by Nicci French
‘But you know about all that’s happened?’
‘Yes.’
‘I came back because of it. And I went down with her to Braxton.’
‘That was the right thing to do.’
‘I wasn’t asking for a compliment. What I mean is that I’m worried about the situation.’
‘In what way?’
Sandy made a gesture as if he were trying to conjure up the explanation. ‘Frieda had this trauma in her past. She hadn’t told me about it. From what I understand, she hadn’t even told her own therapist. And now all this has happened, the tragedy of this girl in Braxton. You know what she’s planning?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘She’s going back there to conduct some sort of investigation.’ Sandy looked at Karlsson for a response but Karlsson was still staring into his wine glass, as if he had noticed something interesting. ‘Even by Frieda’s account, it’s possible that this girl wasn’t actually raped, and it’s possible that she did kill herself. I mean, just because the police said it was suicide doesn’t mean it’s not true.’
At Sandy’s sarcasm, Karlsson looked up.
‘Even if it did happen,’ Sandy continued, ‘it must be overwhelmingly probable that it has nothing to do with a crime that happened twenty-odd years ago.’
‘I don’t know enough about the case,’ said Karlsson.
‘What I’m really saying is that Frieda has faced up to this terrible thing that happened to her, she’s talked about it, she’s told her close friends. I can understand the feelings that have been stirred up but sometimes you have to accept that what has happened has happened. Now she needs to put this terrible thing behind her and move on.’
‘What?’ said Karlsson.
‘I’m sorry. Have I said something strange?’
‘This is Frieda we’re talking about. And maybe moving on isn’t an option.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That’s something you should discuss with Frieda.’
Sandy looked puzzled and angry. ‘You think going down to Braxton in search of whatever it is she’s in search of is a good idea?’
‘What I think doesn’t matter very much.’
‘You’re a true friend of Frieda’s.’
‘I’d like to believe so.’
‘She trusts and respects you.’
‘Oh, please stop,’ said Karlsson.
‘What I was hoping was that you’d join with me in telling her to abandon this. God knows she’s been through some terrible experiences. What she needs now is to get better, get back to her work, to her patients.’
Karlsson shook his head. ‘I don’t know where to begin. You know Frieda. You love Frieda. You must understand that the best way to get her to do something is to tell her not to do it. The fact is that I never know what Frieda’s going to do or why she’s going to do it. You and I live in a world of pedantic reasons and black and white. Frieda isn’t like that.’
‘So you’re saying we should trust her instincts, whatever they are?’
‘Sometimes with Frieda I feel like one of those cowboys in a western who’s being dragged by a stampeding horse. You just hope the horse knows where it’s going.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Sandy. ‘You’re saying you believe her on this.’
‘I’m saying it doesn’t matter.’
Sandy glanced around him. ‘When you suggested a walk, I was thinking more of a park or along the canal.’
‘Don’t you like it?’ said Frieda.
Sandy looked doubtfully at the semi-industrial buildings, the shoddy office blocks. At first he couldn’t speak because they had to step back as a large lorry reversed its way out of the small street. It was starting to rain, slowly but steadily.
‘This is Shoreditch,’ he said. ‘And not even the nice bit of Shoreditch.’
Frieda’s expression changed, as if she were seeing something in the far distance. ‘I remember a couple of years ago, we were lying in bed and I told you about a walk we were going to do along a hidden river.’
‘That’s right. The Tyburn. You described every detail. Down through Hampstead and Regent’s Park and under Buckingham Palace to the river. We never did that walk.’
‘We’re doing this one instead.’
‘This is a river?’
‘This is my favourite one of all.’
‘I would never have thought it,’ said Sandy.
‘What did you expect? The sound of rushing water?’
‘Maybe some sort of valley, the shape of the old riverbank.’
‘This river disappeared too long ago for anything like that.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘The Walbrook.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Nobody has,’ said Frieda. ‘But it’s there somewhere, about thirty feet down, still trying to get to the Thames. This way.’
They walked a few yards and crossed a busy road.
‘Holywell Lane,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s like a little whisper of memory that there’s water somewhere underneath. So, you talked to Karlsson.’
‘How did you know?’
‘I talked to him and he told me.’
‘I was going to tell you.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I really was going to tell you. I talked to him as a friend of yours.’
Ahead, as they skirted the edge of Liverpool Street station, they could see a vast construction site, with cranes and bulldozers and lorries.
‘Shall we have a look?’ said Frieda. ‘Maybe we can see what they’ve dug up.’
They made their way towards the edge of the giant pit but a man in a yellow coat intercepted them. ‘It’s a building site,’ he said. ‘You can’t come here without a hard hat.’
‘We just want a quick look,’ said Frieda.
‘You’ll need to go to the site office.’
‘It’s all right.’ They walked towards a small path that led around the site. ‘This was built in the eighties and it’s already gone. Five hundred years ago, this was all fields and marshes and there was a pit for victims of the plague. Dying people threw themselves into it.’
