by Nicci French
“I don’t think Hannah killed them. Isn’t that worth opening old wounds for?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Why? Why are you so sure that she did?”
“I’m a social worker. I meet lots of people like you.”
“What kind of person is that?”
“You have a mad theory and then you make things fit into it, and of course, you can always make things fit if you’re ingenious enough. You’re like those people who believe Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare or that the Twin Towers weren’t really demolished by a plane.”
Frieda nodded. She thought of Erin Brack and her ragbag of conspiracies. Then she looked into Brenda Docherty’s face; she seemed frightened as well as hostile. “I won’t come back after this,” she said.
“There is no ‘this.’ I don’t want you to come in.”
“Let her in.”
Seamus Docherty stood in the hall in the shadows, his thin shape wrapped in a bathrobe. Brenda shrugged and stepped back and Frieda entered the house.
“Thank you.”
“Come through. Give us a few minutes, Brenda.”
“You don’t want me to sit in on this?”
“No.”
Frieda followed him into the living room and he gestured to a chair, then sat opposite her.
“My wife is protective.”
“I can understand that.”
“She thinks I’ve been hurt enough. Why have you come back again? Have you discovered anything?”
“I want to ask you something. About Deborah.”
“Go on.”
“Do you know if she had a third child?”
A faint wince tightened his expression. “A third child? No, she didn’t.”
“Or Hannah? Was Hannah ever pregnant?”
“Not as far as I know. Or as far as Debs knew. I think she would have told me.”
“Did Deborah have an abortion?”
“I’d like to know why that is any of your business. She’s dead. Murdered. Haven’t we all suffered enough?”
“So she did.”
Seamus sighed. He rubbed his bony hands on his bony knees. “It was distressing for her. She thought she was too old to get pregnant. It was quite late on.”
“When was this?”
“Shortly before she was killed.”
“It wasn’t in her medical records.”
“She had it done privately.”
“Because it wasn’t Aidan’s.”
“What?”
“Aidan was infertile. He’d had chemotherapy, and also an operation.”
“I knew he’d had an operation but it didn’t occur to me he was infertile. But that makes sense. There you are, then.”
They sat for a moment in silence. Frieda could hear Brenda clattering pans in the kitchen, making sure she was heard.
“Who was the father, Seamus?”
“I don’t know.”
“She told you things. You’d remained close in some ways. You knew about the abortion.”
“I don’t know,” he repeated.
“You can’t give me any idea?”
“No.”
“Was it you?”
“No.” He stared at her, then repeated the word more insistently, “No.”
“All right.” Frieda stood and he did too. She saw how exhausted he looked, his eyes deep in their sockets. “Last time we met, you said you’d nothing else to tell me. Now this. Is there anything more?”
“No.”
“Truly?”
“I wanted to protect her.”
“Who from?”
“I don’t know. Stupid, really.”
“Does Brenda know about all of this?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I never told anyone.”
“OK.”
“Goodbye,” he said.
“It wasn’t Hannah.”
An expression passed over his face, like a shadow falling. Frieda couldn’t make it out—grief, fear, resistance?
“You don’t understand,” he said. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose your children.”
“You lost Rory. Hannah is still alive and still your daughter.”
“She died thirteen years ago. Let it all go. Leave us in peace.”
On her way out she met Brenda in the hall. The woman stared at her. “Leave us alone,” she said. “We’re happy. After everything, we’re happy.”
Frieda thought of Hannah with her bruised mouth. “Sometimes that’s not what matters,” she said.
“Leave us alone.”
Karlsson swung his way into her house on his crutches and settled in front of the fire. His leg in its cast stretched out in front of him. It had been newly decorated with stars and hearts, a rudimentary rainbow; his children, Bella and Mikey, had signed their names underneath.
“You’re getting quite agile.” Frieda passed him a tumbler of whisky.
Karlsson rapped on the cast as if it were a door. “It feels like an alien object, something that doesn’t belong to me but that I’m dragging around with me. It’s hard to imagine I used to run several times a week.”
“When does it come off?”
“Weeks yet. My leg will be a shriveled white thing.”
“You’ll have to do lots of physio.”
“I know. At least it’s raining outside. And this is nice.” He nodded toward the fire. “Just what I need.” He lifted his tumbler. “Here’s to spring.”
“To spring.”
“You’ve bought yourself new clothes.”
“Bit by bit I’m restocking.”
“You look nice.” He said it awkwardly, glancing away from her as he spoke.
“Thank you.”
“What’s happening with the Docherty case?”
“Deborah Docherty was having an affair—or had had a sexual encounter at the very least. We know that Aidan was infertile after his testicular cancer, yet she had a late abortion shortly before she was killed.”
“But you don’t know who the man is?”
“No.”
“Perhaps it isn’t connected to the murders.”
“That’s possible.”
“Perhaps it was Hannah after all.” His tone was gentle.
