Lasting Damage by Sophie Hannah Read Free Book Online

describing doesn’t sound implausible, in a bleeding-to-death scenario, though I’ve never seen it first-hand. What size is the lounge?’
    ‘Twenty foot ten by eleven foot three,’ I tell him.
    He looks surprised. ‘That’s very exact.’
    ‘It’s on the floorplan.’
    ‘On the Roundthehouses website?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Do you know the dimensions of all the rooms?’
    ‘No. Only the lounge.’
    ‘Tell him what you did last night, once I’d gone back to bed,’ says Kit.
    ‘First I rang Simon Waterhouse, then, when I couldn’t get him, I rang you,’ I tell Sam K. ‘After talking to you, I went back to my laptop and . . . looked at 11 Bentley Grove again. I studied every photograph, I studied the floorplan. I watched the virtual tour over and over.’ Yes, that’s right. I hereby declare myself obsessive and insane .
    ‘For six hours she did that, until I woke up and dragged her away from the computer,’ says Kit quietly.
    ‘I kept closing down the internet, then opening it up again. A few times I turned off the laptop, unplugged it, then plugged it in again and rebooted it. I . . . I was exhausted and not thinking straight, and . . . I kind of got the idea into my head that if I persisted, I’d see it again – the woman’s body.’ Am I being too honest? So my behaviour last night was out of control – so what? Does that make me an unreliable witness? Do the police only listen to people who take mugs of Ovaltine to bed at ten o’clock and spend the rest of the night sensibly asleep in their flannel pyjamas? ‘I’ve never seen a dead body before. A murdered body, that then disappears. I was in shock. I probably still am.’
    ‘Why do you say “murdered”?’ Sam K asks.
    ‘It’s hard to imagine how she could end up like that by accident. I suppose she might have plunged a knife into her stomach, laid herself face down on the floor and waited to die, but it seems unlikely. It’s not the most obvious way to commit suicide.’
    ‘Did you see a stomach wound?’
    ‘No, but the blood looked thickest around her middle. It was almost black. I suppose I just assumed . . .’ A deep tarry blackness, thinning to red. A small window, rectangles of light on the dark surface . . .
    ‘Connie?’ Kit’s face is swimming in front of mine. ‘Are you okay?’
    ‘No. No, not really. I saw the window . . .’
    ‘Don’t try to talk until the dizziness passes.’
    ‘. . . in the blood.’
    ‘What does she mean?’ Sam K asks.
    ‘No idea. Con, put your head between your knees and breathe.’
    ‘I’m fine.’ I push him away. ‘I’m fine now. If nothing else I’ve said has convinced you both, this will,’ I say. ‘I saw the lounge window reflected on the surface of the blood. As the room turned, the blood turned, and so did the little window. That proves I didn’t imagine it! No one would imagine such a stupid, pedantic detail. I must have seen it. It must have been real.’
    ‘For Christ’s sake.’ Kit covers his face with his hands.
    ‘And her dress – why would I have imagined a dress like that? It was pale green and lilac, and had a pattern that was like lots of hourglass shapes going down her body in vertical lines, curved lines going in and out, in and out.’ I try to demonstrate with my hands.
    Sam K nods. ‘Was she wearing shoes, or tights? Any jewellery that you noticed?’
    ‘No tights. Her legs were bare. I don’t think she was wearing shoes either. She had a wedding ring on. Her arms were up, over her head. I remember looking at her fingers and . . . Yes. Definitely a wedding ring.’
    And something else, something my mind’s eye refuses to bring into focus . The more I try and fail to identify it, the more aware I am of its hidden presence, like a dark shape that’s slipped off the edge and out of sight.
    ‘What happened when you saw the body on your laptop?’ Sam K asks. ‘What did you do, after you’d examined yourself to check you weren’t bleeding?’
    ‘I woke Kit