by Nicci French
‘And this Edward Green looked very similar to this man.’ Karlsson pointed at the poster of Robert Poole tacked to the board beside him.
‘It looks just like him. But if he’s dead, where’s our daughter?’
She stared at Karlsson. He knew she wanted some kind of reassurance, but he couldn’t give it. ‘I’m going to send two officers home with you. They’ll need access to any documentation you have, the names of doctors. We’ll be taking this seriously.’
When they had gone, he sat in silence for several minutes. Did this make things better or worse?
Beth Kersey started with the photographs of her family. She had taken them with her when she’d left, on his instructions, but she hadn’t looked at them. It was too painful and stirred up feelings in her that only confused and distressed her. He had looked at them, though, for a long time, when he’d thought she was asleep, and then he had wrapped them up in plastic bags and stowed them away with his other bags.
Now she laid them in front of her, one by one. She had a large box of matches that she had taken from the deck of the boat up the path one night, and she lit a match for each picture, letting it flare and then die down over a face, a group, a garden in spring. They were all lies, she thought bitterly. Everyone smiles for a photograph; everyone poses and puts on a public face. There was her mother with her camera expression, head a bit to one side, all tender and caring, butter wouldn’t melt. And her dad, plump and sweet when everyone knew he was a bully who’d made money by taking it from other people. Edward had explained it to her, why it was wrong, why the money didn’t really belong to her father. She had forgotten the details, but they didn’t matter. And her two sisters. There were days when she could barely remember their names, but she could remember how they’d been such goody-goodies, good at school and good at home, sucking up to their parents, coaxing money and favours out of them with their winning smiles. She knew that now. Once she had simply thought them better than her at belonging in the world, easier in their skins than her, blessed where she was cursed. Now she stared in the leap of flame at Lily’s narrow face grinning between two tight plaits, Bea’s solemn gaze. Then she was looking at herself. Elizabeth. Betty. Beth. She wasn’t that person any more, sloppy and angry, anxious to please and knowing she wouldn’t. She was thin now, muscle and bone. Her lip sneered under its gash. Her hair was short. She had passed through fire and come out purified.
Thirty-eight
Josef was painting Mary Orton’s skirting-boards white. As he drew the brush along the wood, he tried not to think about his children. His chest burned when he pictured them at home without him, or when he remembered the last time he had seen them. He had tried to hold them too tightly and they had shrunk away from him, from the smell on his breath and the wildness in his eyes. So he concentrated on the smoothness of the paint. He looked up from his work to find Mary Orton standing behind him, her hands clutching a dishcloth and her face anxious.
‘I can help?’
‘I want to show you something.’
Josef laid the brush on the lid of the tin and scrambled to his feet. ‘Of course, show me,’ he said reassuringly.
‘This way.’
‘She led him upstairs to her bedroom, the one room of the house he hadn’t been into. It had high ceilings, patterned wallpaper, and its large window looked out on to the garden where spring bulbs were at last pushing their way through the cold soil. She went to a small bureau, opened it and fumbled in the small drawer for something. He could see she was agitated. Her fingers were clumsy and her breath laboured.
‘Here.’
She turned and put a folded piece of paper into his hands and he stared down at the lines of blue ink, the frail, old-fashioned handwriting, all the letters looped and crossed.
‘This is what?’ he asked. ‘Really, my English not good, Mrs Orton.’
‘I did make a will,’ she whispered. There were tears in her eyes as she stared at him. ‘I was going to give a third of it to him. We drew it up together and we got a neighbour down the road to witness it. Look. Here is their signature and mine.’
‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I am wrong person here.’
‘Because they never come to see me. They don’t care – and he cared.’
‘He?’
‘Robert. He spent time with me, like you have. To them I’m just a burden. I suppose I should just burn this. Or is that wrong?’
Josef stood and held the piece of paper in his paint-smeared hand. He shook his head.
‘What shall I do?’
‘I don’t know. I give it to Frieda.’
