by Nicci French
Blue Monday
Nicci French
Monday, the lowest point of the week. A day of dark impulses. A day to snatch a child from the streets…
The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew.
Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson doesn't take Frieda's concerns seriously until a link emerges with an unsolved abduction twenty years ago and he summons Frieda to interview the victim's sister, hoping she can stir hidden memories. Before long, Frieda is at the centre of the race to track the kidnapper. But her race isn't physical. She must chase down the darkest paths of a psychopath's mind to find the answers to Matthew Farraday's whereabouts. And sometimes the mind is the deadliest place to lose yourself.
Nicci French
Blue Monday
The first book in the Frieda Klein series, 2011
To Edgar, Anna, Hadley and Molly
1987
In this city there were many ghosts. She had to take care. She avoided the cracks between the paving stones, skipping and jumping, her feet in their scuffed lace-up shoes landing in the blank spaces. She was nimble at this hopscotch by now. She had done it every day on the way to school and back ever since she could remember, first holding on to her mother’s hand, dragging and jerking her as she leaped from one safe place to the next; then on her own. Don’t step on the cracks. Or what? She was probably too old for such a game now, already nine, and in a few weeks’ time she would be ten, just before the summer holidays began. Still she played it, mostly out of habit but also nervous about what might happen if she stopped.
This bit was tricky – the paving was broken up into a jagged mosaic. She got across it, one toe pressing into the little island between the lines. Her plaits swung against her hot cheek, her school bag bumped against her hip, heavy with books and her half-eaten packed lunch. Behind her, she could hear Joanna’s feet following in her steps. She didn’t turn. Her little sister was always trailing after her, always getting in her way. Now she heard her whimpering: ‘Rosie! Rosie, wait for me!’
‘Hurry up, then,’ she called over her shoulder. There were several people between them now, but she caught a glimpse of Joanna’s face, hot and red under her dark fringe. She looked anxious. The tip of her tongue was on her lip in concentration. Her foot landed on a crack and she wobbled, hitting another. She always did that. She was a clumsy child who spilled food and stubbed her toes and stepped in dog poo. ‘Hurry!’ Rosie repeated crossly, weaving her way past people.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon and the sky was a flat blue; the light flared on the pavement, hurting her eyes. She rounded the corner towards the shop and was suddenly in the shade where she slowed to a walk, for the danger was over. The paving stones were replaced by Tarmac. She passed the man with the pockmarked face who sat in the doorway with a tin beside him. There weren’t any laces in his boots. She tried not to look at him. She didn’t like the way he smiled without really smiling, like her father sometimes, when he was saying goodbye on a Sunday. Today was Monday: Monday was when she missed him most, waking up to the week and knowing he wasn’t there again. Where was Joanna? She waited, watching the other people flow past her – a flurry of youths, a woman with a scarf round her head and a large bag, a man with a stick – and then her sister emerged from the dazzle of light into the shadows, a skinny figure with an oversized bag, knobbly knees and grubby white ankle socks. Her hair was sticking to her forehead.
Rosie turned again and walked towards the sweetshop, considering what she would buy. Perhaps the Opal Fruits… or perhaps Maltesers, though it was so hot they would melt on the way home. Joanna would buy the strawberry laces and her mouth would be pink and smudged. Hayley from her class was already in there and they stood together at the counter, picking out sweets. The Opal Fruits, she decided, but she had to wait to pay until Joanna arrived. She glanced towards the door and for a moment she thought she saw something – a blur, a trick of the light, something different, like a shimmer in the hot air. But then it was gone. The doorway was empty. Nobody was there.
She tutted loudly, over a screech of brakes.
‘I always have to wait for my little sister.’
‘Poor you,’ said Hayley.
‘She’s such a cry-baby. It’s boring.’ She said this because it was something she felt she ought to say. You had to look down on your younger siblings, roll your eyes and sneer.
‘I bet,’ said Hayley, companionably.
‘Where is she?’ With a theatrical sigh, Rosie put down her packet of sweets and went to the entrance to look outside. Cars drove by. A woman wearing a sari walked past, all gold and pink and sweet-smelling, and then three boys from the secondary school up the road, jostling against each other with their sharp elbows.
‘Joanna! Joanna, where are you?’
She heard her voice, high and cross, and thought: I sound like my mum in one of her moods.
Hayley stood beside her, chewing noisily on her bubblegum. ‘Where’s she gone, then?’ A pink bubble appeared out of her mouth and she sucked it back in again.
‘She knows she’s supposed to stay with me.’
Rosie ran to the corner where she had last seen Joanna and stared around, squinting. She called again, though her voice was drowned by a lorry. Maybe she had crossed the road, had seen a friend on the other side. It wasn’t likely. She was an obedient little girl. Biddable, their mother called her.
‘Can’t find her?’ Hayley appeared at her side.
‘She’s probably gone home without me,’ said Rosie, aiming at nonchalance, hearing the panic in her tone.
‘See you, then.’
‘See you.’
