Not Dead Enough

15

Sophie’s mother was Italian. She had always taught her daughter that food was the best cure for shock. And at this moment, standing at the counter of the Italian deli, unaware of the man in the hoodie and dark glasses watching her from behind the opaque window of the Private Shop across the road, Sophie was clutching her mobile phone to her ear, in deep shock.

She was a creature of habit, but her habits changed with her mood. For several months, day after day, she had taken an Itsu box of sushi back to her office for lunch, but then she had read an article about people getting worms from raw fish. Since then she had been hooked on a mozzarella, tomato and Parma ham ciabatta from this deli. A lot less healthy than sushi, but yummy. She’d had one for lunch almost every day for the past month – maybe even longer. And today, more than ever, she needed the comfort of familiarity.

‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘My darling, what’s happened? Please tell me?’

He was babbling, incoherent. ‘Golf . . . Dead . . . Won’t let me into the house . . . Police. Dead. Oh, Jesus Christ, dead.’

Suddenly the short, bald Italian behind the counter was thrusting the steaming sandwich, wrapped in paper, towards her.

She took it and, still holding her phone to her ear, stepped out into the street.

‘They think I did it. I mean . . . Oh, God. Oh, God.’

‘Darling, can I do something? Do you want me to come down?’

There was a long silence. ‘They were asking me – grilling me,’ Bishop blurted out. ‘They think I did it. They think I killed her. They kept asking me where I was last night.’

‘Well, that’s easy,’ she said. ‘You were with me.’

‘No. Thank you, but that’s not smart. We don’t need to lie.’

‘Lie?’ she replied, startled.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘I feel so confused.’

‘What do you mean, We don’t need to lie ? Darling?’

A police car was roaring down the street, siren screeching. He said something, but his voice was drowned out. When the car had passed she said, ‘Sorry, I couldn’t hear. What did you say?’

‘I told them the truth. I had dinner with Phil Taylor, my financial adviser, then I went to bed.’ There was a long silence, then she heard him sobbing.

‘Darling, I think you missed something out. What you did after dinner with your financial adviser guy?’

‘No,’ he said, sounding a little surprised.

‘Hello! I know you are in shock. But you came down to my flat. Just after midnight. You spent the night with me – and you shot off about five in the morning, because you had to get your golf kit from your house.’

‘You’re very sweet,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want you to have to start lying.’

She froze in her tracks. A lorry rumbled past, followed by a taxi. ‘Lying? What do you mean? It’s the truth.’

‘Darling, I don’t need to invent an alibi. It’s better to tell the truth.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, suddenly feeling confused. ‘I’m not with you at all. It is the truth. You came over, we slept together, then you went off. Surely that’s the best thing, to tell the truth?’

‘Yes. Absolutely. It is.’

‘So?’

‘So?’ he echoed.

‘So you came to my flat some time after midnight, we made love – pretty wildly – and you left just after five.’

‘Except that I didn’t,’ he said.

‘Didn’t what?’

‘I didn’t come to your flat.’

She lifted the phone away from her ear for a moment, stared at it, then held it clamped to her ear again, wondering for a moment if she was going mad. Or if he was.

‘I – I don’t understand?’

‘I have to go,’ he said.