Frieda walked home across Waterloo Bridge. They’d seen a film and then gone for a late meal at a Moroccan restaurant, where the air had smelt of cinnamon and roasting meat. Afterwards, she had felt a sudden need to be alone. He was obviously disappointed, but something was holding her back. He had kissed her on the cheek and gone.
She walked slowly, and when she was halfway across the bridge, she stopped as she always did. Usually it was to look upriver at Parliament and the Eye and downriver at St Paul’s, but this time she just leaned on the railing and stared down into the water. The Thames never seemed to flow as a river should. It moved more like a vast tide, and with the tide there were eddies and whirlpools and clashing currents. After a few minutes, she didn’t even see the water. She thought of the film she had just watched and of Robert Poole, whoever he really was. She thought of the traditional child’s fantasy that you are the only real person in the world and everybody else is an actor. Poole had been a sort of actor, taking on a different character for everyone he met, giving them the person they needed, the person who would seduce them. Then she allowed herself to think about Harry, in his light grey suit with his grey-blue eyes and his crisp white shirt, the way he bent towards her when she spoke and took the crook of her elbow when they crossed the road. The way he watched her and seemed to be trying to hear the things she would not say. It had been such a long time since she had let anyone come near her.
Gradually her thoughts stopped being specific, stopped being about anything at all but swirling and dark, like the river beneath her. Out of that darkness came a face and a name: Janet Ferris.
Frieda shivered. It was cold and exposed on the bridge. As she turned towards home, she looked at her watch. It was a quarter to midnight. Too late to phone Karlsson. She walked home quickly, got into bed and lay in the dark, agitated, her eyes burning. She wanted it to be day again, but day took a long time to come.
Thirty-nine
Frieda had seen three patients, one after another. She was aware that her mind was partly elsewhere and she made a steely effort to concentrate, to be professional, precise. Or was she just playing the part of the attentive, sympathetic therapist? Maybe it was all a performance, once you got down to it. After the final session she wrote her brief notes, walked outside, flagged down a taxi, and twenty minutes later she was outside the house in Balham.
Karlsson and Jake Newton were standing on the doorstep. Karlsson was talking on his mobile. He nodded at her but continued talking. Newton smiled. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’
Frieda found the greeting strangely difficult to respond to. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘OK.’
‘Cheers. Karlsson put his phone into his pocket. He looked at Frieda. ‘Afternoon.’
‘You didn’t have to come yourself,’ said Frieda. ‘I just wanted someone to let me in.’
‘I was curious. I wanted to know what you were up to.’
‘And I want to see what a consultant does,’ said Newton.
‘I thought you were a consultant,’ said Frieda.
‘Pretend I’m not here.’
‘By the way,’ said Karlsson, ‘there’s something else.’ And there, outside Janet Ferris’s home, he told Frieda about Beth Kersey and her involvement with Robert Poole. Frieda frowned as he spoke.
‘That must account for Poole’s missing days,’ she said.
‘It may,’ s
aid Karlsson.
‘You’ve got to find this woman.’
‘Well, yes. That was our plan.’
‘And you need to find out about her medical history.’
‘We’d thought of that as well.’
‘If you get the name of the psychiatrist who treated her, I might be able to talk to him unofficially.’
‘We’ll see about that.’
‘I thought criminal investigations were about eliminating suspects,’ said Frieda. ‘In this case, new ones keep popping up.’
‘In this case,’ said Karlsson, ‘it’s difficult to tell the suspects from the victims. But at least it stops you thinking about Dean Reeve.’
Frieda turned on him an expression that was almost fierce. ‘I think about Dean Reeve every day. And when I go to sleep, I dream about him.’
‘What can I say?’ said Karlsson. ‘I’m sorry. But now, why are we here? What’s this about?’
‘I wanted to see Poole’s flat as well,’ said Frieda.
