Under My Skin (7 page)

I slid the Nitromorse back where I had found it and was out of the door, down the corridor, and into the spring sunshine before you could say collagen implant. The garden was empty. Just like the atrium after the midnight swim. I was doing so well that I decided not to be bothered by the problems I couldn’t solve. I had a kind of feeling that this one would give itself up before too long, anyway.

I spent the afternoon in the beauty salon, just in case. By five o’clock my hair was revitalized, my feet soaked and polished, and the hands that wash dishes were as soft as my face. I was Julie’s fifth manicure and she was already well into the new tub of cream. Loyal to the last, she didn’t say a thing, just gave me a number of helpful product hints on how to reconstruct my cuticles. The whole pleasure-dome experience added another seventy quid to my bill.

If I had been Jennifer Pincton, by this time I would have been seriously wondering what had happened. Question is, would it be serious enough to come back and check? I was torn between watching now and watching later. It struck me that in her shoes I’d be getting pretty tired of all this middle-of-the-night lark, with no time to catch up on my sleep. So I took a chance and slipped back at 7:00
P.M.
after the cleaners had finished and while the rest of the world was busy eating their greens. It was hardly a great sacrifice, despite what my stomach was telling me.

I settled myself at the manicure table in the massage room with a good book, or at least it thought it was. It was one of those clever-clever modern thrillers about a serial killer in drag who only attacked women with the same names as Joan Crawford characters. The cover called it postmodern and witty. They weren’t quite the adjectives I
would have used. The killer was just about to start dismembering number three with an ax (homage to
Baby Jane
?) when the light began to fade.

I put the book aside. About half an hour later I heard a click and a scrape a little way off. I got up from the table and moved silently round to behind the door. The footsteps were soft, but easy to follow. She had come through the back from the poolside entrance and was evidently feeling her way along the corridor.

The door handle shook, then opened. In the gloom a smallish figure worked its way across the room toward the manicure trolley and leaned over to the lamp.

Its beam lit up the surface and bounced back onto her face. At the same moment I called out her name.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the right one.

T
here ’s a theory, of course, popular among devotees of whodunits, that it’s the person you least suspect who is the most guilty. And on a scale of one to ten, I suppose it would be true to say that Lola Marsh—she of the warm flannels and bad skin—had not been a chief suspect. Except, of course, for one blatantly obvious fact. The money had been found in her room, too, even if the chest of drawers hadn’t been by the right bed.

Once I clocked that, it didn’t take much to put the rest together, though I didn’t get much help from her. Underneath that quiet exterior, it turned out, beat a heart of granite. You might have expected just a touch of shame, or at the least a frisson of terror, as I burst upon her like an avenging angel out of the darkness. But no, not her. She didn’t even bother to deny it. She just stood her ground, hands bunched into little fists by her side, and refused to say anything about anything, even after I’d done my bit about the legal definitions of malicious damage and intent to maim.

In the end I just made it up as I went along and waited for her to betray the odd flicker of indignation when I strayed too far from the truth. At least it gave me a chance to look at her properly.

If she hadn’t been so small, she probably wouldn’t have looked so lumpy. And to be fair, in any other working environment, you might even have found that pixie little face in its halo of bushy red hair quite attractive. But here all you could see were the spots. And the scowl. Put her
against all the other eager little beavers with their perfect makeup and finely tuned bodies and you could see how she might become the kind to hold a grudge against the beauty industry in general. And Castle Dean in particular. But enough to sabotage the place? Well, money can make monsters of us all. Even the innocent ones.

Since Jennifer had been richer by at least fifty quid the night after her peat bath shift, it seemed logical to assume that she must have done someone a favor. A last-minute swap with her roommate, perhaps? So last-minute, in fact, that neither of them had managed to tell the office about it. Which meant that when the sabotage occurred on that shift and Mrs. Waverley started to ask questions, it would have been easier to keep on pretending than expose themselves, particularly as Jennifer would have had to take the stick and she’d already had a run-in over trying to change her weekend breaks. As her roommate, Lola, of course, would have known all about that. She would also have known how important the job was to Jennifer, even if it didn’t pay quite enough money. So how better to say thank you than with a little monetary gift.

