Tuesday's Gone fk-2

by Nicci French

  ‘Inadvertently?’

  ‘Yes. Since there were no other witnesses …’

  ‘I was a witness,’ said Frieda.

  ‘Apparently you only arrived when the incident was almost over. Even if the photographer disputes their version, I’m clear that no action will be taken.’

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t coach Reuben about the best way of getting out of this?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Frieda, just let it go.’

  ‘What do you think of people who just let things go because it’s convenient?’

  Karlsson took time to speak, breathing deeply. ‘What I think, first, is that if there had been a conspiracy to pervert a police inquiry between me and Reuben, then I would be dismissed and he would be struck off. And what I think, second, is, don’t be so fucking pompous.’

  This is how it begins, Frieda thought. Then she looked harder at Karlsson. ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Of course, things are a bit, you know …’

  ‘Like, what things?’

  ‘Well, for example, family stuff. My children are going to live in Spain with their mother.’

  It took Frieda a few seconds to register what he had just said. ‘That’s tough for you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘Two years is a long time when they’re so young.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Why is she taking them away?’

  ‘Her new partner has been offered a promotion there.’

  ‘Did you try to make her change her mind?’

  ‘I’m not going to stop her but she knows how I feel.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  Now he turned away, as if he was embarrassed. ‘I work. I come back to an empty flat. I live for the days my kids come – and now they won’t. Oh, I’ll go and see them, of course, and they’ll come for holidays but he’ll be the real father.’

  Fathers and their children, thought Frieda, remembering Josef’s brown eyes but seeing Karlsson’s drawn face.

  Jake Newton was talking on his mobile.

  ‘That arsehole Newton,’ Karlsson said now, ‘wants to be taken on a tour of the custody suites.’

  ‘I can walk from here,’ she said.

  She touched him on the cheek with two fingers, very lightly.

  ‘I haven’t told anyone.’

  ‘I’m glad you told me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘Well, thank you. And I’m sorry to add to your troubles.’ And she was gone.

  Forty

  ‘I’m glad you called!’

  Frieda was in her room, gazing down at the wasteland outside the mansion block. Patches of grass and small scrubby plants were springing up where the bulldozers had been. Children pelted across the open spaces. A woman with a tiny ball of fluff on a lead pushed her way through a break in the fence and stepped into the wasteland quite casually, as if it was a park.

  ‘Good. Although I was actually ringing you on business.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that’s better than nothing,’ Harry said ruefully.

  ‘I was hoping you could meet me at Olivia’s house in the next few days and sort out her finances a bit. I don’t think she’s filed her tax returns for years, or kept any records. It’s all a bit of a mess. I thought while your sister sorted out her legal affairs, maybe you could have a go at her financial ones.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I could come straight after a meeting near Old Street. About six?’

  ‘Really?’ Frieda asked doubtfully. She had been thinking of going straight home after her last patient and spending a longed-for evening alone.

  ‘If your sister-in-law is available, of course.’

  ‘I’ll call her now.’

  ‘And after, if you felt like it, you could invite me to have a glass of wine with you.’

  ‘All right, I give in.’ She smiled and put the phone down. That morning, she’d had an email from Sandy. He was coming back to the UK for two weeks, he said: his sister was getting married. There was a party at Lauderdale House in Highgate, which he and Frieda had once visited together. He wanted to see her. Please. She had read the email and deleted it. But, of course, she could still reply. She could still say yes. Or she could say no. No: that bit of my life is over. I can imagine going on without you.

  Now here she was, just before six, in Olivia’s house again. Kieran, the funeral director’s accountant, was there as well. He was sitting at the kitchen table with a large pile of broken china laid out in front of him on a sheet of newspaper, a tube of superglue and a piece of pink sandpaper. Frieda watched as he patiently matched fragments, his glasses perched on the end of his nose and a look of concentration on his face. He was happy, she thought, lost in his task.

  ‘He’s mending all my favourite broken china,’ said Olivia, exuberantly. ‘Tessa’s sorting out my alimony, your new friend Harry’s dealing with the tax, and Kieran’s putting my life back together.’

  ‘And what are you doing?’ asked Frieda, feeling irritated by Olivia’s radiant assumption that someone would always sort out the havoc she created.

  ‘Me? Pouring wine? No? Tea, then?’

  ‘Tea would be good.’

  ‘Tessa’s coming as well. Did I tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just to drop off some forms I need to sign or something. You know that woman has literally saved my life.’

  ‘That might be putting it too strongly. Where’s Chloë?’

  ‘Out with friends, I imagine. I haven’t seen her.’

  ‘It’s Wednesday.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Does she often go out on a school evening?’

  ‘Frieda, she’s seventeen. What were you doing when you were seventeen?’

  There was a knock on the door and Frieda went to answer it. Harry and Tessa stood on the doorstep, and once again she was struck by how similar they were. Harry, looking serious, was wearing a dark suit and a pale green shirt. He smiled at Frieda and his face softened, but he didn’t greet her with his usual effusiveness. Tessa nodded at Frieda and held up a thick brown envelope.

