamsky, balding across the crown with silver-grey hair cut very short. He looked at Kamsky and then at me without any expression.

  ‘Astrid,’ said Kamsky, ‘this is Detective Chief Inspector Frank McBride.’

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  McBride didn’t answer. He just looked down at me.

  ‘Matters are very urgent,’ said Kamsky. ‘You understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘But I need to remind you that you are entitled to have a lawyer present, if you want one.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘And I need to warn you that, obviously enough, anything you say may be used as evidence and in court proceedings.’

  ‘Obviously,’ I said. ‘Why else would I say it?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Kamsky, with a smile. He stole a glance at McBride and then looked back at me. ‘I’m afraid you’re going to be giving more statements. We’ll take you back to the station and there’ll be tape-recorders and lawyers and lots of red tape.’

  ‘I’m getting used to that,’ I said.

  More exchanged looks. As he started to speak, Kamsky seemed embarrassed. ‘What we really wanted to say, Astrid, is that if you’ve anything to tell us, now would be a good time.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll try to put this as plainly as I can,’ said Kamsky. ‘There are experts going over every inch of this scene. We’re going to find the truth of what happened here. Leah Peterson’s body is still lying ten yards away from where we’re talking. Wouldn’t it be good to put an end to all of this?’

  I really had thought I was beyond feeling anything more but now I realized something of what was being said. It was as if a newly formed bruise was being punched repeatedly.

  ‘I don’t understand the question,’ I said numbly. ‘I really think you should say what you mean.’

  ‘Let’s not mess about,’ said Kamsky. ‘There’s going to be a very large and detailed investigation. It’s only just beginning. But if you have anything material to offer, it might be a good idea if you could do it now. If you have any involvement in what has happened, if you know anything, if you suspect anything, I can promise you, Astrid, that it would be better in every imaginable way if you told us now.’

  ‘Are you insane?’ I said. ‘I was the one who called you. Do you think I have anything at all to do with this nightmare?’

  Kamsky looked across at McBride and gave a helpless shrug, as if asking for help. McBride took hold of one of the dining chairs, pulled it across and sat down in front of me.

  ‘Well, yes, we do,’ he said. He had a light Scottish accent. ‘You saw the body?’

  ‘I was the one who called the police.’

  ‘But you saw it properly?’

  ‘Look,’ I said, holding up my hands. McBride pulled a face.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ he said, ‘why hasn’t someone dealt with that?’

  ‘They took swabs.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. Anyway, did the state of Leah Peterson’s body remind you of anything?’

  ‘It was just like Ingrid de Soto ’s body. Obviously. What do you want me to say?’

  McBride took a small notebook out of his pocket and looked at it.

  ‘So why were you here?’

  ‘To collect a package.’

  ‘People are going to stop asking you to collect their packages, Miss Bell. They’ll start to think you bring bad luck.’

  I didn’t reply.

  ‘Were you surprised to be called to the flat of someone you know?’

  ‘I didn’t know she lived here.’

  ‘This is the home address of your ex-boyfriend’s fiancée?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘DCI Kamsky called your office. Again. They’re getting used to hearing from him. He asked for a written record of the transaction. Unfortunately they don’t have one.’

  ‘Sometimes we do jobs for cash,’ I said. ‘Off the books. It’s better for everyone.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said McBride. ‘And why you?’

  ‘They asked for me specifically.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’

  ‘Yes. But I think Campbell said something about the woman being scared of men coming to the house. You’ll have to talk to him about it.’

  ‘You can be sure we will,’ Kamsky said grimly.

  Now there was a long pause.

  ‘Miss Bell,’ said McBride, finally, ‘is there something you want to tell us? Something that might save us all a great deal of trouble.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said.

  McBride looked at Kamsky, then back at me. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let me put it like this. How would you describe your relationship with Leah Peterson?’.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I stared at McBride, who looked back at me without expression. Outside I could hear a bird singing and I thought it was probably the blackbird I had seen perched on the tree just outside the house when I arrived. That seemed a long time ago now, a world glimpsed through the wrong end of a telescope. I thought how all the ordinary things of life can often become moments of happiness when you look back at them. You don’t understand that at the time.

  ‘My relationship with Leah Peterson,’ I repeated, in a voice that didn’t sound like my own. Leah Peterson: how formal that sounded.

  ‘Not here, Frank,’ said Kamsky. ‘Not like this.’

  McBride shrugged. ‘OK then.’

  Kamsky put a hand under my elbow and pulled me to my feet where I stood, swaying slightly. ‘Come on,’ he said.

  ‘What? Where are we going?’

