“He can’t harm you.”

  “But he is harming me, don’t you see?”

  “I do see.” He could. He could see her mental state was rickety. It wouldn’t take Sigmund bloody Freud to see that. “And I know my company makes me the patron saint of stakes through the heart, but I really don’t know how you’re supposed to stop a—a...”

  “Then you’re no use to me,” Geraldine said bluntly, and with determination. “I’ll just have to do this on my own.”

  Her office always had the latest volumes of Spotlight. With actors and actresses in alphabetical order, it wasn’t hard to find the entry she wanted. Natasha Selkirk’s publicity shot looked out at her, immaculate made-up, fashion model knowingness in her cocked, alluring eyebrow, chin propped on her hands—with her agent’s contact details next to it. Geraldine waited patiently until Denise was out for lunch then picked up the phone, telling the agent that she was working for a producer at Warner Bros, and that he wanted to meet her client, the “extremely talented” Natasha Selkirk, at the agent’s premises at 4.30 that day—it would have to be that day because he was en route to Paris and Berlin, you see—with the prospect of a leading part in a major international production. Lying didn’t come naturally to Geraldine, so she was faintly astonished to find she was really rather good at it.

  At four o’clock sharp she went and stood outside the building just off Lowndes Square where the agent had her offices. She waited, restless, and at twenty past four, saw Natasha arrive wearing a fur coat, sunglasses and a silk scarf, emblazoned with a sky blue and white seagulls pattern, tied under her chin. It was a full hour later that both she and her agent must have come to the annoying conclusion that the producer wasn’t coming, and it was shortly thereafter that Geraldine watched Natasha come out again, looking more than a little peeved, irritably crushing a cigarette end under the toe of her stiletto.

  Shielding herself with an umbrella, and careful to keep her distance, Geraldine followed her home: only one Tube stop from Knightsbridge to South Kensington, then a short walk from the underground station to Ensor Mews, off Onslow Gardens. Council workers were using a pneumatic drill to dig a hole in the road—one man working, three watching (the usual thing)—all four of them taking pause to give wolf whistles to the leggy blonde as she passed. No catcalls, in fact no remarks at all forthcoming as Geraldine walked by. It was as if, in her cheap coat and sensible shoes, she was invisible.

  Bechdel House. Geraldine caught the outer door before it closed and locked itself automatically. Inside, standing on a rug of uncollected mail, she saw Natasha at the next landing, standing under a light bulb, digging out her keys from her bag.

  “Natasha.”

  The head turned. A beat later, disbelief. “You. He told me all about you, you bitch. You killed him.”

  “Please.” Geraldine started climbing the stairs. “I came here to talk.”

  “Why the hell would I want to talk to you?” Natasha rammed the key in the door, quickly letting herself into the flat, but before she could close it, Geraldine’s foot—her sensible shoe—was blocking it.

  “Please. I beg you. I can’t bear it anymore. All I want is five minutes. Please.”

  To Geraldine’s surprise, after a few seconds, Natasha removed her weight and let the door fall ajar as she walked away. Geraldine’s immediate thought as she pushed it wider was that Natasha wanted a fight face to face and might come at her with a carving knife—her anger didn’t seem the sort that would rapidly diminish. She entered, therefore, warily.

  “What do you want?” Natasha, divested of her fur coat and scarf, was irritated she didn’t get an answer. The stupid woman seemed flummoxed. “To drink?”

  “Just...Just water. Just warm water, please. Thank you.”

  “Sit down, then.”

  Geraldine did. Though the settee—Natasha probably called it a sofa—looked as pristine as if no bottom had ever graced its cushions. It looked and felt brand new, like everything else in the flat. Shiny. Modern. Plastic. It made Geraldine uncomfortable. As if she was under a microscope. She took the glass from her hostess and gave a subliminal smile, knowing she looked prim and wet and unattractive. The Amazonian Natasha, with her slash of scarlet lipstick, had poured herself a glass of white wine, one large enough to swim in, and stood there with her impossibly long, miniskirted legs reaching halfway to the ceiling, in front of a huge painting—“pop art” Geraldine supposed you’d call it—of a tiger roaring with the word BANZAI! in a speech bubble inside its mouth.

