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

only known him for a couple of weeks or so, through the band. You know. I told you before.’

‘Were you sexually involved with Mr Booth?’

‘Yes.’

‘So. You weren’t his girlfriend but you were sexually involved with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘You had sex with him.’

‘Obviously.’

‘How many times?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Approximately how many times did you have sex with Hayden Booth?’

‘Is that relevant?’

‘We’ll know once you’ve told us.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Once? Twice? Three times? More?’

‘Nearer that, yes.’

‘More than three?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many more?’

‘I don’t know. A few.’

‘Say, six or seven times in less than two weeks and you weren’t his girlfriend?’

‘No. I wasn’t.’

‘Was it secret?’ This was from Joy Wallis.

‘Kind of.’

‘Why?’

‘It just was. We didn’t want people to know. To make assumptions. That kind of thing.’

‘Assumptions that you were a couple?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So nobody knew.’

‘I guess Jan and Nat knew. Kind of. The guys in his band. Knew that we had a—thing.’

‘This thing.’ DI Wade spoke the word carefully, as if it was an accurate portrayal of what had been between Hayden and myself. ‘Was it still going on when he died?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Sorry—you guess so?’

‘It was.’

‘Where did you meet?’

‘My flat. His. It belongs to my friend who’s away at the moment—but I’ve told you that.’

‘Did you have arguments?’ Joy Wallis again. Her voice was softer than DI Wade’s and she didn’t look at me when she spoke, but down at her notebook, in which, I saw, she was not writing.

I flinched. For a moment, I saw Hayden’s fist plunging towards my face. As they looked at me, waiting for my answer, I felt the now-faded bruise on my neck throb, as if to give me away. Surely they must see it, feel it.

‘No. We snapped at each other, of course. You know.’

‘Not really. Go on.’

‘He was a bit of a slob.’

‘So you argued about mess?’

‘A bit. Maybe.’

‘Was he faithful to you?’

‘I told you, I wasn’t his girlfriend. He didn’t need to be faithful.’

‘So he wasn’t faithful.’

‘The word doesn’t apply.’

‘There were other women?’

I thought of Sally, whom he’d captivated and abandoned. ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

We went round and round the subject. My head was banging in the stifling heat. My hands sweated. And then DI Wade asked: ‘Did Mr Booth have a car?’

‘Yes.’ My voice rasped. I wound my fingers together and tried to make my voice stronger. ‘He had a car. I went in it once.’ That was in case traces of me remained in spite of the valet cleaning.

‘Do you remember the make?’

‘Blue. That’s all I know. Old and blue.’

‘A blue Rover, thirteen years old.’ He gave me the registration number as well, reading it out from the file.

‘Maybe.’

‘Do you know where he kept it?’

‘That would be outside Liza’s flat, where he was staying.’

‘I see.’ He leaned back in his chair and put his latticed hands behind his head. ‘I’m going to tell you something about that car, Miss Graham. It’s not outside his flat now.’ I muttered something meaningless. ‘It was found in Walthamstow, parked illegally on Fountain Road on the afternoon of Sunday, the thirtieth of August.’ He consulted his notebook again. ‘It was ticketed at seven minutes past three and the vehicle was removed twenty minutes later.’

There was a pause.

‘Someone must have stolen it,’ I said.

‘The keys were still in the ignition.’

‘So?’ I said.

‘Doesn’t that seem strange?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I don’t mean to be rude but what does it matter what it seems to me?’

‘Do you know where it was before that?’

‘No.’

‘It was at Stansted airport, the long-stay car park.’

‘What was it doing there?’ I said.

‘It was left there just after four a.m. on the twenty-second of August . . . The driver was wearing sunglasses and a headscarf. In the middle of the night.’

‘Do you think it could have been Hayden?’ I asked.

‘It doesn’t seem very likely. We believe the driver was a woman.’

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘White, quite young.’

I made a noise that came out wrong, a strangled croak.

‘On the morning of August the thirtieth the car was driven down the M11 towards London, west onto the North Circular and then immediately off.’ Joy Wallis looked down at her file. ‘But then the car was simply left, with the key in the ignition, as I said.’

‘Sounds weird.’

I heard Sonia’s voice in my head: You idiot.

‘Doesn’t that seem strange? Can you think of any explanation why the car should be parked for a week at the airport and then moved?’

‘Maybe it was stolen.’

‘I think that’s extremely unlikely. I’ve seen the car. There may have been something in the car that needed delivering. Something valuable.’

‘Was anything found?’ I asked.

‘Nothing at all. When did you last see Mr Booth?’ asked DI Wade.

‘I told you before. It must have been at the rehearsal. The Wednesday, I think. You can check that with the others.’

‘And where were you, Bonnie?’

‘When?’

‘Where were you between the morning of August the twenty-first and the morning of August the twenty-second?’

‘That’s easy,’ I said, ‘I was with Neal. Neal Fenton.’

‘All day?’

‘Yes.’

‘And all night?’

‘Yes. He’s my boyfriend, you see.’

I WAS KEPT at the police station for just over six hours. We went over and over my account, and then I was taken into a different room where a woman took my fingerprints and then stuck a cotton bud into my mouth for a DNA sample. Only then was I allowed to leave. I walked out into the sunny, late-afternoon street. I wanted to stop and curl up in a ball on the pavement and howl, but I thought someone might be watching me, so I kept going, trying to impersonate a normal person, an innocent person, until the station was quite out of sight. I took out my mobile and found the number with clumsy fingers.

‘Neal. Don’t go anywhere. I’m coming round now.’

Before

‘I’m about two minutes away. I’m coming round.’

‘No, Neal.’

‘I’ve got something to say to you.’

‘There isn’t any point.’

‘Two minutes,’ he repeated.

And two minutes later, there he was, standing at the front door.

‘What is it?’

‘Can I come in?’ His expression hardened in comprehension. ‘He’s there, isn’t he?’

I didn’t pretend not to know who he was talking about. ‘Yes.’ I