by Nicci French
Now there was something else. Somewhere out there was Matthew. Or Matthew’s body. Perhaps, probably, he had been killed within an hour of being taken. That was what the statistics told you. What if he was alive, though? Frieda made herself think of it as if she was forcing herself to stare at the sun, however much it hurt. What must it have been like for that other detective, Tanner? Did he reach a point of hoping he would find a dead body? Just so that he would know. There was a ring at the door and Frieda buzzed Alan up.
When she opened the door, he walked in quite casually and sat down in his usual chair. Frieda sat opposite him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The tube just stopped in a tunnel for twenty minutes. There was nothing I could do.’
Alan fidgeted in his chair. He rubbed his eyes and pushed his fingers through his hair. He didn’t speak. Frieda was used to this. More than that, she felt it was important not to break silences, not to fill them with her own chatter, however frustrating it might feel. The silence itself could be a form of communication. At times she had sat with a patient for ten or twenty minutes before they spoke for the first time. She even remembered a problem from when she was training: if a patient fell asleep, should she wake them up? No, insisted her supervisor. Being asleep was itself a statement. She had never quite managed to accept that. If it was a form of communication, it was expensive and unproductive. She had felt that a gentle nudge wasn’t really a violation of the therapeutic relationship. As the silence continued, she started to think that some kind of a nudge might be necessary this time.
‘When someone doesn’t want to talk,’ she said, ‘sometimes it’s because there’s too much to talk about. It’s hard to know where to begin.’
‘I just felt tired,’ said Alan. ‘I’ve been having trouble sleeping, and I’ve been working again, on and off, which I have found hard.’
There was another pause. Frieda felt baffled. Was he playing games with her? Was his silence a sort of punishment? She also felt frustrated: this was a time to be exploring his new sense of who he was, not shying away from it.
‘Is that really the reason?’ she said. ‘Are we going to pretend it never happened?’
‘What?’
‘I know you’re going to be affected by what you’ve learned,’ she said. ‘It must be like turning your world upside down.’
‘It’s not as bad as that,’ he said, looking puzzled. ‘But how did you know? Has Carrie rung you? Has she been going behind my back?’
‘Carrie?’ she said. ‘I think we’re at cross-purposes here. What’s going on?’
‘I’m having these memory losses. I thought that was what you were on about.’
‘What do you mean, memory losses?’
‘I sent Carrie some flowers, arranged for them to be delivered, and then I didn’t remember doing it. What does that mean? I should do stuff like that more often. But why don’t I remember? This is what going mad is like, isn’t it?’
Frieda paused. She couldn’t make any sense of this. It was as if Alan were talking in a language she didn’t quite understand. Worse, she had a feeling that something, somewhere, was wrong. Then a thought occurred to her and it was like a blow. She had to compose herself so that she could speak without her voice trembling.
‘Alan,’ she said, hearing her voice from far off. ‘Do you remember coming to my house on Friday night?’
He looked alarmed.
‘Me? No. No – I would have known.’
‘You’re saying you didn’t come to my house?’
‘I don’t even know where you live. How could I have come? What’s this about? I couldn’t have forgotten that. I was home all evening. We watched a film, we got a takeaway.’
‘Excuse me a moment,’ Frieda said, as calmly as she could manage. ‘I’ve got to…’ She walked out of the room and into the little bathroom. She leaned over the sink. She thought she might be sick. She took a few slow, deep breaths. She turned on the cold tap and felt the water on her fingertips. A few more breaths. She switched the tap off. She walked back into the consulting room.
Alan looked up at her, concerned. ‘Are you all right?’ he said.
She sat down. ‘You’re not going mad, Alan. But I just need to be sure. Since our last session here, you’ve made no attempt to contact me – you know, to talk about things?’
‘Is this some kind of game you’re playing? Because if it is, you’ve no right.’
‘Please.’
‘All right,’ said Alan. ‘No. I haven’t made any attempt to contact you. The sessions are draining enough.’
