All of which is a prelude to what happened on the Monday when I came downstairs in the middle of the morning and saw the normal dross on the mat. Not real mail, of course. Just the usual bunch of silly colored flyers offering to deliver pizza with a free Coke and clean our windows and give a valuation for a house and pull out our original window frames and replace them with metal and double glazing. And among them was one that said “Special Offer Victorian Interiors.” So I opened it.
I bet you don’t know how you open a letter. You do it every day but you never think about it. I know because I’ve been forced to dwell on it. You pick up the letter, turn the front of it, the address side, away from you. If it’s stuck firmly down, you pry away one corner of the stuck-down flap and tear it slightly. The point is to make space so you can insert your second finger and push it along the fold, tearing it all the way along. That’s what I did and the curious thing was that I didn’t feel any pain. I opened the envelope and saw a dull glitter of metal and that the envelope seemed to be wet in places, wet and spotted with red.
It was only then that I felt not pain exactly but a dull ache in my left hand. I looked down and it took a strangely long time for me to take in what I was seeing. There seemed to be blood everywhere, splashes across my fawn trousers, drip-dripping on the floor; my fingers were wet with it. I still didn’t properly understand, so I looked stupidly into the envelope as if it might have been spilling warm red paint onto the floor. I saw the dull metal. Flat pieces stapled in a line along a piece of card. I didn’t see at first what they were and then suddenly I thought of my father, sitting on the edge of the bath when I was a little girl watching him with white foam on his face like Father Christmas. Old-fashioned razor blades.
I looked at my fingers. A steady stream of blood was trickling down onto the bare board. I lifted up my hand and inspected it. There was a deep livid cut in the second finger. I could feel it pulsing, oozing out blood. That was when it began to hurt and I felt dizzy and cold and hot all at once. I didn’t scream or cry. I wasn’t sick. Instead my legs gave way and I slipped down onto the blood and half-lay there. I don’t know how long I was like that. Just a few minutes, probably, before Lena came down and ran to get help, and Lynne appeared with her mouth in the shape of a perfect O.
She is wearing cream slacks and a maroon shirt. Her hand is bandaged, and every so often she holds it in her healthy hand, carefully, as if it was a wounded bird. Her hair is pushed behind her ears in a way that makes her face look even thinner, her cheekbones more gaunt. She looks older already. I am putting on the years.
No earrings today. No perfume. Reddish lipstick that makes her face look pallid. Powder too thickly applied, so I can see specks of it on her cheek, her forehead. She walks as if she is in a dream, her feet scuffling the floor. Her shoulders are slumped. Every so often she frowns, as if she is trying to remember something. She puts her hand against her heart. She wants to feel her life beating against her palm. The other one did that too.
She was so carefully held together and now she is coming apart. Bit by bit, the shell is cracking open. I can see her. The bits of her that she never wanted to show anybody. Fear turns people inside out.
Sometimes I want to laugh. It has turned out so well. This can be my whole life. This is what I have been waiting for.
EIGHT
“Does it hurt?”
Detective Chief Inspector Links leaned toward me. Too close. But at the same time he seemed far away.
“They gave me pills for that.”
“Good. We need to ask you some questions.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.”
The police have been good for some things. They can get you to the front of the queue in the casualty department and they give you a lift to the hospital and back and make you tea. It’s the other stuff that’s been a problem.
“I know it’s a difficult time. We need your help.”
“Why? I’ve had enough of your questions. It seems simple enough to me. There’s a man out there who seems to keep coming to the house. So can’t you just arrest him while he’s posting envelopes through the door?”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
Links took a deep breath.
“If someone really sets his mind on doing something, then-” He stopped abruptly.
“Then what?”
“We want to go through some names.”
“Go on, then. Do you want a cup of tea? It’s in the pot.”
“No, thank you.”
“Do you mind if I have one?” I poured myself a cup, but then, somehow, I put the teapot down on a plate and very slowly it toppled and crashed to the quarry-tile floor, shattering. Boiling tea splashed everywhere.
“Sorry. It must be my hand. How clumsy.”
“Let me help.” Links started picking up broken pieces of china. Lynne mopped the floor, making herself useful for a change. Then we sat down again at the kitchen table. Lynne passed a file over to Links, who opened it up. There was a list of names, with photographs attached. There were teachers, a gardener, a real estate agent, an architect, all sorts; suits, T-shirts, clean-shaven, stubble. The pain or the pills or the shock had made me feel slow and dreamy. It seemed almost funny to be looking at this list of drab people I’d never met.
“Who are they? Criminals?”
Links looked uncomfortable.
“I can’t tell you everything,” he said. “For legal reasons. But what I can say is that we’re trying to establish any possible connections there may be between you and, er…” He seemed to be searching for the right word. “Areas where similar problems have been reported. Anything here that rang any kind of bell could be useful. However remote. I mean, this estate agent, Guy Brand. To take just one example. I’m not suggesting anything, but an estate agent has access to many properties. And you have recently moved house after looking in many areas of London.”
“Yes, I met hundreds of estate agents. But I’ve got the most dreadful memory for faces. Why don’t you ask him?”
“We have,” said Links. “They couldn’t find you on their books. But their record-keeping seemed to be pretty haphazard.”
I looked again.
“He might be familiar. But then estate agents have a sort of look in common, don’t they?”
“So you might have met him?”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I just mean that if you proved that I had met him, then I wouldn’t think it was impossible.”
Links didn’t look very satisfied with that answer.
“I can leave these pictures with you, if you like.”
I shrugged.
“Why would he do this?” I asked. “Go to all this trouble for something so nasty?”
Links caught my eye and for the first time he looked distressed and unable to conceal it.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I hardly need reminding of that, do I?” I responded tartly. At this very moment there were about eight of them, crawling round the house like ants, taking things away in small boxes and plastic bags, muttering to each other in corners, looking at me as if I were a wounded animal. I couldn’t go anywhere without bumping into them. They were very polite, in their way, but still there was practically nowhere I could go to be on my own. I raised my voice. “What I want to know is what your lot are doing while I’m working away, racking my brains to help you?”