Under Your Skin by Sabine Durrant Page A

it’s good for us to be shaken up once in a while—we can all be so smug. We don’t live in the real world.”
    “It’s true,” I say. “It’s like a wake-up call.”
    And Jude says, “Second that.”
    And Margot says, “Third it.”
    And we all laugh.
    Is it terrible that I don’t mention my part in the discovery of the body? The more they chatter, the harder it becomes. I should have said something at the get-go, but now it’s too late. I didn’t because . . . why? In my line of business, one whiff of the wrong kind of publicity and a career can implode. Just look at the presenter John Leslie. The accusations of sexual assault may have been unsubstantiated, but he never worked in TV again. Stan the Man has an agent, his own media machine. I’ve always tried to avoid that sort of thing. It seems so grand and self-important. Philip handles the legal side of my contracts, and the production company has a perfectly good publicity department. But now, well, I can see how useful another person would be. It occurs to me with panic that I should have contacted Alison Brett, who deals with Mornin’ All ’s PR. I should have asked DI Perivale to keep quiet about my involvement, secured a seal of confidentiality. It seems more urgent now that I have sat here and listened and not said anything. I care less about my career, I realize, than about what these nice women think.
    I look across at Philip, who is standing by the gate, hopelessand stiff. He is wondering, Why do I have to stand by this gate? What is my purpose here? Why can’t I be back at my computer, watching Samsung tank? I take a moment to watch him. I see him notice Millie, high in some branches, and his face brightens. I feel a swell of hope. I get to my feet and help her down, clinging on to her legs, catching her wellies as she scrambles. Jude reminds me about the charity auction I have promised to host at the school quiz in April, and I say good-bye to everyone as if they were my proper friends, trying hard not to mind too much that they aren’t, and the three of us set about our family day as if nothing were out of the ordinary at all.
    •   •   •
    At dusk, I see a man outside our window. He is on the other side of the road, behind a car, so I can’t catch the whole of him—just a snippet of his head, an arm, the change in light and texture as he moves behind glass, a tarnish of the silver, a mottle of the steel. I’m not imagining it. I stand and watch from the drawing room, wait for him to move. I am hyperaware these days, my nerve endings alert to every encroachment.
    They haven’t caught “my stalker”—it sounds a bit showy-offy to call him that, I know, but I don’t know what other word to use. It could be a ghost, really, a figment of my overactive imagination, a sense of a person. Once, I told PC Evans, the policeman assigned to the case, I thought someone had been in the house. I smelled a sickly aftershave. Other times, I tried to explain, I feel watched, or shadowed. But it’s true I’ve never seen an actual person. Enquiries after Millie on Twitter: “How’s the little one’s nasty cold?” Presents—a pair of slippers from Toast, a CD of random songs (Ben Folds: “You Don’t Know Me”; Joe Jackson: “Another World”), a book ( Dear G-Spot: Straight Talk About Sex and Love ) from Amazon. “Maybe someone is being kind,” the policeman said, “looking outfor you.” I asked him if he had ever dreaded the post, the clatter of the letter box? Since I withdrew from Twitter, the gifts have become sporadic.
    I’m standing just to the right of the bay, concealed by the shutters. I can tell it’s a man from his height. It could be a smoker, banished from a nearby house. An estate agent waiting for a client. A neighbor locked out. Or what? What am I dreading?
    Millie yells from the kitchen. She’s starving . When’s supper? Can she have a snack?
    I sort her out—make a sandwich and a hot chocolate. I look for