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  But if it really was something like a heart-attack, shouldn’t I do something about it right now? Or if she’d cut herself and was bleeding profusely, wasn’t it important to tie a tourniquet round her? Didn’t every second count? I should have asked them on the phone. Who would know? I thought of calling Mick – if he’d been in the army, surely he’d know things like that – but quickly changed my mind. Mick was probably at work, but if he wasn’t he was at the top of the house and never answered the phone. I’d get Dario instead.

  I rattled the door. I stood back and searched the upper floor for an open window I could climb through. I pulled my tool-kit out of my pannier: screwdrivers, adaptable spanners, inner tube, Swiss Army pen-knife. Useless. Before I fully understood what I was doing I picked up my entire bike and swung it against the large window to the left of the porch. The glass shattered and there was a violent shriek of a burglar alarm.

  With my gloved hand, I knocked the remaining jagged pieces of glass from the frame so that I could climb through. I was standing in an opulently furnished living room. I walked through it and out into the hall. On the gleaming boards a woman lay face down. One arm was flung above her head, and one knee was bent. For a moment, I simply stood and stared down at her, unable to move, with the alarm throbbing in my eardrums. Bobbed blonde hair, expensively highlighted. Tanned skin. A blue silk dressing-gown riding up over her slim, impeccably waxed legs. I crouched beside the figure and, with a feeling of absolute dread, put a hand out to touch her arm. It was still warm. I gasped with relief, then tried to pull the motionless body on to its back. I jerked back in horror, letting go of her as I did so. Her head hit the floor with a thump. It wasn’t just the eyes, open and glassy, staring upwards. Or the lips, swollen and blue. Her smooth face looked as if it had been drawn on with a red pen. But then I saw that the lines weren’t drawn but incised, slashes on her cheek and forehead and even across one eye. The iris was crushed, something white oozing out from it.

  I thought I should do something, press the chest, give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and then I saw the sightless eyes, eyes with nothing behind them. It was pointless.

  I stood up and pressed myself against the front door, my hand over my mouth, the body on the floor filling my vision. The alarm swelled in the air and in my skull. I tried to make myself feel that this couldn’t be happening. It was a dream, an aberration. I’d blink and find myself back in my ordinary life, cycling up a hill in the rain on the way to collect a package. My mind focused on other things. I thought about how neat the house was, hardly a speck of dust in sight. How many hours did some cleaner work each week to make everything look as if it was in a magazine? I imagined myself telling the story later, to the house, and I already knew that I would do so with a kind of horrified excitement. I thought about my irritation with this woman, or people like her, as I had hammered at the door, and the way we messengers had bitched about her, and should I feel guilty about that? I vaguely wondered about getting my hair cut. I remembered that it was Miles’s birthday next week and I needed to buy him a present but I didn’t have a clue what. Something for his house – a sharp little reminder that we were leaving it? And that made me think about having to start flat-hunting soon, rather than leave it to the last minute – though I knew quite well that I probably would leave it to the last minute anyway, whatever my resolutions, and spend weeks sleeping on friends’ floors and living out of suitcases. I wondered if my hearing would be damaged by the blasting throb of the alarm, and then I wondered if it was a way of sending people mad, subjecting them to this kind of noise. I decided it would be better to go and wait outside; after all, there was nothing I could do here and it seemed indecent to be standing staring at the flimsily dressed body of a woman who had seemed so impregnable in life. But I couldn’t seem to make myself move. I thought how amazing it was that your brain can hold so many disparate feelings and ideas at once. And all the time I was staring at the impossible dead body on the floor, just a few feet from where I stood.

  I fished out my mobile once more, noticing that my hands were trembling, but I didn’t dial because at that moment I heard, behind the house alarm, the sound of a siren. The ambulance at last. I turned and pulled open the door to see it draw up outside the house. People had already started to gather in the road. I watched as a man and a woman jumped down and ran towards me as I lifted up my hand to beckon them on. Then, as they came into the garden and I saw their eyes move from me to the body that was lying behind me in the hall, I turned and vomited into one of the earthenware pots.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Did you touch the body?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  The police officer looked disappointed. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘I didn’t know she was dead,’ I said. ‘I thought she might be injured. I thought she might need help.’

  His expression softened. ‘I can see that.’ He stepped closer. ‘Are you all right? Would you like to talk to a WPC?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘They’re trained,’ he said.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘The window,’ he said. ‘That was you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve caused quite a disturbance.’

  ‘As I said, I thought she might be ill. It seemed urgent.’

  He looked round at the shattered window. ‘Looks a bit drastic,’ he said.

  ‘I couldn’t think of anything else.’ Behind him, the hallway was crowded. There were other police officers, people dressed in white like doctors. Outside, vehicles were coming and going.

  ‘So, Miss erm…’

  ‘ Bell.’

  ‘Why were you here, Miss Bell?’

  ‘I’m just a bike messenger,’ I said. ‘That’s my bike outside.’

  ‘Do you know this woman?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve been to the house a few times.’

