Three Steps Behind You Read online

  ‘She died doing what she loved, you know,’ I say, in case it will make him happy. I don’t think the idea of Adam dying doing what he loved would make me happy. Particularly if it was Nicole.

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘She just loved cycling along cold dark lanes.’

  ‘While you were out partying,’ I half-joke. She just loved that, too – nagged him about it. If she’d lived, she would have guilt-tripped him for not collecting her.

  ‘It was a work thing. You saw that, on Facebook – I had to go out with the guys. But listen, Dan mate, it’s so important we all get on: you, me and Nic.’ He looks at me, his cheeks flushed. I know it’s the champagne, but I wish it wasn’t.

  ‘I know what,’ he says, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a wad of cash. ‘Here. Take her out.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take Nic out for the day. The park or the zoo and lunch, or something. I need to be alone, with the video, today, do my grieving – you know that.’

  I nod, and accept the money. I will take Nicole out.

  But first, that shower.

  Chapter 7

  Luke stands at the door of the wet-room, watching his lover wash herself clean of him. She is oblivious to him. She is washing all the most intimate parts of herself, her back to him, her wet hair slicked down her back. The shower must be hot, he thinks – her usually pale skin is turning red. He moves closer towards the crack in the door. He can almost see the beads of moisture on her glistening back. She starts to turn to face him. If he stepped forward one more step, pushed the door open further, stepped through, he could—

  Nicole screams, backing away from me in the shower area. I back away too, back across the threshold, but that doesn’t stop her screaming, so I move forwards, into the wet-room, holding up my hands flat, showing I mean no harm. She continues to scream.

  ‘Shh!’ I say, my finger to my lips.

  ‘Adam!’ she yells. ‘ADAM!’

  She is covering herself for modesty. I don’t care about that. I’d hand her a towel, but I see her neck is still soapy. She could do with a hand wiping it off. I advance forward to help. Nicole backs into the corner of the shower area, pressing herself against the terracotta tiles.

  ‘Adam!’ she shouts again.

  ‘I’m sorry, I was just waiting for my turn. I didn’t mean to frighten you,’ I say.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  I hear Adam’s voice over the water.

  ‘Adam!’ Nicole runs to him. Seeing as she doesn’t seem to mind about the soap, I turn off the shower and try to pass her a towel. Adam takes it, and wraps it round her.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Dan?’ he demands. The usual jocular tone is gone. This is fierce Adam. I can see his point. I am in a shower room with his naked wife. At least I have my clothes on. I would like to tell him it is for the sake of art, but he might not believe me. Some things even book two doesn’t excuse.

  ‘He was watching me! He was standing there, watching me!’ shouts Nicole.

  ‘I wasn’t watching, Adam. The door was open, I was waiting for my turn. The hot water’s broken at mine.’

  ‘He came in!’

  ‘Because you started screaming. I wanted to calm you down. I’m sorry. I see now I ought to have shut the door.’

  Adam sighs deeply. When he speaks again, his voice has less edge. ‘Nicole, go into the bedroom. I’ll come through in a minute.’

  She disappears, leaving me with Adam.

  ‘I’m sorry, Adam,’ I say. ‘It was a misunderstanding.’

  ‘A misunderstanding?’ Adam looks me in the eyes, questioning me. I stare back into them. Surely I don’t need to speak to answer? Surely we can communicate without words, by now?

  But he seems to be waiting for me to verbalise.

  ‘A misunderstanding,’ I say.

  He looks at me for a moment longer, then takes a deep breath. His shoulders rise and fall.

  ‘Ok, I trust you, mate. I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.’

  I nod back. I would never hurt him, intentionally.

  ‘And you were willing to take the rap for me, I’ll always remember that,’ he says. I nod. We both know the reference. ‘But Nic doesn’t know that. She gets anxious. Just … I’ll smooth it over, but try not to freak her out, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ I nod. I will try. I suspect she may find Luke a bit intimidating, but I have to persevere. For Adam. For art. For publication and his adulation.

