by Nicci French
‘A house, a flat?’
‘She just said it was nice.’
‘This other woman, did she live with him?’
‘I assumed that’s what she meant, but I don’t know. I just thought it was Skye, doing her thing again – taking a sleazy encounter and turning it into romantic destiny.’
‘Children?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hannah slowly, frowning. ‘All I know is that I felt this man had a whole other complicated life and Skye was deluded enough to think he would leave it for her.’
‘She thought he’d come to her?’
‘Skye always thought that. She never learned to protect herself. She was always bright and shiny with hope.’
Without warning, Hannah’s face crumpled. She leaned her body over the table and started to cry, her brown hair swinging and fat tears falling.
‘I always thought I was the one to get let down by her,’ she gulped out between sobs. ‘Now look.’
Cautiously, I put a hand on her shoulder and waited. Gradually the sobs halted and she straightened up, wiping the back of her hand across her smeary face.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘Do you want to buy a candle? As you can see, I don’t have many customers.’
‘I’d love to,’ I said.
I selected a bag of tea lights, four taper candles, six floating ones, and a candle in the shape of an elephant that I thought Poppy would like.
‘If you think of something,’ I said, ‘this is my number.’
I wrote it on a scrap of paper that she pushed at me and then keyed hers into my mobile.
‘If you see Peggy,’ she said, ‘tell her I’m thinking of her and I’m going to write a proper letter. I should have written. I didn’t know what to say. And tell her I’m sorry.’
FORTY-FIVE
As if Hannah had conjured her, my mobile started to ring as soon as I left the shop and Peggy’s name appeared on my screen.
‘Tess? It’s me, Peggy. Is this a bad time?’
‘It’s a good time.’
‘I tried calling Charlie, but he hasn’t answered.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. No. No, I’m not. I’ve just collected Skye’s things.’
‘Her things? I thought you’d already done that?’
‘No. The things she was wearing. When she fell.’
‘That must have been horrible.’
‘I can’t bring myself to look at them.’
‘You don’t need to do it at once. Give yourself time.’
‘Will you help me?’
‘Me? Well, yes, I mean – what can I do?’
‘I mean, will you look at them with me?’
‘Of course. If you want me to. I can come to your house again, if that’s good. I’m not working this week.’
‘No, I mean now.’
‘Now! Where are you?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just walking. I’ve been walking for ages. Wait a minute.’ There was a pause. I could hear traffic in the distance and the muffled sound of footfall. ‘Farringdon Road,’ she said eventually. ‘The junction of Exmouth Market.’
‘Do you want me to come and find you?’
‘Would you? Would you do that?’
‘Stay there,’ I said. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
* * *
Peggy was wearing a long dress and sandals and a scarf tied round her purple hair. She had a capacious embroidered bag hanging from one shoulder and was clutching another bag in her arms like a newborn baby. I called her name and she spun round towards me.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much. I didn’t know what to do.’
I took her arm and steered her away from the busy road and soon we found ourselves in a small leafy churchyard. People were eating picnics on the grass and there was a man juggling three grapefruit.
We sat under a tree and I saw how her face was so thin that it looked like it was falling in on itself, her eyes deep in their sockets and red-rimmed.
‘You really don’t mind?’ she asked.
‘Of course I don’t mind.’
‘It was different from what I expected. It felt all right going through her flat. Maybe I was still in shock so it didn’t sink in what I was doing. But this…’ She gestured at the bag she was still cradling. ‘I can’t. These are what were on her poor little body when she died.’
‘You really want to do it now?’
‘Yes. I have to.’
Her fingers trembled as she opened the bag and pulled out a sealed package. She tore at it, splitting the plastic, and laying the bundle onto the grass between us.
Skye Nolan had been wearing a long wrap-over dress in a paisley pattern, all oranges and browns. It had short sleeves knotted at the side. It seemed weirdly unblemished. Peggy laid it out in front of her and stroked it.
‘She would have looked so pretty in this,’ she said. ‘What shall I do with it? What shall I do with all her things?’
I was thinking that Skye had dressed up that evening, like she was expecting a visitor.
She’d been wearing simple wedge sandals, lacy knickers, a flesh-coloured bra size 32A. A watch with a large face and brown leather strap. A lucky charm bracelet, with tiny silver objects hanging off it – a bell, a horseshoe, a star, a cat, a top hat, a shell… Her mother touched each charm in turn with the tip of one forefinger.
‘She had this when she was nine. I’d buy her a charm on each birthday. Then she stopped wearing it and I stopped buying charms. But some are new. This is.’ A hummingbird. ‘And this.’ A wishbone.
There was a heart-shaped silver locket.
‘I don’t recognise that,’ said Peggy. ‘She loved jewellery, though.’
‘Can I open it?’
She nodded and I prised open the heart with a fingernail. There was a miniature inscription on the inside: Always.
‘I don’t know how to do this,’ said Peggy. ‘I don’t know.’
I put a hand over hers. There was nothing I could say.
‘I can imagine her getting into these clothes. Standing in front of the long mirror, turning this way and that, examining how she looked. Putting on the jewellery. Smiling at herself. That reminds me. I’ve got something for you.’
