by Nicci French
“What things?”
When Yvette spoke it was in a rush, as if it had been building up and she needed to say it all at once before she was stopped. “First, I thought you had stopped working with the police. Second, I’ve got to admit that I’m puzzled by the fact that you seem to be reopening a case that was closed more than ten years ago. And third, you may think that everybody has forgotten how close you came to destroying DCI Karlsson’s career. But they haven’t. Not everybody. Some people remember.”
“Yes.” Frieda spoke slowly and carefully. “It’s good to clear the air. As you know, the reasons behind all your questions make up a long and complicated story. But you also know that Karlsson is someone who takes responsibility for himself.”
“Which is why he needs people to look out for him.”
“And in a way all of this . . . this investigation, whatever it is we’re doing, this is about getting Karlsson reinstated. Someone stepped in and helped and I owed him a favor.”
“That sounds like someone setting fire to a house and then wanting the credit for putting it out.”
Frieda looked round at Yvette once more. “I don’t want any credit,” she said. “I’m trying to do the right thing. Isn’t that what we’re all doing?”
“It’s just that people keep getting hurt. Don’t you worry about that? I thought that therapists were supposed to make people better.”
“One day we should have a talk about what therapists are supposed to do.”
Yvette didn’t reply and the rest of the journey was in silence, except when Frieda looked at her map and pointed out the directions to Josef. They drove through Peckham and then, suddenly and briefly, it was as if they were passing through a country park and a village before they were back in familiar-looking London streets. Frieda pointed out the turning and then they were in Oakley Road. Josef pulled up outside number fifty-four. The three got out and looked around. The cars and the front gardens and the immaculate façades all told the same story of comfort and prosperity.
“I was going to say that this doesn’t look like somewhere where a family would be murdered,” said Frieda.
“Why didn’t you?” asked Yvette.
“Because I don’t know how a place like that is supposed to look.” She nodded at Yvette. “You first. You’re in charge.”
“You mean I’m your way in.”
“Are you going to argue about every single thing I say to you?”
“I’m just stating the truth as I see it.”
The small front garden was shielded by a hedge. Yvette rang the bell and the door was answered quickly. Emma Travis was in her early forties. She was dressed in a navy blue shirt and fawn-colored trousers. She ushered them quickly inside as if she didn’t want them to be seen. Yvette introduced them all. She described Frieda and Josef as consultants. Emma Travis looked suspiciously at them and Josef gave her a nod, his face assuming a serious professional expression.
“I have to say,” she said, in a wavering, emotional voice, “that my husband was angry about this. The people we bought this house from sold it because they couldn’t bear the bad publicity any more. I hope this isn’t going to start up again. If the children got to hear about it, I don’t know what would happen.”
“We’re grateful for your cooperation,” said Frieda. “Otherwise we would have had to obtain a search warrant. And then it becomes a public matter.”
“That would be terrible,” said Emma Travis.
“We’ll be as discreet as possible.”
Emma Travis stood awkwardly, moving her weight from one leg to the other. “Do you want me to show you around?”
“It might be best if you didn’t,” said Frieda. “We’re going to be talking about things you may not want to hear.”
“Yes, yes, of course. That’s right, I’m sure.” She looked at each of them. “Can you tell me why you’re here, after all this time?”
“We’re checking one or two aspects of the case,” said Frieda.
“You probably think I’m just worried about property values. We did buy the house at a lower price than we would have otherwise. People were put off. But it’s the idea of what happened here. Sometimes I wake up in the night and think about it.”
“That’s understandable,” said Frieda.
“People come and look at the house. Can you imagine that? There are people who visit murder scenes as if they were tourist sites. They take pictures. Sometimes they’ve even knocked at the door and asked if they can look around.”
“My father visits battlefields,” said Yvette.
“That’s different,” said Emma Travis. “Battlefields are history. This is just . . . just horrible.”
“This is a sort of history,” said Frieda.
“Sometimes I think they should have knocked the house down and built a new one or a little park. They do that sometimes.” Emma Travis sighed. “Can I make you some tea?”
“No, thanks,” said Frieda.
“For me, yes,” said Josef. “With the one sugar.”
“And one for me too,” said Yvette. “With just a tiny splash of milk.”
“Before you do that,” said Frieda. “Can you tell us about the building work that was done?”
“It was done by the previous people. We’ve got the details in a file somewhere, I think. You’d have to ask my husband where it is.”
“Can we walk around on our own?” said Frieda.
“Will you be long?”
“We’ll be as quick as we can.”
When Emma Travis had disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, Josef looked questioningly at Frieda.
“I was hoping you could give me an idea of how much the layout of the house has changed, down here and up on the first floor,” she said.
“I’ll try.”
Josef raised his head and looked at the ceiling in the hallway. He gently touched a stretch of the wall. Then, one after another, he walked through the doors that led off the hall, to reception rooms on either side and down to the kitchen. Yvette and Frieda could hear him talking to Emma Travis. There was the sound of laughter.
“You should watch him,” said Yvette. “Around a lonely housewife like that.”
Frieda was about to defend Josef but she stopped herself. Yvette could be right. Maybe she should have a word.