  ‘I’ll get Olivia to sign these and be on my way,’ she said.

  ‘It’s good of you to bring them round in person.’

  ‘I was more or less passing,’ said Tessa. ‘It seemed simpler, and I’m trying to speed things up a bit.’

  Olivia called from the kitchen, offering coffee or something stronger. Everything had to be personal for her, thought Frieda. She couldn’t just have a solicitor or a financial adviser: she needed to make them into her friends, spectators of her personal dramas. She kissed Tessa, then took Harry’s hand in both of hers and held it for longer than necessary. She introduced them both to Kieran, who nodded, blushed and returned to his painstaking work. She put her large signature on the papers Tessa laid in front of her, then kissed her again, in farewell.

  She turned to Harry. ‘How are we going to do this? I’ve tried to collect any of the old statements and receipts I’ve got, but I warn you, I’ve let everything slide dreadfully.’

  ‘We should go into your living room, away from these two, and start trying to put some order into your affairs,’ said Harry, gravely. ‘It will take some time. This is just the start when I’ll assess your needs, but we’re going to try and build up some kind of record for you and see what we’ve got. Anything you’ve kept will be useful and I can try to fill in the gaps. I’m going to create a system for you that you should be able to keep to in the future. All right?’

  ‘I already feel in safe hands,’ said Olivia, beaming up at him. Frieda wondered if she was on some new kind of medication.

  ‘Good,’ said Harry.

  Frieda scrutinized him for any hint of mockery or contempt, but could find none. He seemed more like a doctor with a patient than a financi
al adviser with a client.

  ‘Right!’ said Olivia. She swept the bottle of wine from the table and grabbed a glass.

  ‘Just tea for me,’ said Harry. He glanced briefly at Frieda. ‘Will you still be here when we’re done?’

  ‘It depends on how long you take.’

  ‘I’d say about an hour.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll be here.’

  ‘Good. There’s something I’d like to say to you.’

  Frieda helped Kieran mend pottery. Some of the pieces she recognized: the old Indian tree platter that had belonged to a set her grandmother used to own. It must have passed to David, and from him into the unsafe hands of Olivia. The white bone-china teapot whose handle Kieran now stuck expertly back into place, delicately sanding away the tiny ridge of glue that was left when it dried. She remembered – she thought she remembered – her mother pouring tea from it. It gave her a strange feeling to see these pieces lying in broken bits on Olivia’s cluttered table, yet there was something consoling in the way Kieran was putting them back together. He felt her gaze and glanced up. ‘It’s satisfying,’ he said. ‘And restful.’

  It occurred to Frieda that, for a man who liked rest, he had chosen a very restless partner in Olivia, and he must have sensed something of this because he suddenly said, ‘Olivia has been good for me.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Frieda. She excused herself for a moment and went into the hall to make a call to Chloë. The phone rang and rang and then switched to voice mail. She ended the call and was about to turn her mobile off again, when it vibrated in her hand.

  ‘Frieda?’

  ‘Yes. Where are you, Chloë?’

  ‘What do you mean, where am I?’

  ‘I mean, where are you?’

  ‘I’m at home. Why?’

  ‘At home?’

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘I thought you were out.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘This is ridiculous. Hang on.’

  She ran up the stairs and knocked on Chloë’s door, which opened a crack on to Chloë’s bewildered face.

  ‘What? Frieda? I don’t get it.’

  ‘I was downstairs. I’ve been here since six. Olivia thought you were out.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’

  ‘You’ve been here all the time?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why didn’t you let Olivia know you were in?’

  ‘She didn’t ask. I didn’t think she’d be interested.’

  ‘When did you get back from school?’ Frieda looked at her niece’s sullen expression. ‘Did you go to school?’

  ‘I had a headache.’

  ‘Does your mother know?’

  A shrug. The door opened a bit wider. Frieda could see the litter of the room. ‘Did you go yesterday?’

  ‘What is this? Interrogation time?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I didn’t feel like it.’

  ‘When did you last go?’

  ‘Monday. For a bit.’

  ‘And Olivia doesn’t know about this?’

  ‘Not until you tell her.’

  Frieda paused. She looked at Chloë’s face and the dim, jumbled interior of her room. ‘You’re going to school tomorrow,’ she said. ‘In the evening, I’ll collect you from here at seven o’clock and take you for a meal somewhere and we can talk. All right?’

  Another shrug.

  ‘Chloë?’

  ‘‘K.’

  ‘And you’ll promise to go to school?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have a shower now. Put on some clean clothes, do a bit of work and then come downstairs and have a meal with your mother. All right?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Chloë, I’m serious.’

  ‘OK. Is he here?’

  ‘Kieran?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He’s in the kitchen, mending Olivia’s broken china. Why? Don’t you like him being here?’

  ‘She forgets about me even more.’ She added grudgingly, ‘He’s all right, though. He pays attention.’

  ‘Right. Shower. Meal. Work. Up in the morning at a proper time – I’ll call you to make sure you are – and then off to school. Be waiting for me at seven.’

