by Nicci French
‘Where shall I put myself?’ Harry asked Frieda.
‘You could try the kitchen,’ said Frieda, dubiously. ‘It might not be in a suitable state. Shall we have a look at it?’
‘Wow,’ said Harry, almost admiringly, as they entered. ‘I see what you mean.’
‘I could clear you a space at the table.’
‘Where are you going to be?’
‘I thought I might clear up a bit. Although I’m not sure where to start.’
‘I tell you what, why don’t I wash up?’
‘That’s out of the question.’
‘Why? I like washing up. Are there any gloves that would fit me?’
‘No.’
‘Yes. Here they are.’ He snapped them on. ‘Perfect. Bring it on.’
‘This is inappropriate.’
‘Inappropriate?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re uncomfortable.’
‘Yes.’
He peeled off the gloves. ‘I don’t see why. Perhaps you could make us some tea?’
‘I don’t want tea.’
‘A glass of wine? Tessa’s driving. There are about four opened bottles that I can see.’
‘All right. I’ll make you some tea and you can sit at the table.’
She took the ashtray, the wine glasses, the mugs and several smeared plates off the table, then collected the newspapers and magazines into a pile. There were several unopened letters, bills as far as she could tell, that she put on the side for Olivia to look at later. ‘Here. Take a seat.’
‘You’re stubborn.’
‘Yes. I’ll just wipe the surface.’
‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’
‘Do you always make yourself at home like this?’
‘Do I?’ He looked surprised. ‘I don’t know.’
Frieda made a pot of tea and Harry Welles opened his briefcase and pulled out some papers that he put on the table in front of him, but he didn’t seem inclined to work. Frieda could feel him watching her as she stacked plates in the dishwasher.
‘What’s your job?’ she asked at last.
‘I’m a financial adviser. There, that usually shuts people up.’
‘What kind of people do you advise?’
‘All sorts. Some who are wealthy and want to know which offshore account to hide their money in, some who are struggling and can’t make ends meet. I look after a few charities. You wouldn’t believe what a mess people can get into with their money.’
‘I probably would.’
‘But you don’t. I mean, get into trouble with your own money.’
‘No.’
‘Of course not. I hear you’re a therapist.’
‘Yes.’
Often people responded to her profession with a jokey, nervous comment about what she was reading in their behaviour and manner, as if she had spooky X-ray vision. Harry Welles, propping his chin in his hands and looking at her, said, ‘Yes. I can see how someone would trust you.’ Then he added, with a casual ease, ‘Would you like to have dinner with me on Friday?’
Frieda handed him his tea. ‘All right.’
‘Good. Venue to be confirmed. What’s your email?’
She gave it to him and he jotted it down. Then he opened a folder, picked up a pencil, and started working. Frieda smiled to herself and attacked a particularly encrusted pan.
Thirty-one
Frieda made normal tea for herself – builder’s, mahogany brown – and green tea for Aisling Wyatt. When she handed the mug across, Aisling put her hands round it.
‘I feel I need to warm myself up,’ she said. ‘It’s so cold. I’ve felt it the whole winter. It’s been cold all the time. There were days when I’d walk along the river and I’d expect it to freeze. It used to freeze, didn’t it, hundreds of years ago? They’d skate on the Thames.’
‘And have fairs on it,’ said Frieda. ‘Festivals.’
‘It should have frozen this winter,’ said Aisling. ‘It was so bitter.’
She looked like a woman who got easily cold – thin and highly strung.
‘It’s because of the old London Bridge,’ said Frieda.
‘The old London Bridge? What did that have to do with it?’
‘It slowed the flow of the river,’ said Frieda.
Aisling looked around Frieda’s living room as if she were gradually thawing out and becoming aware of her surroundings. ‘It’s nice here.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’ve got lovely things. Like this.’ She picked up a green porcelain bowl. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘It was a present.’
‘Is this where you see your patients?’
‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘Mostly I see patients at an office round the corner.’
‘Would you see me?’ said Aisling.
‘That wouldn’t be right because of the way we met. But why would you want to see me?’
‘Oh, just everything,’ said Aisling. ‘Because everything is a mess, because I haven’t got the life I thought I’d have, because I hate myself. Is that enough to be getting on with?’
All the time she was talking, Aisling wasn’t looking at Frieda. She looked into her tea, around the room, anything that would avoid eye contact.
‘It sounds to me as if you should talk to your doctor first,’ said Frieda. ‘But of course I could refer you to someone.’
Finally, Aisling looked directly at Frieda. ‘I suppose you don’t want to,’ she said. ‘That’s understandable. You’re working with the police. That’s your priority.’
‘I am working with the police.’
Aisling gave a bitter smile. ‘And I read about you in the paper,’ she said. ‘It looks like you’ve got troubles of your own.’
‘If I’ve got troubles of my own, why did you want to talk to me?’
‘When you asked me about Bertie, I thought you seemed sympathetic.’
‘And what do you think now?’
‘That girl in the story said you used her. Is that true?’
‘I was involved in rescuing her. But being rescued can be painful.’
