The Unheard

by Nicci French

  Five minutes later, the detective was sitting at the kitchen table while I poured coffee for us both. I was burning with anxiety and curiosity, but I also had something to say and couldn’t stop myself from saying it.

  ‘Why did you have to go to Aidan’s work? Why did you have to do it in public? And you went to Jason’s school. He was furious. With me.’

  ‘I’m here to talk about that.’

  ‘Have you found out something?’

  Kelly Jordan gave a half-nod. I couldn’t tell whether that meant yes or no. I brought the two mugs across to the table and placed one in front of her.

  ‘I can’t remember whether you take milk. Or sugar.’

  ‘It’s fine like this.’

  I sat down so we were facing each other across the table. She looked tired. There were very fine lines extending from the corners of her eyes. She had other things to deal with, other cases, other people to see. It was Saturday morning. Maybe her children were waiting for her to come home. I was just another name on her crammed schedule, and one of the more tiresome ones.

  ‘You’ve been very patient with me. And kind.’ I paused. ‘Can I get you a biscuit?’

  Kelly Jordan was sipping coffee and gave no sign of having heard. She replaced the mug on the table.

  ‘Skye Nolan’s inquest is on Monday,’ she said.

  ‘That’s quick, isn’t it?’

  She gave a faint shake of her head. ‘It’ll just be a formality. It’ll be opened and then adjourned almost immediately because of the murder inquiry.’

  It took me a moment to realise the significance of this.

  ‘You mean there really is a murder inquiry now? It was murder?’

  ‘We got the autopsy report back yesterday. I wasn’t expecting much from it. I didn’t think you could learn a lot from a body that’s fallen a hundred feet onto concrete.’

  ‘So what did you learn?’

  ‘There was a lot of damage, as you’d expect, multiple fractures. The funny thing is that among all those broken bones, there was a bone that shouldn’t have been broken.’

  She raised her chin and touched her throat gently with her fingers.

  ‘There’s a funny little bone here. It basically never gets broken. It doesn’t break if you fall, even from eight storeys up. What does tend to break it is the direct force when two hands are applied to the neck.’

  I had to think about that for a moment.

  ‘You mean like when someone is strangled?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean that Skye Nolan was dead when she fell?’

  ‘Yes. And more than that. The pathologist also identified dark patches on the skin. This happens after death when the blood stops flowing and starts to be pulled down by gravity. It’s called pooling. It’s like when you hang up a wet towel to dry. The bottom bit of the towel gets wetter. It’s like that.’

  ‘Except with blood.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you’re saying that she was strangled before she was…’ I hesitated because the reality of what I was saying suddenly horrified me. ‘Before her body was pushed over the balcony. But you’re saying more than that. That stuff with the blood settling in the body, it would take time. It must have lain there for some time.’

  ‘The report estimates that it would have taken a minimum of half an hour.’

  ‘Why? Why would you kill someone and then wait all that time?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Jordan.

  I felt a moment of exhilaration. I had been right. I had gone to the police and they hadn’t believed me. I had said the death of Skye Nolan had been murder and they had been dubious about that as well. And now I had been proved right, scientifically, in black and white. But the moment quickly passed.

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

  ‘This is an ongoing inquiry,’ the detective said, ‘and I can’t talk about all the specifics. But it’s clear that Skye Nolan was a troubled young woman. She had a turbulent private life.’

  ‘Turbulent? What does that mean?’

  ‘Problematic relationships.’

  ‘With men?’

  ‘Yes, with men. And she has also had psychological problems. We found a significant amount of prescription medicine in her flat.’

  ‘What has that to do with anything? She was still murdered.’

  ‘What I’m trying to say is this: we’ve talked to her mother and to her one relatively long-term partner. We have checked her phone records and her social media. The simple fact is that we have found no connection to any of the people you mentioned to us.’

  ‘So?’ I said. ‘Couldn’t that just mean you haven’t been looking hard enough?’

