Under Your Skin (33 page)

As I search, I think about Philip and the kind of person he is, the kind of person who is vigilant with his possessions, who, unlike me, files away all documentation, keeps it safe in case the item breaks or doesn’t fit, holds on to every guarantee in the event of electrical fire, or flooding, or something going wrong. He’s careful and meticulous, not wild or impassioned. This is what I am thinking when a small piece of white paper, shuffled between the receipt for the Krups titanium Nespresso machine and the Weber 5-Burner gas barbecue, slips into my fingers. It is a long, curled-up receipt, figure totted upon figure, dated last December. Agent Provocateur.

Love. That’s the range. A Love bra and a Love thong, a Love basque and a Love slip. A whole lot of Love. It’s all about love in the end.

I force myself to breathe. Sometimes the intensity of an emotion can be so overpowering you can hardly move.

I throw it back into the file and I stuff that file back into the drawer. The moment the receipt isn’t in my hand, I’m not sure anymore. Those undies he bought me? For my birthday or was it Christmas? They were from Myla, weren’t they, from the shop round the corner from his office? Quick dash at lunchtime. Maybe even by his secretary. Or have I got that wrong? Were they Agent Provocateur? A trek across town. A labor of love. Maybe they were. Can I explain it all away?

I have put the other files back in the drawer on top, and I try now to push it closed, but it won’t go all the way; something is stuck behind. I put my hand in, at the back, squeeze it down behind
the drawer and bring it out again. A gold chain dangles from my fingers. It’s tarnished, and a link is broken—I think I snapped it myself. A small round pendant nestles in the palm of my hand: St. Christopher shouldering his infant burden. A fugitive thought: do saints go out of fashion? They’re so rarely worn these days. Except, of course, Ania wore one.

I take an enormous breath. It’s more like a shudder. Then, with abnormal calm, I shut the drawer and stand up. I cross the room quietly on the balls of my feet and pause at the bottom of the stairs. His voice is getting closer. Is he on his way down here? I duck into the gym. Nautilus machines hulk across the room. I listen hard. He isn’t on the stairs, or near them. He’s turned back. He’s still talking on the phone—wandering from room to room. I lean on the running machine to think. I can see the window from here, crisscrossed by iron grating, a patch of sky, a crown of tree.

I make a decision. I am going to go upstairs as if nothing has happened, and get out of the house as quickly as I can. But I am still holding the St. Christopher. There’s a hole at the bottom of the running machine where a pair of rectangular rods lead from each footrest into deep hollows—it’s dark in there; in any other circumstances, you wouldn’t want to risk your fingers. I stuff the necklace into the space and then leave the room and run back into the kitchen. Philip is in the sitting room, still on the phone, barking commands. By the sound of it, he’s sitting on the piano stool. Our plates and coffee cups are still by the sink. They could go in the dishwasher, but I need something to do with my hands. Plunging them into scalding water is a start.

Philip must hear the taps running. I hear him padding down the steps and then he is in the room. He makes a face and a winding-up gesture with his free hand and then he pins the BlackBerry to his shoulder with his chin and comes up behind me and puts his arms round my waist. “So their position again?” he says.

My own hands are in the water. I am scrubbing and scraping at the pattern on his plate.

“Yup,” he says. “We’ll go with that. We’ll decide when to sell later. Bye.”

He hangs up, slips the phone into the dressing gown pocket, and rest his chin on the top of my head. A pointed weight. If he leaned any harder, my vertebrae would crumble, my head would be forced into my neck. I am not sure that I can move, but I manage to bring my soapy hands out of the suds.

“Things will change,” he says slowly.

“Do you mean that, Philip?” I peel off the latex gloves and wriggle so I can turn to face him. “Five-year plan and all that? Are you talking Suffolk? Bees and blackberry jam and village schools?”

A beat. A pause. Two seconds of betrayal. He has no intention of moving to Suffolk.

“We’ll talk about it,” he says.

If only he’d been honest.

I can’t keep it in. “Are you absolutely certain Ania Dudek didn’t come here? Such a small thing to forget, in our busy old lives?”

“I told you. No. She didn’t. For fuck’s sake.” He steps back, takes the phone out of the dressing gown pocket, and slams it on the counter.