  ‘To the police station.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ I said, although it wasn’t true. I didn’t want to go home if that meant going back into the disintegrating wreckage of Maitland Road. And suddenly, as clearly as if he had been standing in front of me, I saw Miles’s face, his smooth, veined skull and his brown eyes. I gasped and put a hand to my chest.

  ‘What?’ asked Kamsky, sharply.

  ‘Do they know?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Miles. All of them.’

  ‘You don’t need to think about that at the moment,’ said Bradshaw, in the kind of reassuring voice that made me want to punch him.

  ‘But I -’

  ‘Astrid,’ Kamsky interrupted, and something in his tone made me feel cold, ‘do you understand your position?’

  ‘My position? I understand that Leah’s dead.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Margaret Farrell, Ingrid de Soto, Leah Peterson. All dead.’

  ‘What are you…?’

  ‘And all last seen by you.’

  ‘The car’s waiting outside,’ said McBride. ‘Let’s get this started properly. Hal, follow after us, if you would.’

  They led me through the hall and out of the house into the warm, blue day. There was an ambulance, three police cars and already a gathering crowd. I had the se
nse that I was on a stage: everything that was happening was unreal – the clothes that had been put on to me were a costume, the audience of avid passers-by the extras in a crowd scene; the body lying in the house was just pretending to be a corpse. I looked down at the pavement, trying to avoid the bright, curious eyes of the woman nearest the car, and allowed myself to be levered into it. Kamsky sat beside me and McBride in the front passenger seat. I stared at the back of the driver’s neck: pink and spotty beneath his close-cropped hair.

  ‘My bike,’ I started to say. ‘Well, it’s not mine. Campbell lent it to me and…’ But I stopped abruptly. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, and turned my head to the window so I didn’t have to see Kamsky’s grave face watching me. I looked at the blur of the world passing: cars and houses and people spooling past. I tried not to think about Leah’s slashed face and her eyes, shallow and glassy, staring blindly up at me.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Kamsky. The policeman who’d been driving opened the door for me. He avoided my eyes as I stepped out and walked into the police station I knew too well, McBride on one side of me and Kamsky on the other as if they feared I might make a dash for it. A middle-aged woman in a long skirt was kneeling in the foyer, whimpering and scrabbling for all the objects that must have rolled out of her bag, but Kamsky steered me round her as if she was a bollard in the road, and straight into a bare room, with a table in the centre and plastic chairs placed round it. ‘Take a seat,’ he said, and I lowered myself into one. McBride closed the door and drew another opposite me, folding his arms.

  ‘Aren’t you going to offer me another tea for shock?’ I asked Kamsky. ‘That’s what you usually do when I’m here.’

  ‘Listen, Astrid, would you like to have a solicitor present?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Would you like…?’

  ‘I heard what you said. I just meant, you know – What?’

  ‘It’s your right,’ said McBride.

  A young woman came in with a tape-recorder and put it on the desk. Kamsky leaned forward and turned it on.

  ‘Why on earth should I want a solicitor? I haven’t done anything wrong. I found Leah dead and I called you and then I waited until you arrived.’ I shivered. ‘Sitting by her body. It changed even in that short time. It got deader, if you see what I mean. Colder and greyer and harder.’

  ‘Am I to understand that you do not want a solicitor?’

  ‘That’s right. I don’t want one and I don’t know why you should think I do, and in any case what I want to ask you -’

  ‘Ms Bell,’ said McBride, in his soft Scottish voice. ‘It is us who would like to ask some things of you.’

  ‘A few weeks ago,’ I said, ‘I’d never seen a single dead person. Not even lying by the side of the road after a crash.’

  ‘I want to return to the question I asked you at the house. What was your relationship with Leah Peterson?’

  ‘She was the partner of Miles, who’s the landlord of the house I live in.’

  ‘But you knew her?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘Would you describe her as your friend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you on friendly terms with her?’

  I glanced at Kamsky, whose face was impassive. ‘No.’

  ‘You were on unfriendly terms with her?’

  ‘That makes it sound wrong.’

  ‘Had you had an argument with her?’

  ‘You could say that. She was an easy person to argue with. She went out of her way to antagonize us. Ask him.’ I nodded towards Kamsky. ‘Why, the whole household -’

  ‘We’ll come to the whole household later. Answer the question. Had you had a specific argument with her?’

  ‘Yes.’ I took a deep breath. ‘More than one.’

  ‘Over what?’

  ‘She was getting us ejected from the house.’ I paused. ‘That’s not right. Miles was kicking us out because he’s the landlord. But it was Leah who wanted us to go and I can understand that. The way she did it felt wrong. Miles hid behind her and let her do his dirty work.’ I looked at Kamsky. ‘You saw her at work. Then there’s the fact that I used to go out with Miles. That didn’t help. And then -’ I hesitated, coughed, continued: ‘Then she tried to create an argument between me and Pippa, the other woman in the house and my friend, by telling me that Pippa and Owen had had a – what would you call it? “Sexual relationship”. Yes. And what’s more…’ I was suddenly unable to go on. ‘You get the drift,’ I said miserably.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said McBride, his voice softer than ever. ‘You were all being evicted from your house by Leah Peterson?’