‘What do you mean?’
Peggy took something from her pocket, an object in tissue paper. She unwrapped it and held it out to me. It was a copper bracelet, decorated with light blue stones. I could imagine a teenage girl wearing it to a party.
‘Was it Skye’s?’
‘It was. And now it’s yours.’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘You must,’ Peggy said. ‘Something to remember her by. And me. Skye took such pleasure in all of that. Whatever else happened, she was still a child really.’
Her face was a sheet of tears.
‘That’s what Hannah said as well.’
‘You’ve talked to Hannah?’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s a good girl.’
‘She loved Skye.’
‘Shall we put these away?’ Peggy carefully folded the dress, collected up the watch, the locket, the charm bracelet, then held them in the cup of her hands and stared down at them.
‘Here.’
I held out the bag and she poured them in.
‘Do you need to go?’ she asked.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Do you want to see some photos of Skye? Charlie sent them to me. She looks really happy in them.’ Her voice snagged.
‘I’d like that.’
Peggy fumbled in the embroidered bag and brought out her phone. She swiped to the left a couple of times.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Here she is.’
I slid them past me. There were the photos that Charlie had already sent me, and then there was Skye on a bridge, gazing down at water; Skye in old jeans and a turtleneck sweater, looking like a young boy; Skye heavily made up, barely recognisab
le; Skye from a distance, a dog by her side; Skye in swimwear, in a Santa Claus hat, walking in a park, sticking her tongue out, waving, standing with Charlie, standing arm-in-arm with a group of young women. Skye in the dungarees she’d been wearing when I saw her that evening, and I remembered her smiling at me, pointing at me, doffing her cap. Skye in that same cap, the peak turned sideways.
That cap. Corduroy with a maroon brim.
‘I think I’ll print some of them out,’ Peggy was saying.
‘That.’ I jabbed at the photo with a finger. ‘Where did she get it?’
‘What?’
‘The cap.’
‘I don’t know.’ She looked bewildered. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. My voice was guttural. ‘Sorry.’
I staggered to my feet.
‘Now?’
‘Sorry.’ I saw her stricken face. ‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow, if you want. We can go through her things.’
‘Will you do that? Yes. Yes, please.’
‘I’ll come late morning. I’ll ring if something changes.’ A thought occurred to me. ‘Can you forward me that photo – the one of Skye in a cap?’
I ran to the bus stop where I waited, unable to keep still, pacing the short length of it, until the bus appeared. I jumped on board and sat at the front, willing it to go faster. My mobile pinged and there was the photo of Skye, grinning in the cap.
I got out near Broadway Market and pelted along London Fields and up the road to my flat, dropping my keys, scrubbing for them, cack-handed with terror.
‘You look like you’re in a hurry,’ said a voice.
Bernie.
‘Later,’ I said.
Down the stairs, into the little kitchen. To the fridge where drawings and photos were attached by magnets. The Polaroid. The Polaroid of Poppy that Lotty had given me. Where was it? There was one of her on the slide at school, mouth open in a shout of glee. But where was the other? I’d put it up here; I was sure of it. I pulled off the drawing of the sun and an over-sized flower. I pulled off the postcard from my friend Magda. The shopping list. The list of tasks.
The picture of Poppy had gone: the one in which she was wearing, pulled down over her eyes, a corduroy cap with a maroon peak.
* * *
I crouched on the kitchen floor, put my hands over my eyes and forced myself to remember.
Last week, Poppy had come back from Jason’s with a bag of dressing-up clothes that Emily had sorted. The cap had been in with those – or no, it had been in Poppy’s backpack along with beads and bangles and scarves.
Poppy had tried it on in her room – I could see her now, laughing because it came down over her eyes – and I had put it in the bag with the other things she had selected and I’d handed it over to Lotty’s assistant.
And then Lotty had given me a few photos of Poppy, including one of her wearing the cap. I’d put it on the fridge. I was certain I had.
Now I’d seen a photo of Skye wearing the identical cap. The one she’d worn that night we’d met.
But the photo of Poppy in the cap had gone.
I lay down on the floor and squinted under the fridge in case it had fallen. I sat up and gazed around helplessly.
If it was gone, it meant someone had taken it.
* * *
I went into the garden, paced up and down its small threadbare lawn. I thought back over the days since I had put the Polaroid on the fridge. That had been – when? My brain hurt with the effort of remembering. Yes, the day that Poppy had talked about going to the zoo and I had realised she often mixed her tenses; the day I had gone back to see Kelly Jordan with my revelation. That afternoon, Lotty had given me the handful of photos of Poppy, including the one of her in the cap. And that evening, the detective had returned and told me the name of the woman who had died and I’d seen her picture and remembered.
So, there were five days between then and today. Who had been to the flat? I squinted up at the flat blue sky.
The following day Kelly Jordan had come round in the morning with the other police officer, Madeleine Finch, and they’d questioned Poppy.
