What to Do When Someone Dies by Nicci French Read Free Book Online

turned Greg into a stranger; I could no longer take him for granted. Dozens were from Fergus, setting up meetings, swapping bits of gossip, sending references to websites they’d been discussing or continuing a conversation. Joe, of course. Other friends – James, Ronan, Will, Laura, Sal, Malcolm. Casual greetings and arrangements to meet. Sometimes I was mentioned: Ellie sends her love; Ellie’s sprained her ankle; Ellie’s a bit down in the dumps (had I been? I couldn’t remember); Ellie’s away and Ellie’s returned. One or two from his brothers, Ian and Simon – usually about some family-related issue, but none from his sister Kate, and none from his parents, who used to communicate with their eldest son by ringing on Friday evening at six o’clock for a fifteen-minute chat. Online articles. Blogs about subjects I hadn’t even known he cared about. When there was anything remotely interesting or curious about the emails he had been sent, I pressed the little arrow beside them to see what he’d written in reply. He was normally quite terse – he always used to say that tone was hard to detect in an email; you should be careful about irony or sarcasm. He was careful and factual, even with me.
    One of Greg’s more regular email correspondents was a woman called Christine, the ex of an old friend, who he sometimes met up with; he wasn’t so careful with her . I flicked between her messages and his. She lamented approaching her thirty-sixth birthday and he said she was more attractive now than when they’d first met. She thanked him for taking a look at her boiler and he said it was nice to have an excuse to see her again. She said he was a very nice man, did he know that? And he replied that she must bring out the best in him. He was tanned after his holiday; she was radiant after hers. He was looking tired – was he overworking and was everything all right at home? He replied that she, on the other hand, was as fresh as ever and blue suited her.
    ‘But were things all right at home, Greg?’ I rubbed my eyes with my fists and glared at Christine’s solicitous notes, his flirtatious, evasive responses. ‘Come on, tell me.’
    I moved to the sent messages, but the emails still didn’t tell me that. They told me he had ordered woodchip for the garden, grey paint for the kitchen, Omega 3 capsules for both of us; also a book on architecture and a new CD by Howling Bells, which I’d never heard of. Maybe he’d given it to someone as a present. Milena? Christine? I called up his music library and scrolled down, and there it innocently was.
    I went downstairs. It was still grey outside, and soon enough it would be getting dark again. The lawn was covered with soggy leaves and the pear tree by the back wall dripped steadily. I hadn’t eaten since the Danish pastries that morning, so I made myself a piece of toast and Marmite and a cup of camomile tea and took it back to the computer. The phone rang and it was Gwen, with the number of their solicitor for me to call. I couldn’t remember the one Greg had used when we’d bought the house. Now there was so much to be sorted out. I wrote it on the notepad I found in the desk drawer and said I’d call her the following day.
    Junkmail – but I found nothing apart from advertisements for Viagra, fake Rolex watches, amazing investment opportunities, guaranteed loans, unsecured credit and an invitation to the online casino, where everyone is king.
    Trash. Greg was pretty efficient at getting rid of old messages and, anyway, they only went back a few weeks: obviously the ones older than these were deleted at an even deeper level, somewhere in the mysterious circuitry of the computer. I ploughed doggedly through them, feeling I was getting nowhere and simply wasting my time. There was a strange little message from Tania, in which she said she didn’t really understand his query and he should ask Joe about it.
    I got the phone from our bedroom – my bedroom – and