“Someone killed Erin Brack. That wasn’t Hannah. Meanwhile, she’s shut away, and every time I see her she looks worse. Time isn’t on her side. I need to find out who did it.”
“What about Dean?”
“Keegan’s put a friend of his onto it. He’s going round upsetting people.”
“And you just have to wait?”
“Yes. You know how much I love waiting.” She looked at Karlsson’s attentive face and then into the flames. “Everything feels so dark and still. Like an ambush is coming.”
INTERLUDE ELEVEN
Hannah Docherty goes to a group-therapy session twice a week where she never speaks. In the afternoon she works in the garden, digging, pulling up weeds. She eats in the dining hall. She sleeps in a secure dormitory. She’s under special measures, always accompanied, always watched.
“We can’t get at her.”
“Just wait,” says Aggie.
THIRTY-FOUR
Jack was late to the shed. He’d been out the night before and had difficulty in getting out of bed. It was so warm in the cocoon of his duvet, and outside it was gloomy; he could hear rain still falling. His eyes felt glued together and his head throbbed slightly. But it didn’t matter: he’d been through everything already and there wasn’t really anything left to do. He was unwilling to give up yet, though. Frieda seemed so sure there was something there. He pushed away the thought of Chloë, who came by several times a day, nonchalantly cheerful, squatting beside him as he leafed through papers.
It was mid-afternoon and nearly dark again by the time he unlocked the shed door, then fumbled for the lights, which flickered on. He stared, blinked a few times, took a step into the shed. There was a coiling in his stomach. He sat down heav
ily in the chair.
“What the fuck?” he said. He sprang up again and ran toward the workshop, shouting for Chloë.
“Was this you?”
Frieda looked at her phone to check it wasn’t a wrong number. It really was Jack talking.
“Was what me?”
“Clearing everything out? You and Josef?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
There was a silence, except that Frieda could hear Jack’s deep breathing. He sounded tired or stressed.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At home.”
“Stay there.”
“What’s this about?”
But the line had gone dead. She rang him back. There was no reply. She knew it was pointless but she rang him again and left a message. Was he coming straight over? It seemed certain. She had been seated by the fire with a piece of paper and a pencil, concentrating, writing down names connected with arrows. But she couldn’t think now. She couldn’t even sit down. Instead she walked around the house. She would have tidied, but she had already tidied so much that there was nothing to do, except to rearrange objects. She fed the fire, and kept looking at her watch. How long could the journey be? It shouldn’t have taken more than half an hour but after forty-five minutes he still hadn’t arrived. Had she misunderstood him? The conversation had been so brief.
An hour passed. He still hadn’t arrived. Frieda looked at her watch again: it was nearly six. Should she do something? Finally, there was knock at the door. Frieda opened it and Jack pushed past her without a word, without even looking at her. He was carrying a leather shoulder bag that brushed against her.
“What took you so long?”
Jack was walking up and down Frieda’s living room. He looked like a wild cat in a cage. When he spoke it was in a highly caffeinated stream of words.
“What took me so long? Is that what you want to know? All right. I didn’t come the short way. I changed trains twice and then I got out at Euston so I could mix with the crowd. So that’s why it took me a long time. Is that clear enough?”
“Jack, stop with this. What’s wrong?”
“It’s gone. All of it.”
“What’s gone?”
“The Docherty stuff. I arrived to do some more work on it at about half past four. The door was locked. I opened it, went in. Nothing. I assumed you had done it. I thought, It’s the kind of thing Frieda would do, and if she did it, she wouldn’t tell me in advance. So when I rang you and found out it wasn’t you, I was out of there.” He paused. “It wasn’t you, was it?”
“It’s gone?” said Frieda, slowly, trying to make some kind of sense of it.
“It’s not some kind of joke? Or did you suddenly get worried and not want to tell anyone? If there’s something you need to tell me, then tell me, because it’s doing my head in.”
“Of course it wasn’t me.”
“Then someone broke in and took it. So they know about it and they know about you. And me. And all of us.”
“Was there any sign of forced entry?” asked Frieda.
“Nothing that I could see. But I didn’t spend time checking. There’s only one way in. Whoever did it knew what they were doing.”
“And nothing was left behind.”
“Nothing that I could see. It’s a bloody disaster.”
“There’s one thing,” said Frieda.
“What’s that?”
“There was something important in there.”
“You say it like it’s a good thing,” said Jack, in an agitated tone. “What if Chloë had been there when they broke in? According to you, they’ve already killed one person.”
“I didn’t say it was a good thing. I said that’s what we’ve learned. Clearly we’ve got to be more careful.”
“More careful than what? What else could we have done? Who knew about this?”
“I don’t know. Did you talk about it to anyone?”
“Of course I didn’t. Who would I tell?” Jack continued to pace around the room. “I thought this was just like sorting out an archive. I didn’t know something like this would happen.”
“I didn’t either.”
“We need to call the police.”