‘We’ve got to stop here. I’m sorry. I’d like you to wait outside for a few minutes and then we’ll talk again.’
Alan stood up. ‘What’s going on? What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I need to make a call. It’s urgent.’
She almost hustled Alan out of the door, then ran to the phone and called Karlsson on his mobile. She knew it was going to be bad, and as she explained what had happened it felt worse and worse.
‘How could this happen?’ said Karlsson. ‘Are you blind?’
‘I know, I know. They’re identical, really identical. And he must have seen his brother. He was dressed like him. Or enough like him.’
‘But why did he do it? What was the point?’
Frieda took a deep breath and told him.
‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘What did you say to him?’
‘I told him what I thought he needed to know. I mean what Alan needed to know.’
‘In other words, you told him everything.’
‘Pretty much,’ said Frieda. She heard a sound from the other end of the line. ‘What was that?’
‘That was me kicking my desk. So you told him what you suspected about him. How could you do that? Don’t you look at your patients?’ There was the sound of another kick. ‘So he knew we were coming?’
‘He must have been prepared. Also, I think he gave flowers to Alan’s wife. Someone did. I think it must have been him.’
‘What for?’
‘I guess he’s trying to show who’s in control.’
‘We know that already. Him. We’ll need to bring him in anyway. And that wife or partner of his. For what it’s worth.’
‘He’s playing with us.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
Chapter Thirty-four
Seth Boundy called Kathy Ripon’s mobile. He listened as it went to voicemail. He left another message, although it only said what his previous messages had: call me at once. He checked his emails again, to make sure that she hadn’t contacted him in the few minutes since he’d last checked. He went through his junk mail just in case her message had ended up there. He was irritated. He couldn’t think properly about anything else. What was she playing at?
His wife knocked at the door of the study and came in before he could tell her he was busy. ‘It’s lunch,’ she said.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘I thought you were going shopping. You haven’t done any of the things you said you were going to. Are you expecting me to buy something for your sister?’
‘I’ll do it later.’
‘We’re only three days from Christmas. You’re on holiday.’
Boundy gave his wife a look that made her back off and close the door. This time he rang Kathy’s landline. It rang and rang and nobody picked up. He tried to remember: she lived in Cambridge, of course, but where did she go during holidays? Where did her parents live? He vaguely remembered her talking to him about her background, but he hadn’t paid proper attention. Yet there was something snagging at his memory. What was it? Something about cheese. That cheese-rolling competition in her home town. He Googled cheese-rolling and immediately came up with dozens of entries on the cheese-rolling competition that took place on Cooper’s Hill in Gloucester every year.
Seth dialled Directory Enquiries and asked for the number of Ripon, he didn’t know the first name, in Gloucester. It turned out there was only one. He
dialled. A woman answered. Yes, it was Kathy’s mother. No, she wasn’t there. She was coming home for Christmas but she hadn’t arrived yet. No, she didn’t know where her daughter was. Seth Boundy put the phone down. What had started as irritation had turned into puzzlement and now was turning into anxiety. That woman, Dr Klein, why had she needed to contact him so urgently? Why couldn’t it have waited? He had been so excited about the idea of this fresh, undiscovered pair of twins that he’d hardly thought about it. What had he done? For a few minutes he sat in his chair, frowning heavily. Then he picked up his mobile once more.
The high thin sound had gone long ago; he didn’t know how long. There weren’t any days any more; everything was endless night. But it had only been with him for the time his mother used to take to read a story to him at bedtime, when he used to be Matthew. Red Riding Hood, but she was gobbled up by the wolf. Hansel and Gretel, but they lost their way in the woods and their father never came to find them. There had been panting, snuffling, shrieking, roaring, like a rusty machine that has gone wrong and is chopping itself up. Then quickly the horrible sounds had gone and left him quiet again. Just rustling in the corner and drip of water and scamper of heart and foul smell of himself. His body had run out of him. He was lying in the remains of himself. But he was alone. He had kept his promise. He hadn’t made a sound.
