White Bodies(60)

Agnes sat beside Tilda, and I sat beside Agnes, and she showed us pictures of the bathroom, his shaving gear and used soap, of the bedroom, the untouched hospitality tray, the view of the golf course, and finally of Felix, lying on his back on the bed, his eyes open then, staring vacantly at the ceiling, bathrobe gaping open, and left arm hanging down the side of the bed, fingers suspended above the floor.

Tilda stared at it, her face white, her expression frozen. “I want you to email these to me, then delete them.” She looked in her bag for a paper and pen, writing down her email address.

“And where are his things? His clothes and toiletries, his wedding ring and watch and cuff links? I should have them.”

“Yes, of course. We’ve packed them up. . . . You can take them when you leave.”

As we left the room and descended the stairs, we saw Otto waiting in the reception area, his arm resting on a black suitcase on wheels.

“These are your husband’s effects. . . . Please take them, and if there’s anything else I can help with, don’t hesitate to ask. I’ve put my card in the bag.”

So we took the suitcase and ordered a minicab to the station, heading back to London. Tilda said she’d rather be alone in her flat, and I returned to Willesden Green. Even though I was shattered, utterly spent, I turned on my laptop—it was a reflex action, I didn’t consciously want to do it. I gazed at the screen, and saw that I had received a dozen messages from Scarlet.





32


Her emails all said the same thing. “I’ve done everything that we agreed. Now it’s your turn.” Or, “Callie, you have to keep your side of the bargain. We must meet to discuss logistics.” Or, “Don’t ignore me. You must act now. . . . Remember, it’s what Belle wanted.”

I must do this; I must do that. She suggested nothing that would incriminate her, or me, and yet her words were all too easy to understand, and I felt so ill that I thought I’d throw up. Her claims were horrific—and yet I realized that I’d been expecting them from the moment I heard of Felix’s death, that I’d been carrying around my poisonous knowledge like a disease, knowing that Scarlet would take advantage of a horrendous tragedy. Right now, I desperately wanted to shut her up and shut her out, to distance myself from her.

I wrote:

For fuck’s sake. I don’t believe you. You’re sick. I don’t want to hear from you again. Stay out of my life.

She replied straightaway.

You’re funny, Callie. The evidence couldn’t be any stronger. By the way, please pass on my sympathies to your poor sister. I’m sorry for her loss. At the same time, let’s hope that her life and yours can return to a peaceful state now.

Don’t even mention my sister! You’re a toxic bitch.

The whole country is mentioning your sister, whether you like it or not. Have you seen the internet? The papers tomorrow will be full of her.

You’re a leech—sucking my blood at a terrible time. As I said, I don’t believe a word of what you write, so piss off and die.

Don’t get into a temper! Give me your address—I have something to send you.

No!

I slammed down the lid of the laptop, disgusted with Scarlet, disgusted with myself for having had anything to do with her. I felt like this terrible situation had only happened because my weak character had been taken in, and taken over, by Scarlet’s forceful, overbearing personality. Trying to calm down, I went into my kitchen and microwaved a chicken tikka masala, and as I returned to the bedroom and ate it, I tried to feel normal. Like an ordinary person having an ordinary supper. I gazed at the garden, a massive tangled mess of weeds, and at the train track beyond, thinking of the trains that ran so swiftly past my house, packed with commuters going to fluorescent-lit offices and home again. They seemed so remote, those thousands of traveling workers, and I envied them. As happened so often, my thoughts drifted to Wilf, and I wished I could tell him everything about Belle and Scarlet and Controlling Men and Felix’s death. I imagined, too, having him in my bed so that I could get totally lost in him, could forget about being me, and the horrors in my life. I was thinking of him warmly and regretfully as I finished the chicken, as I ate a banana, and then I did something I hadn’t intended—I turned the laptop on again, and typed Tilda’s name into the search engine.

An immediate bombardment. Pictures of tragic Tilda Farrow grieving for her husband of a few weeks, the American banker Felix Nordberg. Mainly of Tilda standing at the front door on Curzon Street, wearing Felix’s white shirt, her long hair falling half over her face, her pose weak and yet somehow beautiful, like the emaciated girls you see in fashion shoots. Some websites had found a photo of Felix that didn’t properly look like him—it was a head shot taken in a studio, and seemed too glossy, his smile too broad, like an advertisement for white teeth. The reports all said that he had died of a suspected heart attack, and some drew attention to the phenomenon of sudden death from heart disease in athletic young men. Others mentioned that Tilda hadn’t worked since Rebecca, that she had been considered for the role of Rachel in My Cousin Rachel. The Mail reported that “friends say that Tilda Farrow has her eyes on Hollywood.” And the Vanity Fair “A-List” website said, “Nobody would be surprised if she fled Britain for the States to make a fresh start after such a tragedy.”