“Sit down,” said Frieda. “And calm down. You’ll drive yourself mad, walking around like that. Or you’ll drive me mad. Or you’ll bump into something.”
“Fine. I’ll sit down.” Jack took off his jacket and sat in an armchair with his shoulder bag on his knees. He started to tap it until Frieda gave him a look and he stopped. “So. The police.”
“I don’t think we can call the police. What would we say?”
“We’d say there’s been a burglary and that it was probably done by whoever killed Erin Brack.”
Frieda thought for a moment. “I’m imagining trying to explain this to the police. Erin stole family papers that didn’t belong to her, or she helped herself to rubbish that didn’t belong to her. It relates to an inquiry that has just been closed for the second time. We had the material but we don’t own it. If there even was a break-in . . .”
“Of course there was a bloody break-in. I’ve just come from there. Everything’s gone.”
“Was there any damage?”
“I told you.” Jack was sounding sulky now. “They must have undone the lock, then locked it again. This wasn’t just kids messing around.”
“I’m not doubting you. I’m just saying what the police will say. I’ve been here before. There’s nothing to report. So what good would it do?”
“Well, wouldn’t it be good if the police caught the burglar, who is probably the person you’re after? Or persons.”
“That’s all I want. I’ve been trying to get the police to do this so that we don’t have to and I’ve failed. But now the collection that might have provided a clue has gone.”
Jack mumbled something in response but Frieda couldn’t make it out. “What’s that?”
“I said, I might be able to help you with that.”
“What do you mean?”
As he spoke, Jack took his laptop out of his bag, opened it up and switched it on. “All that stuff, the bits of paper, the receipts, was unmanageable. You could only arrange it in one way at a time. So while I was sorting it out, I put the details on here in a series of spreadsheets.”
Frieda sat next to him as he walked her through the various files and how they could be arranged by person or by time or by category. There were pie charts showing how time in individual days might have been spent, there were Venn diagrams demonstrating where friendships overlapped, there were dizzying graphs with four differently colored lines representing each member of the family’s movements, zigzagging through each other. Graphs of financial expenditure, outgoing and incoming, even a pictogram to represent a typical day in each of the family’s lives.
“This is fantastic, Jack. How long did it take?”
“I don’t really know. It was boring at first, but after a while it became a bit hypnotic, just looking at these people’s lives and reordering them in different ways, turning them into different stories.”
Frieda watched Jack as he clicked from window to window. “When you were looking at those different stories, did anything stick out? Anything odd? Anything that shouldn’t have been there?”
Jack shook his head. “What I mainly felt is that it was just the stuff that an ordinary family had.”
“That’s not the way to look at it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry about that.”
“No, I didn’t mean you. I meant me. The solution isn’t going to leap out. We need to ask the right question.”
Frieda stood up and walked to the kitchen. She came back with a bottle of wine, cold from the fridge, and two glasses. She unscrewed the top and poured wine into the glasses. She handed one to Jack. “I’m probably not very good at saying thank you. Or well done.”
Jack responded by murmuring something and looking embarrassed.
“Have you seen a
ny mention of Justine Walsh?”
“No,” said Jack. “But if you’re having an affair with someone, you’re probably going to keep quiet about it.”
“I’m not convinced about this affair. Her daughter, Shelley, is adamant her mother was in no sort of state to have an affair. And if you’re having an adulterous liaison with someone, do you conduct it in the person’s house while one of the person’s children is in the next room?”
“God knows. Going by what I’ve heard from patients in the last few years, I wouldn’t rule out any weird behavior at all. And have you got any better explanation for being found in a bed, in a nightie?”
“I find that even stranger. If you did actually have this assignation for adulterous sex, would you wear a nightie? And why would Justine Walsh wear Deborah Docherty’s nightie?”
“Maybe Aidan Locke got turned on by it.”
“Oh, please. What’s puzzling is that there’s no evidence Locke had an affair . . .”
“Having a woman in your bedroom is some kind of evidence.”
“But he was the one who’d had testicular cancer and Deborah Docherty was the one who got pregnant. It all seems the wrong way round.” Frieda’s phone rang and she looked at the screen. It was a withheld number. It was probably someone trying to sell her double glazing but she answered anyway.
“He’s clever, your Dean.”
“Who is this?”
“Stringer.”
“That’s how he’s managed to stay out of sight for all these years.”
“It’s harder than you think.”
“It’s not harder than I think. As you know, I was forced into trying it myself. I had friends to help me and even so it was impossible. So are you saying that you won’t be able to find him?”
“No, I’m not saying that. But he knows how to cover his tracks. Really cover them, I mean. Sometimes covering your tracks is just another way of leaving tracks. He’s different. But I’ve talked to someone at that building firm.”
“You mean Josef?”
“No. I talked to him but he didn’t have anything. But there was an electrician there, Micky. He spent some time with him and he had another name. However sly you are, there’s always something. I thought I’d let you know how things are going. The next time we talk, I may have some good news.”