  Jordan’s face tightened. ‘Tess, we’ve been very patient with you and your worries. We’ve taken them seriously, which, believe me, some police forces wouldn’t have done. We’ve looked at the people whose names you gave us as thoroughly as is practical and, for that matter, legal. We’ve interviewed them and we’ve searched for any connection with Skye Nolan’s life and we haven’t found it, not even the most tenuous one. It’s not there.’

  ‘What about Poppy’s drawing? What about the doll?’

  She made an impatient gesture. ‘Police investigations simply don’t work that way round. I admit that you brought this tragic case to my attention and because of that I thought it was vital that we investigate your concerns. But we have finite resources. In fact, we have worse than finite resources. You have a feeling about this murder, based on a child’s drawing. We investigated it. We drew a blank. Fine. These things happen, though I am not looking forward to explaining to my boss why I investigated it. As it stands, we have a victim who led a chaotic life and had a series of hook-ups with strangers. I think it is likely that one of them got out of hand and she was killed, possibly in the course of a robbery. She may have picked the wrong person to take back to her flat.’

  ‘So you’re not following up what I told you?’

  ‘Have you not been listening to anything I’ve been saying? We did follow it up. Scrupulously. We didn’t find anything.’

  ‘It was that other detective, wasn’t it? I could tell he didn’t believe me.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t him. We couldn’t find anything. There was nothing to go on.’

  ‘What about the drawing?’ I asked weakly.

  ‘One drawing by a child is not enough,’ said Kelly Jordan. ‘It’s just a drawing. And maybe the woman is flying, not falling, have you thought of that?’

  ‘Poppy said she was falling.’

  ‘Poppy is three.’

  I was breathing heavily. I could feel my pulse racing. I wanted to shout. Punch the wall. Punch Kelly Jordan. I made an effort to calm myself down.

  ‘You realise,’ I began, forcing myself to speak in a level tone, ‘that if I’m right and you’re wrong, that somewhere out there is a murderer who may be starting to suspect that the only witness to the murder he’s committed is a three-year-old girl. Have you thought of that?’

  Kelly Jordan leaned forward across the table.

  ‘This is getting out of hand. You need to stop. Now.’

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘You have my number. If anything happens, you can always pick up the phone and tell me. I’ll talk to you any time. Just give us something to investigate and we’ll investigate it.’

  ‘This is my daughter. She’s all I’ve got.’

  Kelly Jordan stood up.

  ‘I’ll keep you informed,’ she said. ‘You keep your daughter safe and we’ll find the murderer.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  But I couldn’t keep my daughter safe. My daughter was with Jason, with Ben.

  I ate half a croissant in the garden and scattered the rest for the finches.

  I opened my laptop to write more reports, Kadijah has been a pleasure to have in the class… closed it again.

  I picked up my mobile to call Jason and then put it down, remembering his face. He hated me. How long had h
e hated me?

  I thought of calling Aidan. Then I remembered his words. You need to sort things out and yourself out. And he was right. I did. But I didn’t know how.

  I wandered into Poppy’s room and sat on the bed. I looked at the pyjamas tucked under the pillow, the absurd Easter bonnet we had made together for school still perched on top of the wardrobe, the little crate of toys with the chunky green caterpillar on top, the pile of clean clothes on the top of the chest – miniature tee shirts, trousers and knickers.

  I picked up the little cardigan that was draped over the chair and held it to my face, breathing in the smell of my daughter.

  Tears came into my eyes as I remembered bringing Poppy home from the hospital and lying in bed with her, staring at the scrunched face and blue eyelids, the tiny stork mark on her forehead. Heavy with milk and dreamy with love, I had whispered a promise that I would always protect her. Always. Until she died, I would make sure my daughter was safe – as if I could do that, as if mothers were all-powerful beings who needed no one else.