‘Maybe what she meant,’ said Aisling, ‘is that you go into people’s lives and shake things up and then you leave and don’t take responsibility for what you’ve done.’
‘Is that what you feel I’ve done to you?’
Aisling took a sip of her tea, then placed the mug very carefully on the little table in front of her. ‘When I met Frank we were both working in the same firm. In the same department. If anything, I was probably doing slightly better than he was. Then we had Joe and Emily and, blah blah blah, suddenly I’m at home and he’s been promoted and I’m boring myself even saying the words, it’s such a cliché. You know, I’m not supposed to be boring. When I was at college, I was the person who found other people boring. If when I was twenty-two I’d been able to see myself at thirty-two, I would have … well, done something drastic. Run away to South America.’ Now she gave Frieda a challenging look. ‘I know that you’ll tell me to count my blessings. You’ll say I’ve got two lovely children, a beautiful place to live, it was my own decision and I’ve got to take responsibility for it. You’ll say that I must have subconsciously not enjoyed working in an accountancy firm and I’m just using the children as an excuse.’
Frieda put her own mug of tea on the table, untasted. ‘Tell me about Robert Poole,’ she said.
‘When Frank comes home and I show him things I’ve done in the garden or in the house, his eyes just glaze over. Bertie was different. He was interested, he had ideas. He also listened to my ideas.’ She paused, as if waiting for Frieda to speak, but Frieda stayed silent. She continued, almost as if she were talking to herself, ‘I never thought I’d feel like that again. I felt like I was being looked at. I know what you’re thinking.’
‘You probably don’t.’
‘You’re thinking that I must be feeling guilty for being a bad wife and a bad mother. Well, it’s not true. We made love when the children w
ere out of the house. Emily’s at nursery school four mornings a week and she goes to a child-minder for three afternoons as well. And we’d make love in the children’s bedroom. That was partly practical. I would probably have worried about some kind of smell on the sheets and I’d have had to wash them every time and even Frank might have noticed something. But it was more than that. When we were lying naked in the children’s room, with their things around, their toys, I felt like I was saying, “Fuck off,” to all that, to the idea that that was who I was. I suppose that shocks you.’
‘No. Did you think about leaving your husband?’
‘Not really,’ said Aisling. ‘No, not at all. Anyway, the sex stopped after a while, although the feeling of intimacy didn’t. We talked about working together.’
‘Doing what?’
‘He had plans as a designer, gardens but interiors as well.’ Aisling smiled. ‘We walked around Greenwich and looked at people’s gardens. You could see that people have such a need for someone who can come into their homes and take responsibility and sort out their problems for them, so they can get on with other things. People have the money but they don’t know how to get what they really want. Anyone who comes up with a way to find these people can’t fail. So we talked about creating a business like that.’
‘Did you do anything more than talk about it?’
Aisling dropped the eye contact and gave a shrug.
‘What did you actually do?’ asked Frieda.
‘That’s all you care about,’ said Aisling. ‘You’re just being a policeman.’
‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth,’ said Frieda, ‘which means all of the truth. Even the uncomfortable bits.’
Aisling put her hand over her mouth, then rubbed her face as if it were itching. ‘Some of this would look awkward if it came out, and now that he’s dead I don’t know what will happen.’
‘If what came out?’
‘I gave Bertie some support, that’s all. Part of which was financial.’
‘How much?’
‘A few thousand,’ said Aisling, almost in a mumble. ‘More than that. A bit more. Twenty-five. Maybe thirty, forty. Or something. It’s my money as well as Frank’s. We share everything. And I have my own account.’
‘Did you tell your husband?’
‘I was going to tell him about the plans when they were more worked out. It would have been all right, but then suddenly Bertie was dead. It’s a disaster in a way, I know, but we have quite a lot of savings. And he doesn’t look at my bank statements. Why should he? I feel terrible about it, but it should be fine. It’ll die down and go away, that’s what I tell myself. I mean, this is nothing to do with Bertie’s death, just about a mess in a marriage. Our mess – it’s got nothing to do with anything else. You must see that.’
Frieda held her gaze. ‘I’m sure you understand that I have to tell the police about this.’
‘No! Why? This has nothing to do with anything. I came to you because I trusted you.’
‘You came to me because I’d realized you had had an affair with Robert Poole.’
‘I thought you’d understand. I didn’t think you’d judge me.’
‘I’m not judging you, Aisling. A man has been murdered.’
‘Not by me.’
‘I have to tell them.’
‘But Frank will find out. You won’t tell him, will you? You can’t, anyway. You can’t betray the secrets of a patient.’
‘You’re not a patient,’ said Frieda. ‘But I won’t tell him. You should think about doing so yourself, even if he doesn’t discover it from the police.’
‘I can’t. You don’t understand what he’s like. He’ll never forgive me.’
‘Give him the chance. Anyway, I think he already knows.’
Frieda had only been home a few minutes when the bell rang. She was on the way upstairs to have a shower, but now she turned round and went to the door.
‘Hello? Are you Dr Klein?’
