Chapter Ten

Nate waited for her to take it in, listening to her strained breathing. It brought back his own past; his body was still reacting too.

‘What happened exactly?’ Ruby said at last.

‘I’ve just got off the phone with the police. They didn’t go into much detail, but they’re coming to talk to me in person. They found information about the house-sitting service where Newbold was staying, and my number as a missed call on his mobile. I rang him around eight.’ He closed his eyes for a moment. ‘Now I know why he wasn’t picking up …’

There was a long pause. ‘Shit,’ she said at last. Then, after another moment, ‘The police were quick to call you.’

‘They wondered why I’d called him. And they wanted to know if I’d heard anything was amiss at River House.’ He’d had to sit down where he’d stood when they’d told him they’d called and got no reply. ‘They said they couldn’t raise you. I think they were worried that if someone was after him, they might have tried his permanent address first.’

‘Just like Maggie did,’ she said. Her voice was uneven. ‘God, I’m sorry,’ she added as though suddenly coming back to the present. ‘Nothing’s happened here. I heard the house phone go, but I was in the bath at the time, and I guessed the call wouldn’t be for me.’

Nate could hear the acoustics change, and the sound of her movement. He guessed she was checking round the house, and fought the urge to tell her to be careful. There’d be no one there now, and anyway, she would be.

‘So who found him?’ she asked.

‘The woman who owns the cottage he was renting, apparently. She popped round mid-evening. I may be able to tell you more tomorrow, once I’ve talked to the police again. And they’ll want to get round to River House quite quickly I imagine; talk to you, look through Newbold’s stuff.’

‘God. They’ll want to see the address book Maggie found.’

‘Yes. Though she wasn’t the only one on his tail. I was returning a call of Newbold’s when I tried to get him this evening. He’d left me a message about some other girlfriend who’d been trying to track him down through his work. For some reason he wanted to talk to me about it.’

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. ‘I sense this isn’t news to you.’ Hell. What was she playing at? ‘God, Ruby. It might be good if you stopped pissing me about. I know you don’t want me to chuck you out, but this is getting a bit counterproductive.’

He heard her draw in a sharp breath, but Nate was through pussyfooting around.

‘Newbold had a love-sick student neighbour,’ she said at last. ‘He probably guessed she’d try to pump me for information and wanted you to warn me off.’

‘Right.’ The adrenaline was making something of a comeback.

‘I did wonder whether to mention her to you, but she’s only just crossed my radar, so I hadn’t had the chance to think it through properly. Besides, she’s just a kid.’

He wished he was there with her. Over the phone was no good. ‘Murderers come in all shapes and sizes.’ Nate realised he was sounding like some kind of movie cop, but all the same, it was true. Then he heard her house phone ringing, as distant as she was. ‘You go. We’ll talk tomorrow. Call me if there’s anything to report.’

The phone call was from the police again, checking up on me for the same reasons as Nate. They said they’d be round as soon as they could the following day so I set the alarm for six-thirty. After they’d rung off, I thought again about Emily, and what Nate had said about murderers. I wished I’d told him about her straightaway. It was as though by keeping her secret I’d made her seem guilty. And what about Damien Newbold? Maybe he’d recognised something in Emily that had unnerved him, something that might have unpredictable consequences. I guessed he knew damn well he could deal with Maggie and her rages and her passion, but Emily might have been a more uncertain proposition.

I sat on the edge of the bed in the attic, shivering, and wondered how he’d died.

I didn’t manage to sleep until after three and woke up confused about where I was, but the fact of Damien Newbold’s death hit home again in seconds, leaving me feeling as though I’d been punched.

By seven a.m. I was at the kitchen table attempting to eat Weetabix once more. The estate agents’ details were still heaped up at one corner and, as I glanced at them, I realised with a jolt that I might need them sooner than I’d realised. What was my position, now that Damien Newbold was dead? I could be homeless within days. I’d need to ask Nate, but it felt horribly self-centred to be considering my housing needs when Damien was lying on a trolley in the local mortuary.

I got up at last and clattered my bowl into the sink, ready to go back upstairs to do my make-up.

My foot was on the bottom stair when I heard someone putting a key into the front door. Someone with an old set, who didn’t know that the locks had been changed.