Free Under Your Skin by Sabine Durrant Page B

time, “blood settles in the lowest part of the body, causing the skin to become pink and red in that area. The hypostasis on Ania’s body suggests she was killed with her legs in a lower position to the rest of her—this is consistent with indentation marks found on the cover on the bed in her flat. There were two cups of tea there, one untouched, and a glass of water that had been knocked over.”
    “I was here,” I say, “at home. I had a nap, a run—just a quickie—then a shower, some supper, read to my daughter, watched a bit of telly . . .”
    “What did you watch?”
    “I can’t remember. Mad Men , I think.”
    “Can anyone corroborate that?”
    “Marta. Millie, for the early part of the evening.”
    “And what about later?”
    “I went to bed early, alone. My husband was at work and then out with colleagues.” I am being helpful, but I am also wondering why they want to know where I was. I found the body. Do they think I killed her? I can feel panic and the beginning of fear. Is this what a police investigation is? Pointless queries? Bureaucratic quagmires?
    Maybe he just has to ask, though. Maybe it’s policy—like having an HIV test when you’re pregnant—because then he moves on and asks a couple of questions about my stalker: the file on it “has drifted to the surface.” I tell him the stalking, if you can call it that, began at the end of last summer, which DI Perivale at least finds sufficiently interesting to write down.
    “It may just be a coincidence,” I say, “but I’m sure I saw someone watching the house on Saturday, and when I came in just now, there was a thuggish man, looking a bit suspicious, in a car outside.” I try to speak casually; I don’t want them to think I’m making a fuss.
    They both stand up. PC Morrow makes a circular movement with her shoulders, massaging out the tension.
    “That thuggish man outside?” DI Perivale shrugs. “He’s one of ours.”
    •   •   •
    After they leave, I take a run. It’s like getting back on a horse: I have to do it sooner or later. I don’t have my Asics, or my favorite running clothes—I don’t know when I’ll get them back—but I’ve got a pair of old Dunlops hanging around and some tracksuit bottoms, which will have to do. I tie Philip’s gray hoodie round my waist. I probably won’t need it, but it hides my bum.
    You can get to Fitzhugh Grove across the common—a path leads from the soccer field into John Archer Way, a new road created out of nothing when they built the modern housing estate, and then along a row of towering chestnut trees. If you take that route, though, you have to broach the police cordon, and even if you work round it, those big chestnuts, with their thick, reaching branches, turn the path into an uninvitingly dark corridor, so instead I pace along Trinity Road beside six lanes of thundering traffic. At the entrance to the grove, rattling in the vibration from passing lorries, is a yellow sign, appealing for witnesses. I jog on the spot for a bit, pretending to read it, and then I walk a little bit farther in—just to where the cars are parked, blocks of flats separated by scraggy patches of grass. I can see the roof light of a police car whirling by the second tower, turning the wall intermittently orange. I feel drawn in, entangled. At the last minute, I turn on my heels and run home instead.
    Nearly at my house, just before the gate, a bulk comes out of the shadows, between me and it.
    I stifle a scream.
    “Oh, don’t,” the man says, putting out his hand. “Sorry. Gosh. Sorry. Did I scare you? What an idiot. Sorry.”
    I push quickly past him. He doesn’t block me—he moves easily out of my way. I catch a whiff of Polos, and tea, and the artificial bouquet of fabric softener.
    “Sorry,” I say, when I have put the front gate between us.
    “No, I’m sorry. After the shock of what’s happened, your nerves must be shot to shit.”
    I laugh. “Shreds.” I can see him