  ‘She was the driving force.’

  ‘She was also the current girlfriend of the landlord, with whom you were once intimately involved.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She taunted you with information concerning your current boyfriend and another woman in the house.’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’ I paused and rubbed my face with the hand that wasn’t still bloody. ‘He was something to me, though,’ I added softly. ‘Leah knew that. Or sensed it.’

  ‘You argued last night?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you angry with her?’

  ‘Yes. And humiliated, I guess.’

  ‘And now she’s dead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you discov -’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘I would like a solicitor to be present.’

  There was a silence. They both stared at me.

  ‘Very well. Do you have your own solicitor or would you like us to contact one for you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never been in this position before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. But no, no – I have someone I can call.’

  Kamsky leaned back from his chair and reached over for the cordless phone on the shelf behind him. He handed it over.

  ‘Can I do it privately? No, don’t bother to answer that.’

  ‘Nine for an outside line.’

  I turned away from the two men and punched the numbers in. My fingers seemed too big for the buttons and several times I had to begin again. Outside, the sun went behind a cloud and the room suddenly darkened. I heard the ringing tone and then a chirpy voice: ‘Rathbone and Hurst.’

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Could I please speak to Philippa Walfisch? Tell her it’s Astrid Bell.’

  ‘I’ll just try and put you through. Hold on one minute.’

  There was a pause. The sun came out again and the room lightened. My hand was slippery on the phone.

  ‘Astrid, thank God you’ve rung. I’ve been trying your mobile for hours – I wanted to say how sorry I am. I’m stupid and thoughtless and crap, but I hope you know I’d never do anything to hurt you and if I’d thought for one moment that -’

  It felt almost too much of an effort to interrupt her and tell her it wasn’t about that and that I needed her help.

  ‘Yes, anything,’ she said eagerly. ‘Just tell me and I’ll do it.’

  ‘I’m at the police station in Hackney. I think I need a solicitor.’

  ‘I’ll be there. I’m running out of the door right now. Just tell me what it’s about.’

  I stared at the receiver, then opened my mouth. I heard the words coming out but they still didn’t make it seem any more real. ‘Leah’s dead. Murdered.’

  There was complete silence. I pressed the phone to my ear but I couldn’t even hear her breathing. ‘I’m sorry,’ I added miserably.

  ‘Dead?’ Pippa managed at last.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Leah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why are you with the police?’

  ‘I – I found her, Pippa. I found the body.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I heard her whisper. ‘Jesus Christ. What’s going on?’

  ‘Can you come and help me? I’m scared.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said.
‘I’m involved.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said dully. ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘Sit tight. I’m going to get in touch with someone. He’s called Seth Langley and he’s a friend of mine. Don’t say anything until he arrives.’

  ‘What if he can’t?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. He can come instead of having lunch with me.’

  ‘Seth Langley?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Pippa?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s all turned into a nightmare.’

  Seth Langley arrived. He was very black, very tall, very calm. He asked Kamsky if he could have a minute alone with me. Kamsky frowned but he agreed.

  ‘How are you?’ Seth said.

  ‘A bit shocked,’ I said.

  ‘Is there anything you need to tell me?’ he said.

  ‘The only thing I need to tell you is that I’ve got nothing to do with any of these crimes.’

  ‘That’s not entirely true,’ Langley said. ‘I talked to Pippa before coming in.’

  ‘I mean criminally involved.’

  ‘Is there anything you’d like to tell me?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘If I’m going to represent you, it’s helpful if the nasty surprises come at the beginning.’

  ‘I told you, I’ve got no connection to the murders.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean,’ said Langley. ‘Is there anything you’ve kept secret, because you thought it might be awkward?’

  ‘It’s awkward enough as it is,’ I said. ‘I was involved in a big row with Leah. Kamsky, the detective, even witnessed part of it.’

  ‘If there’s anything else to come out, I can assure you that it’s better to admit it to me now than to wait for a journalist or the police to find it next week.’

  ‘There’s nothing else,’ I said. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  ‘Not many people can say that,’ said Langley. ‘Then let’s call them back in.’

  He called me his client and sat beside me, speaking slowly and clearly, as if I was hard of hearing. Sometimes he would let me speak and sometimes he told me not to answer a question. They asked me the same things over and over again – times, places, names, actions – and jumped on every slip, confusion and contradiction. I had the feeling that words had turned into traps that could spring shut on me without warning.