The Lying Room by Nicci French

Author:Nicci French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

5

The Garden Party

It was still dark when Neve put Renata in a taxi. A faint drizzle hung in the air.

Now what? She began to walk, not sure which direction she was going in and wishing she was wearing her walking boots. She needed to go home but home felt immensely far off, like a place that she had left long ago. They would all be in bed, fast asleep. She knew how they each slept, the position they lay in and the way their faces looked when they dreamed.

She was tired to her bones, but thoughts spun through her, febrile and disconnected. She suddenly remembered that Whisky hadn’t been fed. And she needed to think about Rory’s birthday: perhaps they should all go to the Natural History Museum together, which was his favourite place. But of course, Mabel was supposed to be gone by then. Was that even possible now?

The sky had become paler; the drizzle thickened. Neve realised that she was walking away from home, rather than towards it. Ahead of her lay the marshes. She slowed to an aimless drift. She was remembering what Renata had said about Saul: how he was a man who was used to getting what he wanted. Neve was sure there had been several women before the two of them; he was a serially unfaithful man. And she knew there would have been others after her. She had thought of their affair as a joyful escape from the distress of her life, but now it seemed tawdry. Saul, she thought, with his irony and elegance and laughter, Saul who had looked at her as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world, was also tawdry, sleazy. And she’d gone along with it. Neve the mother, Neve the wife, Neve the worker and the friend, Neve who everyone thought was so straightforward and trustworthy. For a moment she let herself imagine everyone’s reactions when the fragile secret split apart and they heard what she had done. The disbelief and the glee: Neve Connolly! Who would ever have guessed?

She came to a halt. The hem of her dress was wet and her shoes muddy. Rain dripped down her face. A heron was sitting on a post a few yards away, like a creature carved in stone. If she went to the police, they’d charge Mabel too; they’d put her in prison. If she didn’t go to the police they’d come to her, sooner or later, and the longer she waited the worse it would be. Her secret was like a monstrous thing, growing bloated in the dark. She thought of Hitching’s unblinking eyes as he watched her. What did he know? About her. About Mabel.

The heron opened its wings, then slowly took off, batting its way impossibly upwards. She followed its flight. A thought dropped like a pebble into her mind and she stood quite still and waited for the ripples. Something about Bernice. What? Something Bernice had said. It was no good. She let it go and continued walking.

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