She tried to walk normally, but it didn’t work. Her body wouldn’t let her be calm. She broke into a ragged run, her heart bumping in her chest and a nasty taste in her mouth. ‘Stupid idiot,’ she kept saying. And ‘I’ll kill her. When I see her, I’ll…’ Her legs felt unsteady. She imagined herself getting hold of Joanna by the bony shoulders and shaking her until her head wobbled.
Home. A blue front door and a hedge that hadn’t been cut since her father had left. She stopped, feeling a bit sick, the nauseous sensation she had when she was going to get into trouble for something. She banged the knocker hard because the bell didn’t work any more. Waited. Let her be there, let her be there, let her be there. The door opened and her mother appeared, still in her coat from work. Her eyes took in Rosie and then dropped to the space beside her.
‘Where’s Joanna?’ The words hung in the air between them. Rosie saw her mother’s face tighten. ‘Rosie? Where’s Joanna?’
She heard her own voice saying, ‘She was there. It’s not my fault. I thought she’d gone home on her own.’
She felt her hand grabbed and she and her mother were running back down the road the way she had come, along the street where they lived and up past the sweetshop where children hung around the door, past the man with the pockmarked face and the empty smile, and round the corner out of the shade and into the dazzle. Feet slamming and a stitch in her ribs, over the cracks without pausing.
All the while she could hear, above the banging of her heart and the asthmatic wheezing of her breath, her mother calling, ‘Joanna? Joanna? Where are you, Joanna?’
Deborah Vine pushed a tissue against her mouth as if to stop the words streaming out of her. Outside the back window, the police officer could see a slender dark-haired girl standing in the small garden quite still, her hands by her side and a school bag still hanging off her shoulder.
Deborah Vine looked at him. He was waiting for her answer.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘About four o’clock. On her way home from school, Audley Road Primary. I would have collected her myself except it’s hard to get there on time from work – and anyway she was with Rosie and there are no roads to cross and I thought it was safe. Other mothers leave their children to go home alone and they have to learn, don’t they, learn to look after themselves, and Rosie promised to keep an eye on her.’
She drew a long, unsteady breath.
He made a note in his book. He rechecked Joanna’s age. Five and three months. Where she was last seen. Outside the sweetshop. Deborah couldn’t remember the name. She could take them there.
The officer closed his notebook. ‘She’s probably at a friend’s house,’ he said. ‘But have you got a photograph? A recent one.’
‘She’s little for her age,’ said Deborah. She could hardly get the words out. The officer had to lean forward to hear her. ‘A skinny little thing. She’s a good girl. Shy as anything when you first meet her. She wouldn’t go off with a stranger.’
‘A photo,’ he said.
She went to look. The officer glanced again at the girl in the garden with her blank white face. He’d have to talk to her, or one of his colleagues perhaps. A woman would be better. But maybe Joanna would turn up before it was necessary, tumble in. She had probably wandered off with a friend and was playing with whatever five-year-old girls play with – dolls and crayons and tea-sets and tiaras. He stared at the photograph Deborah Vine passed him, of a girl with dark hair like her sister’s and a thin face. One chipped tooth, a severe fringe, a smile that looked as if she had turned up her mouth when the photographer told her to say ‘cheese’.
‘Have you got hold of your husband?’
Her face twisted.
‘Richard – my… I mean, their father – doesn’t live with us.’ Then as if she couldn’t stop herself, she added: ‘He left us for someone younger.’
‘You should let him know.’
‘Does that mean you think this is really serious?’ She wanted him to say no, it didn’t really matter, but she knew it was serious. She was damp with fear. He could almost feel it rising off her.
‘We’ll keep in touch. A female officer is on her way here.’
‘What shall I do? There must be something I can do. I can’t just sit here waiting. Tell me what to do. Anything.’
‘You could phone people,’ he said. ‘Anywhere she might have gone.’
She clutched at his sleeve. ‘Tell me she’ll be all right,’ she insisted. ‘Tell me you’ll get her back.’
The officer looked awkward. He couldn’t say that and he couldn’t think of what else to say.
Every time the phone rang it was a little bit worse. People knocking at the door. They’d heard. What a terrible thing, but of course it would be all right. Everything would be all right. The nightmare would end. Was there anything they could do, anything at all? Only ask. Say the word. Now the sun was low in the sky and shadows lay over streets and houses and parks. It was getting cold. All over London, people were sitting in front of TV sets or standing at stoves, stirring the pot, or gathering in smoke-fugged groups in pubs, talking about Saturday’s results and holiday plans, moaning about little aches and pains.
Rosie crouched in the chair, her eyes wide. One of her plaits had come undone. The female police officer squatted beside her, large and plump and kind, patted her hand. But she couldn’t remember, didn’t know, mustn’t speak: words were dangerous. Nobody had told her. She wanted her father to come home and make everything all right, but they didn’t know where he was. They couldn’t find him. Her mother said he was probably on the road. She pictured him on a road that stretched away from him and dwindled into the distance under a dark sky.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. When she opened them, Joanna would be there. She held her breath until her chest ached and her blood hammered in her ears. She could make things happen. But when she opened her eyes to the police officer’s nice concerned face, her mother was still crying and nothing had changed.
