by Nicci French
‘I’m going to be honest with you, Ms Krauss.’
‘Holly.’
‘Holly. We can interview him. There are various potential charges. But it won’t be easy.’
‘Look at that bruise,’ said Meg.
‘You have had a relationship with this man.’
‘Not a relationship, a pointless, ugly one-night–’
‘That’s none of my business. I just know how it would look – how it would be made to look – if it ever came to court.’
‘I was drunk,’ I said. ‘Drunk, stupid, treacherous, mad. Are you saying that because I had sex with him once, he can attack me and threaten me and get away with it?’
‘No. Not at all. I just want you to know what it will involve. You would have to describe to a jury everything you’ve described to me. You’d have to let your private life and your behaviour be scrutinized. Do you know how many rape cases result in a sentence?’
‘No.’
‘In some areas of the country it’s fewer than one in five. And that includes stranger-rape cases. And these are the cases that reach court, where the police and the CPS think there’s a chance of conviction. In the case of date-rapes–’
‘He didn’t rape me. And he was never a date,’ I said bleakly.
‘You don’t need to convince me, Holly. You need to know this before you go any further. In your own interests.’
‘I see.’
‘You’re a married woman.’
‘Yes.’
There was a pause. Then Meg said angrily, ‘But he may try again.’
Gill Corcoran didn’t speak. She just looked at me. She was clearly right.
‘They’d eat me alive,’ I said. I turned to Meg. ‘I had this dream recently. Nightmare. There were all these people pointing at me and screaming, and their faces were coming in and out of focus. Rees was there, and Deborah. And the guy who had the poker game, and that man I knocked to the ground.’ I saw Meg blink in surprise but I ploughed on, ‘And Charlie was there, I think. You too. You were all accusing me. If I went to court, I’d be making my nightmare come true. I’d bring it all about.’
I stood up and found my legs were no longer so shaky. ‘Thank you,’ I said to Gill Corcoran. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’
We shook hands and I thought, She could have been my friend. A careworn police officer on the night shift. It was a little shaft of light in the grim dark.
Meg drove me home, and although she wanted to come in, I insisted she left. I wanted to see Charlie alone.
18
But Charlie wasn’t at home. The house was dark, silent, empty.
I went upstairs, took off my dress and threw it in the corner, then put on a dressing-gown. I brushed my hair, without looking at myself in the mirror again, tied it back in a severe ponytail, put my feet into warm slippers. Then I went into the kitchen, where I took ice cubes from the freezer compartment, tied them up in a cloth and pressed them to my throbbing cheek.
I called his mobile. But it rang from its hiding-place behind the toaster. A small part of me was relieved that I didn’t have to talk to him about what had happened, but I also knew that every time we didn’t talk, putting off the hour of reckoning, delaying the explanations and the confessions, our relationship unravelled a little bit more, until there would be nothing left to knit up again, just a string of memories. Ah, yes, I was that woman once and he was that man. There had been a time when we knew every detail of each other’s days, and also the thoughts that passed through the other’s head. You share the little things – the mild sore throat, the sandwich he had at lunch, the words someone said to you on the bus, the sunset you saw, the socks he bought – as well as the big, and they are almost more important.
I didn’t know where he was now. I didn’t know who he was with or what he would be doing with them. I didn’t know what he would be thinking about. I didn’t know, when he came in, what I was going to say to him and I didn’t know how he would reply. Would his face be kind, or would it be hard? Would I smell another woman on him? A woman who was kind, calm, tolerant, easy on the nerves.
I made myself scrambled egg on toast and forced myself to eat it, then drank two cups of green tea. I pressed my forehead against the kitchen window, looking out into the dark, unkempt garden where a gusting wind was swishing up the long grass and plucking at the branches of the trees. A shudder passed through me.
The doorbell rang. I moved into the centre of the kitchen and stood there uncertainly. It wouldn’t be Charlie, and I didn’t want to see anyone else. The thought of making any kind of effort to curve my lips into a smile, form shapes with my mouth so that the right words came out, ‘Yes, no, I’m fine, come in…’ Unbearable.
Then the bell rang again. Two quick jabs and a longer one. Maybe Charlie had forgotten his keys. I pulled the belt tight on my dressing-gown, walked down the hall and opened the front door a fraction, peering out through the crack.
‘You must have the wrong–’
His hefty boot was in the door before I could slam it shut, and at the same time he gave a funny little scream of laughter, as if I’d said something hilarious.
‘Wotcha,’ he said, and pushed the door violently so that I staggered backwards into the hall. ‘You must be Holly.’
He was young, maybe still in his teens, with the acne of youth across his face and a thin neck. His hair was shaved to bristle. He had a ring in his left eyebrow, several more in his left ear but none in the right because only the remains of an ear was there. It was as if someone had taken a giant bite out of it. He was wearing baggy combat trousers and a grubby grey singlet in spite of the cold. There were swirling tattoos on both arms and I saw the beginnings of another on his chest.
‘I don’t know you,’ I said. ‘Please leave now.’
‘Nice place you have,’ he said, with another screech of laughter, then sniffed violently and wiped his arm against his nose.