  “Are you sure you don’t want some wine?” said Natasha, but Geraldine shook her head, now like a little girl before the headmistress. “What do you want?”

  “Just to understand, really.”

  “What, that you made his life unbearable? That you put the final nail in the coffin of his career? That’s how he saw it.”

  Geraldine winced, stumbled. “He was a very proud, very...passionate man.” Why did she use that word? Passionate? “Er...about his work, I mean. About his—his beliefs.”

  Natasha looked perplexed. Disdainful. “What beliefs?”

  “I mean...nothing. You just hear things. About how seriously he took things like the occult. Like life after death. He did, didn’t he?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I only knew him six months. If I’d had the chance to know him longer I might be able to tell you.” It was a pointed barb, and it hit home. That’s why she’d let her in, Geraldine now realised—to make her suffer. Just like he wanted her to suffer. She never imagined they were in it together. Nevertheless she tried hard to keep calm.

  “Did he...Did he talk to you about the film you were starring in? I mean the supernatural side of it?”

  “He had it all in his head. He knew what he wanted.”

  “Alfred Hitchcock always says a director should treat actors like cattle.”

  “Marcus treated us like his best friends. What we wouldn’t do to please him. It was a gift.”

  “Would you say that was his special talent?”

  Natasha looks at a framed photograph on the side table; her and Marcus in his E-Type, wind in their hair. “He liked life, that was all. Not death. Never death.”

  “Then perhaps he wouldn’t want to go.” Geraldine sat on the edge of the sofa, hands clasped together. “Perhaps he’d want to come back, if there was a good reason to.”

  Natasha looked back at her slowly. Not quite believing what she was hearing and not wanting to hear any more of it.

  “You’re mad. What are you doing here? Get out.” She walked to the door and opened it wide.

  “Not till you tell me the truth. I know you’re covering up for him. You know what was really going on. Just tell me.”

  “You’re bloody insane. You’re bloody cracked. Now get out of my flat before I...” Natasha lifted Geraldine bodily from the sofa, intending to throw her out, but Geraldine was having none of it, not until she had some answers, not until she was certain. She hung onto her, grabbing handfuls of her dress, twisting it into knots, which only made Natasha pull back, even more incensed, trying to shake her off, while trying even harder to wrestle her uninvited caller to the door. She succeeded in manhandling her a few feet, and Geraldine only just managed to avoid toppling over by clinging more determinedly. Natasha suddenly let go, in the same instant wrapping her fingers around Geraldine’s throat. In retaliation, Geraldine yanked a thick lock of her wild-eyed opponent’s hair, eliciting a loud, drawn-out cry. In the same split-second, Natasha shoved her hard in the chest—again towards the door, but Geraldine came back at her with twice the force, hitting her in the shoulders with the heels of her hands, not expecting Natasha’s feet to shoot from under her, taking the leopard skin rug with them, or to see her blonde flailing head descending like a dead weight, the back of it hitting the iron dog in the grate, after which her limbs sank lifelessly.

  Geraldine didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. She thought, abstractly and strangely objectively, how Marcus might have filmed this scene: the ruby red Kensington Gore—Kensington, they were in Kensington, you see!—of his girlfriend pumping from the hole in the back of her head, saturating the oatmeal-coloured carpet. How he may have shone tiny pinpricks of light into her staring, inert irises. Or even, in massive close-up, used the eyes to reflect the perpetrator of the deed.

  Geraldine stopped herself from panicking by imagining she was a character in a film.

  She understood how films worked, she’d seen enough of them, and she could work out what to do next. She had to work out what to do next, even though her heart was sending messages through her body to collapse. Murders cascaded through her mind. Scenes from countless film noirs, from Hitchcock. Famous murders. The best cinema had to offer. Where crime never paid, except...She went to the window and looked down at the men working at the hole in the road.

