by Nicci French
“That seems an exaggeration. Hannah knew people I knew. I don’t see any of them now,” she added hastily. She twisted her hands together briefly. “I was just a girl.”
“You lived together.”
She stared at Frieda, then at Yvette. She gave a small, tight laugh. “I really think that’s misleading.”
“When Hannah fell out with her mother and stepfather and left home, she came and stayed in the house you were living in. With Jason Brenner and Thomas Morell, among others.”
“Well, very briefly.”
“Until she was charged with the murder of her family.”
“And found guilty. Found guilty of the murders.”
“Indeed. So you were friends with her for three years, and in the final weeks of her life prior to her arrest you shared a house.”
“Lived under the same roof is a better way of putting it.”
“What were you doing at this time?” asked Yvette.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t see why—but, well, I was . . .” She stopped for a moment, stumped. Frieda saw her hands writhe again. “I was between things.”
“Between what things?”
“Between school and, well, this.” She unwound her hands and gestured to the bare surfaces, the glinting utensils, the room where she scrubbed and scoured her time away.
“This between-time was quite chaotic, wasn’t it?” asked Frieda, gently.
Shelley Walsh stared at her. “I don’t know why it matters to you.”
“It doesn’t. Not in the way you mean. Most people have times when they don’t know what to do or who they are.”
“I gather there were lots of drugs,” said Yvette. She seemed to be taking a grim pleasure in the interview.
“I don’t see why you’re asking me these unpleasant questions.”
“It was an unpleasant business,” said Yvette.
“Which is why I want nothing to do with it. Nothing.” She turned to Frieda. “It was a long time ago and I’ve put everything behind me. Everything.”
“That’s hard to do.”
“It’s quite easy, really.”
“We want to know about Hannah,” said Frieda. “That’s why we’re here. You were all young and at an uncertain time in your lives. What was it like, that house?”
“Messy.”
“You mean, emotionally messy?”
“Oh, no, I mean messy, as in mess everywhere. No one washed anything up or cleaned anything or threw anything away. You should have seen the bathroom.” She gave a shudder and then a high peal of laughter. “I don’t know how I put up with it.”
“So. It was rather chaotic and I assume there were a lot of drugs.” Shelley didn’t reply, just looked at her hands, once more twisted together on the table. “And probably not much money.”
“Not much,” she murmured.
“You, Hannah, Thomas Morell and Jason Brenner lived there, and there were other people who came and went. And the police took an interest in what was going on.”
“There’s nothing else to say. I left after, you know, and I worked in a leisure center and I met my husband and we courted for three years and married five years ago and here I am. Here I am,” she repeated. “We’re planning to have a child. Very soon.”
“When Hannah was living with you, what was her state of mind?” asked Frieda.
Shelley Walsh wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”
“What was her mood?”
“She was trouble.”
“Troubled?”
“No. Trouble.” For a moment, it was as if a mask had slipped. Shelley Walsh’s eyes glittered at them.
“Go on.”
“Nothing else, really. She was angry.”
“With her parents?”
“With everyone.” Frieda remembered that Hannah’s father had also called his daughter angry, as had Sebastian Tait, the tie-making neighbor of the Dochertys. “She rampaged around the house. That’s what she did. Rampaged.”
“She was sexually involved with Jason Brenner, I believe.”
“I couldn’t say.”
“As were you,” continued Frieda.
“Oh!” It was an involuntary cry of protest and disgust. Frieda thought of that stringy, unwashed man with his dirty fingernails in his squalid home, and compared him with this germ-free, panic-stricken pretty woman.
“Did he leave you for Hannah?”
“No. Don’t.”
“Or perhaps it was at the same time. I imagine that either would have been painful for you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She blinked several times. “I’m not the same person. I have a good, decent life. I don’t want to think of him. Or her. Or any of it. I can’t. It’s not right to ask me.”
“I know it’s hard to revisit things like this,” said Frieda.
“I think it really is time for you to go now. Really. I haven’t anything more to say. I don’t even know what you’re doing, digging it all up again.”
“You used to go to Hannah’s house.”
“What?”
“Brenner told us,” said Yvette. “When no one was there.”
“I don’t remember.”
“And take things.”
“What do you want? Why does this matter? It was when I was still a kid, and now Hannah’s mad and shut away, like she should be, and I’ve put all that behind me and got on with my life. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t have anyone to turn to. You could say Hannah had it easy compared to me, and I didn’t go and kill anyone.”
“You didn’t have family?”
“My mum—she wasn’t any good at looking after herself, let alone a child. Why do you think I was living in that crappy house? And when it all fell apart, she just disappeared on me, was nowhere to be found. I had to do it all by myself. ’ She lifted her hands and tugged her ponytail tighter. “That’s not the kind of mother I’m going to be.”