Frieda paced up and down her room, aware of Alan sitting outside. She didn’t want to talk to him until Karlsson arrived. She’d got enough wrong already. The phone rang and she snatched it up.
‘Frieda?’
‘Chloë! I can’t speak now. I’ll ring you later, OK?’
‘No, no, no! Wait. My dad’s going to Fiji at Christmas.’
‘I’m busy.’
‘Don’t you fucking care? What am I going to do? He was supposed to take me somewhere, not his bimbo girlfriend. I’m going to be shut up in our squalid rat hole all Christmas with my mother.’
‘Chloë, we can talk about this later!’
‘I’ve got a razor here, you know. I’m sitting in my bedroom with a razor.’
‘I’m not going to be blackmailed!’
‘You’re my aunt. You’re supposed to love me. I’ve not got anyone else to love me. He doesn’t. And my mother – she’s just a head-case. I’ll go mad. I will.’
‘I’ll come round this evening. We can discuss it then.’
‘But can we come to yours at Christmas?’
‘Mine?’
‘Yes.’
‘My house is tiny, I can’t cook, I won’t have a tree. And I hate Christmas.’
‘Please, Frieda. You can’t just let me rot here.’
‘OK, OK.’ Anything to get her off the phone. ‘Now I’m going.’
Frieda was impressed by Karlsson. He seemed able to do several things simultaneously: speaking urgently on his phone to someone back at the police station, issuing orders in a clear, clipped voice, steering her and a bewildered Alan out of the building and towards his car. Karlsson held the door open. ‘I’d like you and Dr Klein to come with me. We’ll explain on the way.’
‘Have I done something?’ Alan said.
Frieda put a hand on his shoulder. Karlsson sat in the front seat of the car. She heard fragments of his barked orders: ‘Keep them separate,’ he said. And then: ‘I want them to go through every fucking inch of that house.’
Meanwhile Frieda talked to Alan as clearly and calmly as she could manage. As she did so, she had the strange feeling that she had told the same story to the same face and she couldn’t help comparing the two. How had she not noticed the difference? Their expressions were similar but with Alan everything seemed to come as a blow. Halfway through, he whispered, ‘I’ve got a mother. And a twin brother. How long have you known?’
‘Not long. Just a few days.’
He took a long, shuddering breath. ‘My mother…’
‘She doesn’t remember anything really, Alan. She’s not well.’
He looked down at his hands. ‘Is he very like me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean, is he like me?’
Frieda understood. ‘In some ways,’ she said. ‘It’s complicated.’
Alan looked up at her with a sharpness she had only seen glimpses of previously. ‘This isn’t about me, is it?’ he said. ‘Not really. You’re using me to get at him.’
For a moment Frieda felt ashamed but she was almost pleased at the same time. He wasn’t just whimpering and collapsing under the news. He was fighting back. He was angry with her. ‘That’s not what it’s really about. I’m here for you. But there’s…’ She gestured around her. ‘… all this.’
‘You reckon he was acting out what I wanted?’
‘It may be that you have some feelings in common,’ Frieda replied.
‘So I’m like him?’
‘Who knows?’ Karlsson said from the front, making Alan jump. ‘But we’d like a statement. We’d be grateful for your co-operation.’
‘All right.’
As they approached the police station, they saw a group of men and women gathered on the pavement, some with cameras.
‘What are they doing here?’ Frieda asked.
‘They’re just camped out,’ said Karlsson. ‘Like gulls round a rubbish dump. We’ll drive round the back.’
‘Is he in there?’ asked Alan, suddenly.
‘You won’t have to see him.’
Alan pressed his face against the glass, like a small boy peering in at a world he didn’t understand.