  She rinsed her glass and put it back on the kitchen shelf—murderers were often caught out by that, and she wouldn’t be. Then she put on Natasha’s fur coat and sunglasses, tucking her sleeves in, covering her red hair with the sea-and-gulls silk scarf, knotting it under her chin and hiding her giveaway fringe. She looked in Natasha’s handbag and applied the garish scarlet lipstick to her own, pale, unpainted lips.

  Letting the heavy door thud closed after her, she put up her umbrella and fixed her gaze on the pavement in front of her as she walked. The council workmen whistled and catcalled. Geraldine didn’t look up. She straightened her back though, fearful her own round-shouldered gait might arouse suspicion. She faked Natasha’s confident stride. An actress being played by someone who wasn’t one. Someone who was too terrified to play a sheep in her primary school Nativity play when she was six. At the corner of the Old Brompton Road she scanned both ways and didn’t see any taxis, so crossed over and cut up Gloucester Road where, if she didn’t see one by then, she could get the Piccadilly line to Leicester Square. But soon she caught sight of a black cab, which she immediately hailed.

  “Where to, love?”

  “Wardour Street, please.”

  Once she was in, he took a right, heading north towards High Street Ken and Hyde Park. She looked into the rear view mirror, hoping to see Kensington receding behind her, but instead it was angled to show her the driver. Middle-aged, fatherly—with kindly laughter lines making arrows to his eyes. She recognised those eyes, and that Cockney voice, now she thought about it. It was Harry. It was Mr Sheinberg. It was her friend. She could smell the vinegar and the jellied eels now, and she wanted him to ask How are you feeling, girl? but his eyes were on the road ahead. She felt anxious, more anxious than she had done looking down at Natasha’s body, and that worried her.

  She noticed for the first time that an urn sat in the back seat next to her. The kind that held a person’s ashes—though she didn’t know what urns were used for, other than that. She kept looking down at it, embarrassed to have a travelling companion. Not wanting to ask Mr Sheinberg where he was taking it, or why. Nervous it was going to topple over to one side or the other as he rounded corners. Afraid that, if the lid wasn’t fixed, the contents might spill out. Soon the tension of that expectation was simply too much.

  “Stop! I’ve changed my mind. Stop here, please!” She leaned forward and put money in the tray. “Keep the change.”

  She found herself next to the Albert Memorial on Kensington Gore—again, that name they used for the stuff they used in films for artificial blood—why there? She crossed over, darting between traffic, to the dome of the Royal Albert Hall, wondering where her feet were taking her because she had no idea, really. She thought again of the Nativity play and wished she’d been in it. Even a small role. Even in a small role you can be noticed. Why was she so shy and frightened, even then? Why didn’t she want to live?

  “Miss! Miss!”

  She turned to see the taxi driver standing on the far side of the road brandishing her umbrella, which she obviously had left in the back seat. Should she go back and get it? She didn’t want to. Then she saw a policeman noticing the cab driver’s gesticulations, and looking in the direction he was pointing. Looking at her. Oh God!

  “Miss!”

  She abruptly turned her back and started walking away. Not knowing if the bobby had spotted her nervousness, or if he was now crossing the road to question her. To pursue her. To apprehend her. If he did, she knew what he would do. He’d see a mile off she was guilty. Of something. She knew she’d be found out, and interrogated, and locked up. If he was behind her, she had to give him the slip. She turned into the next doorway she was passing and went inside.

  The church opened up its welcoming arms. The cold of the stone seemed to calm her instantly. As she regulated her breathing, she took a coin from her handbag and put it in the collection box. The sound of it hitting the other coins echoed surprisingly loudly in the empty space. She was completely alone—if you didn’t count God. Weary now, she walked between the rows of empty pews towards the stained glass windows, shedding the seagull scarf and sunglasses and Natasha’s fur coat along the way; a strange, ceremonial stripper with no musical accompaniment, ending by sinking to her knees before the altar, shutting her eyes, and doing her very best to pray.

  “Sister Geraldine, we’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  Two nuns stood behind her. She turned. Sister Gertrude and Sister Ruth, from The Mortal Sins of Dracula. The actresses, anyway. And in costume too, just like in the film. How extraordinary. But—here? Why? And why were they blocking her exit—her escape? She tried to run between them, to the door she’d entered by, but they grabbed her by the arms. Firmly. More than firmly.

