The Family Upstairs(15)

God, he looks so pleased with himself, Lucy thinks, like he wants her to say, Oh wow, Michael, that’s amazing, you are so clever. Instead she wants to laugh in his face and say, Ha, you, writing a book? Are you serious?

‘That’s great,’ she says. ‘How exciting.’

‘Should be, yes. Although quite a bit of downtime too, I shouldn’t wonder. So it would be just great to see more of you guys. Hang out a bit. Make some use of the pool.’

Lucy’s gaze follows his, towards the pool. She feels her breath catch hard, her lungs expand then shrink, her heart pound at the memory of her head under that perfect teal water, the pressure of his hands on her crown. Pushing her. Pushing her until her lungs nearly exploded. Then suddenly letting her bob to the top, choking, rasping, while he pulled himself from the pool, snatched a towel from a sun lounger, wrapped it around himself and strode back into the house without a backward glance.

‘I could have killed you,’ he said about it afterwards. ‘If I’d wanted. You know that, don’t you? I could have killed you.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ she’d asked.

‘Because I couldn’t be bothered.’

‘Well,’ she says now, ‘maybe. Though we’re pretty busy ourselves this summer.’

‘Yes,’ he says patronisingly. ‘I’m sure you are.’

‘You know,’ she says, turning to look at the house, ‘I always thought you must have sold this place. I’ve seen other people living here over the years.’

‘Holiday let,’ he says. And she can hear the shame in his voice, the idea of shiny, incredible, successful, wealthy Michael Rimmer having to stoop so low as to rent out his Antibes holiday home to strangers. ‘Seemed a shame’ – he rallies – ‘to have it sitting empty all the time. When other people could be enjoying it.’

She nods. Lets him hold on to his pathetic little lie. He hates ‘other people’. He will have had the place disinfected from top to bottom before he could have faced returning.

‘Well,’ she says, turning to smile at the children, ‘I think it’s probably time for us to hit the road.’

‘No,’ says Michael. ‘Stay a while! Why not? I can open a bottle of something. The kids can splash in the pool. It’ll be fun.’

‘The music shop will be shutting soon,’ she says, trying not to sound nervous. ‘I really need to pick up my fiddle now, so I can work tonight. But thank you. Thank you so much. What do you say, children?’

They say thank you and Michael beams at them. ‘Beautiful kids,’ he says, ‘really beautiful.’

He sees them to the front door. He looks like he wants to hug Lucy and she rapidly drops to her knees to rearrange the dog’s collar. Michael watches them from the doorway, across the bonnet of his ridiculous car, a smile still playing on his lips.

For a moment Lucy thinks she is going to be sick. She stops and breathes in hard. And then, as they are about to turn the corner, the dog suddenly squats and produces a small pile of crap up against the wall of Michael’s house, right in the path of the afternoon sun. Lucy reaches into her bag for a plastic bag to pick it up with. Then she stops. In an hour the shit will be baked and bubbling like a brie. It will be the first thing he sees next time he leaves his house. He might even step in it.

She leaves it there.





12


Libby was supposed to be going to a friend’s barbecue on Saturday. She’d been looking forward to it. Her friend, April, had told her she was inviting a ‘fit bloke from work. I think you’ll really like him. He’s called Danny.’

But as Saturday dawns, another hot day with a sky full of nothing but blue, the windowpanes already red hot beneath her hand as she pushes them open, Libby has no thoughts of hot Danny or of April’s famous spicy couscous salad or of a glowing orange globe of Aperol Spritz in her hand and her feet in a rubber paddling pool. She has no thoughts of anything other than the mysterious case of Serenity Lamb and the rabbit’s foot.

She texts April.

I’m so so so so sorry. Have an amazing day. Let me know if you’re still going strong this evening and I’ll pop in for a sundowner.

Then she showers and puts on a tropical-print playsuit and open sandals made of gold leather, rubs sun cream into her arms and shoulders, sits her sunglasses on her head, checks her bag for the door keys to the house, and gets the train into London.

Libby puts the key into the padlock on the wooden hoarding and turns it. The padlock slides open and she puts another key into the front door. She half expects a hand on her shoulder, someone to ask her what she’s doing, if she has permission to open this door with these keys.

Then she is in the house. Her house. And she is alone.

She closes the door behind her and the sound of the morning traffic dies away immediately; the burn on her neck cools.

For a moment she stands entirely still.

She pictures the police here, where she stands. They are wearing old-fashioned helmets. She knows what they look like because there were pictures of them in the Guardian article. PCs Ali Shah and John Robbin. They were following up on an anonymous call to the station from a ‘concerned neighbour’. The concerned neighbour had never been traced.

She follows Shah and Robbin’s vanished footsteps into the kitchen. She imagines the smell growing stronger now.