  I sat down at my sewing machine and stood up again. Opened the fridge and closed it, seeing the image of Poppy’s smiling face pinned to the door by magnets. Watered the garden. Paced about, itchy with the sense that I needed to do something and had to do something and would go mad if I didn’t do something, but I didn’t know what it was.

  A message pinged onto my phone and I glanced down.

  Sorry for late notice. Girls’ get-together this evening, at the usual place? Do try and come – it’s been ages! L xxxxxxx

  * * *

  ‘Tess! Over here!’

  It was hard to miss them – five women round a table already strewn with bottles, talking loudly. There was Liz with her mane of hair, waving her arms as she made some point; there was Cora giggling as if she was seven. There they all were.

  ‘We thought you weren’t coming,’ said Kim, standing up to give me a hug.

  I was late because I’d felt nervous about seeing them all, even though we had been friends since university and had continued to get together over the years, shedding partners and children to gather in restaurants or pubs or one or other’s house, sometimes even for weekends away. It had been nearly twenty years since we had first met, I thought, as I looked around the group. They had lines on their faces, a few of them had grey hairs, some had gone through serious illnesses and one of them – energetic and loud-mouthed Tilda – wasn’t there; she had died of breast cancer three years back. Some were married and some single, two had got divorced, most had a child or children – though Liz was on her third round of IVF.

  Seeing them was a marker of time, I thought, and I hugged each of them and then squeezed my way into the chair waiting for me. Perhaps that was why I had stupidly worried over what to wear and how to get there and nearly hadn’t come.

  ‘We’ve ordered already.’

  ‘Small plates.’

  ‘Bloody small plates. Since when did everything have to be shared?’

  ‘Look at you – how do you stay so skinny?’

  ‘Have some wine.’

  ‘How long has it been?’

  How long had it been? I wrinkled my brow, sipped my drink.

  ‘God, I don’t know. Before Poppy – can that be true?’ I paused. ‘And before Tilda died. Where have I been?’

  ‘Well, you’re back.’ Cora held up a glass. ‘Welcome back.’

  ‘Here comes the food. Move some of these bottles. Who wants – well, whatever these are. What are they?’

  For about half an hour, I was swept up in a torrent of talk, which lurched between the gossipy and the confessional. Then Becky turned to me, ‘So you finally got free.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re divorced.’

  ‘I was never married, but yes.’

  ‘Is it OK?’

  ‘Being alone? I don’t know.’ I opened my mouth to say something about Aidan, closed it again, and had some more wine instead.

  ‘It’s hard,’ said Kim. ‘But everything’s hard, isn’t it? Fucking life.’ She knocked over a glass of wine and ignored the red stream trickling towards her.

  My phone rang. I looked at it: the Brixton landline.

  ‘Sorry. One moment. Hello? Jason? Is something up?’

  I could hear a voice – Emily’s voice – saying something and then Poppy was on the other end.

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Poppy, darling. Hello! Aren’t you in bed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I want Milly.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I want Milly!’

  ‘Listen, Poppy.’ I got up from the table and moved away, gesturing apologetically to my friends. ‘You have Teddy there, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Cuddle up with Teddy. We can talk about Milly when you come home. But now it’s time to go to sleep. Is Daddy there?’

  ‘Emily here.’

  ‘Where’s Daddy?’

  ‘Emily here, not Daddy,’ said Poppy again. ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Yes. Here I am.’

  ‘I want Sunny.’

  ‘Sunny’s waiting for you. I’m waiting. I will see you very soon. Give the phone back to Emily and cuddle Teddy and close your eyes and soon it will be morning.’

  ‘Morning,’ said Poppy.

  ‘Night night, my lovely love.’

  There was silence. My heart was a bruise. I ended the call and made my way back to the table, trying to smile at them.

  ‘Everything OK?’ asked Liz.

  ‘Poppy’s having a bit of a hard time. Transitions.’ I turned to Becky. ‘Wasn’t I free?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said I’d finally got free. Wasn’t I free before?’

