Nell （Present）
NELL
PRESENT
Blinking, I look around my office. The lack of noise from the main room tells me that everyone has gone home.
I have a vague recollection of Sadie coming in and wishing me a good weekend, reminding me that it was seven thirty.
But I’d been lost in my past and had barely answered.
I glance at the time on my screen and jump up, almost knocking my chair over in my haste.
It’s gone eight o’clock, there will be fewer people around.
Taking my coat from the hook behind the door, I put it on and slide my laptop into my bag.
Locking up the center is laborious. I roll down the shutter over my office window, switch off the light, leave my office, and lock the door.
In the main room, I check that all the appliances have been switched off in the kitchen area—the kettle is still plugged in—and activate the steel shutter that comes down over the front window.
Sadie has already locked and shuttered the door that leads to the courtyard, giving me one less thing to do.
I wait until the shutter is fully down, because sometimes it jams, then switch off the main light and leave.
In the street, I turn to lock the door. It’s the part I hate most, especially when it’s dark, standing with my back to the road, not knowing if someone will come up behind me.
On more than one occasion someone has begged me to let them in because they need access to a computer or want somewhere warm to sleep and I hate having to tell them to come back the next morning, or point them in the direction of the nearest shelter when they’re clearly exhausted.
But I know that if I relent once, I’ll relent a thousand times.
I’ve also had someone, as I fumbled with the keys one evening, try to steal my bag. Now I wear it across my body on a long strap and hold it wedged to my chest while I lock the door. It hasn’t happened since, but the worry has never left me, especially once night has fallen.
No one accosts me tonight. I walk quickly to the bus stop, my bag heavy with my laptop and two books that Sadie lent me.
I hate the dark more than I hate the cold.
I used to dream of living in a country close to the equator just to have year-round warmth, until I understood there would be no long summer evenings, that night would come in brutally early, snuffing out the day as if it were nothing more than a candle in the wind.
At least in the Northern Hemisphere night comes in slowly, apologetically, as if it understands it isn’t welcome and is warning us of its arrival.
Although I’ve managed to stop thinking about my life as Elle Nugent, Ariane, Alex’s murdered ex-girlfriend, plays on my mind as I wait for my bus.
I give an involuntary shiver, wondering if the murderer was waiting for Ariane when she arrived home after her evening out with her friends, or if he broke in while she was sleeping.
I need to know these details so when I get home, once I’ve completed my evening ritual of checking for signs of an intruder, I retrieve my laptop from my bag and type “Ariane” into the search bar, followed by the words “murder,” “Belgravia,” and the year 2023.
I don’t have Ariane’s surname but I hope that what I have is enough.
After all, the murder of a beautiful—I have no doubt that Ariane was beautiful—young and wealthy woman in the heart of London is the sort of story the media love.
But to my frustration, and surprise, nothing of any importance comes up.
I try the same keywords, changing the year to 2024, then 2022, despite knowing that Ariane died in 2023.
But the only article I find relates to the murder of a young Brazilian woman called Ariane in another part of the world.
My stomach knots as I stare at the screen. Alex wouldn’t have lied to me about something so monumental, so there has to be another explanation as to why I can’t find any mention of the murder.
When Alex calls for our daily catch-up, I can hardly curb my impatience.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, after we’ve exchanged news about our day.
“Sure.”
“It’s about Ariane.”
Even from three and a half thousand miles away, I can sense his reluctance. “What else do you want to know?”
The “else” throws me. It makes me feel as if I’ve gone a step too far.
“I just wondered who found her,” I say awkwardly.
There’s a pause before Alex speaks. “I did. She was meant to call me at my hotel when she got home that night. When she didn’t, I tried phoning her but each time my call went to voicemail.
I phoned the friends she’d been with and they said that when they’d left the restaurant, Ariane had decided to walk back to her flat as it wasn’t very far.
So I went over. I had a key and let myself in.
” He stops, leaving my imagination to fill in the rest.
“I’m sorry.” “Sorry” seems too small a word. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to find his girlfriend not just dead, but murdered.
“Is that it, or is there anything else?”
How did she die? I want to ask, because although I know she was murdered, I don’t know how. But I don’t dare.
“No, that’s it. I won’t ask any more questions, I promise.”
“It’s fine.” His voice is tight. “It’s just that it brings it all back.”
“Of course.”
Desperate to get back on track, I ask him about his plans for the weekend.
He’s going to stay with his dad, he says, who lives forty miles or so outside Washington.
We manage to keep our conversation going for another five minutes but there’s a strange tension between us and when Alex says that he needs to leave for a meeting, I’m glad to have an excuse to hang up.
Although his reluctance to talk about what happened is understandable, there’s a weight in my chest at the knowledge that Alex had been the one to find Ariane.
It shouldn’t make a difference but somehow it does.
It wasn’t even a question that I’d wanted to ask.
I’d wanted to ask him why I hadn’t been able to find any mention of Ariane’s murder in the media but the way he’d made me feel, as if I shouldn’t be asking anything at all, had made me opt for something less probing.
I get ready for bed, knowing I won’t be able to sleep.
Something has shifted inside me. For the first time, I feel unsure about Alex, mortified that I’ve let myself get close to someone I’ve only known a few months.
Where was the caution that had colored every single relationship I’d had in the last twelve years to the point where I had very few friends?
Why I had I let myself fall in love so blindly with a stranger?
Feeling cold, I get under the duvet and lie on my back, staring at the ceiling.
There’s a part of me that wants to break things off with Alex because how can I stay with a man that I no longer trust one hundred percent?
But the thought of losing what we have, of being on my own again, hurts too much.
And I have no moral high ground to stand on when I’m keeping secrets from him.
Maybe when he comes back, I’ll say Let’s be completely honest with each other.
I’ll begin by telling him that my real name is Elle Nugent.
Perhaps he’ll recognize it. Nearly fourteen years have passed since I gained notoriety on both sides of the pond but people tend to have long memories when it comes to scandals.