Read Online Under Your Skin by Sabine Durrant - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sabine Durrant
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car outside my house when Steve pulls up. I think of ringing the police, but it turns out they’re here already.
DI Perivale has brought PC Morrow with him this time. She grins when I stop in the doorway of the kitchen, a wide-mouthed “me again” Wallace and Gromit grin. Marta has let them in, though she has gone out to collect Millie, “leaving them to it,” in DI Perivale’s words. My cleaner is in the house, PC Morrow adds, as if I might be worried about security. I can hear Nora shunt the Hoover back and forth in Marta’s room, the gurgle of water in the pipes as she Mr. Muscles the guest bath.
I lean against the doorframe for a moment, not sure I have the strength to move. My legs feel wobbly. “Haven’t I answered all your questions already?”
PC Morrow, who is sitting on the bench, wrinkles her freckled nose. Her forehead is without lines. She is wearing tiny gold hearts in her ears. “I know it’s a real pain,” she says, “but . . .” DI Perivale, at the head of the table, is studying a piece of paper in his lap, and because he’s not watching, she rolls her eyes and shrugs.
“If you wouldn’t mind sitting down for a few minutes,” he says, looking up, as if I have just been ushered into his office. “It won’t take long, but it is important.”
I unpeel myself from the doorjamb and sit. I think about offering a cup of tea, but something in his tone tells me I shouldn’t.
“Have you seen this woman before?” DI Perivale asks. He has a slither of lettuce caught between two incisors, and a blob of what might be dried ketchup on the upper breast of his zip-up Adidas top. If I were a forensic pathologist, I’d say he had had a Big Mac on the way over.
He spins a photograph toward me.
I dread looking at it.
It was taken in a garden, by a climbing frame. Two children are stretching from the lower bars. One of those red plastic climb-in toddler cars has been abandoned at her ankles, and she is leaning back to grab the smaller child’s legs, smiling broadly. She has those front teeth that lean in a bit, as if they have been pushed, and her dark red hair is pulled back in two bunches. She is slight, with a thin, narrow face, and thick fake eyelashes. One of her earlobes has about six rings in it.
The picture makes me unbearably sad.
“Are those her kids?” I ask.
“Do you recognize the woman?”
“Yes, of course . . . Who is she? Are they her kids?” I ask again.
“We know she was Ania Dudek, aged thirty, of Fitzhugh Grove, SW18.” Was, he said, not is. “The family she worked for in Putney reported her missing when she didn’t show up on Saturday. It’s their children in the photo. She was working for them in the capacity of weekend nanny.”
“Ania Dudek,” I repeat. A nanny. At least they weren’t her children. A nice job with a nice family in Putney, that congenial safe suburb where Nick Clegg lives. Not really two lives colliding at all.
“Does the name mean anything to you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“You ever been to Fitzhugh Grove?”
“No. I know where it is, of course.” It’s a group of high-rise buildings on the edge of the common, formerly owned by the local authority. “But I’ve never been in.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod.
“And Ania Dudek has never been here?”
“No.” I look across at PC Morrow, who has put on a sort of “rather not be here, but I have to” face, a stab at female solidarity. I smile at her. “Never.”
“Interesting.” He produces another sheet of paper. It’s a torn-out page from a magazine—a cutting—in a thin plastic folder. It’s an advert from the Lady for a live-in nanny in the Wandsworth area. The moment I see it—from the shape of the words, the layout—I know it is the ad I placed last summer after Robin gave in her notice.
“Any notion why this might have been stuck with a magnet to Ania Dudek’s fridge?”
I had sinusitis last winter and the infection went to my inner
DI Perivale has brought PC Morrow with him this time. She grins when I stop in the doorway of the kitchen, a wide-mouthed “me again” Wallace and Gromit grin. Marta has let them in, though she has gone out to collect Millie, “leaving them to it,” in DI Perivale’s words. My cleaner is in the house, PC Morrow adds, as if I might be worried about security. I can hear Nora shunt the Hoover back and forth in Marta’s room, the gurgle of water in the pipes as she Mr. Muscles the guest bath.
I lean against the doorframe for a moment, not sure I have the strength to move. My legs feel wobbly. “Haven’t I answered all your questions already?”
PC Morrow, who is sitting on the bench, wrinkles her freckled nose. Her forehead is without lines. She is wearing tiny gold hearts in her ears. “I know it’s a real pain,” she says, “but . . .” DI Perivale, at the head of the table, is studying a piece of paper in his lap, and because he’s not watching, she rolls her eyes and shrugs.
“If you wouldn’t mind sitting down for a few minutes,” he says, looking up, as if I have just been ushered into his office. “It won’t take long, but it is important.”
I unpeel myself from the doorjamb and sit. I think about offering a cup of tea, but something in his tone tells me I shouldn’t.
“Have you seen this woman before?” DI Perivale asks. He has a slither of lettuce caught between two incisors, and a blob of what might be dried ketchup on the upper breast of his zip-up Adidas top. If I were a forensic pathologist, I’d say he had had a Big Mac on the way over.
He spins a photograph toward me.
I dread looking at it.
It was taken in a garden, by a climbing frame. Two children are stretching from the lower bars. One of those red plastic climb-in toddler cars has been abandoned at her ankles, and she is leaning back to grab the smaller child’s legs, smiling broadly. She has those front teeth that lean in a bit, as if they have been pushed, and her dark red hair is pulled back in two bunches. She is slight, with a thin, narrow face, and thick fake eyelashes. One of her earlobes has about six rings in it.
The picture makes me unbearably sad.
“Are those her kids?” I ask.
“Do you recognize the woman?”
“Yes, of course . . . Who is she? Are they her kids?” I ask again.
“We know she was Ania Dudek, aged thirty, of Fitzhugh Grove, SW18.” Was, he said, not is. “The family she worked for in Putney reported her missing when she didn’t show up on Saturday. It’s their children in the photo. She was working for them in the capacity of weekend nanny.”
“Ania Dudek,” I repeat. A nanny. At least they weren’t her children. A nice job with a nice family in Putney, that congenial safe suburb where Nick Clegg lives. Not really two lives colliding at all.
“Does the name mean anything to you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Nothing.”
“You ever been to Fitzhugh Grove?”
“No. I know where it is, of course.” It’s a group of high-rise buildings on the edge of the common, formerly owned by the local authority. “But I’ve never been in.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod.
“And Ania Dudek has never been here?”
“No.” I look across at PC Morrow, who has put on a sort of “rather not be here, but I have to” face, a stab at female solidarity. I smile at her. “Never.”
“Interesting.” He produces another sheet of paper. It’s a torn-out page from a magazine—a cutting—in a thin plastic folder. It’s an advert from the Lady for a live-in nanny in the Wandsworth area. The moment I see it—from the shape of the words, the layout—I know it is the ad I placed last summer after Robin gave in her notice.
“Any notion why this might have been stuck with a magnet to Ania Dudek’s fridge?”
I had sinusitis last winter and the infection went to my inner
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