  ‘Why did you come today?’

  ‘The office rang me about a package.’ There was a silence. ‘I’m sorry. ‘I’ve got nothing else to say. I mean, I can’t think of anything.’

  The officer rubbed his chin as if he was trying to think of another question but couldn’t. ‘I know that this has been a terribly shocking experience for you. But we’re going to ask you to come in with us and give a full statement.’ He looked at me, surprised by my expression. ‘I’m sorry, is there something funny about that?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Not at all. I was just startled. I’d never talked to a policeman before. And now I’ve given two statements in a month.’

  ‘Really?’ said the officer. ‘What about?’

  So I had to tell him about my bike accident and my encounter with Peggy Farrell. I thought he’d find it curious, funny even in a grim kind of way, but almost immediately his face become serious and he told me to stop and wait and he left the room.

  I was becoming an expert on police interview rooms. Two officers drove me down the hill to another police station. They wouldn’t let me ride my bike. It would be brought, I was told. They drove into the rear car park and I was led in through a back entrance. I was met by a WPC, who took me through to my next interview room. There wasn’t much to tell it apart from the other. Instead of beige walls, it had institutional light green. I sat on a plastic chair and was left alone. I took out my phone. There were about ninety-seven messages from Campbell and others. I rang Campbell.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I arrived at the house and she was dead. I’m in a police station.’ There was complete silence at the other end of the line. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘What?’ said Campbell.

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ I said. I broke off the call, switched off the phone and started to cry. This won’t do, I thought, but I hadn’t completely pulled myself together when the door opened and a man in a suit came in.

  He was middle-aged with untidy greying hair that was thinning at the front. He wa
s carrying two files under his arm. He stopped suddenly and looked at me. ‘What the hell are you wearing?’ he said.

  ‘I’m a bike messenger,’ I said.

  ‘Are you the one who found the body?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he said, and walked out of the room. I heard indistinct shouting outside, which got more distant. I felt furious with myself that he’d seen me crying. That wasn’t me. The man came back in, accompanied by two officers. One, a WPC, was carrying a bundle of clothes in her arms. The other had a tray with tea on it.

  ‘Put this on,’ said the detective.

  ‘I’m not cold,’ I said.

  ‘That’s an order,’ he said. ‘You may well be in shock. And when I find the police officer who left you like that, I’m going to give him such a kick up the arse.’

  The clothes were ridiculous. There was a torn navy blue sweatshirt, a woolly jumper and a pair of jeans that were about five sizes too big. The WPC bent down and rolled up the legs.

  ‘I don’t think these do much for me,’ I said.

  The man handed me a mug of tea. I sipped it and grimaced. ‘I don’t take sugar,’ I said.

  ‘You do this time,’ he said. ‘We’re going to stand here and watch you drink it.’

  I felt the tea sinking into my empty stomach. ‘Is there anything to eat?’ I said.

  The detective looked at the WPC. ‘You heard her.’

  The WPC looked startled. ‘Can I get you a sandwich, love?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘At the double,’ said the detective.

  The two officers scuttled out of the room. The detective gestured at me to sit down. He placed the two files on the table one beside the other. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Paul Kamsky,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said.

  ‘This isn’t really by the book. I know you haven’t given a statement yet, but as soon as I heard, I had to come and talk to you myself.’ He gave a baffled smile. ‘I had to ask, what the hell is going on?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He picked up a file – green cardboard – and opened it.

  ‘On Thursday, the tenth of May, you were the last person to see one Margaret Farrell alive.’

  ‘Me and a couple of my friends, yes.’

  He put the file down and picked up the other one – brown cardboard, this time. ‘And now, a little over three weeks later, you are the person who finds the body of Ingrid de Soto. I wondered if you had any comment to make.’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I’m a bit shaken by it.’

  ‘So am I, Miss Bell. Anything else?’

  ‘Like what?’

  He paused for a moment.’ ‘Miss Bell, I’m not sure if you’re entirely recognizing the oddity of the situation.’

  ‘I am fucking recognizing it. It’s a horrible, horrible coincidence and it’s not nice being the victim.’

  ‘You’re the witness, not the victim.’

  ‘That’s what I was trying to say.’

  ‘I could put it this way. I’ve been a copper for twenty-eight years and the only time I’ve ever found someone on two murder scenes within a month is because they were the murderer.’

  ‘You’re not saying…?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. But I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to be here for a while. These statements take a ridiculously long time. But I’m just here to ask a couple of very simple questions.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like, can you think of any connection between these two women?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said. ‘There’s no connection at all.’

  ‘Well, there’s one,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘That’s mad.’

  ‘Please, Miss Bell. Help me. Tell me about your relation to these women.’

  ‘Honestly, there is no relation. Margaret Farrell lived in the same street I do, a few doors along. But this is London. I knew her face but I’d never really met her until I ran into her car.’

  ‘You ran into her car?’

  ‘Well, pedalled. It probably says that in the file.’ For the millionth time, I gave an account of what had happened. ‘But that was it. I didn’t know her. And I was in a shocked state, so I can’t even remember saying anything coherent to her.’