‘I’m going to call the police.’
He took an object from his pocket – I couldn’t see what it was – and tossed it from one hand to the other. Then, suddenly, there was a click and a blade shone in the dim light. We both stared at it. He gave a smile as if he’d just performed a conjuring trick.
‘Don’t,’ he said, closing the blade and pushing it back into his pocket. He sniffed again and scratched one arm ferociously. There was a powerful smell of wet dog, armpits and solvents on him. This man is off the wall, I thought. He could do anything, anything at all. I clenched my fists.
‘What do you want?’
‘A beer for a start.’
He grabbed me by my wrist and yanked me after him into the kitchen, opened the fridge and peered inside.
‘This’ll do.’ He snapped it open, took a swig and belched loudly. ‘All neat and dandy. Sheets turned down.’ That curdled laughter again. ‘You know Vic Norris.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘You owe him eleven thousand pounds. Or, specifically,’ he drew out the words as if he was proud of knowing them, ‘you owe it to a company called Cowden Brothers.’
‘It was all a mistake,’ I said. ‘I’ve not been well. I can’t really play poker. I didn’t know what I was doing.’
He was looking at me, still smiling broadly. ‘Nasty bruise on your cheek,’ he said.
‘I lost nine thousand, not eleven,’ I said. ‘And I don’t have it. I don’t have anything.’
He drank a few more gulps of beer and sighed heavily. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I’m just telling you what he told me. Pay up. Geddit?’
‘Yes,’ I said. I just wanted him out of the house.
But he sat down on a kitchen chair as if he had all the time in the world, spread his legs. He had scabs on his head and on his arms, which he kept scratching with his chewed fingernails.
‘Let’s have a look in here, then,’ he said, pulling my bag towards him and rummaging around in it for my purse, which he opened. There was twenty-five pounds in it and some change. He took it all
and put it into his trouser pocket. ‘What’s your old man say about all of this?’
I didn’t answer.
‘I bet you haven’t told him.’ He stood up and came up to me, his beery breath in my face. ‘Right, what haven’t I told you? Oh, yeah. Vic says it’s eleven at the moment, in a week’s time it’ll be twelve. The next, thirteen. And so on. Geddit? I’ll come again and get it. Cash.’
I nodded.
‘My name’s Dean. See you, then, Holly.’
He ambled out of the kitchen, into the hall, out of the door. I went to the door and watched him as he walked on to the pavement, then down the road, with his lopsided, addled gait. Watched as he passed Charlie coming in the other direction. Then I closed the door and leaned, whimpering, against it until a few moments later I heard the key in the lock.
I stood up, straightened my shoulders, put a welcoming smile on my face. ‘Hello, Charlie,’ I said, as he came in from the cold, his cheeks glowing and his eyes bright, a spring in his step. ‘I’ve just got in too. I had a fall and hurt my cheek, but don’t worry, it looks worse than it is. Good day?’
Oh, help me, help me, help me, darling Charlie. Help me, someone. Anyone. Help me before I fall apart, is what I didn’t say.
19
Charlie woke me the next day. He helped me to sit up and gave me a flannel wrapped around several cubes of ice for my cheek, and a mug of coffee, very hot and very strong. He sat by me on the bed and watched me drink it. It brought me round a bit. The layer of glass that seemed to separate me from everything that wasn’t me grew a bit thinner.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘About… about, well, everything, really.’
‘That’s all right,’ he said, stroking my hair.
‘I think I’m not completely well.’
‘We’re going to get you better,’ he said.
‘Oh, Charlie,’ I said. ‘I know you’re good at fixing things, but…’
‘It’ll be my hobby.’ He had shining eyes.
I wanted to say, Who are you sleeping with? I knew there was someone: he was being so attentive and yet at the same time so remote. All of a sudden, he looked younger, smoother, more like the eager young man I’d met and fallen for a year ago. I wanted to say: ‘Why don’t we stop lying to each other? Why don’t we spill out the dirty, toxic truth and look at it and call it by its name?’ Instead I touched his cheek and rolled away so he wouldn’t see my face.
It was almost eight o’clock. I would leave work at six. I would have to play the part of Holly Krauss for ten hours until I could get off the stage, lock the door and go to bed. If I could get through the day without making anything worse, tomorrow would be a little better and so on and so on.
At first it went all right. I got through all the early-morning rituals and I even managed to pick at something that Charlie pushed in front of me, saying it was important to eat, which sounded right. My skin felt prickly as if I had just been ill or was just about to become ill. A light fog hung over everything, indoors as well as outside. I took great care dressing and applying makeup, my disguise, my armour against the world, although nothing could coverupmy puffy discoloured cheek. I pulled on mycoat under Charlie’s careful gaze.
Before leaving for work, I took my mobile out into the garden, where there was no chance of Charlie overhearing, and phoned Stuart.
‘Holly? Well, well, well. I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you for a bit.’
‘Oh?’ I said weakly.
‘Great evening, wasn’t it?’ he said, too loudly.
‘Which one?’
‘I guess you have lots to choose from. I was thinking of your card-playing exploits and everything that went with them.’
‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Where shall we meet, then?’ he asked, strangely quick to agree.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to meet him at all but I couldn’t think of a way of saying, ‘I need a big favour but could we handle it quickly?’ over the phone. So we made an arrangement for mid-morning.
I met him in a coffee bar. I tried not to feel guilty about slipping out of the office, telling myself they were probably glad to have me out of their sight. Stuart arrived looking smart and assured in a dark suit and a white shirt with no tie. He bought us coffee in vast, brightly coloured mugs that looked as if they had been designed for giant toddlers.
He looked at me with an appraising air. ‘Someone finally showed you exactly what they thought of you?’
I put my hand to my cheek. ‘I fell over.’
‘Oh, yeah?’ He grinned sarcastically. ‘And you’re looking wiped out as well.’
‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead,’ I said. ‘As the saying goes. Or at least when I’ve got everything sorted out. You saw what happened with the poker game?’
Stuart’s smile became even more fixed. ‘Yes, I saw.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘My memory of the evening is a bit patchy. But I remember being a bit rude. If I was rude to you, I’m sorry.’
‘You were rude to me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Afterwards I was wondering what I’d done to you to make you want to humiliate me like that.’
‘I’m sorry, Stuart. I think I must have felt that you were getting at me and I hit back. But it was unforgivable.’
‘What did you want to see me about?’
‘I lost a lot of money.’
‘I know. I was there.’
‘They must have seen that I wasn’t experienced at all that. I can’t believe they want to take my money. But this guy came round to the house. He threatened me. I don’t even know how he got my address.’
Stuart looked at me evenly but he didn’t speak.
‘Do you think I could talk to someone?’
Stuart pulled a face as if none of it really mattered very much. ‘You could talk to Tony, if you want. Or Vic. But I don’t know what you expect them to say. It was a serious poker game. You saw that they were playing for money. It’s a bit like going to a supermarket, filling your trolley, then asking if you can take it all away without paying.’
‘It’s eleven thousand pounds.’
‘As I said, you could talk to Tony.’
This was the really awful bit. I swallowed hard.
‘Actually, Stuart, what I was hoping was that maybe you could, you know, say something to them.’
There was a long pause now. I got the impression that in some way he was savouring the moment.
‘You want me to deal with that?’ he said. ‘As well?’
‘What do you mean, “as well”?’
‘You asked me to deal with Debbie Trickett, remember?’
‘I didn’t actually ask you. You offered. Anyway, I haven’t heard anything from her for days.’
‘And why do you think that is?’
‘Because she knows she hasn’t got a case.’
‘I hope you’re sure about that,’ said Stuart.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve seen her. I’ve talked to her. Her flat is on the market. She’s going to be homeless. She’s got to look for work without any references. She left a good job to come to KS Associates and now she’s lost everything. So it would be good to know that she was treated justly.’
‘Whose side are you on?’
‘I’m not on anybody’s side. I’m a mediator. I want to find common ground. I thought it was important for you to realize that she’s been hurt by this. She’s vulnerable. You may not have fully understood that.’
‘Oh, I understood…’ I began, and then I stopped and looked at him hard. He reddened slightly. ‘I can’t believe it. You’re fucking her.’
Stuart’s face flushed terribly red and he glanced around.
‘Keep your voice down,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘Well, are you?’
He jabbed at me with a trembling finger. I thought he was going to poke me in the eye. ‘I’m not, as it happens,’ he said. He could
barely speak. He was gasping for breath. ‘What is it with you? You do it to everybody. You look for their weak spot. We’ve all got one. You find it and then you destroy them. That’s what you did with Debbie. You caught her out making a mistake. Clever you. And you used it to destroy her. You did it to me. And you think you can get away with it all. Is it to do with power? Or do you enjoy it? Just seeing how far you can go. For a start, you can’t sweet-talk your way out of what you owe to Vic Norris. You try fluttering your eyelashes at him and see where it gets you. He does not forgive and he does not forget, and if you hang around hoping for the best, you’ll discover what I mean.’
He stopped, as if he had run out of breath.
‘Have you finished?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I came here to talk to you about Debbie.’
‘And?’
‘Show how you can make at least one disaster go away. Give her another chance. She promises it’ll be different. And she says she’ll put it all behind her.’
‘She’ll put it all behind her?’
‘That’s right. So, what can I tell her?’
I had to take a moment. My heart was beating so hard I could barely hear what Stuart was saying. I couldn’t think properly.
‘I’ve got a message for Deborah,’ I said. Stuart leaned forward. ‘You can tell her to fuck off. We were lucky we caught her when we did. I wouldn’t trust her to carry out the garbage.’
I got up and left.
∗
I came back to the office, lurching like a drunk woman, and fumbled my way into my chair. My legs shook under me and when I tried to access my computer my fingers were trembling so violently that I kept pressing the wrong keys, bringing up forests of nonsense words. I don’t know how much time passed: everything seemed to run together. There was a cup of coffee that Lola put down in front of me but I spilled it all over the desk and I remember lots of fuss with files being whisked out of the way and sodden tissues and people saying it didn’t matter really. There was a sandwich that I took one mouthful of but it made me feel sick so I dropped it into the bin.
