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

There’s a murder inquiry. They just asked the stuff you’d expect.’

Jan picked up his glass, then set it down very gently, without tasting it. ‘Which is?’ he said.

‘Did he have enemies, did he have special friends, did he have money problems—that kind of thing.’

‘Did you mention us?’

‘Shouldn’t I have?’

‘Which means you did?’

‘If you really want to know, I said that I had very little knowledge of his life, but I did mention the musicians he’d been playing with, which means you. Is there a problem with that?’

‘No,’ said Nat. ‘No problem. So I guess they’ll be in touch.’

‘I didn’t give them your number, if that’s what you mean, but I suppose they’ll track you down. I mean, that’s what they do. What I also said is that they’d find quite a long list of people Hayden had pissed off. They asked me who might be angry with him.’

‘Only people who knew him,’ said Jan.

‘That’s roughly what I said.’

There was a pause and I stared at my drink. I definitely couldn’t manage any more of it. At the next table there was a group of people who were a wild mixture of tattoos and pink hair, thigh-length boots and tigerskin. What did these people do when they weren’t on holiday? Did they work in banks and primary schools?

‘What did Hayden say about us?’ asked Nat.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Or nothing that I can remember. Why?’

‘On the times we met, you must have seen we weren’t exactly on the best of terms. We just wanted to say that you shouldn’t get the wrong idea.’

In other circumstances I would have found it difficult to stop myself smiling. Not today, though. Today I didn’t feel the smallest temptation to smile. ‘Is that what you called me about?’ I said. ‘The two of you came all the way over here and plied me with drink to tell me that you weren’t on bad terms with Hayden?’

‘No,’ said Jan. ‘We were on bad terms with him. Or pretty bad terms. As you saw. But there wasn’t anything new about it. That’s the way things always were with Hayden. With all of us.’

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I believe you.’

Nat looked suspicious. ‘And you didn’t ask Hayden what had happened between us?’

‘I know what happened between you. At least, I know all I want to know. What I assume happened is that Hayden spent money you were stupid enough to entrust him with. And, no doubt, there were other things as well. I imagine that if there were any moments when success looked at all likely, he probably wasn’t much help.’

‘To say the least,’ said Nat. ‘And why do you think that was?’

‘You mean why is . . .’ I stopped myself. ‘Why was Hayden like that? Do you want me to say that he was abused as a child? That he had some hidden trauma that made him feel he didn’t deserve success?’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Jan. ‘I’d say it was that no success could ever be quite enough for him.’

‘I wasn’t his psychiatrist,’ I said.

Jan smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you weren’t.’

I was sick of this and I just wanted to go, but then I looked at them, two middle-aged, not very successful musicians and I surprised myself by feeling an ache of sympathy for them. ‘This will be big,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ said Nat.

‘The police investigation,’ I said. ‘Today’s the beginning. It’s not going to be pleasant for anybody who knew Hayden.’

‘Especially the low-life musicians he worked with,’ said Jan. ‘I mean us. Not you.’

‘But that’s all right, isn’t it?’ said Nat. ‘Because we all just want the person who did this caught.’

‘Obviously,’ I said.

‘When I first heard, I thought it was a mugger,’ said Nat. ‘Just a robbery gone wrong. But then I heard about the reservoir. A mugger doesn’t weigh you down with stones and throw you into a reservoir.’

‘I don’t know much about muggers,’ I said.

‘Just one thing,’ said Jan.

‘Yes?’

‘You said Hayden spent all our money.’

‘I just said it. I don’t know anything.’

‘But he didn’t give you any money? For safe-keeping or as a present?’

‘To me?’ I said.

‘It’s not just us,’ said Jan. ‘Hayden owed a lot of people money. A lot of angry people.’

‘I don’t know where the money went,’ I said. ‘But I don’t remember Hayden spending any. Definitely not on me.’ I got up to go.

‘You haven’t finished your drink,’ Nat said.

‘You have it,’ I said. ‘You can toast Hayden again. Sorry, that came out sounding wrong.’

‘So you think the police will want to talk to us?’

‘I think they’ll want to talk to everybody.’

‘We won’t have much to tell them.’

‘Then it won’t take long,’ I said.

‘Do you know how to reach me?’ said Nat.

‘Am I going to need to reach you?’

He wrote his number on a beer mat and handed it to me. ‘You could keep us in touch with what’s going on,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything we need to know.’

As I walked home I went over what I’d said to the police. I’d been so stupid. I’d thought I’d been so discreet about Hayden and me, almost invisible, but people had known, perhaps everybody. Soon the police would hear and would want to know why I’d been less than truthful. I would have to think what I was going to say about that.

Before

I knocked briskly on the door that used to be my door and assumed a nonchalant expression.

‘Bonnie!’

‘Hi. Sorry I’m a bit late.’

‘Late?’

‘You’ve forgotten?’

‘No—that is, what?’

‘I’ve come to collect my things. We arranged it at the last rehearsal.’

‘Was that today?’

‘Sunday morning, when you could be sure to be here. Can I come in?’ I took a step forward so that I was standing on the threshold.

‘I’m not quite ready for you. Sorry. Maybe we could do it another day. There’s no real hurry, is there?’

‘That’s easy for you to say.’ I winced at the sharpness in my voice. ‘The thing is, I’ve borrowed Sally’s car. There’s not that much, and you said you’d put it all in