  ‘Well, were you?’

  ‘I guess a relationship, any relationship, is a kind of—?’

  ‘No! I mean, of course that’s true. But you, specifically. You know.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You and Jason,’ said Liz and the table was suddenly quiet. They were all looking at me and suddenly I wanted to jump up and run away from their shrewd and tender eyes.

  ‘Me and Jason?’

  ‘He was always a bit of a control freak, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Was he?’ I felt a bit giddy.

  ‘Hang on.’ Miriam, who had barely spoken, raised her voice. ‘I don’t think Tess needs us bad-mouthing the man she lived with for years, who’s the father of her child. I want to see pictures of her, by the way,’ she added.

  ‘No, I want to hear this,’ I said. ‘I want to know what you thought of him. Honestly.’

  Liz didn’t need much encouragement. ‘He didn’t like it when you disagreed with him, did he? I always wanted you to tell him to fuck off, but you just took it. He never knew how lucky he was to have you, that was his problem. He thought he was the catch. As if.’

  ‘He liked being the one to make the decisions,’ said Miriam.

  ‘Someone told me you left, and he kept the house.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It seemed to make sense. It’s near his work and anyway I kind of thought I needed a fresh start.’ As I spoke, I wondered if that was the true explanation.

  ‘Bloody hell. Really? You put so much into that house, Tess. I remember you making all those bookshelves and the curtains, and painting all the rooms, and digging up the garden as well. It was your house way more than his. You loved it.’

  I looked round the table. ‘You thought he bullied me? You thought I was being bullied?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it like that,’ said Miriam hastily.

  ‘He didn’t like us much, did he?’ Becky picked up a stick of celery, dipped it into a creamy concoction and chomped it.

  ‘Didn’t he?’

  ‘Not as a group, anyway,’ said Cora.

  I leaned forward. ‘Now what does that mean?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘We’re all a bit drunk. Honestly, Tess, all we’re say
ing is we’re glad you’re here and you’re OK.’

  ‘No, really. What does it mean? Listen, don’t all look so worried. I’m not upset at what you’re saying. Actually, I recently discovered that Jason had started on what was to be a long affair just after I had Poppy, and what felt worst about it was that I’d been in the dark all that time. Other people knew this big thing about me that I didn’t. Friends knew.’ I looked from face to face. ‘It feels important to me to recognise what he was like. So: did he try it on with any of you lot?’

  ‘No.’ Kim was flushed. ‘But I always thought that he wasn’t the faithful type.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have dared,’ said Liz. She had a smear of beetroot on her cheek. ‘You don’t think any of us would have? Tess?’

  ‘Course not,’ I said. ‘You’re my dear friends.’

  But in truth I felt nothing would surprise me anymore.

  ‘I heard a rumour,’ said Cora. ‘Don’t ask me anything else. It was years ago and it was just a rumour. I wanted to ask you – but you were very defensive at that time. The drawbridge would go up.’

  ‘Was I? Would it?’ I rubbed my face. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘I thought so anyway.’

  ‘I just thought he took you for granted,’ said Miriam softly. ‘When he should have been thanking his lucky stars for being with someone beautiful and clever and kind like you.’

  ‘It turns out nothing’s like I thought it was,’ I said. ‘What shall I do next?’

  ‘Eat pudding.’

  * * *

  It was nearly two when I got home. I made myself a mug of tea and was about to climb into bed when I heard a scrabbling sound from Poppy’s room. I went onto the landing and put my ear to the door, my skin prickling. Silence, and then a piteous miaow.

  ‘How could I have shut you in!’ I said as, full of relief, I pulled open the door.

  Sunny shot out and down the stairs, an outraged orange streak. I wandered into the room and sat on Poppy’s bed, cradling my mug of tea. I had a sore throat and my eyes stung. The barrier between me and the world had grown as fragile as parchment and any new thing could pierce it; I would flood out and the world would flood in.