I turn to the sink again and take out the plug. The water circles and disappears. I wipe my hands on a tea towel, the same one I threw to Jack. For some reason, I think about DNA, and whether this tea towel is steeped in his. “I’m going to nip to the supermarket, buy milk and food,” I say curtly. “I’ve got nothing to give Robin or Millie. Any requests?”

He is rubbing his eyes now. “Can you get some antihistamines? Pollen count seems high.”

“Of course.”

“Gaby?”

“What?”

He is looking at me with a peculiar expression on his face. “Nothing.”

I grab my purse, force my feet into shoes, and leave the house.

The silver Mondeo is parked on the other side of the road. I cross right by it to reach my car. Perivale is hunkered down in there today, just sitting. I should feel reassured, but I don’t. I know I should knock on the window and climb inside, but I’m not ready. Instead, I walk by quickly, his eyes on my back, and get into my own car. I have the urge to drive and drive, to put my foot down, to get far away from here. I make the short trip to Waitrose. I park the car and walk the aisles in a daze. At the checkout, I pay for items I don’t even remember picking up: a chicken, a bag of salad, two liters of milk, a bunch of purple alliums, a bar of chocolate, a couple of packets of Benadryl.

In the parking lot, I sit with my forehead resting on the steering wheel and my eyes closed. I’m being so calm. It’s extraordinary. I almost want to laugh. Who knew?

I am holding Christa’s card—South London Beauty Services—and I dial the number.

There’s a long silence after I tell her who I am. “I thought you might call,” she says eventually.

“So Jack came to see you this morning,” I say.

“Yes. He bought me flowers and more cakes from that café. I . . .”

“I thought you didn’t trust him, thought he was too charming.”

“He tell me he wants to make things right for you, and he will help me with the tax office.”

“But you promised Ania—”

“As Jack said, she is dead. You are alive. And the police they want to put you in prison. Jack told me you had a little girl and . . .”

“So you translated a bit of her diary?”

“He says it was just to clear your name. And I didn’t want him to let it be taken away. She has written personal stuff . . .”

“I can understand that.”

“But he was so persuasive, Gaby. He made me feel so bad. He said I could be prosecuted for interfering with police enquiries, for withholding information.”

The parking lot is filling. “I don’t understand. You mean, you
did
give Jack the diary? He has it now?”

“I didn’t know what to do.”

“Did you tell him about Ania’s lover?”

“No . . .”

“But it will be in the diary. And if Jack takes it to the police, which he will, her parents will find out, you realize that?”

She sounds tired. “I do my best for Ania. I don’t know what is right.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you, Christa. As long as you are sure.”

“You are a good woman,” she says. “Kind. You care about Ania.”

Vibrations. A woman in a 4x4 has pulled up next to me and rolled down her window. She taps on mine. “You leaving?” she shouts.

“Not quite yet,” I mouth.

The woman tuts, rolls her eyes, annoyed.

I have three missed calls from Jack. “Where are you?” he says, when I get through. “Can you meet me?” His voice is low, full of import.

I interrupt before he can say anything else and tell him that Ania did come for an interview at the house but that she didn’t see me. She saw Philip, but he doesn’t “remember.”

“That’s very odd, Gaby—”

I need to tell him what I have found out as calmly as I can. Now. Before he says anything, before I scream. “There’s more. Christa confirms that Ania was seeing another man and that he had got her pregnant, not Tolek.”

“I know. Gaby—”

I keep going. “I’ve found an Agent Provocateur receipt in Philip’s drawer, and the St. Christopher, the one the police are looking for. He had it. She gave it to him, or he took it. He’d hidden it at the back of his drawer. The St. Christopher. The missing St. Christopher.” I sound hysterical. “The other man. It’s Philip. Philip is the other man.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Waitrose.”

“You’re at
Waitrose
?”

“It all makes sense, Jack. If Philip was having an affair with Ania, nipping round there all the time—the Asics mud-shavings from our front garden, the pizza receipt. He’d have picked up my card without thinking . . .” I break off. My PIN: 2503. Our wedding anniversary.

“And the newspaper clippings—she’ll have had an obvious interest in you if she was having an affair with your husband.”