“Good for you. But you did go to Hannah’s house.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes. So what? It was Hannah’s, after all. It wasn’t as if we broke in. And if we took stuff, it was just what they wouldn’t miss because they were so rich and entitled and had more things than they knew what to do with. What they spent in a month on designer clothes and wine was more than we got in a year. They left cash lying around as if they were asking to be robbed.” For a moment, she seemed to be thirteen years younger and spouting words that had probably come from Jason Brenner. Then she said to Frieda, her voice quieter, “Do you know what? I dream about that house sometimes. I dream about it and I wake up feeling sick. And dirty. I have to go into the bathroom and take a shower. In the middle of the night. To wash it all away.”
“What do you dream?”
“I don’t know. You can’t imagine what it was like.”
“You mean, finding out that the person who you were living with had killed her family?”
“She’s an animal. That’s the kindest thing I can say about her. An animal.”
“Did you think at the time that she was capable of such a thing?”
“Well, she hated her mother and her stepdad.”
“That’s not the same.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know anything about it.”
“Did she hate her brother as well?”
“Rory?” For the second time, Frieda had the impression that she was looking at a different, less hysterically defensive Shelley Walsh. “Hannah loved Rory and he loved her. He was very cute, young for his age. Poor little thing.” Her tone hardened again. “So she must have been mad, mustn’t she, to do what she did?”
“I take it you haven’t been to see her,” said Frieda.
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“You haven’t been in contact with her at all?”
“I don’t ever want to see her or hear about her again.”
“Do you ever see Jason Brenner or Thomas Morell?”
“That part of my lif
e is done with. Though Tom was nice. He was kind. I don’t know what he was doing in that house.” Her eyes flickered to the clock on the wall. “I think you should go now. I mean, Jerry might come back early. He does sometimes.”
“Your husband doesn’t know about that part of your life?”
“Of course he doesn’t, and I hope he never will. Why would I tell him something like that? That’s not who I am. That was someone else entirely.”
She stood up and so did Frieda and Yvette. At the door, while Yvette painstakingly retied her laces, she said, “I’m sorry I didn’t offer you coffee. I’m not drinking caffeine at the moment, or alcohol. In case I fall pregnant.” She laid her hand with its manicured and polished nails on her flat stomach. “You don’t want to harm your unborn baby, do you? You can’t be too careful.”
EIGHTEEN
“I’ve been reading about you,” said Chloë.
“Oh, God,” said Frieda. “Is there something in the papers?”
Once or twice in her career, Frieda had found herself becoming part of a story, targeted by a newspaper, photographed, speculated about, commented on. She had hated every moment of it.
Chloë didn’t answer at first. She leaned across the table and poured herself another mug of tea. “Do you want some more?” she asked.
“I’m all right.”
Chloë took a sip. “It’s nothing to worry about,” she said.
“It’s when people say that that I start worrying.”
“No, really, it’s nothing to get in a state about. I’ve been reading about you on that woman’s blog.”
For a moment Frieda couldn’t remember, and then suddenly she could.
“Oh, right,” she said, in a weary voice. “Erin Brack.”
“She keeps mentioning you.”
“I only met her once.”
“But you’re working with her.”
“I wouldn’t put it like that,” said Frieda. “I need her. She’s a collector, a dumpster-diver.”
“It’s so creepy.”
“I’ve been to her house. It was strange.”
“So she’s an obsessive, but you’re not like that at all. You’re a scientist.”
“That sounds like a criticism.”
“You keep saying you’re going to stop all this,” said Chloë. “And then you do it again. Well, we’ve talked about this already.”
Frieda was about to reply when she saw that Chloë was looking past her, at something over her shoulder.
“Didn’t they used to be the other way round?”
Frieda turned her head. Chloë was looking at the mantelpiece. “What?”
“Wasn’t the bottle on the left of the mirror and the vase on the right?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m sure there’s something different. It’s funny how you remember things without knowing you’ve remembered them.”
“You might be right. The mind is odd like that,” said Frieda. “When you know things without knowing them, remember things without remembering.”
“Maybe it was your cleaner.”
“I don’t have a cleaner.”
“Or a friend. Or a lover.”
Frieda gave Chloë a sharp look, and Chloë pulled a face, defiantly refusing to apologize. But the mood had changed and Chloë finished her tea and said she was meeting someone.
As soon as she had gone, Frieda switched on her laptop and did a search: “Erin Brack. Frieda Klein’. In a couple of seconds she was on a website called Crimescene. Across the page was a graphic based on police tape, with the words “Crime Scene: Enter Here’. Frieda clicked on it, then clicked on the blog. The latest entry was dated the previous day:
For anyone who’s interested (only kidding! I know you all are), Frieda Klein is now fully on board with the Hannah Docherty case. (See what else I’ve written about Frieda here, here and here.) As not everybody knows, I’ve got my own Docherty archive, which has got some fascinating stuff in there. I’ve been a bit of a voice crying in the wilderness for years where Hannah is concerned but that’s all about to change. I’m just getting things in order so that Frieda can apply her very special branch of skills to the archive. We’ll be good to go in exactly one week, I’ll hand it over and then things will start to get exciting.
