Free Beneath the Skin by Nicci French Page A

much, especially the boys. Later Morris moved across to be close to Laura, at her request, which sounded more like a command, and Duncan sat next to me. First he talked about his work with Morris, how they were out on the road every day, working mainly separately in different companies, teaching idiots with too much money and no time how to operate their own computers. Then he told me about Fred, how long they’d known each other, their long friendship.
    “There’s just one thing I can’t forgive Fred for,” he said.
    “What’s that?”
    “You,” he said. “It wasn’t a fair fight.”
    I made myself laugh. He stared at me.
    “We think you’re the best.”
    “The best what?”
    “Just the best.”
    “We?”
    “The guys.” He gestured around the table. “Fred always chucks his women in the end,” he said.
    “Oh well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we?”
    “Can I have you afterward?” he said.
    “What?” I said.
    “No, I want her,” Graham said from across the table.
    “What about me?” said Morris.
    “I was first,” said Duncan.
    There was a little bit of me that recognized that this was one of their jokes, and maybe at some other time I might have laughed and made a flirtatious attempt to play along, but this wasn’t one of those times.
    Fred pushed himself against me. Pushed his hand against my trousers, Louise’s trousers. All of a sudden I felt nauseous. The thick, noisy atmosphere of the pub was curdling around me.
    “Time to go,” I said.
    He gave me a lift back to my flat in his van, dropping Morris and Laura on the way. He must have been way over the limit.
    “Do you mind when they talk to me like that?”
    “They’re just jealous,” he said.
    I told him how the police had asked about my personal life.
    “They made me think it was my fault,” I said. “They asked about my sex life.”
    “A long story?” There was a gleam in his eyes.
    “A very short story.”
    “That many?” He whistled.
    “Don’t be stupid.”
    “So they think it’s one of your ex-lovers?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Did any of them seem like nutcases?”
    “No.” I hesitated. “Except, when you start thinking like that, of course, everyone seems odd, a bit sinister. Nobody’s just normal, are they?”
    “Not even me?”
    “You?” I looked across at him as he drove, thin hands on the steering wheel. “Not even you.”
    He seemed pleased. I saw him smile.
     
     
    He pushed me back in my seat and kissed me so hard I tasted blood on my lip, and pressed a hand against my breast, but he didn’t ask to come in. And I’d learned my lesson from last night. I didn’t ask him. I waved him off, in a reasonably convincing charade of cheerfulness, and instead of going into the flat I walked down the still crowded road to the nearest pay phone. I called up Louise: Maybe I could go there for the night. But the phone rang and rang and nobody answered. I stood in the booth, holding the phone to my face, until a cross man with a bulging briefcase banged on the glass. There was nobody else I knew well enough to ask; there was nowhere else to go. I dithered on the street for a few minutes, then told myself not to be so stupid. I walked back to the front door, opened it, picked up the junk mail, the gas bill, and the postcard from my aunt, and went upstairs. There were no hand-delivered letters. The windows were all locked. The peppermint liqueur stood on the table, top off. Nobody was there.
     
NINE
     
    “I really think he’s interested.”
    “Who? Fred?”
    “No. This man who’s coming back to see the flat. God knows why, but I think he might like it. If only he did. I hate it here, you know, Louise. Really hate it. I dread coming back at night. If I could only get out of here, maybe all the letters would stop and he’d go away.”
    Louise looked round the room.
    “What time is he coming?”
    “About nine. Strange time to be viewing flats, don’t you think?”
    “That gives us nearly