Josef returned, shaking his head. “No big change down here. New conservatory at the back.”
“Rory’s blood was found in the hallway here,” said Frieda. “In the front room on the right.” She pushed the door open and they stepped in. It was a living room, the sort of living room that wasn’t lived in. It reminded Frieda of a public area in an old-fashioned hotel, with carefully arranged chairs and some magazines piled on a low table.
Yvette walked to the window. “The hedge shelters it from the street,” she said.
“I’m not sure,” said Frieda. “It may have grown up since then. And then there was more of Rory’s blood on the stairs.”
“How much blood?” asked Josef, distressed. Frieda knew he was imagining Rory’s death and thinking of his own sons, far away in Ukraine.
“That’s a good question,” she said. “Yvette must know more about this than I do. But I suppose blood can be in pools, or spattered, or sprayed, or in drops. From the photographs of the scene it looked more like smears.”
“Oh, please.” Emma Travis had entered the room with two mugs of tea on a tray and a plate of biscuits. “I couldn’t help overhearing. Could someone help with the tray?”
Josef stepped forward and took it from her.
“I don’t know how you can do this,” she said. “I don’t know how you can have it in your head.”
“It’s difficult,” said Yvette. “And we’re just talking about it.”
“Don’t even say that. I don’t want to hear any more. I won’t be able to forget it.” She looked at Josef and her face softened. “Yours is the one with the deer on it. Do have a biscuit.”
She hurried out of the ro
om. Josef and Yvette picked up their mugs and Josef took three biscuits.
Yvette sipped the tea. “Smears. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Frieda. “There was more of his blood on the stairs and on the first floor outside his bedroom. And yet it appears he was killed in his bed, so it doesn’t make obvious sense. There were also traces of his stepfather’s blood downstairs and on the stairs. Less of it, I think. Let’s go upstairs.”
Josef went first. He rapped on walls, stood on a chair to examine the ceiling, opened doors. “Is all different here. All rooms changed.”
“This is where the bodies were found,” said Yvette. “They probably wanted to make it like it had never happened.”
Josef stood at the top of the stairs, his back to them and to the street.
“There was one room here.” He pointed to the right.
“That was Rory’s bedroom,” said Frieda.
“Ah,” he said, on a drawn-out sigh. “The boy. And one here.” He pointed to the left.
“Spare bedroom,” said Frieda.
“Bathroom between.” Josef turned and walked along the corridor beside the stairs. He pointed inquiringly up another flight of stairs.
Frieda shook her head. “Nothing happened up there. It was all here.”
He gestured ahead, in the direction of the front of the house. “Big room there.”
“The main bedroom,” Frieda said. “This was where Deborah Docherty and Aidan Locke were found, Deborah in a nightdress, Aidan in his clothes.”
“I couldn’t live here,” said Yvette. “It gives me the creeps even walking around. Don’t you feel it?”
“Houses know,” agreed Josef.
“ There are places like that,” said Frieda, “where bad things have happened, terrible things have been done over and over again. I don’t feel it here, though. One awful, tragic thing happened. I don’t think I’d like to live here, but not because of the murders.” She looked around. “It’s strange, though.”
“It’s not so strange,” said Yvette. “There are lots of possibilities.”
“Such as?”
Yvette thought for a moment. “Deborah and Rory are in bed. Aidan and Hannah have a row downstairs, she beats him with a hammer. Realizes what she’s done and decides to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. Or she’s angry at the whole family. Goes up and kills her sleeping mother. Aidan isn’t entirely dead, crawls up, leaving traces of blood, gets to the bedroom and Hannah finishes him off. Then kills her brother, gets blood on her, some of which she leaves traces of as she goes downstairs.”
“That’s good,” said Frieda. “But it can’t be true.”
“Why?”
“When they found the bodies, the pooling of the blood in them showed that Aidan Locke had died earlier than Rory or Deborah.”
“That was just one possibility,” said Yvette. “I only had a moment to think about it.”
“Let’s not come up with scenarios too quickly,” said Frieda. “Let’s hang on to the oddity. The bits don’t seem to fit together. Deborah and Aidan are together, but he died earlier. And she’s dressed for bed and he isn’t. And then those two bodies are found together, and yet it’s the blood of Aidan and Rory that is found downstairs. Not hers. And why is only Rory’s blood found in the front room?”
“Maybe she killed him there.”
“No. As I said, the evidence points to him being killed where he was found, in his bed. And, anyway, there would have been more blood there. Much more. You should see the photos of the bedrooms.”
“She could have killed him downstairs and cleaned up some of the blood. People don’t act logically when they commit a murder.”
“They don’t,” said Frieda, “but the laws of biology and physics still apply.” She sank into a reverie, then suddenly realized where she was. “Time to go, I suppose.”
Downstairs, they returned the mugs to Emma Travis and she led them to the door.
“We may need to come back at some point,” said Frieda.
“As long as there aren’t uniforms and police cars.”
Emma Travis opened the door but Frieda held back. “Your neighbors—have they been here long?”
“Are you going to bring it all up with them?”
“I was wondering if they’d been here when it happened.”