A woman on her doorstep, young and fresh-faced, with an expression that was both apologetic and eager. Frieda had the impression that she was ready to break into an enthusiastic smile, and that when she did there would be dimples in both her cheeks. She had curly chestnut hair cut quite short but still unruly, freckles on her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose, and soft brown eyes with little flecks in the irises.
‘I’m so sorry to turn up like this. My name’s Liz. Liz Barron.’
‘How can I help you?’
She shivered. ‘It’s horrible out here. Could I come in for a moment?’
‘Not until you tell me who you are.’
‘Of course, sorry. I wanted to ask your advice on something. I was hoping you could help me.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘I’m a journalist for the Daily Sketch.’
‘I see.’
‘I’m writing a feature, a kind of zeitgeist piece about the police force in the present climate of suspicion and cuts. Basically sympathetic, but trying to look at it from all points of view.’
‘I’m not a police officer.’
‘I know, I know,’ she said, blushing. ‘I’m probably not explaining myself very well. The thing is, my editor thought it would be a good idea to focus on a particular area or a particular story. I was wondering if I could talk to you about your involvement – with Dean Reeve, of course, and now with this man Robert Poole. I was so impressed by what you did and I know what Joanna Teale wrote about you. It was a really unfair piece. I thought it would be a great opportunity for you to put your side of the story too. It must feel awful not to be able to set the record straight.’
‘Not really.’
Liz Barron seemed undeterred. Her pleasant face glowed with sympathy. ‘You could tell me about what happened then, and what you’re doing now, and what it’s like to be a consultant.’
‘No.’
‘And we could even talk about paying you expenses for your trouble.’
‘No.’
Her expression didn’t alter. ‘Do you feel responsible for Kathy Ripon’s death?’
‘I don’t want to be rude, but I’m going to shut the door now.’
‘Why should the public pay for your help with the Poole case, when –’
Frieda closed the door. She went up the stairs and took her shower, standing for a long time under the needles of water, trying not to think.
‘Well, well, well,’ said Karlsson. ‘So Mrs Wyatt was cheating on her husband with our Robert Poole.’
They were in a car on their way to Mary Orton’s house. Frieda just stared out of the window.
‘And he took Mrs Orton and then got to change her will.’
‘Tried to,’ said Frieda.
‘He slept with Mrs Wyatt, then took her money. Do you think he was blackmailing her?’
‘I don’t think he needed to. She said they were going to set up in business together.’
‘I’ve never heard it called that before,’ said Karlsson. ‘You reckon Mr Wyatt knew?’
‘There was something about the way they were together. They didn’t look at each other, seemed almost scared to catch each other’s eye. It felt to me then that they were both concealing something from each other. We know what she was concealing, but what about him?’
‘So he knew?’
‘Aisling Wyatt said he didn’t. I’m not so sure.’
Karlsson looked thoughtful. ‘He sleeps with your wife, steals your money. And then the body is found a mile away from your house. I’m looking forward to talking to Frank Wyatt.’
‘I told Aisling I was going to tell you and that she should speak to him before you did.’
‘What the hell did you do that for? Now he’ll be prepared.’
‘Because it was the right thing to do.’
‘Right for who, Frieda? For her, or for our investigation?’
‘There’s no difference. It’s right, that’s all.’
‘Whose side are you on?’
‘I’m not on any side.’
Karlsson breathed deeply, making an effort to stop himself saying something rude.
‘What did you make of Mary Orton’s sons?’
‘I don’t like them,’ said Karlsson.
‘But there’s no evidence against them?’
‘They had a motive. They had a big bloody motive. The trouble is, I don’t think they realized it until it was too late.’
Mary Orton insisted on making a pot of tea and putting out biscuits. She was apologetic that she hadn’t baked a cake. Frieda saw how her hands – liver-spotted and with thick blue veins under the loose skin – shook as she set out the cups. She was wearing a dark green skirt and a white blouse, with a thin cardigan over the top. But the blouse buttons were done up wrongly, showing the old-fashioned lacy vest underneath, and there was a ladder running up her tights. ‘We’re so sorry to bother you again,’ she said to the old woman gently. ‘We just wanted to check a few things with you.’
‘Anything I can do to help.’ She picked up her cup with clumsy fingers, setting the teaspoon ringing against its side.
‘It’s just routine,’ said Karlsson, soothingly. ‘We just want to confirm a few details. Such as when your sons last visited you, for example.’
She looked at him, then down at her tea. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘We just need to know who met Robert Poole,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s nothing to worry about.’
‘I don’t know when they came.’
‘Have they been this year?’
‘They have very busy lives.’
‘I know. And they live a long way off so, of course, it’s hard for them to get down,’ said Frieda.
‘They’re not bad sons.’
‘But you don’t see them very much?’
‘It’s the grandchildren I mind about.’
‘They grow up so quickly,’ said Frieda. ‘A few months can make all the difference.’
‘I’d like to know them better,’ agreed Mary Orton. ‘No. Not this year.’
‘What about last year?’
‘Couldn’t they tell you themselves?’