Chapter Thirty-five
Frieda sat with Alan in a small bare room. She could hear phones ringing. Someone brought them some tea, tepid and very milky, and went away again. There was a clock on the wall and the minute hand turned slowly, taking them through the afternoon. Outside it was glitteringly cold; inside it was warm, stale, oppressive. They didn’t really talk. It was the wrong place. Alan kept taking his mobile out of his pocket and looking at it. At one point, he fell asleep. Frieda stood up and looked out of the small window. She saw a Portakabin and a skip. It was getting dark.
The door opened and Karlsson stood there. ‘Come with me.’ She saw at once that he was seething with anger. His face twitched with it.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘This way.’
They went through an open-plan room that was heaving with activity, phones ringing, chatter. A meeting was going on at one end. They stopped outside a door.
‘There’s someone you should see,’ Karlsson said. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
He opened the door for her. Frieda was about to ask something and then stopped. The sight of Seth Boundy was so unexpected that for a moment she couldn’t remember who he was. He looked different as well. His hair was standing up in small peaks and his tie was pulled loose. His forehead was shiny with sweat. He stood up when he saw her, but sat down again at once.
‘Sorry, I don’t understand,’ said Frieda. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was simply being a responsible citizen,’ he said, in a murmur. ‘I simply expressed a concern, and I was whisked off to London. It’s really -’
‘Concern. What concern?’
‘One of my research students appears to have gone missing. It’s probably nothing. She’s a grown woman.’
Frieda took a seat opposite Boundy. She put her elbows on the table between them and gazed at him. His eyes shifted nervously from her face to the window and back again. When she spoke it was in a quieter, harder tone. ‘But why here? Why are you in London?’
‘I -’ He halted and pushed his fingers back into his hair. His glasses were crooked on his nose. ‘You see, it was such an opportunity. You’re not a scientist. These subjects are getting rarer and rarer.’
‘It was the addresses,’ Frieda said. He licked his lips and looked at her uneasily. ‘You sent someone to the addresses I gave you.’
‘It was just to make initial contact. Routine stuff.’
‘And you’ve not heard from her?’
; ‘She’s not picking up the phone,’ said Boundy.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It was just routine.’
‘Who is this student?’
‘Katherine Ripon. She’s very capable.’
‘And you sent her there on her own?’
‘She’s a psychologist. It was just a brief interview.’
‘Do you realize what you’ve done?’ said Frieda. ‘Don’t you know who this man is?’
‘I didn’t,’ said Boundy. ‘I just thought you were trying to keep them to yourself. You didn’t tell me anything about him.’
Frieda was about to shout at or slap him and then she stopped herself. Perhaps it was her fault as much as his. Shouldn’t she have realized what he might do? Wasn’t she meant to be good at reading people? ‘You really haven’t heard from her?’
Boundy didn’t seem to be listening.
‘She will be all right, won’t she?’ He spoke half to himself. ‘It’s not my fault. She will turn up. People don’t just vanish.’
Karlsson took a moment to get himself under control. He didn’t want to lose his temper or let his fear show. Anger should be a weapon to be used discriminately, not a weakness and a loss of control. Everything else was for later. He walked into the room, shutting the door carefully behind him, and sat down opposite Dean Reeve, observing him in silence for a few moments. He was so like the man who had just been sitting in his car that at first the similarities obscured any difference. They were both slightly on the short side, strong and stocky, with round faces; both had grey hair that had a cow-lick in the centre and still showed the faint coppery tint of the red it had once been – the red of Matthew Faraday and of the boy of Alan’s fantasies. They both had arresting brown eyes and skin that was marked with ancient freckles. They were both wearing checked shirts – although Alan’s was blue and green, he remembered, whereas Dean’s was more colourful. And they bit their nails, they had a habit of rubbing their hands against their thighs and of crossing and recrossing their legs. It was quite uncanny, like a strange and troubling dream where nothing is single, where everything resembles something else. Even the way he bit his lower lip was the same. But when Dean, folding his arms on the table and leaning forward, opened his mouth, he no longer reminded Karlsson of his twin brother, although the two of them had the same slightly muffled voice, blurred round the edges.