  Adam walks through to the bedroom that adjoins the wet-room. He kisses her on the lips and I turn away, but I can still see them in the mirror. Adam opens his eyes during the kiss and makes eye contact with me in the reflection. He holds my stare as he moves with Nicole into the depths of the bedroom.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was revenge.

  But it can’t be, because he doesn’t know. So I close the door between the two rooms and listen to him converse with Nicole while I take off my clothes.

  ‘It was just a misunderstanding, Nic,’ I hear Adam say.

  ‘he was standing there!’ she protests, loudly.

  ‘Keep your voice down!’ Adam hisses.

  ‘Why do you let him come round here?’ Nicole asks. ‘You don’t even like him. Just tell him to get lost.’

  ‘Look, sweetie, I know he’s a bit odd, but he’s always been there when I need him. Give him another chance, okay? For me?’

  Silence. I sidle closer to the shower-room door, pressing my naked body close to it so that I can hear the conversation in the other room.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you,’ says Adam, so softly I can barely hear him.

  I hear Nicole giggle. I doubt she is still wearing the towel.

  ‘But I thought this was Helen’s day!’ says Nicole, cheekily.

  ‘Well, I can’t do this’ – there is a pause, while presumably Adam does something – ‘to Helen, can I, hmm?’

  Then there is no more talking. I move away from the door and turn on the shower. I don’t want to hear the intimacy of their silence. I must focus on Luke, focus on the task in hand.

  Luke closes his eyes, and lets the water course over his body. He can still feel that final touch of his lover, can still see her fine neck, smell her jasmine shower wash. Opening his eyes, he turns to face the room, he finds it empty of life. He’d half expected to see her looking at him. But of course, she wouldn’t be, not any more.’

  Yes, that would work well, towards the end of the book. When Luke has finished with Nicole. But for now, he has barely started.

  Chapter 8

  Adam was not overestimating his power of smoothing things over. By the time I am out of the shower, Nicole is dressed and ready to accompany me to the fair. We leave Adam at the front door. He kisses Nicole goodbye and waves to me. It should be the other way round, me being kissed, her being waved away, but that is how it must be, for now.

  All is not quite forgiven, though. Nicole makes a gulf between us as we walk up Narcissus Road to the bus stop. All wrapped up in her usual red beret, scarf and gloves, she keeps close to the holly bushes that line the inside edge of the pavement, as if she is trying to blend in with the berries.

  I guess I will need small talk if I’m going to use Nicole for book four. I am struggling for conversation starters when a cyclist zooms past to the outside of me, helmetless.

  ‘I think all cyclists should wear helmets, don’t you?’ I ask. I don’t care, but it is something to say.

  ‘It didn’t help Helen,’ is Nicole’s immediate response.

  ‘Was she wearing a helmet?’ I ask.

  Nicole nods. ‘I’ve been over it a thousand times with Adam. She always had bike lights, reflective clothing, all that stuff.’

  Yes, of course. The reflective clothing. I went through all this at the time. With a distraught Adam, and with the police, too, before they decided it was an accident.

  ‘Seeing that wedding video today just reminded me, you know,’ she continues, ‘how much Adam loved her.’


  This is not a useful conversation. I have no wish to be reminded of Adam’s love for another, from the one he currently says he loves.

  ‘You should come round for dinner some time,’ I say.

  ‘I wish I could find out who was driving, put his mind at rest. Give him closure,’ Nicole says. Then she stops talking, registering what I’ve just said. ‘I’ll ask Adam, we’ll fix up a date.’ Back on with the Helen routine. ‘Whoever it was, the police will find him. I’m sure. They just need a little help.’

  ‘No, not Adam. Just you, and me. Dinner,’ I say.

  The bus appears, and any reply Nicole gives is lost.

  We tap our Oyster cards dutifully and take our seats.

  I keep on with my efforts for a conversation change.

  ‘I’m sorry about the shower,’ I say.

  I touch her thigh, lightly.

  She removes my hand, firmly.

  ‘Adam and I love each other,’ she says.

  I’m not sure how that is relevant. I love Adam, after all, but the need here is different. Luke must have his material.

