Read Online Killing Me Softly by Nicci French - Free Book Online Page B

pulled at its reins. I thought of trying to explain to Jake that the good bits of kite-flying – that is, when it was briefly airborne – didn’t, as far as I was concerned, compensate for the bits where it was lying on the grass with the line having to be untangled by clumsy numb fingers. I decided not to.
    ‘If it snows,’ said Jake, back beside me and panting, ‘let’s go tobogganing.’
    ‘What’s got into you? You’re a bit energetic, aren’t you?’
    He stood behind me and slid his arms around me. I concentrated on steering the kite.
    ‘We could use that big kitchen tray,’ he said, ‘or just some large bin bags. Or maybe we should buy a toboggan. They don’t cost much and it would last us years.’
    ‘In the meantime,’ I said, ‘I’m starving. And I can’t feel my fingers.’
    ‘Here.’ He took the kite from me. ‘There are gloves in my pocket. Put them on. What time is it?’
    I looked at my watch. ‘Nearly three. It’ll be getting dark.’
    ‘Let’s buy some crumpets. I love crumpets.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘There’s lots you don’t know about me.’ He started reeling in the kite. ‘Did you know, for instance, that when I was fifteen I had a crush on a girl called Alice? She was in the year above me at school. I was just a spotty little boy to her, of course. It was agony.’ He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t be young again for anything. All that worry. I couldn’t wait to grow up.’
    He knelt on the ground, carefully folded the kite and put it away in its narrow nylon bag. I didn’t say anything. He looked up and smiled. ‘Of course, being grown-up has its problems too. But at least you don’t feel so awkward and self-conscious all the time.’
    I squatted down beside him. ‘What are your problems now, then, Jake?’
    ‘Now?’ He frowned then looked surprised. ‘Nothing, really.’ He put his arms on my shoulders, nearly unbalancing me. I kissed the tip of his nose. ‘When I was with Ari I felt I was always on trial, and was never quite coming up to scratch. I’ve never felt that with you. You say what you mean. You can be cross, but you’re never manipulative. I know where I am.’ Ari was his previous girlfriend, a tall, big-boned, beautiful woman with russet hair, who designed shoes that I had always thought looked like Cornish pasties, and who had left Jake for a man who worked for an oil company and was away for half the year.
    ‘What about you?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘What are your grown-up problems?’
    I stood up and pulled him to his feet. ‘Let’s think. A job that’s driving me insane. A phobia about flies and ants and all creepy-crawly things. And bad circulation. Come on, I’m freezing.’
    We really did have crumpets, horrid plasticky things with butter running through the holes making a mess. Then we went to see an early-evening film, and there was a sad bit at the end which allowed me to cry. For once, we didn’t join everybody for drinks at the Vine or a curry, but went to a cheap Italian restaurant near the flat, just the two of us, and ate spaghetti with clams and drank abrasive red wine. Jake was in a nostalgic mood. He talked some more about Ari, and about the women before her, and then we did the whole how-we-first-met routine again – which is every happy couple’s best story. Neither of us could remember when we had first set eyes on the other.
    ‘They say the first few seconds of a relationship are the most important ones,’ he said.
    I remembered Adam, staring at me across a road, blue eyes holding me. ‘Let’s go home.’ I stood up abruptly.
    ‘Don’t you want coffee?’
    ‘We can make some at home.’
    He took it as a sexual invitation, and in a way it was. I wanted to hide somewhere – and where better than in bed, in his arms, in the dark, eyes shut, no questions, no revelations? We knew each other’s bodies so well it almost felt anonymous: naked flesh against naked flesh.
    ‘What on earth is this?’ he said afterwards, as we lay