  As she went downstairs, she heard Olivia’s thin, violent screech of laughter from the living room and Harry’s steadying voice in response. The door opened as she came into the hall.

  ‘All done for now,’ said Harry, cheerfully. ‘I think we’ve made some headway.’

  ‘Good.’ She turned to Olivia. ‘Chloë’s upstairs in her room.’

  ‘Is she? Mysterious child!’

  ‘She needs a proper supper.’

  ‘Kieran’s cooking.’

  ‘Cooking for three, then. And pay her proper regard.’

  Olivia made a face at Harry. ‘See how scary she is!’

  Harry put on his coat. ‘Are you leaving now?’ he asked Frieda.

  ‘Yes. We can go together. Bye, Olivia,’ she added, cutting Olivia off mid-exclamation.

  They walked in silence down the street, and when they came to the main road, Frieda said, ‘There’s a bar just along the street that’s OK.’

  Harry ordered a glass of red wine for himself, a ginger beer for Frieda, and they sat at a table in the corner. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Family stuff,’ she said.

  ‘I gathered.’

  ‘Are her finances in a dreadful state?’

  ‘I’ve seen worse. That’s not what I wanted to say.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about you.’ He held up a hand before she could speak. ‘Not just about what I feel – that’s not what I want to talk to you about. I don’t want to be oppressive in any way. I’ve been thinking about what you’ve been going through recently. I get the impression you’re not good at confiding in people, but I know you’ve been having a rough time with everything that’s been going on, and I think you’re being extraordinarily strong and impressive about it, and I would very much like to help if I can. If only by being someone you can turn to, talk to.’ He sat back and ran his hand over his brow in self-mockery. ‘There. It’s not often I speak without irony for more than one sentence.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Frieda, simply.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘What do you know about my rough time?’

  ‘The complaint against you, and that book, then all the awful stuff in the papers.’

  ‘It’s been worse for other people.’

  He took a small sip of his red wine. ‘And you finding that poor woman’s body.’

  ‘How did you know that?’ Frieda asked.

  ‘Sorry. Olivia told Tessa and Tessa told me.’

  ‘How did Olivia know?’

  ‘I think her daughter told her. But before you ask, I’ve no idea how she knew.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I haven’t been spying on you. It was hard to avoid.’

  ‘I understand that.’ She looked at him and he didn’t drop his eyes.

  ‘How do you deal with it all?’

  ‘I’m not sure that I really do.’ She twisted her glass round. ‘It’s like winter. I just trudge through, head down, and hope that spring won’t be delayed.’

  That was it, she thought, the Frieda Klein method of survival, but not one she would recommend to her patients or her friends.

  ‘You just endure.’

  ‘I just try to endure.’

  ‘And if you can’t?’

  ‘I don’t have a choice.’

  Was that true? There had been times in her life that she had been so engulfed by darkness that she had had to grope her way through it, blindly, without hope and without expectation. ‘You just keep going because you keep going.’ Who had said that to her? Her father, and look at him, after all.

  ‘If you feel you can’t, remember there are people who would like to be there fo
r you.’

  ‘You hardly know me.’

  ‘I know enough.’

  She lifted her glass and took a fiery sip. ‘I’m fine, really. Just a bit tired.’

  ‘Is it this case?’

  ‘Partly.’ She frowned to herself, then continued, ‘When I first got involved with the police, it was because of the disappearance of a child. Two children, in fact.’

  ‘I know,’ said Harry. ‘I read about it.’

  ‘That was a crime everybody wanted to solve. It’s different with this man, Robert Poole. All we know about him is that he cheated people and exploited them. As your sister noticed, though she seemed to be the only one who did. I think what they mainly feel is that he’s not worth the trouble. Mainly they wish the case would just go away.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I suppose I’m discovering that the police are like everybody else. There are some parts of their work that interest them more than others.’

  ‘That reminds me of my cleaner,’ said Harry. ‘She’s from Venezuela. She loves dusting and she loves putting things into piles. What she doesn’t like is washing the really nasty bits behind and under things.’

  Frieda smiled. ‘In that analogy, Robert Poole is the bit behind the fridge that you can’t be bothered to wash because it means you have to move it.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever even thought of cleaning behind my fridge.’

  ‘But when you do move the fridge,’ said Frieda, ‘you’ll find something strange or something really important that you lost years ago.’

  Harry looked puzzled. ‘Are we talking about cleaning now or is this something more profound?’

  ‘That’s probably enough of the fridge comparison.’

  He touched her hand. ‘That stuff in the paper about Janet Ferris and Bob Poole: I’m sorry about it. You don’t deserve it.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Frieda musingly. ‘But thank you. I must go now. It’s been a long day. I’m grateful to you, Harry.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said softly. ‘Will you be in touch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’

  He watched her as she rose from her chair, gathered up her coat and bag, and walked with her swift, decisive steps from the bar. Outside, she passed by the window but didn’t turn her head towards him. He sat for a while after she had left, taking time over the last of his wine, thinking about Frieda’s face.