At nine thirty the following morning, there was a meeting in what had been designated the operations room at Camford Hill police station. It was the moment when what had been a frantic search was turned into a co-ordinated operation. It was given a case number. Detective Chief Inspector Frank Tanner assumed command and made a speech. People were introduced to each other. Desks were assigned and argued over. An engineer installed phone lines. Cork boards were nailed to walls. There was a special sort of urgency in the room. But there was something else that nobody said out loud but everybody felt: a sickness somewhere in the stomach. This wasn’t a teenager or a husband who had disappeared after an argument. If it had been, they wouldn’t have been here. This was about a five-year-old girl. Seventeen and a half hours had passed since she had last been seen. It was too long. There had been an entire night. It had been a cool night; this was June and not November, and that was something. Still. A whole night.
DCI Tanner was just giving details of the press conference that was taking place later that morning when he was interrupted. A uniformed officer had come into the room. He pushed his way through and said something to Tanner that nobody else could hear.
‘Is he downstairs?’ said Tanner. The officer said that he was. ‘I’ll see him now.’
Tanner nodded at another detective and the two of them left the room together.
‘Is it the father?’ said the detective, who was called Langan.
‘He’s only just arrived.’
‘Are they on bad terms?’ Detective Langan said. ‘Him and his ex.’
‘I reckon,’ said Tanner.
‘It’s usually someone they know,’ said Langan.
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘I was just saying.’
They arrived outside the door of the interview room.
‘How are you going to play it?’ said Langan.
‘He’s a worried father,’ said Tanner, and pushed the door open.
Richard Vine was on his feet. He was dressed in a grey suit with no tie. ‘Is there any news?’ he said.
‘We’re doing everything we can,’ said Tanner.
‘No news at all?’
‘It’s early days,’ said Tanner, knowing as he said it that it wasn’t true. That it was the reverse of the truth. He gestured to Richard Vine to sit down.
Langan moved to one side so that he could observe the father as he talked. Vine was tall, with the stoop of a man who feels uncomfortable with his height, and had dark hair that was already turning grey at the temples, though he couldn’t have been more than his mid-thirties. He had dark, beetling brows and was unshaven; there was a bruised look to his pale, slightly puffy face. His brown eyes were red-rimmed and looked sore. He seemed dazed.
‘I was on the road,’ said Vine, without being asked. ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t hear until early this morning.’
‘Can you tell me where you were, Mr Vine?’
‘I was on the road,’ he repeated. ‘My work…’ He stopped and pushed a flap of hair back from his face. ‘I’m a salesman. I spend a lot of time on the road. What’s that got to do with my daughter?’
‘We just need to establish your whereabouts.’
‘I was in St Albans. There’s a new sports centre. Do you want to know the times? Do you need proof?’ His voice sharpened. ‘I wasn’t anywhere near here if that’s what you’re thinking. What’s Debbie been saying about me?’
‘I’d like to know times.’ Tanner kept his voice neutral. ‘And anyone who can corroborate what you’re telling us.’
‘What do you think? That I’ve abducted her and hidden her away somewhere, because Debbie won’t let me have the kids overnight, that she turns them against me? That I’ve…’ He wasn’t able to say the words.
‘These are just routine questions.’
‘Not to me! My little girl’s gone missing, my baby.’ He sagged. �
�Of course I’ll bloody tell you times. You can check them. But you’re wasting your time on me and all the while you’re not looking for her.’
‘We’re looking,’ said Langan. He thought: Seventeen and a half hours. Eighteen, now. She’s five years old and she’s been gone eighteen hours. He stared at the father. You could never tell.
Later, Richard Vine squatted on the floor beside the sofa where Rosie huddled, still in her pyjamas and her hair still in yesterday’s plaits.
‘Daddy?’ she said. It was almost the first thing she’d said since her mother had called the police yesterday afternoon. ‘Daddy?’
He opened his arms and gathered her in. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘She’ll come home soon. You’ll see.’
‘Promise?’ she whispered against his neck.
‘Promise.’
But she could feel his tears on the top of her head, where the parting was.
They asked her what she could remember, but she couldn’t remember anything. Just the cracks in the pavement, just choosing sweets, just Joanna calling her to wait. And her swell of anger against her little sister, her desire for her to be somewhere else. They said it was very important that she should tell them everyone she saw on that walk home from school. People she knew and people she didn’t know. It didn’t matter if she didn’t think it was important: that was for them to decide. But she hadn’t seen anyone, just Hayley in the sweetshop and that man with the pockmarked face. Shadows flitted through her mind. She was very cold, though it was summer outside the window. She put one end of her unravelling plait into her mouth and sucked it violently.
‘Still not saying anything?’
‘Not a word.’
‘She thinks it was her fault.’
‘Poor kid, what a thing to grow up with.’
‘Sssh. Don’t talk as if it’s over.’
‘Do you really think she’s still alive?’