The Safe House by Nicci French

acquaintances who’d turned up because the couple had been slaughtered and there were police and journalists at the door of the church?
    ‘Our Father,’ intoned the vicar.
    ‘Who art in heaven,’ we followed obediently. ‘Hallowed be thy name…’ And the cleaner, whatever her name was, sobbed on.
    Ferrer, that was it. She hung behind as people started to make their way up the aisle, and I forced myself against the flow towards her. She was scarcely visible, bent over between two pews. I got closer and saw she was picking things up from the floor and putting them into her bag. She started to put on her coat and knocked her bag all over again.
    ‘Let me help you,’ I said and bent down and felt under the bench for keys and a purse and coins and folded pieces of paper that had fallen out of it. ‘Are you coming next door?’ I saw her face close up, the skin pale, the eyes swollen with crying. ‘Next door?’
    There was a prod in my back and I turned to see the detective, Baird. He nodded at me with a smile, then remembered himself and looked sombre.
    ‘You’ve met Mrs Ferrer,’ he said.
    ‘Has anybody done anything for this woman?’ I asked.
    Baird shrugged.
    ‘I don’t know, I think she’s going back to Spain in a few days.’
    ‘How are you?’ I asked her. She didn’t respond.
    ‘It’s all right,’ Baird said, in the loud slow voice English people use when speaking to foreigners. ‘This is Dr Laschen. She is a doctor.’ Mrs Ferrer looked anxious and distracted. ‘Um… doctoray, medico.’
    Mrs Ferrer ignored me and began talking quickly and incoherently to Baird. She had things for the ‘little girl’. Where was she? She was going home and wanted to get things to Miss Mackenzie. Say goodbye to her. She must say goodbye, couldn’t go before she had seen her. She started crying again, hopelessly. I noticed that her hands were trembling. In my professional judgement, she was a total mess. Baird looked nervously across at me.
    ‘Well, Mrs Ferrer, if you pass anything on to me, then in due course…’ He looked over at me and nodded me away. ‘Don’t worry, doctor, I’ll take her across.’
    ‘You look like a bridge player. Help us out here.’
    Two women – one woman with coarse brown hair and a strong nose, the other smaller with perfect white hair under a tiny black hat – beckoned me into their conversation. When I was about thirteen, my mother had forced me into the school bridge club as part of my upwardly mobile social education. I’d lasted about two weeks, enough to learn the point counts of the court cards and not much more.
    ‘If I open two no trumps, what does that mean to you, eh?’
    ‘Trumps,’ I said gravely. ‘Are they the black cards or the red ones?’
    Their faces fell and I backed away, teacup in hand, an apologetic smile on my lips. Over the other side of the hall I saw Michael deep in conversation with a balding man. I wondered who’d arranged all of this – booked the hall, made the sandwiches, hired the tea urn. My attention was snagged suddenly.
    ‘I was hoping to see Fiona, poor girl. Has anyone spoken to her?’
    I stood still and sipped my empty cup.
    ‘No,’ came the answer. ‘I don’t think so. I heard she’d been taken abroad to recover. I think they have some relatives in Canada or somewhere.’
    ‘I heard she was still in hospital, or a nursing home. She nearly died, you know. Poor darling. Such a gentle, trusting girl. How will she ever get over this?’
    ‘Monica says’ – the voice behind me sank to a stage whisper so that I could hear it more clearly than ever – ‘that she was, you know, raped.’
    ‘No, how terrible.’
    I moved away, grateful that Finn had been spared this. The mourning process could wait. Baird had been standing dutifully with Mrs Ferrer in a corner, and I saw them making their way towards the door. I caught Mrs Ferrer’s eye and she came across to me, seized my hand and mumbled what seemed to be thanks. I tried