‘And there was a river,’ said Sandy.
‘Yes, a river running through it.’
They crossed London Wall.
‘We’re in the old city of London now,’ said Frieda. ‘The river’s gone, but whenever they dig here to build another headquarters for a bank, they find the sort of stuff that you get with rivers – bones from the old tanneries but also temples, statues of gods. Rivers are special. They come from another world.’
‘You never step into the same river twice,’ said Sandy.
‘You don’t think I should go back to Braxton,’ said Frieda.
‘I want us to discuss it.’
‘You think I should put it behind me. You think I should move on.’
‘You make that sound like a bad thing.’
‘Look,’ said Frieda, pointing at a street sign. ‘Walbrook. We must be on the right track.’
‘When was it covered up?’
‘Five hundred years ago. People were complaining about the smell a thousand years ago. We’re almost at the Thames.’
‘It’s a short river.’
‘It was the main river running through the old city. Even the old Roman city. And now it’s gone.’
They walked along the vast brick walls of Cannon Street station and arrived at a set of railings. In front of them was the Thames. There were vast barges tethered close to the bank. It was now raining more heavily and it was cold. They were standing next to a riverside pub. Sandy nodded at it. ‘Would you like a coffee?’
Frieda shook her head. ‘Follow me,’ she said. They walked down some steep steps on to the gravelly bed of the river, exposed at high tide. ‘The river is meant to come out of a pipe somewhere here but I’ve never been able to see it myself.’
‘It’s funny to think of it still flowing after all these centuries,’ said Sandy.
‘I didn’t mean –’
‘Wait. My first boyfriend, I mean the first boy I ever slept with, was called Jeremy Sutton. We were obsessed with each other. Gradually that madness abated and, after a while, it just went wrong. I don’t really know why. We bickered and drifted apart and drifted back together and scratched at each other. We sort of broke up and saw other people. It was my first glimpse of what two people can do to each other.’ She paused. ‘Well, not quite my first. But I couldn’t believe how ugly it was, how shaming.’
‘Frieda …’
‘I swore to myself that whatever else I did I would never again go through that lying and pretence and evasion.’
‘And?’
Frieda took Sandy by both hands. ‘When you came back to London and when you accompanied me to Braxton, those were good things. I’ll always be grateful.’
‘Grateful?’ His eyebrows rose and his face took on a pinched look.
‘Yes.’
He took his hands from her grasp. His mouth curled in the wolfish smile she’d seen him turn on other people but never on her. ‘You sound like a fucking chief executive who’s letting someone go.’
‘I don’t mean to. But, Sandy, it’s over.’
There was a long pause and still she looked him full in the face.
‘I came back from New York. I gave up a prestigious job. I bought a flat near enough to you to be close, far enough away not to crowd you.’
‘I know. I didn’t ask you to,’ she added. ‘You chose to come and that was an act of generosity I will never forget.’
‘It’s because of that, isn’t it? It’s because you feel beholden.’
‘I don’t feel beholden.’
‘You do, and you can’t bear it.’
‘No.’
‘And because I know things about you that you wish I didn’t. Your rape. As soon as you told me, the clock was ticking.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘Yes, it is. Be honest with yourself at least. You owe me that.’
‘All right.’ Frieda took a deep breath. ‘I feel the urgent need to be free and on my own. We have had a very wonderful time together, you and I. But I already feel that our relationship is in the past and we’re just trying to rekindle something that is finished.’
‘I don’t accept it.’
‘You have to.’
‘You’re wrong there. I don’t have to. I don’t believe you. I don’t think you mean it.’
‘I mean it.’
‘You’ve done this before, remember?’
‘Yes. But this time there’s no going back.’
‘You want me to take it in a civilized fashion? You’ve decided and I’m supposed to kiss you on both cheeks and say, “Good luck with the rest of your life.”’
‘No.’
‘I love you.’ His voice split. He took her by the shoulders, gripping her. ‘And you love me.’
She pushed off his hands and stepped backwards. ‘I do love you. But it’s over, Sandy.’
‘I wanted us to have a child.’
‘That’s not what I wanted.’
‘Is it Karlsson?’
‘Don’t,’ said Frieda, sharply. ‘Don’t even think of saying something like that. Not to me. Not about us.’
Sandy stared at her. ‘That’s it? After everything, we just go our separate ways?’
‘You can walk up to Bank and catch the tube. I’m walking home.’
‘Frieda, let me come with you. It’s raining. It’s cold.’
‘I know. I’m glad.’
17
There was an angry woman in Frieda’s consulting room, who shouted about her father, about her husband, about her children and about Frieda herself, who, she said, was cold, smug, uncaring. And then, after she had left, stalking out into the rain without a coat, there was an angry woman on the phone.
‘Congratulations,’ she said.
‘Who is this?’
‘Oh, sorry! I forgot to introduce myself. I’m your mother.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Congratulations are in order.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You were right. Clever girl.’
