there, halfway up, halfway down, I ask her whether she has seen the jersey top or the silver cardie, whether she remembers if I took them to Suffolk at Christmas, or gave them away? She shakes her head a few times. “And my bracelet,” I say, “the gray thread with the silver balls—have you seen that?” She shakes her head again.
“Did you know Ania Dudek, the woman who was killed? She was Polish. A little older than you, but I thought you might have come across her, moved in the same circles?” Even as I am saying this, I realize it’s tactless, possibly even hurtful. Marta hasn’t shown signs of moving in any circle at all. I gaze at her, stricken.
“I am here to improve my English,” Marta says. “Polish companions do not interest me. Is that all?”
“I . . . yes.”
She climbs the last stair and pushes past me, gently, and I catch a faint, but distinctive trace of fig. How odd. She is wearing the same perfume as me. She opens her door, just a sliver, and slips in, closing it behind her, though not before I have a chance to see piles of clothes all over her floor. I stand there for a second, feeling that I have trespassed or crossed a line.
The doorbell goes and I almost fall, face first, down the stairs.
I open the door a crack and there stands a large man with crates full of plastic bags, crinkling as the contents shift. It’s the Ocado supermarket delivery. I open the door wide to let him in. He carries the handfuls of groceries into the kitchen. “Where do you want us? Down here, is it?” They are terribly polite now there is a “driver feedback questionnaire.” I don’t realize the Ocado manhasn’t closed the front door until I am back up in the hall. It has been wide open all this time. Gusts of wind, rain, litter, anything, anyone could have come in when I wasn’t watching.
• • •
In bed, I decide they can’t suspect me. It’s impossible. They would have arrested me. It’s a game. Perivale thinks I need cutting down to size. But I could sense Perivale’s arousal. He was like a horse backing up, flaring its nostrils, before a race. What are they waiting for? What aren’t they telling me? Something else nags at me. It keeps coming to the surface and flitting off.
In the middle of the night, I sit up in bed. Philip, who has slipped beside me like an invisible man, like a ghost, doesn’t stir. All at once, I realize: the rose-pink cap-sleeved T-shirt, with buttons down the front, the casual, summery tank: I can’t believe I didn’t recognize it the moment I saw it. Ania Dudek died wearing my top.
SATURDAY
Chill winds whip across the Brighton seafront. Seagulls as big as cats perch along the turquoise balustrades with their backs to the sea, as if the drama is taking place in front of them, not behind. It’s olive green out there, foaming white, the sky a paler, bluer gray, the swell filling and rising, like the wing of a plane and then rolling in, pulling and sucking on the shingle. A dog noses past, and the stripy gulls flap up, squawking and chaotic, before landing in the same row a few feet farther on. Fresh in the air is ozone and diesel and the smell of hot fried doughnuts.
“I actually think the seaside is nicer in winter,” I say. “Don’t you? The colors and everything. It’s much more romantic.”
Philip is trudging with his head down. He has switched his BlackBerry off for the morning. He is almost catatonically silent, but that at least suggests he is making an effort.
“Do you remember when I was on Newsnight and had to do all the party-political conferences? Do you remember bunking off work and coming to Blackpool to join me, to that scuzzy hotel on the front? It was all glass except that every window was tinted, and they all had those funny, dusty, vertical blinds, so there were no views anywhere?”
Philip makes a noise that I take to be an acknowledgment that this event did occur, that the hotel with its vertical blinds did in fact
“Did you know Ania Dudek, the woman who was killed? She was Polish. A little older than you, but I thought you might have come across her, moved in the same circles?” Even as I am saying this, I realize it’s tactless, possibly even hurtful. Marta hasn’t shown signs of moving in any circle at all. I gaze at her, stricken.
“I am here to improve my English,” Marta says. “Polish companions do not interest me. Is that all?”
“I . . . yes.”
She climbs the last stair and pushes past me, gently, and I catch a faint, but distinctive trace of fig. How odd. She is wearing the same perfume as me. She opens her door, just a sliver, and slips in, closing it behind her, though not before I have a chance to see piles of clothes all over her floor. I stand there for a second, feeling that I have trespassed or crossed a line.
The doorbell goes and I almost fall, face first, down the stairs.
I open the door a crack and there stands a large man with crates full of plastic bags, crinkling as the contents shift. It’s the Ocado supermarket delivery. I open the door wide to let him in. He carries the handfuls of groceries into the kitchen. “Where do you want us? Down here, is it?” They are terribly polite now there is a “driver feedback questionnaire.” I don’t realize the Ocado manhasn’t closed the front door until I am back up in the hall. It has been wide open all this time. Gusts of wind, rain, litter, anything, anyone could have come in when I wasn’t watching.
• • •
In bed, I decide they can’t suspect me. It’s impossible. They would have arrested me. It’s a game. Perivale thinks I need cutting down to size. But I could sense Perivale’s arousal. He was like a horse backing up, flaring its nostrils, before a race. What are they waiting for? What aren’t they telling me? Something else nags at me. It keeps coming to the surface and flitting off.
In the middle of the night, I sit up in bed. Philip, who has slipped beside me like an invisible man, like a ghost, doesn’t stir. All at once, I realize: the rose-pink cap-sleeved T-shirt, with buttons down the front, the casual, summery tank: I can’t believe I didn’t recognize it the moment I saw it. Ania Dudek died wearing my top.
SATURDAY
Chill winds whip across the Brighton seafront. Seagulls as big as cats perch along the turquoise balustrades with their backs to the sea, as if the drama is taking place in front of them, not behind. It’s olive green out there, foaming white, the sky a paler, bluer gray, the swell filling and rising, like the wing of a plane and then rolling in, pulling and sucking on the shingle. A dog noses past, and the stripy gulls flap up, squawking and chaotic, before landing in the same row a few feet farther on. Fresh in the air is ozone and diesel and the smell of hot fried doughnuts.
“I actually think the seaside is nicer in winter,” I say. “Don’t you? The colors and everything. It’s much more romantic.”
Philip is trudging with his head down. He has switched his BlackBerry off for the morning. He is almost catatonically silent, but that at least suggests he is making an effort.
“Do you remember when I was on Newsnight and had to do all the party-political conferences? Do you remember bunking off work and coming to Blackpool to join me, to that scuzzy hotel on the front? It was all glass except that every window was tinted, and they all had those funny, dusty, vertical blinds, so there were no views anywhere?”
Philip makes a noise that I take to be an acknowledgment that this event did occur, that the hotel with its vertical blinds did in fact
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