“What I don’t understand is how you explained the money? And what about the trainers? Was that another ‘gift’from you or part of the same windfall?” I waited, but nothing came. “Of course by then Jennifer must have been pretty compromised, anyway. I mean, if you wanted to be mean about it, you might say she was acting like an accomplice. Unless of course she was one all along.”

“No.” At last a response. The word came out like a bullet crack. “Jennifer had nothing to do with it.”

“Good. So now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s move on to the money itself. And who sent it. Got anything to say about that? No? Seven hundred pounds in two weeks. Was that decided in advance, or did you get a bonus if you showed special imagination?”

No speech this time, just a flash of a look and a twitch of the left hand. But I’m no good at sign language. “Oh, come on, Lola,” I said, losing my patience. “I’ve found the Nitromorse. I know about the maggots and the fish, the whole damn thing. You’re well and truly screwed. And if you don’t tell me, then you’re sure as hell going to have to tell the police. You might find it easier to get some practice.”

I must have touched something in her, because now she talked. It still wasn’t a lot, but from the way she said it you sort of knew it was the truth.

“I’m not sorry.” And for such a small frame it was a big voice. “This place is a shit heap. The business stinks, all of it. But I didn’t start it. I just did what I was told.”

“By whom?”

“I dunno. They didn’t give me a name.”

“Just an envelope full of money?”

And she had the grace to look surprised. “Yes,” she muttered.

“Any instructions with it or did you use your own initiative?”

“The notes just said to stop the place working.”

“Well, you did a good job. Have you still got them?”

She shook her head. “I burned them. Like they told me to.”

“And you’ve no idea who sent them?”

But this time she didn’t even bother to answer. I tried a few more questions, but she wasn’t listening anymore, just disappearing into that round little body, closing up and closing down. In the end I let her be. After all, technically speaking, my job was done. The fact that solving one mystery had opened up another was for my employer to deal with, not me.

I got Carol Waverley out of the shower. She didn’t seem to mind. We agreed to meet in her office in ten minutes. Which gave Lola and me just enough time to pick up the
Nitromorse and the rest of the money (Jennifer was already asleep, her face turned to the photos on the wall). By the time we got to the office Lola was trailing behind me like some unrepentant schoolgirl on her way to see the headmistress. And not just the headmistress, as it turned out. Also the head of the governors.

She eclipsed Waverley as the sun doth eclipse the moon. And she didn’t leave much light around Lola and me either. Of course I knew who she was the instant I walked in and saw her sitting there, all long Lycra legs and casually expensive sweater. She sat in a way that made you think she must practice it daily—an exquisite precision to every part of the body right up to the tilt of her head and the way her hair gathered around her face, with just the right amount of natural bounce. The lamp beside her cast a soft glow, carving the cheekbones Nefertiti-high and the skin even smoother. She was probably the only woman in the building who could put a finger up to the promises of the beauty salon. You could see how even looking at her might have driven Lola Marsh to violence.

“Olivia Marchant, I presume,” I said, ignoring Waverley, who looked justly uncomfortable beside her.

She inclined her head and gave a little smile, though not enough to alter the landscape of that seriously sleek face. “It seems I have a lot to thank you for, Miss Wolfe,” she said quietly.

I gave her one of my “Oh, think nothing of it” nods. The praise could wait. First the end of the story. She turned her attention to her offending little employee.

“Well, Lola Marsh. I didn’t expect to see you here. Why don’t you sit down. Don’t be frightened. No one’s going to hurt you. We just need to hear what you have to say.”

But Lola didn’t sit. And she didn’t say anything either. Not a thing. She simply stared at Olivia Marchant. We all
waited. A heavy silence settled on the room. She was the only one it didn’t seem to bother. For the guilty party she certainly had a monstrous confidence about her.

“I just don’t understand how you could do it, Lola”—Carol, squeaky with incandescent rage, or maybe it was relief. “We always treated you well. You were lucky to get the job in the first place.” Given what you look like, she added without saying. It hardly mattered. We were all adept at reading the subtitles.