  So I just shrug and say sorry again. She shrugs back. She seems to have calmed down. Maybe Adam explained why I could not have a real interest in her. Maybe, in that darkened room, before we came out, Adam was telling Nicole about book two. Maybe it was words, not just actions, that flushed her cheeks.

  As though five years had not passed, Nicole starts up about Helen again.

  I hear about the pearls that reverted back to Helen’s family, the guilt Nicole and Adam felt when they sent out their own wedding invitations, Nicole’s constant search for justice. She is a woman obsessed.

  ‘Someone out there drove away knowing they’d hit her, that they might have killed her,’ she says, looking at me. ‘Who does that?’

  I look away.

  ‘It was an accident,’ I say, taking Adam’s line, in his absence.

  I see the first signs of the Heath out of the window. Red leaves on the trees, some fallen, covering up the grass. But we want the unnatural part, the funfair, the thrills laid on for families. I suppose Nicole and I are family, really. Me, her and Adam – all one loving unit. Adam knows it, because he’s read book two. He doesn’t know how much of a unit we were – particularly when Helen was alive – because he hasn’t read book three. But he knows it, really, how close we are. And he’ll have explained it to Nicole, now. Nicole, and her quest to find Helen’s killer. Nicole, who will be the star of her own show, for when I write the world according to Luke.

  I don’t know if she’ll like the show, if she’ll really feel comfortable with it. I mean, she never really did any acting, after RADA, so I hear. Not much good at it, perhaps. Then Adam coming along meant she didn’t need to work. But I need to get her on stage.

  Chapter 9

  ‘Were you like this with Helen?’ Nicole asks me as I lean across her, staying close, to strap us into the dodgem. Most couples are with children, enjoying their half-term break. But then, we are an unusual couple.

  ‘Like what?’ I ask. The warning clang for the start of the next session sounds, and the dodgem gets power.

  ‘Odd,’ she says.

  ‘I’m not odd,’ I say, as I charge with the dodgem round the corner of the rink, ramming into the rubber sides. Nicole grips onto the edges of our black metallic ride for safety.

  ‘Your fingers will be crushed by another car if you do that,’ I say. ‘Keep them inside the vehicle.’ I turn us to loop round to the other side of the rink, leaning into Nicole as we take the corner. I feel her breasts press against my arm. They are less oppressive than Helen’s, but still in the way.

  ‘You call walking into the shower on someone not odd?’ she asks.

  ‘Are we still on that?’ I retort. ‘It was a misunderstanding. Besides, Adam seemed to like it.’

  I look at her. Her face blushes red, but she smiles.

  ‘Well, don’t do it again,’ she says.

  ‘I won’t.’ I pat her hand for reassurance. ‘Unless you invite me.’ She draws her hand away.

  ‘Anyway, Helen was different,’ I say. ‘Adam’s first love. Less baggage.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Nicole says drily. ‘You must know all about Adam’s baggage, right? From years back.’

  I swing the dodgem round and narrowly avoid smashing into a kid in a green car.

  ‘Phew!’ I say.

  ‘You’re meant to crash into each other. That’s the point.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You must know what he’s thinking, second guess what he does, way more than I can?’ Nicole says.

  ‘I suppose,’ I say. Obviously, the genuine answer would be ‘yes’, but boasting on this point won’t endear me to Nicole.

  I drive round a bit more, crashing into other cars. They all have children in. The attendant puts two fingers to us, then to his eyes, then to us again, in an ‘I’m watching you’ gesture.

  ‘Any particularly juicy secrets you know about?’ she asks.

  I drive the car slowly round the edge of the rink, while the attendant fulfils his promise of watching us. I see Nicole’s dress has ridden up, hoisted round her upper thighs.

  ‘May I?’ I ask.

  Before she can reply, I pull her dress back down over her legs, being sure to graze her inner thigh as I do so. She tries to cross her legs away from me but there isn’t space.

  ‘No particularly juicy secrets,’ I lie. Why should I tell her what I know?

  The siren sounds for the end of the ride.

  ‘Again?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘But I’ll have my own car this time.’

  She escapes from the car, pulling her skirt down over her bottom as climbs out. Her new car is silver. Or is it grey?