I’m so excited and humbled to be working with Frieda. I promise you’ll all be the first to know what transpires as the plot thickens. Watch this space!
Frieda started muttering to herself. She picked up her phone, then stopped herself. She waited a full minute, willing herself to calm down. She wanted to strangle Erin Brack. She made the call.
“It’s so great to hear from you again!”
“I read your blog.”
“Great.”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Frieda. “What if I came today? With a van?”
“We arranged it for next week.”
“We’re all under pressure. I’ll take what I can.”
“It won’t be properly arranged.”
“That’s fine. So I’ll come this afternoon.”
“All right.”
Frieda was about to say goodbye when she remembered something. She caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror on the wall. She had read that workers in call centers had to look at themselves in mirrors and smile as they talked. She couldn’t go that far, but she tried at least to sound amicable. “It was kind of you to write what you did,” she said.
“It was nothing.”
“No, no, it’s good what you’ve done all these years, saving the material. But I’d be grateful if you’d avoid writing about what’s happening, as it happens.”
“Have I done something wrong?”
“No, no, not at all,” said Frieda, trying to sound soothing. She felt as if she was trying to calm a toddler who might burst into a tantrum at any moment. “I’m not an expert but . . .”
“You are.”
“I’m really not, but I think if we’re going to do something like this, then it’s good to be discreet. We shouldn’t tip everyone off in advance. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, Frieda. I understand completely.”
“You understand that I’m paying you for this,” said Frieda.
“I do not understand,” said Josef.
“I’m hiring you and I’m hiring your van.”
“Today I am free.”
“I can charge it on expenses. It’s not my money.”
Josef looked doubtful. “We see.”
They had driven down through the Blackwall Tunnel, through Woolwich and now Thamesmead.
“Much building,” said Josef, shaking his head. They passed a house whose entire façade had been painted with a flag of St. George.
“How are things back home?” asked Frieda.
Josef shook his head again. He didn’t speak.
“Are you in touch with your wife? Your sons?”
“I try to.”
“How are they?”
“Sometime up, sometime down.”
“You could bring them over.”
“Is difficult.”
The only voice for the rest of the journey was the satnav, directing Josef past Plumstead, Abbey Wood and Belvedere. Suddenly seeing it on a sign, Frieda thought that Belvedere must once have been a beautiful view. It still was, in a way, but whoever had given it the name originally probably wouldn’t agree.
As soon as Josef pulled up outside 63 Oldbourne Drive, the door opened, as if Erin Brack had been looking out of the window, waiting for them. “I don’t think you need that big a van,” she said. “You’re not moving house.”
“This is the only van I know,” said Frieda.
“No worries,” said Erin Brack. “I’ve boiled the kettle.”
“I’m afraid we’re in a hurry.”
They stepped inside and she heard Josef’s intake of breath, then he said something to himself in Ukrainian. They exchanged glances.
“I’m in purdah,” said Erin Brack.
“Wha
t?”
“I’m offline. Like a Trappist nun.”
“I just meant not to talk about this case.”
“But people will be curious about what’s going on, why I’m not saying anything.”
“The best answer to that is just not to say anything.”
“That might be easy for you. My readers expect things from me.”
Erin Brack led them to the room upstairs. To Frieda’s eyes it seemed unchanged from before. Perhaps it was a little easier to open the door.
“You just point at things,” said Frieda. “And we’ll carry them away.”
There was a lot but it was mainly papers and notebooks and photographs that Erin Brack had piled into garbage bags, one of which was splitting at the side. There were clothes, a pencil case and some shoes that fitted into two more garbage bags. There was also an old brown suitcase. Frieda picked it up. It was full. “How did you get it?”
“It was left out for the garbage men. I just got to it first.”
“How did you know?”
“It’s like birdwatching,” said Erin Brack. “Or astronomy. Or fishing.”
“Is it legal?”
“Basically,” said Erin Brack. “But it can be a gray area. It depends where it’s left.”
“Where was this left?”
“I can’t remember.”
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know. It’s locked. I’m sure it’s easy to break open. I never got around to it. Exciting, isn’t it? It might be the clue you need.”
Frieda looked at the case and wondered who had closed it, who had locked it. It felt wrong. Even being in Erin Brack’s house. But was it really so different? Frieda herself had done worse things than helping herself to rubbish before the garbage men arrived. She handed the case to Josef.
There were some things she didn’t take: a desk lamp, a stapler.
“And then there’s this,” said Erin Brack. She reached into a corner, breathing heavily, and re-emerged holding a teddy bear. One of its eyes was missing and it was battered in the way a toy animal gets battered from being held and dragged around, slept with and slept on for year after year. “Why would someone throw that away?” said Erin Brack. “Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you?”
Frieda stepped back. She didn’t even want to touch it. “Perhaps it was too painful,” she said. “Sometimes it’s important to throw things away. It’s a way of staying sane.”