“That’s enough, Carol.” Olivia’s voice was quiet but with steel in it. “There’s nothing to be gained from that now.Well, Lola?”

But Lola still wasn’t talking. Unless the quick look of venom directed at Waverley could be called talking. Finally Mrs. Marchant gave up and turned to me. As I retold the story—or as much of it as I knew—she kept her eyes fixed on Lola, with a face as impassive as her employee’s. When I had finished, she sat back in her chair and continued to stare at the girl, while Carol and I sat holding our breath, waiting to see who would break first.

It was hard to work out just what Olivia Marchant was feeling. There was such a still, silent quality to her. I found myself distracted by the perfection of her appearance. How old are you? I wondered. If I were to take one of those lovely firm thighs and saw it in half, would you ring-date? The body said my age, but the face, despite its sleekness, suggested older. Something about the taut smoothness of those cheekbones tugged at a loose end of my memory. But whatever it was, I couldn’t get to it. Maybe I was just wrong-footed by such glaring good looks. With the exception of Kate (who had weathered somewhat under the pressures of child care), my experience has always been that seriously beautiful women are more trouble than they’re worth.

She caught my eyes upon her and gave me a small sharp
look, then went back to Lola. The silence grew more insistent.

“Oh, Lola,” she said at last. “What was it we did to offend you so much? It can’t have been the job, surely? You weren’t qualified. I explained that to you myself.” Lola was certainly listening now—you could see it in the way she held herself. I got the feeling something was building up inside her. Seismic activity at the core. Stand well back. Mrs. Marchant felt it, too. She waited. But nothing came.

“Well, whatever it was, you’re on your own now. I can’t help you anymore.” And the way she said the words made it feel like a casting off. Then she turned to me. “You say she destroyed all the instructions?”

“Yep.”

“How about the envelopes?”

I shook my head slightly.

“Not even a postmark?”

I was about to shake my head again when Lola spoke. “London,” she said clearly. “They came from London.”

Mrs. Marchant focused on her again, not quite sure which way to step. “London? It’s a big place, Lola,” she said gently. “You didn’t notice what district?”

But the oracle had spoken. And that was all we were going to get. The night grew longer as she made that clear. “How long has Lola been with us, Carol?” she said after a while.

“Three months. You employed her at the beginning of the year.” From the way Carol spoke, it was clear that Lola had never been her first choice. I thought back to her own skillful makeup, hiding the hint of angry skin. Lola’s fresh little spots must have been a cruel reminder of the continual battle between beauty and nature. Nasty business, selling perfection. And from where I was standing it was getting nastier all the time. Only Olivia seemed untouched by it. But then she would, wouldn’t she?

“Three months. All right, now you listen to what I’m going to say, Lola. When I’m finished, you go straight back to your room and pack your bags. In half an hour there’ll be a taxi outside the front door waiting to take you wherever you want to go. There’ll also be a letter of reference. It will say nothing about why you left. If another employer gets in touch with me, I will keep up that silence. You, in turn, will do exactly the same for me. It goes without saying that I could just as easily pick up the phone now and call the police. However, I promise you that if I ever hear the merest whiff of gossip as to what has happened here at Castle Dean, I’ll have you out of whatever job you’re in so fast it’ll make your eyes water. Is that clear?”

Lola, who despite herself was aware of the remarkable generosity of what had just been offered, nodded and opened her mouth.

“Don’t you dare,” Olivia Marchant cut in and, finally, the voice was angry.

Lola moved her eyes from Olivia to me. Maybe she hadn’t been going to thank her after all. There was, it seems, still one unfinished piece of business. It was lying half in, half out of a brown envelope on the desk between them. She glanced down at it. And I must say the chutzpah of that glance was astonishing. Olivia Marchant saw it, too. She gave the smallest of laughs, then leaned over and picked the envelope up. She kept her eye on the girl while she pulled out the notes. She counted out four of them and threw them back across the desk.