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

‘Neal. Stop. Stop now. It’s over. The lying is over, the pretending is over.’

‘Hang on.’ Neal held up a hand to silence me. ‘Just shut up for a moment.’ He stood up and started walking around his room aimlessly, apparently not seeing where he was going. He was like a man I’d once seen climbing out of his car after an accident and reeling across the road, drunk with shock.

‘You really didn’t kill him?’ The force of what he had said hit me. Suddenly it was as if the floor had given way beneath me, and there was nothing to hold on to. I sat down abruptly on the armchair and put a fist against my mouth.

‘Stop,’ he said. ‘Let me think. Why were they interviewing you? What do they have on you?’

‘They don’t have anything on me,’ I said. ‘I mean, not as far as I know. But as I said, they think . . . I mean, they know I was involved with Hayden. And on that night his car was photographed with a woman in it. So they’re suspicious.’

There was another pause.

‘Just at the moment,’ said Neal, ‘I feel like you and I are two people blundering stupidly around in the dark. I don’t even know what question to ask. But here’s one: what I don’t understand is, how or why did Hayden’s body end up in a reservoir seventy miles north of London?’

‘No. First, I want to get back to the question of killing Hayden. You can tell me. I’m the one person in the world you’re safe with.’

He leaned across and grasped me by the shoulders so that it almost hurt. ‘Listen, Bonnie, and I’ll say it again, loud and clear: I did not kill Hayden.’

‘You must have done. I even saw you walking away.’

‘I did not. Of course not. And you know it, so stop this now. You’re the one person in the world who knows I did not kill Hayden. You’ve got it the wrong way round.’

‘What does that mean? I don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘What does that mean?’ he echoed. His face seemed older and softer; he looked almost stupefied, as if he’d been punched and was still reeling. ‘You have to answer my question.’

‘But why are you even asking it?’ I said, or perhaps I shouted it. ‘Isn’t that what happens with the bodies of people who’ve been murdered? They get dumped in canals and rivers and reservoirs. And sometimes they get found. I’m not the world’s greatest detective, but it seems to me that the only reason you’d be asking that question would be if you’d killed Hayden in his flat and left his body there. In that case you might be quite surprised if the body wasn’t found there.’

‘No,’ said Neal. ‘It’s not the only reason.’

‘I’m not thinking at my clearest,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking at my least clear. So, tell me, what other explanation could there possibly be?’

‘You really want me to tell you.’

‘Jesus, let’s get this over with. Yes.’

‘All right, Bonnie. The charade is over at last. The reason I was surprised when Hayden’s body was found in Langley reservoir is because I saw his dead body lying on the floor of his flat.’

‘You saw it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course you saw it! It was you—’

‘No. I didn’t kill Hayden.’ He stopped as I made a long, low whimper into my cupped hands. ‘I came and found his body. That’s all.’

‘I don’t understand. You found his body and you didn’t call the police?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I knew you’d done it.’

‘What?’

‘I knew you’d done it.’

‘And how did you know that?’

‘I knew he’d hit you again, and I knew you were going to see him. You told me. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I felt I’d go mad if he got away with it. So I went to see him first to warn him off, to tell him what would happen if he ever touched you again. I mean touched you like that. I had a drink first, to get my nerve up—he always rattled me, Hayden, and I was determined to be the one in control that day; I wasn’t going to let him get to me. When I got there, about half an hour after I’d left your flat, the door was open so I walked in. I could see at once what had happened. You’d gone round as soon as we’d all left after that awful rehearsal and you’d got into an argument. Maybe he lashed out at you again. You reached for something, grabbed a bronze ornament, a heavy bronze ornament. One blow would have been enough. It looked to me as if he’d been hit twice. Was the second out of revenge for what he’d done to you? Or was it to finish him off? It sounds terrible, but part of me was pleased. That was my first reaction. I hated him, that’s the honest truth. I even hated him enough to want him dead. He’d stolen you from me and then he’d treated you like dirt and me with—what? Amusement, maybe, as if everything was just a big game. I wanted him dead and there he was, dead. And you’d killed him. Then I started to think. You’d killed him and now you’d have to pay for it, and I didn’t want that. It wasn’t really like a decision, more a realization that this was what I was going to do. I’d make it look more like there’d been a violent scuffle, the kind there would have been if there’d been another man there or a couple of men. I knocked some things over, moved stuff around. Then I went round the flat and took everything I could find that belonged to you. You got your satchel, did you?’

The bag. So it hadn’t been a threat. It was from Neal. To help me. I could only stare at him. ‘But I didn’t kill him.’

He took hold of my forearm in a hard grip. His face