‘You’ve heard from your doctor?’ Frieda still didn’t know what to call Juliet so avoided calling her anything.
‘She invited me to the surgery to talk. I should have known. I’ve done it enough times myself. When it’s bad news, it has to be face to face.’
‘And?’
‘A very grave, concerned face. “Won’t you sit down, Mrs Klein?” She’s had too much training in the right bedside manner.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Apparently I’ve got a jellyfish in my brain. Or was it an octopus? I forget now. When they do things like this, it’s as if they’re talking to a six-year-old child and it’s all animal stories. It must have been an octopus. Tendrils, you know.’
‘You have a brain tumour?’
‘Inoperable. Stage three. That’s where the tendrils come in. To cut it out they’d have to cut out my brain.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why? You were right!’
‘How long do you have?’
‘Good. A nice precise question. But I don’t have a precise answer. With patients at my stage, fifty per cent are alive at six months.’
‘That sounds quite precise.’ Frieda stared out at the building site and the grey November sky. Winter was coming, light closing in. ‘Have you told David and Ivan?’
‘Not as yet.’ Still the tight, jocose tone. She could picture Juliet’s furious face. ‘I had to tell you first.’
‘You should tell them. I’ll come and see you soon, in the next couple of days. I’ll let you know.’
‘You’ll come back?’ For a moment, there was a tiny wobble in her mother’s voice, but she recovered herself. ‘It seems like you returned just in time.’
‘It’s frightening,’ said Frieda. Of all things, there was a heron in the wasteland and she watched as it picked its way through the churned-up mud.
‘It comes to us all.’
She rang her brother. She thought it was going to be a difficult conversation, but it wasn’t. So far as Frieda knew, David had largely lost touch with their mother as well and he responded with nothing more than a mild interest.
‘How did our family become like this?’ Frieda said.
‘I can’t believe it. You finally want my opinion about something.’
‘You sound just like Juliet.’
‘This is great,’ said David. ‘It reminds me of when we were children.’
‘Can you tell Ivan?’
‘If you want. Do you think I should tell him to fly over? We can all meet at the bedside. How long does a flight from New Zealand take?’
There was a message on her voicemail from Sandy. She listened to it, then erased it. Her mobile rang and she saw it was her sister-in-law, Olivia. After a few moments’ hesitation she decided to answer: it might be some new crisis over Chloë.
‘Frieda?’ Olivia sounded breathless. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘I’ve just heard.’
For a moment Frieda wondered if she knew about Juliet’s brain tumour, but decided that was impossible. ‘Oh,’ she said drily. ‘News travels quickly.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘Why?’
‘I wouldn’t have known, except Sasha told Reuben and Reuben told Josef, and Josef is here bleeding the radiators.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No.’
‘Because if there’s anything I can do, you know you have only to say.’
‘Right.’
‘Sandy was such a gorgeous man, Frieda.’
‘He still is. He’s not dead.’<
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‘So I can’t understand why on earth you would end it.’
‘I’ve got to go, Olivia.’
‘It must be such a painful time and –’
Frieda ended the call and turned off the phone.
Frieda had a late lunch of mushroom soup and crusty bread at Number 9, then walked home. The warmth and silence of her house soothed her. Just her and the cat and the open fire. There were still signs of Sandy everywhere – a couple of his shirts in her wardrobe, his toothbrush and razor in her bathroom, a book of essays he had been reading on the arm of the chair by the hearth, his vitamin tablets and the cereal he liked for breakfast in the kitchen – but bit by bit they would disappear.
She sat by the fire with a mug of tea and closed her eyes. She thought about her mother and she thought about Becky. She thought about herself as a teenager. She went over Becky’s account of her rape and she let herself remember what had happened to her, so many years ago. She remembered the prickle of fear on her skin, lying in the darkness, and the unfamiliar smell. She remembered the heaviness on her body, the muffled words breathed into her ear, the television downstairs. The pain. She remembered the pain and she remembered that it didn’t just hurt between her legs but everywhere, obscenely: her breasts and her stomach and her limbs and her face and her eyes and her head and her heart. She thought again of Becky. Two of them, bound by the same sick terror.
She knew that she and Becky had been raped by the same man. She knew that man had killed Becky. She knew that she was going to track him down.
She took her wallet from the bag by her feet and extracted a card. Eva Hubbard, Fifty Shades of Glaze; she dialled the number.
Karlsson came to her house after he had finished work. He loosened his thin red tie and undid the top button of his shirt. Frieda handed him a glass of whisky, with just a dash of water in it, and he lifted it in a silent toast.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘You told me you had a favour to ask.’
‘Yes.’
‘Go on.’
‘I need to see my file.’ He didn’t look surprised. ‘I asked for it, of course, when I was there, and the following day I was called by an officer who told me very politely that I could apply under the Data Protection Act, for a fee, of course. And it could take up to forty days, maybe even longer, and might be turned down under an exemption clause.’