‘Let’s see it, then.’ Karlsson took out a bunch of keys and examined the paper labels attached to them. Nobody spoke as they made their way into the house and then up to the flat. As they stepped inside, Frieda recognized the musty smell of a house nobody lives in, of a place where nothing is moved, no window opened, no air breathed. They stood in the main room. Frieda felt constrained: she’d wanted to be alone for this. ‘Did you bring the photographs?’ she asked.
Karlsson took out a file from his bag. ‘These were taken when Janet Ferris’s body was found.’
‘That’s no good,’ said Frieda. ‘What about before, when you first came here?’
‘We don’t have photographs of that.’
‘Why? Wasn’t it a crime scene?’
‘No. It wasn’t. Not that we knew of. And we had the room. We didn’t need to photograph it.’
‘Fine,’ said Frieda.
She stood in the middle of the room and looked around, slowly, trying to examine everything.
‘What are you looking for?’ said Newton.
‘Shut up,’ said Frieda. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Please, just give me a moment.’
There was a long silence. The two men looked at each other awkwardly, like people who had arrived too early at a party and were stuck with each other. Finally, she turned to Karlsson. ‘If you closed your eyes, would you be able to describe everything in this room?’
‘I don’t know. Most of it.’
Frieda shook her head. ‘Years ago, I didn’t take many notes after my sessions. I thought that if it was important I’d remember it. My remembering it would be a sign it was important. But I changed my mind. Now, if it’s important, I write it down.’ She pulled a face, signalling frustration. ‘I don’t know. There’s something, but I can’t quite grasp it.’
‘What is it?’ said Karlsson.
‘If I knew …’ she began. Then she frowned. ‘Can we go downstairs? Do you have the key to her flat?’
Karlsson pulled out the bunch of keys. ‘Somewhere here,’ he said. ‘I feel like a gaoler in an old movie.’
‘How do you decide when to give up?’ said Newton, as they were walking downstairs.
‘Is this for your report?’ said Karlsson.
‘I’m just curious.’
‘There’s never a moment. But the urgency goes, people are reassigned.’
Karlsson unlocked the door and they walked into Janet Ferris’s flat. Frieda found this abandoned space sadder. There was a mug on the table, a book next to it. She could imagine Janet Ferris walking in, picking it up and carrying on. She tried not to think of that. It was a distraction. She looked around the room. She felt she was searching for something – and suddenly she found it. She turned to Karlsson. ‘Do you see that picture? Of the fish.’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you like it?’
He smiled. ‘I think it’s lovely. But you’ll have to leave it here. Nowadays we’re not really allowed to help ourselves.’
‘When I first saw Poole’s flat, this painting was there. Not here.’
‘Really?’
‘You read the newspaper article. Janet Ferris said that Poole used to lend her things. Among other things, he gave – or lent – her a painting, and she lent him one of hers. She said she returned it and took hers back.’
Karlsson’s brow furrowed. ‘Interfering with a crime scene,’ he said, then caught Frieda’s eye. ‘Or a semi-crime scene. Well, no harm done.’
‘We should go upstairs again,’ said Frieda.
Back in Poole’s flat, Frieda stood once more in the centre of the room. She looked at the pictures on Poole’s wall. There were five: the Eiffel Tower, a Madonna and Child, a sun in a seascape, a poppy field and a pine tree with the moon behind it. Frieda took a pair of transparent plastic gloves from her pocket and put them on. ‘I bought these from the chemist,’ she said. She glanced at Newton. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to charge them to the taxpayer.’
She walked to the picture of the Madonna, lifted it from the wall and stepped back. She placed the picture on the desk. She turned to Karlsson. ‘What do you see?’
‘A rather crappy picture,’ said Karlsson. ‘I don’t think that’s worth stealing. I prefer the one of the fish.’
‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘Look at the wall where the picture was.’ Frieda picked up the picture and held it next to the mark. ‘It’s not the same size.’
‘But …’ Karlsson began, and stopped.
‘Maybe it’s the same size as the fish painting that was hanging here until the woman took it back,’ said Newton.