  “No,” Geraldine protested, not unreasonably. “I—I can’t go with you. I have to stay here.”

  “Now, now. Everyone has to be there.” Sister Gertrude frowned. “Mother Ursula says.”

  They marched her down the aisle. She thought they’d take her straight out onto the street, but instead they turned abruptly right and carried her with them through double doors into a long corridor, holding her arms tightly to her sides. A minute later, they swept her into a large room lined with bookshelves.

  The Library Scene.

  Panting, she recognised it now—dozens of obedient nuns standing in line, identical in their white habits with wooden crosses on their chests, pale skin makeup free, eyes closed and hands together in prayer, chanting Vespers. Here they were! What a coincidence! Exactly as they had been in Marcus Rand’s abhorrent little film. The memory of it rising from her stomach like bile.

  “Deus, in adiutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. Alleluia.”

  Geraldine found herself shuffled roughly into place at the end of a row, hemmed in by Sister Ruth, while Sister Gertrude stood sentinel at the door. She looked up at the sound of a voice.

  “You are here not for yourselves!” The Abbess, “Mother Ursula”—that elderly actress who’d been at the National with Olivier—stood half- way up a spiral staircase, at a lectern in the shape of a gold eagle with spread wings, bad eye covered with a black eye patch, good one roving beadily for misdemeanours. As in the movie, she spoke in that mellifluous Dublin Irish accent so appropriate for a religious community secluded up in the mountains of Bavaria. “You are here for contemplation, for prayer, for work, and for sacrifice! You are not here to respond to the odious beckoning of carnality!” She held up a sheet of parchment. “Who wrote this? A love letter! Who amongst you has committed the terrible sin of impure thoughts? Speak!”

  The Abbess held the corner of the epistle to the nearest candle and let it catch light, smoke rising until the whole thing was incinerated, whereupon she let its ash float to the floor.

  “Who has transgressed the rules of this Order? Is it you, Sister Geraldine?”

  Geraldine felt her bladder weaken. “No, Mother Ursula.”

  “Speak up!”

  “No, Mother Ursula!”

  The Abbess seemed content with that answer. Mercifully. Not that the mask of a face knew the meaning of the word mercy. It panned the other Sisters’ faces like a malevolent owl, uttering the line Geraldine knew intimately:

  “Step forward, child, or your punishment will be increased a hundredfold!”

  A figure emerged from the row behind Geraldine, shoulders rounded with dread, and she recognised the nun’s face framed by the mantle after a double-take. It was Denise, impossibly—Denise, from the office.

  “No...”

  “Turn and face thy sisters!”

  Denise—from the office...

  “Sister Gertrude, Sister Ruth, you know what is required.”

  As horror-stricken as she was powerless, Geraldine watched as two nuns wrapped Denise’s arms around a pillar and tied her wrists roughly with leather straps. They tore her habit from her shoulders. Ripped apart her undershirts to expose her bare back. The young woman’s muscles tensed, her flesh shivering in the icy air.

  “No,” Geraldine said again, under her breath, knowing even as she did so that nothing could halt the filmic inevitability of that whipcord clutched in Sister Gertrude’s podgy hand. She had already seen it rise and fall many times—too many times, and now she was being made to watch it again. Be there—again. Because this torture was for her. It was all for her.

  The nuns’ voices rose in “Alleluia, Sing to Jesus!” Cue the first blow with a crack like a thunderbolt to fall upon Denise’s virgin skin. Geraldine felt the pain as the poor girl, her friend, cried out in agony—a girl she’d never heard more than giggle. A girl who gave her Garibaldi biscuits. A girl who’d done nothing wrong, ever.

  One for me, one for you, and one for the pot.

  Geraldine had to tear her eyes away. Then felt compelled to look back as tears of anger stung her. The welts increased in number, making the beaten body sag, but the agony continued with bland, mechanical insistence. The lash, the bull’s pizzle, on its return stroke spraying droplets to the air that landed on the immaculate white smocks of the devoted.