“The ones that side’—she gestured to the left – “only arrived a year or so ago. But the ones on the other side, they’ve been here forever.” She raised her eyebrows. “They’re the ones who organize the street party every year.”
“What are their names?”
“Sebastian Tait and Flora Goffin. They’re married but she kept her own name. They’re perfectly nice, a bit eccentric.”
Frieda turned to Yvette and Josef. “Why don’t you two wait in the car?”
ELEVEN
Sebastian Tait was tall and bony and pale, and he was wearing a long striped apron and slippers. There was a cotton scarf wrapped around his neck, and very thin glasses perched on the end of his aquiline nose. He seemed to think that Frieda was there to service the boiler.
“No,” said Frieda. “I don’t know anything about boilers.”
“I’ve taken the morning off.”
“Even so, I can’t repair your boiler. I’m here about the murders of the Dochertys in 2001. I think you lived here then?”
His expression changed. “If you’re a journalist, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m not a journalist. I’m part of an inquiry into the way that case was conducted.”
“Are you a police officer?”
Frieda paused. “I’m a consultant working with the police.”
“Do you have identification?”
“Wait,” said Frieda.
She walked out of the house and returned a minute later with a glowering Yvette, who showed her own badge, mumbled an explanation and left.
“I know who you are,” said Tait.
“DC Long just told you.”
“No, I mean I know who you are. I’ve heard of you. I know what you do. You should have said so before.”
Frieda started to answer but Tait wasn’t paying attention.
“I can’t give you long. I’ve promised to be at work soon. It’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. Flora’s away and the cleaner’s had a baby.”
Frieda looked around. It was indeed a mess, but not of dirty plates or scattered papers. There were scraps of material everywhere, small bright heaps of silk.
“I make things,” Tait said. “In my spare time, of course. At the moment, I make ties, but not many people want ties any more. I sometimes make hats as well. You look surprised.”
“I wasn’t really.”
“The kind that ladies wear at Ascot. It’s great fun. It’s like being an engineer really—you have to construct that kind of hat. Do you wear hats?”
“No.”
“A pity. In my day job, I’m a tailor. Bespoke suits for men and women. We’re a dying breed. You may have heard of us—Taits of Piccadilly?”
Frieda hadn’t heard of them but didn’t reply. He gestured for her to sit, then lowered himself into the sofa, his long legs crossed in front of him.
“I’m not quite sure what I want to ask. But I was hoping to find out more about the Dochertys as a family, get some sense of what they were like.”
“You’ve come to the right house, then.”
“You knew them?”
“Oh, yes. We arrived here in 1995 and they came the year after. We became friends. It doesn’t always happen in London, does it? Not with neighbors. Sometimes it’s still hard to believe. When I look at their house, I still think of what it was like when they were there. We had such fun. When it all happened . . .” He seemed to be struggling for words and not finding them. “And Rory, that was beyond anything. Just thirteen. Rick took it very badly.”
“Rick?”
“Our son. He was the same age as Rory. They were thick as thiev
es, always round at each other’s houses. Though I’m afraid at school Rory was bullied and Rick didn’t step in. That made it all worse, of course, when it happened. He felt terribly guilty, probably still does.”
“Have you just the one child?”
“Two. Saul was just six months older than Hannah.” He pulled a face. “Is, I should say. Hannah’s still alive. Though she might as well be dead.”
“So the two families were close.”
“Yes. We even went on holiday together a few times. Corsica. The South of France. The best was Greece—we went on a dinghy sailing course. Hannah was the best by far. She was a natural athlete. I was hopeless, of course. I could hardly fit myself into the boat, knees up to my chin, and I kept getting hit by that thing the sails attached to.”
“The boom?” suggested Frieda.
“It’s so odd to think of those times now. I can’t work out if it’s the past or the present that seems unreal. They just don’t connect.”
Frieda didn’t respond. What did she want to know from this man?
“I can show you photos if you want—or, at least, I could if everything wasn’t such a mess. Flora would know where they all are. But do you want coffee? I should have offered you some.”
“No, thank you. You knew them well. Does what happened make any kind of sense, in retrospect?”
“How could it make sense?”
“I mean, does it feel plausible that Hannah killed her entire family?”
“Why does it need to feel plausible? She did it. She was a pretty weird kid by the end.”
“In what way?”
“She and Saul used to get on really well. Saul was a bit of a shy, nerdy kind of kid, and Hannah took him under her wing when they were younger—even though he was older than her. She was protective of him, just like she was of Rory. She was never angry with Rory. I remember she once got into a fight with a boy who was bullying Saul, really went for him. But then she hit adolescence, and that fierceness turned into something scarier. Crikey, she was wild. I remember once looking out of the window and seeing into their garden, and she was tearing up the flowers Deborah had just planted. I can still see the look on her face, a kind of lit-up fury, as if electricity was running through her. Sometimes we could hear her shouting. Saul was the good boy doing his homework in his bedroom, and she was out getting drunk and throwing things through windows and taking God knows what drugs. Then, of course, she went off the rails, dropped out of school pretty much, left home. Poor Deborah.”