BooksBarbecue
Back The Favor
Chapters (78)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Remarkable Praise for Nicci French
  77. Also by Nicci French
  78. About the Publisher

She looked around. The flat looked awful. Dirty, disordered. She made a decision. She was going to put the flat into some kind of order before she left it. It would be like drawing a line under her previous life and starting again. She pulled on ancient jeans that were beginning to come apart at the seams, an oversized T-shirt she usually wore in bed and her scuffed sheepskin slippers that wouldn’t hurt her foot. She gathered up all the rest of her clothes that were scattered on the floor and on the chair and crammed them into the washing machine.

Where to start with the horror of the flat? Jude decided that the kitchen was probably the worst. She filled the sink with all the dirty glasses and dishes and knives and forks and four brightly colored little carving knives. She washed them up and dried them. She put the glasses and dishes into a cupboard. She not only put the cutlery in the drawer but arranged them neatly by type. She was left with four colored knives, arranged on the worktop: bright red, yellow, blue and green. It reminded her of a children’s drawing of the rainbow. What were the colors of the rainbow? On the wall next to the toaster was a magnetic strip. She put the red knife on the left followed by the yellow, the blue and the green.

She vacuumed the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom and the bathroom. She found a bucket under the sink, filled it with hot water and mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors. Her slippers were soggy and her foot was throbbing. Normally she would have had the radio on or been listening to something on her headphones. Just now it felt good to have no distraction and no thoughts either. She was losing herself in the effort and the smell of disinfectant. Everything was being scoured. She caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror: her hair stood up in peaks and she’d splashed dishwater all over herself. There was a smear of dirt across her left cheek. But she was beginning to feel better.

Back in the bedroom, she packed all the clothes she had brought with her into a couple of bags, except for a few things she decided to throw away and the clothes she would put on after she’d had a shower and washed her hair. She stowed the luggage under the stairs. Then she went around the flat, picking things off surfaces and either putting them away or into a bin bag. Just when she was looking around in search of more things to arrange or throw away, the doorbell rang.