The Unheard

by Nicci French

  I wondered at first whether she could have died of grief, of a broken heart, or perhaps just stumbled and cracked her head, but then I looked around and saw a bureau drawer that had been pulled out and tipped upside down, the contents scattered. Someone had been here and done this. Could they still be here? I listened, but could only hear my breathing and feel the beating of my heart.

  I had to do something.

  I took my phone out. What was the number? 999? Or had that changed? Did it depend on the kind of emergency? Then I thought: no. I looked through my saved numbers and made the call.

  It took some time for Kelly Jordan to answer. She sounded immediately irritable.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know Peggy Nolan? The mother of Skye Nolan?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s been murdered.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘What do you mean? How do you know?’

  ‘I’m standing next to her body. I’m looking down at it. It’s cold.’

  Jordan began some kind of a question and then stopped.

  ‘OK,’ she said, in a clipped, official tone. ‘Where are you?’

  I had to think for a few seconds before I could remember the address and give it to her.

  ‘Are you safe?’ she said. ‘Is there anyone else at the property?’

  ‘No, I mean, yes, I think I’m safe, I don’t think anyone else is here.’

  ‘Fine. You stay there. Don’t do anything. Above all don’t touch anything. Have you got that? Nothing at all.’

  I murmured something in response and she broke off the call.

  Don’t do anything. Don’t touch anything. What would I do or touch, anyway?

  I looked around. I hadn’t taken in at first the sheer extent of the mess. Books, magazines, documents, mugs, cutlery, random objects, were strewn across the floor. Then I saw the bag I had seen the previous day. The bag that had been filled with the clothes and objects that had been on Skye’s body. We had looked at them one by one yesterday and then replaced them. I knelt beside the bag. Clearly it had been tipped upside down and emptied onto the floor. I noted the lovely dress, the bra, the sandals. I picked up the charm bracelet and as I looked at it the sound of Peggy’s voice came back to me as vividly as if she were speaking to me. I put it back down. The locket, the knickers. They were all there.

  And then dully, through that dark fog, something dim, a kind of a memory: not quite all. There was something missing. What was it?

  There were flashes of light on the ceiling and I looked up and round. The lights were coming from outside, there were cars and the sound of running feet.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  I was in a room with no windows. Everything was of an indeterminate colour. The lino on the floor was a sort of flecked grey. The walls were a kind of drab green. The moulded plastic chairs were grey as well. The table was laminated wood. A young officer brought me a cup of tea and ginger biscuits wrapped in cellophane. I never bought biscuits and I hadn’t eaten these ginger snaps since I was a child. But I felt like I needed something that would stop my feeling of trembling and faintness. I tore open the packet and dipped a biscuit into the tea and ate it and then did the same with the next.

  I made a few feeble attempts to make sense of what had happened, but I kept being overwhelmed with the thought of Peggy Nolan and her grief for her daughter and that she had been alive yesterday and now she was as dead as Skye. Had she joined her daughter? Is that what she had wanted? Could I make myself believe that?

  The door opened and what felt like a crowd of people came in. It took an effort for me to focus and see that one of them was a uniformed female officer and the other two were Ross Durrant and Kelly Jordan. Ross Durrant placed something on the table but I was looking at their faces. Kelly Jordan looked concerned; Durrant was frowning.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Kelly Jordan asked.

  I nodded.

  The two detectives sat down opposite me, the uniformed officer stood in a corner to one side. Durrant’s eyes bored into me.

  ‘Are these your clothes?’

  I looked down at myself, as if I needed reminding.

  ‘What? These? Yes.’

  ‘What the—’ he began and looked round at the officer. ‘Why wasn’t this done at the scene?’ He turned back to me. ‘In a few minutes some officers are going to come here. They are going to take your clothes and give you others. They will take a DNA sample and they will also take some scrapings from under your nails. And so forth. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you agree to it? You have a right to refuse.’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’

  He leaned forward and pressed a button and then stared down at the machine.

  ‘Is it working? I can never tell if it’s working.’

  The officer stepped forward. ‘The light should be flashing.’

  ‘I think it’s flashing.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s fourteen twenty-seven on the third of June. Present are Inspectors Ross Durrant and Kelly Jordan. And Sergeant…’ He looked round.

  ‘Woolley,’ said the officer. ‘Elinor Woolley.’

  ‘Elinor Woolley.’ He looked up at me. ‘Interviewing Tess Moreau. So, Ms Moreau: what the hell were you doing there?’

  ‘I met her at the inquest. We became friends.’

  He seemed to consider my answer for few seconds.

  ‘Let me rephrase that: what the fuck were you doing in Peggy Nolan’s house?’

  ‘I’ve just explained. Had to be there. I’m as upset as anyone. I feel terrible about it all. Absolutely terrible.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘I felt sorry for her.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I also thought I might learn something about why Skye had been killed.’

  Ross Durrant looked round at Kelly Jordan and then back at me and nodded slowly.

  ‘You became involved in the Skye Nolan murder, didn’t you?’

