The Other Side of the Door by Nicci French (13 ebook reader .TXT) 📗

weary. ‘We’d better hope that the police go on following their red herrings and never find out what happened.’

‘And don’t arrest the wrong person,’ added Neal.

‘If they do that, we’re going to tell them, do you hear?’ I thought of Sally and Richard and clenched my fists at my powerlessness. ‘No one else is going to suffer for this. That’s a pledge we all have to make. Can I ask you something, Sonia?’

‘Of course.’

‘Did he die at once?’

She hesitated. ‘I think so.’

‘Doesn’t it haunt you?’

She stared at me. I knew she’d been trying to help me and I knew it had been a mistake, but for a moment, I felt hot with hatred for her. She had killed Hayden. She had been with him when he died. My beautiful Hayden, my love. ‘What do you think, Bonnie?’ she replied at last.

‘All right.’

‘We’d better get home,’ said Neal.

‘Does Amos know?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You haven’t told him?’

‘No.’

‘Can you manage that?’

Sonia looked at the oily surface of the canal. ‘You could,’ she said. ‘And I can too. Our secret.’

WHEN I GOT home I was trembling with agitation and distress. I walked from tiny room to room, knocking against boxes full of tattered books, cracked china, clothes I would probably never wear again. The flat resembled my brain—chaotically disordered and full of things that were unwanted or in the wrong place. Falling apart, unloved, abandoned. I lay on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, thinking, trying to think, trying not to think, trying not to see Hayden’s smile as he taunted Sonia, his face as he reached out to take hold of her, his expression as the vase hit his head and he fell, his eyes as the life went out of them. How stupid, how sad and absurd and meaningless, to die like that, for nothing at all.

Before

I lay on the floor of my flat and stared up at the ceiling. Hayden lay beside me, on his stomach, his arm over my belly. The carpet was rough and stung my back; my face stung too, from his stubble. I turned my head and looked at him. His legs were bent; one knee pressed against my thigh. One of his toes was slightly bruised. There was a mole on his lower back and a long, faint scar running across his left shoulder-blade. His hair fell in a scruffy wing across his face and his eyes were closed.

‘I can tell you’re looking at me,’ he mumbled, without opening his eyes.

‘How?’

‘I can feel you.’

‘I left my bag in your flat and my stuff.’

‘We’ll go and get them together. Later.’

‘Why did you come back?’

‘I wanted to see you. I had to. I couldn’t wait. I was sitting in my friend’s house and all of a sudden I had to go and find you. I thought you might not be here. You might have gone.’

‘Where would I go? You’re the one who’s leaving.’

‘Am I?’

‘That’s what you said a few hours ago, remember? On Blackfriars Bridge.’

‘So I did.’

‘I feel strange,’ I said, rolling onto my side and curling up slightly, watching him.

‘Maybe I won’t.’

‘Won’t leave?’

‘Maybe not. I don’t know. You’ve got me all confused.’

‘What are you saying?’

His eyes half opened. He put out a hand and ran it through my hair. ‘You’re a funny creature, Bonnie. Spiky but soft.’

‘Hayden.’

‘You’re hard to leave. Maybe that’s why I thought I had to go—because for once I don’t want to.’

‘Then stay awhile.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Is it always you?’

‘Me what?’

‘You who does the leaving.’

‘Probably. I warned you. I told you not to get involved.’

‘You’ve never wanted to stay with someone before?’

He muttered something I couldn’t hear.

‘Why haven’t you?’

‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t pry.’

I sat up and wrapped my arms around my knees, feeling suddenly chilly. ‘Is that how you see it? Any kind of closeness, and you see it as prying, intruding? What makes you think I want you to stay, anyway? Nothing ever advances.’

‘What do you want to advance?’ He made it sound ludicrous.

‘You cry and then won’t say why, you tell me things about yourself but the next time we meet it’s as if it never happened. You want to go, want to stay—it’s all just a whim, nothing to do with me, and it’s as if I have no say in it at all.’ I stood up. ‘I’m going to make us some coffee and then I’m going out.’

He lay on the floor and watched as I pulled on the dressing-gown I’d been wearing when I opened the door to him earlier, knotting the belt firmly.

‘Very milky for me,’ he said.

‘Right.’

I boiled the kettle and scooped coffee powder into the pot, banging mugs loudly on the surface to make some kind of point, and turned as he came into the kitchen, wearing only his jeans.

‘Don’t be angry, Bonnie.’

‘Why not? I like being angry.’

‘Don’t be angry with me.’

‘Of course I’m bloody angry with you.’

‘Shall I heat some milk?’

‘You’re like a small boy. You’ve never grown up.’

‘Is that what you think?’ Suddenly he had a cold, sickening smile on his face. I should have stopped there, left the flat at once.

‘Yes, I do. Never have children yourself, Hayden, and if you do, God help the poor sods. A child shouldn’t have children.’

It was very slow. I had time to think about everything that was happening to me. He swung round, knocking the milk bottle over so that white liquid streamed onto the floor and a puddle formed, spreading between my bare toes. Then he lifted up both his fists. His mouth was drawn back in a horrible grimace, like a horse having a bit forced between its teeth. His arms were strong. I could see his biceps clench. I thought how much taller and stronger he was than me and I imagined the pain I would feel when his fists landed on me. His eyes were wild, the pupils dilated, and I remembered, so vividly it felt as though it was actually happening again, the night my father had punched my mother so hard in the jaw