  The clang sounds for the start of the ride. I will not let her out of my sight. This is about the chase, the thrill of pursuit. Nicole takes the car up to the other end of the rink. I follow. Round the corner she goes. I am there. You’re meant to crash into each other, she said, so I do. She jolts forward in the car, casts a look behind her then sets off again. I am with her, there, behind her, then parallel. I bump her again, she jolts again. She looks back, then quickly steers away from me, up to the other side of the rink. I speed after her, and catching up with her, ram her into a corner.

  ‘Hey!’ she says.

  I retreat, then ram the car again.

  ‘Stop it!’ she shouts. The attendant starts to come out of his little hut. I back off, and let her move away from the edge of the rink. I zoom down the opposite end of the rink, then do a U-turn. She is coming down the rink in the opposite direction. I carry on, full speed. She is closer, closer, tries move away but I am too quick. I ram into her full speed, a head-on collision, and she jerks forward in the dodgem, hair flying over her face.

  When she looks up at me again, I see the edge of her lip is bleeding. Her skin is white and her eyes are wide. She looks like she is seeing me, all of me, for the first time. And doesn’t like what she sees.

  Chapter 10

  Nicole is edgy, nervous, when we come off the ride. She won’t look me square in the face. Her eyes dart about. I can understand why, what she might be thinking, what suspicions me crashing the car into her might have triggered, but she will not be the one to mention it; she might just be being stupid, I imagine her thinking. Instead, she flits from conversation to conversation. I hear from her about the weather, the clothes people are wearing, what she plans to order from Ocado this week. In short, everything but nothing. I wish she’d shut up. I bet Adam must do too, sometimes.

  I try to block out Nicole’s jabbering, working on book four in my head.

  Luke takes the black scarf, similar to the one that binds his lover’s hands, and ties it round her mouth. It acts as a gag, and her cries are silenced.

  Would a scarf act as a gag, though? Or would she still be able to cry out? Hands are best to drown out cries, but then you don’t have them to manoeuvre your lover. And they can bite, quite hard. S
o I’ve heard. Those ball things you get on gimp masks, that’s what they’re for, I guess. ‘A ball in the mouth keeps a lady silent.’ I could do advertising, if they sack me over the punching incident. I zone back in to Nicole’s conversation when she starts asking me questions.

  ‘Maybe you should learn to drive before you next go on the dodgems, hey?’ she asks, laughing. But the laugh doesn’t work. It is too forced and does not change that expression in her eyes, half fear, half excitement.

  ‘You don’t drive, either, do you?’ I ask, knowing the answer. But that is what small talk is – asking questions you don’t care about, to get information you already know, while a subtext bubbles underneath.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I didn’t before, and I certainly wouldn’t now.’

  Now means, of course, post-Helen. The roads being too full of dangerously innocent cyclists.

  ‘In that case, we’re fully dependent on others, you and I,’ I say. ‘Let’s catch the bus back, see how Adam’s getting on.’

  She pauses, then starts jabbering again.

  ‘Actually, do you know what? I think I’ll grab a cab. Save you the bother. There’s one!’

  She raises her arm to flag down a passing taxi, desperate to get away. Her watch flashes in the light, a silvery-grey streak. I wonder what it would be like if that streak were red, how much blood there would be. The taxi stops and its lobster-orange light is darkened. Nicole disappears into it and slams the door, leaving me alone on the curb. Not, perhaps, a triumph for Luke, but it’s not over yet, his relationship with her.

  I decide not to go straight home. Instead, I will do some more research. Some writers just sit at their desk, making up words, characters, scenes, but I know better. I know I need to live first. Writing is the after-life. I walk down the road to The Garden Gate pub.

  I ask for a Jäger Train. I’ve never had one, but I’ve seen people having them, enjoying themselves. The barman suggests that I might prefer one of their fruit beers. I tell him I would not. He confesses they don’t cater for Jäger Trains at 3 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. So I order seven glasses of elderflower pressé and seven shots of Courvoisier brandy: the Hampstead equivalent. I order some lobster-tail scampi with it. Luke is no novice. He knows that eating is not cheating. The barman gives me a flower in a vase to signify my order. It is a rose.