  ‘If you mean that the police assumed that it was a suicide until I got involved, then the answer is yes.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. Were you explicitly warned not to get involved in the investigation?’

  ‘I am involved,’ I said desperately. ‘I only wish I wasn’t.’

  ‘As you well know, Ms Moreau, we have found no evidence connecting you to Skye Nolan.’

  ‘There are strange things happening,’ I said.

  Durrant ignored me. ‘But we have found a connection between the two murders, a connection that seems worth pursuing.’

  ‘Good. What is it?’

  He leaned forward. ‘You.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You involved yourself in the Skye Nolan case, against all advice. You’ve been persecuting my colleague and taking advantage of her kindness.’ He made kindness sound like a dirty word. I saw Kelly Jordan flush. ‘And now you were at the scene of Peggy Nolan’s murder.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous. I was the one who reported it.’

  ‘I’m simply making an observation.’

  ‘Why were you there today, Tess? I mean, apart from being her friend, if that’s what you had become. For what specific reason?’ It was Kelly Jordan this time, her voice level and dispassionate.

  I turned gratefully towards her.

  ‘We met yesterday. She had collected the things that Skye had been wearing when she was found. She wanted company to go through them. She thought it would help.’

  ‘I didn’t ask about yesterday,’ said Kelly Jordan. ‘I asked about today.’

  I thought about this. It suddenly sounded rather lame.

  ‘I was going to carry on helping her sort out Skye’s things.’

  ‘But you said that’s what you did yesterday.’

  ‘But that was just a little bag of the things Skye had been wearing when she died. There was everything else.’

  Now there was a long silence. The two detectives stared at me. I felt I could tell what they were doing. They were leaving a silence
for me to fill, just out of a need to keep talking. Perhaps I would give something away.

  Then, seemingly out of nothing, I remembered something.

  ‘The watch,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ said Durrant.

  ‘The bag with the things she had been wearing. Whoever did this tipped it out on the floor. When I went through it, I felt that something was missing, but I didn’t know what. It was the watch. The watch isn’t there.’

  ‘Went through it?’ said Kelly Jordan. ‘Did you touch anything? Please tell me you didn’t touch anything.’

  ‘I may have lifted some things,’ I said, haltingly. ‘Just to see if it was all there.’

  ‘I told you – specifically told you – not to touch anything.’

  ‘I needed to be sure.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Ross Durrant. ‘All right, that’s enough for now. While this is being written up for you to sign, you need to be checked over before any other clues get accidentally lost.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘You will go when we have finished with you.’

  ‘My daughter’s at school,’ I said. ‘I need to collect her. What time is it? It must be nearly three o’clock. If I leave now, I can still get there on time.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘You can’t stop me.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Tess,’ said Kelly Jordan. ‘Please try and be reasonable. You’ve found a body. A woman has been murdered and we need your help.’

  The words were friendly enough, but the tone in which she spoke was not. I could see that she was furious with me.

  ‘I have to get Poppy.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone you can ask to look after her until you get there? Presumably you have arrangements for when you’re working?’ A crease appeared between her eyes. ‘Why weren’t you working today, by the way?’

  ‘I’m ill,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a doctor’s note saying I’m suffering from stress.’ As soon as I’d said this, I regretted it. I knew it made me look even more irrational and unstable.

  ‘So who normally collects Poppy?’ asked Kelly Jordan.

  ‘No!’ I heard the wildness in my voice, and saw Durrant and Jordan glance at each other.

  I didn’t want Laurie anywhere near Poppy. Or Jason, or Emily or Ben for that matter. My mind scrabbled. My mother was too far away. Gina was at work. I couldn’t ask Bernie. I couldn’t ask Aidan.

  ‘I can ask Lotty, her teacher, to wait with her,’ I said at last. ‘But it mustn’t be for long.’

  Kelly Jordan nodded and I took my mobile out and found the number of the school and, after a few minutes, was talking to Lotty.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘So sorry. There’s been an emergency and I’m going to be a bit late. But I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Lotty’s voice was concerned. I took a steadying breath and tried to speak calmly.

  ‘I hate being late. Is she OK?’

  ‘Poppy’s fine. Hang on.’ There was a pause. I could hear muffled voices and then Lotty was back again. ‘Jake’s father’s here and he’s offering to take her, like he often does, right?’

  ‘No! No, please – I mean—’

  My mind was clotted with thoughts. I desperately didn’t want Poppy to be left with Laurie, but to refuse his offer would be to show him that, and then what? Which was worse – to let her go with him, or to not let her go with him? I couldn’t decide and stood with the mobile pressed to my ear, frozen in indecision. In front of me, Ross Durrant drummed his fingers on the table in loud impatience.

  ‘Tess?’ I could imagine Lotty and Laurie standing together while she listened to my silence. ‘Shall I hand Poppy over to Laurie?’

  ‘Yes,’ I blurted. ‘OK. Tell her to be good and tell her I won’t be long.’

  ‘Sure.’

  I ended the call. Now Lotty would think I was crazy as well.

  * * *

  They took my clothes and gave me others, drab, the trousers slightly too short, the top smelling of floral fabric conditioner. They scraped beneath my nails. They took a swab from the inside of my mouth.