And then – yes, then Aidan had come round with his colleague, bringing peonies. They’d come into the kitchen and conservatory. I could see it now – Poppy and Jake in the garden, and Aidan and his friend with me, drinking cordial in the warmth of the late afternoon.
And Bernie: he’d met us in the hall and come into the flat as well, making himself at home, stretching out his legs as he sat in the chair and grinned.
And then Jason had arrived. And Laurie, just in time to see Poppy pushing dirt into Jake’s mouth.
Any of them could have seen the photo and removed it.
But the cap came from Jason’s house.
FORTY-SIX
When I dropped Poppy off at school the next morning, I bent to hug her, but she pushed me away crossly and I watched her dart forwards, away from me. Before leaving, I stepped into her classroom and looked around for Lotty.
‘Can I help?’
It was the nursery assistant.
‘Yes. I left a load of dressing-up things here before half-term and there was something I wanted back.’
‘Changed your mind?’
‘Sort of.’
She pointed to the dressing-up corner and I went and started pulling items of clothing out of the old trunk. Bright and silky cloth slid through my fingers, flouncy skirts, an old Spiderman costume… There it was. My hand closed on the cap.
I stood up with it. I clicked on the photo of Skye that her mother had sent me. There she was, grinning from under the maroon peak that was tilted sideways. Behind that image was the remembered image of Poppy, the cap pulled down over her eyes.
I put the cap in my bag and left.
* * *
On the train to Chelmsford, I considered my recent behaviour. I had messed around with people’s private lives, I had virtually broken into my ex-partner’s house like a burglar and spied on his private mail. I told myself that I hadn’t exactly broken into the house. I’d had my own key. But I didn’t even manage to convince myself. All right, so Jason was betraying Emily, the way he’d been betraying me; I was sure of that from those emails. I had it in my power to tell Emily the truth. Perhaps to protect her.
I’d done it all to protect Poppy, but perhaps I hadn’t even managed that. I’d gone around creating trouble. It may be that I’d made life more dangerous for myself and Poppy, not less. Someone had killed Skye. Someone had broken into my house, searched through Poppy’s room, I was certain of it. Could it be that I’d caused this by kicking up dust, lifting up stones? And for what? What had I actually found out? And now I was going to spend more time with a grieving mother, forcing myself into her life, into her grief.
I told myself that I would allow myself this one last chance. I would spend this time with Peggy, I would listen, I would be her friend, I would find out whatever I could and if I didn’t find out anything, then that would be that. Even thinking it, it felt like I was an addict, lying to myself. Just one last time, one absolutely last time, I really mean it. I started to think that maybe the best way to protect Poppy was indeed to stop and give her a happy life and gradually her bad dreams and waking fears might cease. I would be kind to Peggy, but I would also keep my eyes open. If nothing came of it, then I would go back to work and put my arms around my daughter and try to keep us safe.
* * *
At a stall outside Chelmsford station, I bought a bunch of flowers and then took the taxi once more to Peggy Nolan’s house. I pressed the front doorbell and rehearsed in my mind questions I needed to ask her without seeming too intrusive. I waited for the sound of footsteps but none came. I rang the bell again and heard the chime at the back of the house. Could she have forgotten I was coming? Or was she asleep? Or had she gone to the shops? I called her number and it went straight to voicemail. I left a mumbled, incoherent message saying I was outside her house and wondering where she was and if she was all r
ight.
I had a thought. She could be in the garden without her phone and maybe not hearing the doorbell. I stepped back and looked at the front of the house. The right side was detached and a passageway led through to the back. I looked around, almost guiltily. There was no fence or gate blocking it. It must be all right.
I walked along the passage and reached the garden. She wasn’t there.
I felt a puzzlement that quickly became irritation. I’d come all this way. Would I really just have to call for a taxi and go straight back to London?
Possibly she had fallen asleep. She was on medication and it might have knocked her out. I looked at the door leading into the kitchen. If she had gone out, she would have locked it and that would be that.
I tried it and the handle turned. The door was unlocked and moved inwards. I stepped inside and heard voices. It seemed that she had visitors and that was why she hadn’t heard the front doorbell, but then I realised that the radio in the kitchen was on. I switched it off and expected to hear the sound of footsteps or anything, the little creaks that show someone is somewhere in a house.
‘Hello?’ I called out, my own voice sounding strange to me. ‘Peggy? Are you here? It’s Tess.’
Nothing.
My first impulse was to turn round and walk out the way I had come in and go back home. But I had the strange sensation that a thread was pulling me forwards and into the house, into somewhere I didn’t want to go, to see something I didn’t want to see. And so, when I stepped out of the kitchen, took a couple of steps and walked into the living room, it was almost with a sense of inevitability that I saw the body of Peggy Nolan lying face down on the rug, one arm under her, the other splayed out to one side.
My brain was working slowly, as if everything was in a thick fog, but I had the dimmest memories of a first-aid course I’d been on, years ago, of chest compressions and blowing into the mouth. I knelt down by the body and said Peggy’s name and touched her neck. I very gently turned her head so I could see her face. Her sightless eyes stared at me. She was so obviously cold and dead that there was no point in doing anything at all.
