The Girl Before(75)

He smiles, a little sadly. “Of course not. You’ve broken the biggest rule of all. Just remember what happened to the cat.”





THEN: EMMA

I’ve tweaked and tweezed, depilated and buffed. Finally I put on the pearl necklace, tight against my throat like a lover’s hand. My heart sings. Waves of anticipation wash over me.

There’s still an hour before he gets here. I pour a large glass of wine and drink most of it. Then, still wearing the necklace, I head toward the shower.

There’s a sound from downstairs. It’s hard to identify, but it might be the squeak of a shoe. I stop.

Hello? Anyone there?

There’s no reply. I grab a towel and go to the top of the stairs. Edward?

The silence drags on, thick and somehow meaningful. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Hello? I say again.

I tiptoe halfway down the stairs. From there I can see into every corner of the house. There’s no one here.

Unless they’re directly below me, hidden by the slabs of stone. I turn backward, taking one step at a time, peering through the gaps.

No one.

Then I hear another sound, a kind of snort. It seems to come from above me this time. But as I turn toward it I become aware of a high-pitched whine, a frequency right at the edge of human hearing. It gets louder and louder, like a mosquito. I put my hands over my ears but the noise penetrates right into my skull.



A lightbulb pops in the ceiling, the glass blowing out and tinkling to the floor. The noise stops. Some malfunction of the house’s technical systems. In the living area, my laptop’s rebooting. The house lights slowly fade down to nothing and then up again. Housekeeper’s homepage appears on my laptop screen. It’s as if the whole house has just reset itself.

Whatever the glitch was, it’s over now. And there’s no one here. I pad back upstairs toward the shower.





NOW: JANE

“Well, this is fascinating,” James Clarke says, looking from the necklace to the single pearl and back. “Fascinating.”

“We can’t decide what it means,” I say. Simon shoots me a look and I add, “That is, we’re split. Simon thinks it could be evidence that Edward killed her. I can’t see how it makes any difference either way.”

“I’ll tell you what it does make a difference to,” the retired policeman says thoughtfully. “The case against Deon Nelson. If there was a pearl necklace lying around, even a broken one, he wouldn’t have left it there. He’d have stolen it, in which case it wouldn’t have been possible for Mr. Monkford to restring it as a gift to you. So there’s my pet theory out of the window.”

“Last time we met,” Simon says, “after the inquest, you told me Monkford had an alibi.”

“Yes. Well, an alibi of sorts. To be honest, you seemed like you were going to have a hard time letting it go. And with a six-month police investigation finally tied up, the last thing we wanted was a heartbroken ex-boyfriend trying to get the coroner’s verdict overturned. So I might have sounded more certain than I actually was. Mr. Monkford said he was onsite in Cornwall at the time of Emma’s death. He was seen at his hotel in the morning and again in the early evening. There was nothing to indicate that he’d come back to London in between, so we were inclined to believe him.”



Simon stares at him. “But you’re saying he could have done it.”

“A million people could have done it,” Clarke says gently. “That’s not how we work. We look for signs someone did do it.”

“Monkford’s insane,” Simon says urgently. “Christ, just look at the houses he builds. He’s a crazy perfectionist and if he thinks something isn’t quite right, he doesn’t just leave it. He destroys it and starts again. He told Emma that once in so many words—‘This relationship will continue only for as long as it’s absolutely perfect.’ What kind of nutcase says that?”

Clarke replies, patiently explaining to Simon that amateur psychology and police work are two very different things. But I’m hardly listening.

Edward said the same thing to me, I realize. This is perfect…Some of the most perfect relationships I’ve had lasted no more than a week…You appreciate the other person more, knowing it’s not going to last…

My baby puts out a foot and kicks me, just above the navel. I shudder. Are we in danger?

“Jane?”

They’re looking at me curiously. I realize I’ve been asked a question. “Sorry?”

James Clarke holds up the necklace. “Could you put this on for us?”

The tiny clasp at the back is awkward to fasten blind and Simon jumps up to help. I hold my hair away from my nape so he can get at it. His fingers are clumsy as he touches me and I sense—to my surprise—that it might be because he’s attracted to me.

When the necklace is on, Clarke examines it thoughtfully. “May I?” he says politely. I nod, and he tries to slip a finger between the pearls and my skin. There isn’t room.

“Hmm,” he says, sitting back. “Well, I don’t want to pour gasoline on the fire, so to speak. But there is one thing that may be relevant.”

“What?” Simon says eagerly.

“When Emma was found, the first officer on the scene thought he saw a faint mark around her neck. He made a note of it but by the time the pathologist arrived it had faded. There were just a couple of small scratches, here.” He points to where he tried to get his finger under the necklace. “It was nothing, really—certainly not enough to kill her. And given the extent of her other injuries, we decided she was probably just flailing about as she fell.”