  I didn’t know how Peggy had died. There’d been no blood, no obvious weapon, her head hadn’t been turned at an unnatural angle. She’d just been dead. So unmistakably dead, her poor slight body splayed out on the floor, her long skirt around her knees, her optimistic purple hair framing a face that was blank as stone.

  I was taken back into the interview room where I signed my statement without reading it through. Ross Durrant reappeared, this time without Kelly Jordan. He put his hands on the table and leaned towards me, his expression grim.

  ‘You may go and fetch your daughter now,’ he said. ‘But before you do so, you need to hear this. In my opinion, we have been far too accommodating of you and your whims and panics and deluded imaginings. You have taken up our time, you have interfered with our investigation, you have thrown sand in our eyes, you have tampered with evidence.’

  ‘That’s not—’

  He ploughed over my feeble attempt to defend myself.

  ‘All that ends here. You found the body of Peggy Nolan and you are now a witness in a murder inquiry. That is all you are. You are not a victim, you and your daughter are not at risk, you are not a detective, nor are you a fucking soothsayer. You do not have special insight. You are not permitted to go poking round, creating your own paranoid dramas, ringing DI Jordan up at all hours. And she’s too soft-hearted to tell you to bugger off, making our job next to impossible.’ Durrant leaned closer so his eyes were boring into mine. I could smell his meaty breath. ‘Do you hear?’

  ‘I hear,’ I said. ‘But—’

  His hand lifted and crashed down on the desk.

  ‘No fucking buts. If you do anything else to impede our investigation, you will be charged. That is a promise. Now get out of here.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Poppy was in bed and I had showered and changed into my own clothes and was in the garden in the soft dusk. I could smell next door’s roses. The rind of a moon hung above the rooftops. I thought of pouring myself a drink, of getting a cigarette from my secret stash, but instead I just sat, limp and exhausted after the day. The rush of images had ceased and I felt empty, ransacked of emotions.

  Dimly, I heard a sound and then realised it was the front doorbell, barely audible from the garden. It was late, I wasn’t expecting anyone and I thought of ignoring it, but then it rang again. I heaved myself out of the low chair, went through the conservatory, up the stairs, and opened the door.

  ‘Hello, Tess.’ Aidan spoke awkwardly. ‘If you tell me to go away, I will.’ I didn’t reply at once. ‘Sorry. This was a mistake. Stupid. I just couldn’t… I didn’t… forgive me.’

  He turned.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t go!’

  He stopped, his back still turned to me. The sight of him, with his defeated shoulders and his thinning hair, made me feel painfully tender.

  ‘Come in. Just for a few minutes.’

  He faced me then, taking me in.

  ‘You look awful.’

  ‘Well, thank you!’

  ‘No, I mean – what’s happened? Are you OK?’

  ‘Come inside.’

  ‘If you’re sure.’

  ‘Of course.’

  We went back into the garden together. I didn’t offer him a drink. I didn’t know why he was there or what he wanted. I didn’t know anything.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked again.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it. Things have been rough, that’s all. Today…’ I faltered to a halt.

  ‘Today?’

  I looked at him properly for the first time, letting our eyes meet. His face was thinner than I remembered.

  ‘It was awful,’ I said. I didn’t want to cry in front of him.

  ‘You don’t need to tell me. But is there anything I can do to help?’

  I shook my head.
We were both silent.

  ‘I didn’t mean to come,’ he said at last.

  ‘I’m glad you did.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve missed you.’ His voice was low. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  ‘I’ve missed you too,’ I said.

  ‘Does that mean…?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I need to sort things.’

  He nodded several times. ‘Do you think, in the future, when you’re ready…?’

  ’Mummy!’ Poppy’s voice cut through the air. ‘Mummy Mummy Mummy.’

  I jumped to my feet.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Let yourself out.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I ran up the stairs and into Poppy’s room. Leaning over her bed, pushing her damp hair off her forehead and murmuring to her, I heard the front door open and then I heard it close.

  FORTY-NINE

  The next morning, it rained heavily, water clattering down on the leaves and running off cracked earth. Poppy and I dashed to school under an umbrella but still arrived soaked. When I got home, I changed into running clothes and headed for London Fields, barely able to see through the downpour, my feet splashing through the rapidly forming puddles, houses and trees damp smudges on the drenched horizon.

  I ran for more than an hour, as fast as I could, chasing along paths, blindly retracing my footsteps. I wanted to wear myself out; I wanted my lungs to hurt and my legs to ache. When I finally got back to my street, I saw there were two figures standing at the door of the flat, one of them holding an umbrella. I slowed down and squinted through the driving rain. A man and a woman.

  I drew nearer then halted. The man was Jason – here when he should be at school. I had never seen the woman before.

  ‘Jason?’ I said, walking up to them. My sodden top and shorts were plastered to my body, my hair was dripping.

  They turned. The woman was wearing glasses that had misted over, so I couldn’t see her eyes.

  ‘I tried calling. I need to speak to you,’ Jason said.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Can we come in?’