“The clothes.” My voice cracks. Not bought in Fara, not sold to her by Marta. Presents from Philip. I imagine him flicking through my wardrobe for little garments that might suit.

“I’m ten minutes away,” he says. “I am coming to find you, now. We’ll go to the police together. We’ll take Christa’s diary. Get someone to translate it.”

“No, don’t . . .”

“We have to. If Philip is the killer . . .”

“We don’t know that. I’m trying to work it out in my head. He could have been Ania’s lover without
murdering
her. I mean, couldn’t he? I can’t imagine it. It’s not possible. I know Philip better than I know myself. He’s not a killer.”

“So if he was just her lover . . .”

“ ‘Just’ her lover.” I laugh again. It’s not my best laugh.

“If he was ‘just’ her lover, why didn’t he come forward, Gaby,
when you were arrested? An innocent man would have done that. I’m sorry, I don’t like it. I’m coming to find you.”

“I just can’t believe he killed her.
Why??
”

“Maybe she was threatening to tell you.”

“His alibi. He’s got an alibi.”

“Alibi or no alibi, of course he killed her. It’s the obvious explanation. I mean, how cast-iron is an alibi that crosses a whole night—that gets passed like a baton among secretary and colleague and waiter? I’ve heard about his statement. He used the gym in the office basement, supper at Nobu, drinks at the Dorchester. In that city crowd, who notices who’s there, who isn’t?”

I close my eyes. Philip’s Parlee Z2: how proud he is of its streamlined speed. Office to home in less than fifteen minutes. A jiffy. A flash. Two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

“It could still be Tolek,” I say. “He could have been lying about Poland. I mean, it could still be him. In a jealous rage. I mean . . . I’m not going to go to the police until I know more. They don’t need to know anything unless Philip killed her. I don’t want Millie being put through hell otherwise. The press outside the house again. She’s coming back today. She’ll be home any minute.”

“Gaby, come on.” His voice is patient. “It’s evidence. I’m sorry. The police have to know one way or another. And if Philip did do it, you’re not safe. For Christ’s sake, he might even have tried to frame you.”

“Perivale mentioned new evidence. I wonder what that is.”

“I’ll get on to Morrow, see if I can put the screws on her.”

“Do anything to find out. Sleep with her if necessary.”

“Steady on,” he says.

We both laugh. Or I think I laugh. Perhaps I cry.

“Give me a few hours. There must be some other explanation.” I’m begging now. “I have to hear it with my own ears. Trust me, Jack. Please.”

•   •   •

The house is empty. No sound at all. As quiet as the grave. The sort of stillness that settles about your ears like muffs.

I move to the foot of the stairs to listen for a voice, a creak. An envelope with my name on it lies on the bottom step. Philip’s writing. He has left me a letter.

The back of the envelope isn’t sealed, or even tucked in. The shiny strip of glue is unused. Two folded sheets of paper inside. I sit down and open them.

Dear Gaby,

I thought I could carry on without telling you the truth, but I can’t. I have to tell you everything or it is all worthless. Nothing means anything. Is it cowardice to write this in a letter? Well, I am a coward.

Ania did come to the house for an interview. I should have told you, but it was the weekend your mother died. And it turned out you had given the job to Marta anyway. And it went out of my mind. It didn’t seem important.

I bumped into her on the common a couple of days later. I was on my way home from work on my bike and I nearly knocked her over, just beyond the bridge, where the cycle path ends. I felt guilty because I had never got back to her about the job and I ended up buying her a cup of coffee. I walked her home.

We started an affair. There, I’ve written it down. I can’t unwrite it.

We didn’t mean to fall in love. I should lie and say I didn’t love her, but I did. I have to be honest. I owe her that. When she told me she was pregnant, I didn’t know what I thought or felt. I never intended to leave you and
Millie. This was something of a bonus. Lots of men at work see people on the side. I played for time. I told her I needed to find the right moment to tell you. I didn’t know what to do. When she thought she’d lost the baby, I think I was almost glad, as if the decision was being made for me.

I felt sick, Gaby, torn in half. I was tortured by the thought of you finding out.

This is not the place to write about her death, her murder, the horror of which I am sure I am responsible for in some way. She was a woman who inspired great passion. And if—

•   •   •

The rest of this sentence is crossed out.