Beneath The Skin

“I’ve got two packets of sweets and Thomas only got one,” said Chris triumphantly. “And I’ve got a slime ball.”

“Here’s your money, Miss Blake.”

From her tone of finality, it didn’t sound as if we would be asked back.

“Thanks.” I shouldered all my gear again and turned to go.

“Good luck,” I said to the young na

“Thank you.”

We lingered in the hall together. I couldn’t leave yet. Zach was going back on his own. I had to say good-bye to him.

“Was it a robbery?”

“No,” she said.

“He wrote letters,” Chris said brightly.

“What?”

Lena nodded and sighed.

“Yes,” she said. “It was horrible. Letters saying that she would be killed. Like love letters.”

“Like love letters,” I repeated dully.

“Yes.” She picked up the little boy and he wrapped his legs round her waist. “Come on, Chris.”

“Wait. Wait one minute. Didn’t she call the police?”

“Oh yes. There were many police.”

“She still died?” I said, feeling icy cold.

“Yes.”

“What were they called?”

“What?”

“The policemen. What were their names?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Can you remember their names?”

“Remember? I am seeing them every day. There is Links, Stadler. And a psychologist: Dr. Schilling. So. Why? What is it?”

“Oh, nothing important.” I smiled at her while my insides burned. “I thought I might know them.”

NINE

“You all right, Nadia?”

“What?”

I looked round, startled, hardly knowing where I was. I was sitting next to Ly

“You look pale,” she said.

“I’ve suddenly got a blinding headache,” I said. “Is it all right if we don’t talk for a while?”

“Can I get you anything?”

I shook my head and lay back in the seat with my eyes closed. I didn’t want to look at her. I couldn’t trust myself to speak. Ly

I’d been dropped into a new world, a horrible dark world, and I needed to work out where I was, but before that I would have to wait for the boiling buzzing in my head to die down. Most of all, on the short car journey home, I had to concentrate on not throwing up all over Ly

The car stopped. I was taking deep breaths now.

“We’re home,” a voice said in my ear. “Do you want some help?”

“I think I’ll just go and lie down for a while.”

“Would you rather I stayed outside in the car?”

Abruptly, I felt as if my face had been plunged into ice-cold water. My mind was clear now. From now on I would just be pretending to be ill.

“No, no, definitely not. I want you inside where you can do some good.”

“If you’re sure?”

“It’s just that I won’t be very sociable. I think I may have a migraine.”

“Do you need to take anything?”

“I just need to lie down in a darkened room.”

We went inside and I left her and retreated to my bedroom. I shut the door. And I checked that the window was firmly closed. And I pulled the blind down. Like Cameron. Like fucking Detective Inspector Cameron Stadler. I lay on the bed, facedown. I felt like I was five years old. I wanted to climb into the bed, to pull the covers over my head, so that I would be safe, so nobody could find me. Except that I wouldn’t be safe. He could find me. For the first time in my life, lying in the bed I didn’t feel safe. I needed to be able to see. I pulled the pillow up against the headboard so I could lean back on it. I could see every part of the room. But what good was that? Maybe it was just better to be killed and not see it.

I tried to go over the conversation I’d had with Lena. I had difficulty reconstructing it. For a feverish few minutes I tried to construct an optimistic version of it. Maybe she was mad. But even in my feverish state, I wasn’t able to convince myself of that. She had named Links, Grace Schilling, Cameron. She’d lived nearby, hadn’t she? That was a thought.

A strange free local paper is pushed through my door every Friday. I never even look at it. I’m not interested in new one-way streets, inquiries in the social services department of the local council, and I put it straight into a cupboard under the sink ready to be used for things like screwing up and shoving into wet shoes. My shoes hadn’t got wet for some time, so the last couple of months of them would still be in the pile. I walked out of my bedroom and told Ly

I started five issues earlier. Nothing there and nothing in the following issue either. Just a drugs raid in the market, a fire in a warehouse, and articles marked “Advertising Feature.” But in the following issue, which was just over two weeks ago, there it was, small and on an inside page, and my hands started to shake so much that I thought Ly

The headline was PRIMROSE HILL MURDER. I quickly tore out the page of the newspaper. The kettle had boiled. I poured water over the tea bags.

“Biscuit, Ly

“Not for me, thanks.”

I had another couple of minutes. I smoothed out the article on the work surface: “A mother of three was found murdered in her £800,000 Primrose Hill home last week. Police a

That was it. I read it and reread it, as if I could suck out some more information through sheer desperation. No mention of any letters. Again I tried to cobble together a version in which the na

I picked up the two mugs of tea, but my left hand was compulsively shaking. Scalding tea splashed on my hand. I had to put them down and fill the mug again. I carried one mug through to Ly