The Memory Game by Nicci French Read Free Book Online Page B

she'd always hated having her photograph taken. After she died, Dad had searched for her perfect likeness among all the years of memorialising her - but always her head was turned towards something else. There were lots of Paul and me - tiny, with round tummies and bare legs, solemn at six or seven, awkward at thirteen - caught by the camera's eye and pasted down in Dad's book, with his looped script underneath. I found one of Natalie and myself at eight, standing hand in hand in front of the Stead, and staring at the camera. We looked quite similar then, though I was smiling anxiously and Natalie was glaring from under beetle brows. Natalie had rarely smiled, never to please. I'd taken away that photo, and another which must have been taken only a week or so before she died. She was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and cut-off denims, and she was reading a book on the lawn at her house. Her lanky bare legs were tucked under her; a single lock of black hair fell over her pale face; she was absolutely absorbed. Had our last words been friendly, I wondered, or had we quarrelled? I couldn't remember.
    What could I remember? I remember going with her to a party at Forston, near Kirklow, when we were about fourteen. I'd told her about a boy I'd been looking forward to seeing. What was he called? He had dark hair, parted in the middle. After a bit, Natalie had disappeared. Later, wandering about, I'd almost stumbled on Natalie and the boy with blond hair entwined on the floor. They were together for the whole party. It had seemed like for ever. Alan had picked us up at eleven o'clock in his Rover. I had sat in the back seat, crushed, and Natalie had slid over to me. Without a word she'd put her arms round me and held me close. I could smell his patchouli in her hair. Was I forgiving her or was she forgiving me?
    One evening, the month after the discovery of the body, I'd been at a private view of an artist's paintings and I met William, a solicitor who had once been married to a woman with whom I had long since lost touch. He was a tall, blond man, handsome in a smooth, unfocused way. I remembered him as lean, but he now had a visible paunch. We strolled round the room together with our tall-stemmed glasses of sparkling wine, looking at large and derivatively painted canvases. The wine relaxed me. I told him about my marriage ending, and he asked what had made me actually leave Claud. I didn't want to get into this.
    'I suppose,' I answered slowly, 'that I couldn't bear to think that this was my life. It's hard to put into words.'
    He told me that he had separated from his wife, Lucy, seven years before, and saw his daughter every other weekend. They had broken up because he had had an affair with a woman in his office.
    'I don't know why I did it,' he said. 'It was like a madness, like a landslide which I was helpless to resist.'
    I said that I had heard that excuse before and he gave a pained smile.
    'God, Jane, I know. When Lucy left, I looked at the other woman and, of course, I didn't feel a nicker of desire for her : nothing. I destroyed my marriage and lost my only child.'
    He stared at an orange splash (PS750, according to the catalogue).
    'I hate myself for it,' he said.
    He didn't seem to hate himself so very much. He took me to a basement wine bar and ordered a bottle of dry white wine and some chicken sandwiches. He told me that he'd recognised me as soon as he'd seen me at the preview; that he'd always found me attractive. I was slightly drunk by now but at the same time eerily clear-headed. I thought to myself, I can get away with this. William was not a man who would leave much trace. I felt nervous though. I smoked, coiled my hair around my finger, chewed the dry salty chicken, drank some more. When we'd finished the bottle of wine, he asked me if I'd like another, and I heard myself saying : 'Why don't you come back to my house and have a drink there? It's just ten minutes in a taxi.'
    At home, I drew all the curtains,