The Other Side of the Door by Nicci French (best novels to read for students .txt) 📕

‘Yes.’

I couldn’t tell whether she was frightened or angry or shocked or just being Sonia. ‘There’ll be an investigation now.’

‘Of course there’ll be an investigation,’ she said. ‘A body’s been found dumped in a reservoir. It’s in the paper. There’ll be a murder inquiry.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Sonia, I’m so sorry I brought you into this. If you want to go to the police . . .’

‘It’s too late for anything like that.’

‘You’re probably right.’

‘Just don’t try to be clever.’

‘That won’t be too difficult,’ I said.

‘I mean it, Bonnie. No more of your brilliant improvisations. We just do nothing, and say as little as possible.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Of course you are. But sit tight.’

I put down the phone, and before I could put the answering-machine on, it rang again.

‘This is Nat, Hayden’s friend. The bassist.’ His voice was thick—whether with drink or wretchedness I couldn’t tell.

‘I know who you are.’

‘You heard?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s fucking awful. We’ve got to talk.’

‘We are talking.’

‘I mean face to face. I’ll be in Camden Lock in half an hour.’

I reluctantly agreed, and he gave me elaborate instructions on how to find him, which involved locating a falafel stall and a weaver of baskets. Then I switched the answering-machine back on and turned off my mobile. I checked my computer. Thirty-four messages and most weren’t trying to sell me things. While I was watching, a thirty-fifth, a thirty-sixth and a thirty-seventh arrived. I looked through them. Four were from Sally. Oh, God, Sally. I switched the computer off and put my head into my hands, trying to block out the world.

Everything was switched off. The door was locked. But still I had the feeling I always got on a day when I was going to play a concert. I’d do things that felt normal but all the time there’d be a bit of me that knew that soon I’d be in front of an audience, that I’d be in a situation where things could go right or wrong and there wasn’t very much I could do about it. I made myself a cup of coffee and got dressed in a pair of jeans, a shirt and a sweater that looked casual but not grungy. I was prickly with heat, so I took off the sweater and put on a different shirt. Though I wasn’t hungry, I had a piece of hot buttered toast. Then I put on a bit of makeup, just enough to stop me looking entirely strung out. I was about to leave when the bell rang and I opened the door to find two people standing there, a man and a woman, both dressed for business. They could have been insurance salesmen but I knew, even before they said anything, that they were detectives. They took out their ID cards and showed them to me.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Joy Wallis,’ the woman said, ‘and this is my colleague Detective Inspector Wade. We have some bad news for you.’

‘I’ve heard,’ I said. ‘Someone rang me.’ Was that it? I wondered. Were they just coming to break the news to me? Hardly. I wasn’t his wife. ‘I was on my way out.’

‘We hoped you’d give us a moment,’ said the woman.

I led them through. I sat on the only chair and they sat on the only sofa. The frantic mess of the flat made me seem a bit like a madwoman. DI Wallis had a file under her arm and she laid it on the table in front of her. I was tempted to start babbling about how terrible it was, as a normal person would, but I remembered what Sonia had said and forced myself to stay silent.

‘It must be a shock,’ said DI Wade.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A terrible shock.’

She leaned forward and, with one finger, flipped the file open. ‘You talked to a colleague of ours,’ she said. ‘Last week. You expressed anxiety about Mr Booth. In fact, you reported him missing.’

‘We didn’t exactly report him missing,’ I said. ‘I went with my friend, Sally Corday, and we were sent away. We were told not to worry.’

‘Why were you worried?’

‘A group of us are playing a concert soon—on September the twelfth. Hayden was playing with us. Then, suddenly, he didn’t turn up. Sally was the most worried. I thought he’d just left.’

‘Why did you think that?’

‘He’s a musician. I thought of him as the sort of person who’d move on if something better came up.’

‘Instead somebody killed him.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

The two detectives looked at each other.

‘I’m sorry?’ said DI Wallis.

‘Could it have been an accident?’

‘These are early days,’ she said, ‘but when someone is found at the bottom of a reservoir weighed down with stones and there’s evidence of a severe blow to the head, we start a murder investigation.’

I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to know. ‘How was the body found,’ I said, ‘if it was at the bottom of a reservoir?’

‘It wasn’t very deep although it was in the middle,’ she said. ‘I understand a fisherman got his line caught.’

I thought of when I was a child and I’d fished with my dad on a holiday in Scotland and the line had snagged on something and broken and we’d forgotten about it.

‘That was lucky,’ I said.

‘A colleague has already talked to your friend Mrs Corday and she said you’d be a good person to talk to about people who knew Hayden Booth.’

‘I know a few,’ I said. ‘Not many.’

DI Wallis paused for a moment and ran her finger gently along the edge of the file. ‘Close friend, were you?’

This moment had come too soon. How much did other people know about Hayden and me? What would they tell the police? Meanwhile the phone was ringing and we heard my answering-machine message over and over again.

‘The word’s getting around,’ I said. ‘Sorry. This has been a terrible shock. I’ve only known him a couple of weeks, really. A few weeks. I agreed to play at a friend’s wedding and I needed some musicians. I met