‘But that was only here for a few weeks,’ said Frieda. ‘Those marks take years.’
‘I don’t know what this is about,’ said Karlsson. ‘Poole might just have got tired of his pictures and moved them around.’
‘You’re right. That’s possible. Let’s see.’ Frieda lifted the pine-tree painting off the wall.
‘Different shape,’ said Karlsson. ‘See?’
Then in turn Frieda took down the other three paintings. In each case the mark was smaller than the painting.
‘There we are,’ said Karlsson. ‘Poole did some rehanging before he disappeared. I’m not sure this was worth coming all the way down to Balham to see.’
Frieda didn’t reply. She just looked at Karlsson, then at Newton. A smile slowly appeared on his face.
‘They shouldn’t all be smaller.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Karlsson.
‘Shall we rearrange them?’ said Frieda.
‘What do you mean?’
She picked up the Madonna and Child and held it against one of the patches on the wall. ‘What do you think?’
Newton shook his head. ‘The picture’s too big.’ She moved it along the wall. ‘That’s right,’ he said.
She did the same with the other pictures, holding them one by one against the shapes on the wall while Karlsson and Newton nodded or shook their heads. They were left with two pictures and two spaces. The pine tree was slightly smaller than one space and much larger than the smallest. The seascape was larger than both spaces.
‘They don’t fit,’ said Karlsson.
‘That’s right.’
‘Now there are two pictures,’ continued Karlsson, ‘and two spaces, which neither of them fits. It’s doing my head in and I don’t even know why I should be caring about it.’
‘But it’s interesting, isn’t it?’ said Frieda.
‘He could have got rid of a painting,’ said Newton, ‘and bought two new ones.’
‘They came with the flat. He wouldn’t have got rid of them. Except this one.’ Frieda touched the picture of the pine tree. ‘It’s cheap and nasty but it’s new, don’t you think?’
Karlsson examined the shiny frame. ‘It does look new.’
‘It must be around here somewhere,’ said Frieda.
‘What?’ said Karlsson.
‘One of the pictures.’
‘Where?’
‘It�
��ll be somewhere. Down the side of something, somewhere out of the way.’
Newton found it under Poole’s bed, where it was stowed with an old mattress. He carried it through with an air of pride. It was a picture of a windmill and a horse. There was something synthetic about the colours so it seemed to shimmer.
‘No wonder he kept it under the bed,’ said Karlsson.
He took the painting and held it in front of the larger patch. It was the right size. ‘All right. Now we’ve still got a painting too many.’
‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘We’ve got two paintings too many.’
She walked across to the pine dresser that stood by the wall furthest from the window and knelt down beside it. ‘Look,’ she said.
Karlsson and Newton peered down. Frieda pointed at two small depressions in the carpet.
‘It’s been moved,’ she said. ‘Just a couple of feet. But …’ She paused for a moment. ‘Let’s move it back.’
The three of them took hold of the dresser and moved it back.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Newton.
Where the dresser had been, there was another patch on the wall. They could see at a glance that it was the same size as the seascape but Karlsson held it up to confirm it.
Karlsson turned to Frieda. ‘So, what the fuck does it mean?’
‘It means that someone’s been here,’ said Frieda. ‘With all the risks it entailed, someone had to come here.’
Back outside the house, Karlsson asked Jake Newton if he could give them a moment. He and Frieda walked a few paces along the road. When Karlsson spoke, it was without looking at her. ‘I talked to your friend Reuben,’ he said.
‘What about?’
‘About the encounter they had with the photographer outside your house. I wanted to be clear about what had happened. Obviously, if the two of them had made an unprovoked attack on the man, it could potentially be treated as a serious case of assault.’ Now Karlsson stopped. His hands were in his pockets against the cold. ‘Reuben – Dr McGill – told me that the photographer had obstructed your other friend, Josef, and then struck him. While Reuben was trying to separate them, he inadvertently struck the photographer in the face.’