  ‘What about Ingrid de Soto?’

  I started to shiver violently.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, my teeth chattering. ‘I’m not thinking in the clearest way.’

  Kamsky leaned forward with a concerned expression on his face. ‘Do you need a doctor?’ he said.

  ‘Seeing her body,’ I said. ‘I’ve never seen a dead body before.’

  ‘And not arranged like that,’ he said. ‘Some of my young constables were pretty shaken as well. Do you want to stop for a bit?’

  ‘No, I’m all right. What was it you wanted to know?’

  ‘Ingrid de Soto. Tell me about her.’

  ‘I didn’t even remember her full name. Maybe I saw it on a package.’

  ‘Why did you go to the house?’

  ‘I wasn’t planning it. My boss rang me. He could have rung anybody.’

  ‘How many others?’

  ‘Five or six.’

  ‘Had you been to the house before?’

  ‘A few times.’

  ‘Can you think why anyone would want to kill this woman?’

  ‘Which woman?’

  ‘Mrs de Soto. Do you know anything about her?’

  ‘No. I’m not her doctor, not her neighbour, not her friend. I deliver packages and take them away. Usually I don’t even know their names.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘She’s rich. She was rich.’

  ‘That’s something,’ he said.

  ‘She’s rich, so someone may have killed her for her money. As part of a robbery.’

  ‘My colleagues are still checking the scene. They haven’t managed to contact her husband…’

  ‘Her husband,’ I said. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. They both had husbands.’

  ‘There we are. There’s something else. But what I was saying is that, so far as we know, nothing was stolen. This was a murder done for other reasons.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That’s something we’ll be considering.’

  There was a long silence. Kamsky put his elbows on the table and rested his head on his hands.

  ‘I don’t understand this,’ he said, ‘and that irritates me. I’ve got a horrible feeling that this might be a coincidence.’

  ‘I agree…’

  ‘But that’s not going to stop me.’ He looked up suddenly. ‘Where’s the package?’ he asked.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The package you were supposed to be collecting.’

  ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t on my list of priorities after I’d broken in.’

  ‘The house was secure and the alarm on when you broke in?’

  ‘Yes,’ I began. ‘It went off when I broke the window…’

  But he was really talking to himself, not me. He chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. ‘Right. After you’ve signed your statement I’ll have someone drive you home, Ms Bell. I must ask you not to tell anyone the details of what you saw. Do you understand? Nothing about the method of killing and nothing about the marks on her face.’ I nodded. ‘Two officers are going to interview you and I’m afraid you’re going to give a statement and you’re going to say everything that comes into your mind, if it takes all day and all night.’

  Chapter Ten

  A police constable dropped me back at the house and left me on the front steps, fumbling the key into the lock with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking, and dropping it twice before I managed to push open the door. It was only after the car had turned and driven away that it occurred to me my bike was still at the station, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I felt oddly sluggish, and very cold in spite of the bo
rrowed clothes I was bundled up in. I was intending to creep in quietly and sneak up to my own room, where I could lie down and pull the duvet over my head, but as I pushed the door shut I heard excitable voices downstairs, and then Pippa shouted: ‘Astrid? Is that you? Come here, will you? We need you.’

  So I made my way downstairs, where I found the entire household gathered, plus Leah. Everyone was sitting round the table, speaking loudly and at once, and I could only pick out fragments, many of which were expletives. I sank into the armchair, away from the group, and sighed.

  ‘Astrid can say what she thinks about it,’ said Davy. ‘She’s pretty reasonable.’

  ‘You think so?’ said Owen. He looked at me as if he were sizing me up.

  ‘Reasonable?’ Leah snorted. ‘I hardly agree.’

  ‘What about all the work she’s done in the garden?’ said Dario. ‘Surely that counts for something?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘What are you wearing?’ asked Pippa. ‘Is this the latest bike-messenger uniform?’

  ‘No -’ I began.

  ‘Can we stick to the point?’ said Miles.

  ‘We need some kind of mediator,’ said Davy. ‘It’s hard for us to be objective. We don’t want to end up enemies.’

  ‘Too late,’ said Dario.

  ‘I’m a solicitor,’ said Pippa. ‘I can be objective.’

  Leah snorted again, louder this time.

  ‘Shut her up,’ Mick said, in a low, controlled voice. A vein was pulsing in his temple.

  ‘Leah,’ said Miles. ‘Please. You’re not helping.’

  I was surprised he didn’t shrivel up under the force of her glare.

  ‘I’m simply saying all the things you think but are too cowardly to say yourself. You want me to do your dirty work for you. Then they can blame it all on Leah, the Wicked Witch of the North.’

  ‘Of the West, actually,’ said Dario.

  ‘Please, what’s going on?’ I said again.

  ‘Bad stuff,’ said Dario.

  ‘Can I explain?’ Pippa leaned towards me. ‘I was the one who called this meeting. I thought it would be a good idea to discuss the terms of our eviction.’