by Nicci French
‘What about his car? Do you remember its colour, its make?’
She screwed up her face in concentration. ‘Silver, I think. But I might be saying that because most cars are silver. Honestly, I can’t remember anything, really. I’m sorry.’
‘Nothing?’
‘I’m sorry, it was just a blur even then and now it’s seven years ago. I remember the man and the feeling of his hand on my throat and the car revving and revving, and that’s all.’
Fearby wrote everything – such as it was – in his notebook.
‘And he didn’t say anything?’
‘He asked for directions, like I said. He may have said things when he was grabbing me. I don’t remember.’
‘And you never heard back from the police?’
‘I didn’t expect to.’
Fearby closed his notebook. ‘Well done,’ he said.
She looked puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You fought him off.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she said. ‘It didn’t feel like me. It was like watching myself on TV.’ She picked up her phone. ‘I’ve got to get back.’
TWENTY-ONE
Frieda didn’t know New York: it was an abstract to her, a city of shadows and symbols, of steam rising from drains; a place of arrivals and scatterings.
She liked flying in when it was still dark, though dawn showed in a ribbon of light, so that everything was partially hidden from her, just a shifting pattern of massed buildings and pulsing lights, life glimpsed through windows. Soon she would see it laid out clear before her, its mystery resolving into plainness.
She hadn’t told Sandy she was coming because she hadn’t known that she was. It was early morning and he would still be in bed, so she did what she always did when she felt uncertain: she walked, following the map she had bought, until at last she was on Brooklyn Bridge, looking back at the skyline of Manhattan, which was at once familiar and alien. Frieda thought of her own narrow little house, surrounded by a network of small streets. There, she knew when a shop’s shutters had been newly painted, or a plane tree had been pruned. She thought she could have found her way blind to her front door. Suddenly she felt almost homesick and could barely comprehend the instinct that had sent her there.
By seven o’clock she was in Sandy’s neighbourhood, but she hesitated to wake him yet. The day was cool and cloudy, with a blustery wind that threatened rain. Even the air smelt different there. She made her way up the street to a small café, where she ordered a coffee, taking it to one of the metal tables by the window that looked out on to the street. She was cold, tired and full of a thick and mysterious trouble. She couldn’t work out if this came from the events of the past weeks, or from being there, of being about to see Sandy again. She had missed him so, yet now she couldn’t imagine seeing him. What would they say to each other and what could possibly match the intensity of their separation? It occurred to her, with a force that made her flinch, as if she’d been hit hard in the stomach and winded, that perhaps she had come to end things with Sandy. Once the thought had occurred to her, it settled like lead in her stomach. Was that it, then?
The little room filled up with people. Outside, it began to drizzle, spattering the window so the shapes in the street outside wavered and blurred. She felt far from herself – there but not there, alone in a teeming city, invisible. The grey sky made her feel as if she was under water; the journey made time into a kaleidoscope. Maybe she should leave before anything happened, pretend she had never been there.
Sandy, walking past the deli on his way back from the bakery on the corner where he always bought freshly baked rolls for breakfast, glanced briefly at the window of the café, then away again. But with a corner of his vision he had caught sight of a face that reminded him of someone – and he looked back again, and through the raindrops on the glass he saw her. She was sitting with her chin resting in one hand, gazing straight ahead. For a moment, he wondered if he was dreaming. Then, as if she could feel his eyes on her, she turned her head. Their eyes met. She gave the smallest smile, drained her coffee, stood up and left the café, emerging on to the street. He saw how she still limped; how tired she looked. His heart turned over. She had a leather satchel slung over her shoulder, but no other luggage.
‘Christ. What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come to see you, obviously.’
‘Christ,’ he repeated.
‘I was about to call you. I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘You know me.’ He rubbed his unshaven cheek and stared at her. ‘Early riser. What time is it for you?’
‘I don’t know. No time. Now.’
‘So you’ve just been sitting here, waiting?’
‘Yes. What’s in the bag?’
‘Breakfast. Do you want some?’
‘That would be nice.’
‘But, Frieda –’
‘What? Is there some other woman in your flat?’
Sandy gave a shaky laugh. ‘No. No other woman in my flat just now.’
He untied the belt of her raincoat and took it off her, hanging it on the hook beside his own coat. She liked the way he took such care. He unzipped her boots and took them off, pairing them against the wall. He led her to his bedroom and closed the thin brown curtains, so the light became dim and murky. The window was slightly open and she could hear the sounds of the street; the day beginning. Her body felt soft and slack – desire and fatigue and dread plaited loosely together until she couldn’t tell them apart. He peeled off her clothes and folded them, putting them on the wooden chair, then unclasped the thin necklace she was wearing and trickled it on to the windowsill. He ran his fingers over her scars, over her tired, stale, jetlagged body. All the while she looked at him steadily, almost curiously, as if she was making up her mind about something. He wanted to close his eyes to her scrutiny, but couldn’t.
Later, she had a shower while he made her coffee, strong and hot, and she drank it in bed with the thin sheet pulled over her.
‘Why did you suddenly decide to come?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘When are you here until?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Tomorrow!’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we have to make the most of the time we have.’
Frieda slept, but shallowly, so that she heard Sandy make calls in the other room cancelling arrangements, while the sounds of the street entered her dreams. They walked through the neighbourhood and bought cooking utensils for Sandy’s flat and ate a late lunch in a deli. Sandy talked about work, people he’d met, Brooklyn, their summer plans. He mimicked colleagues, acted out scenarios, and she remembered the first time they’d met. She had thought him another of those doctors – maybe a surgeon, he had a surgeon’s hands – self-possessed, amiable, charming when he wanted to be with maybe a touch of the ladies’ man about him. Not of interest to her. But then she’d heard his buoyant gust of laughter and seen how his smile could be wolfish, sardonic. He could be detached sometimes, anger made him mild and aloof, but at others he was almost womanly. He cooked meals for her with a delicate attention to detail; had a relish for gossip; tucked the sheet under the mattress with a hospital corner, the way his mother must have taught him while he was still little and, by his own account, fiercely shy.
Only when Frieda was more relaxed did he ask her any questions. Frieda told him about the Lennox family, gave him news of her friends. They were both conscious that something lay ahead of them, some subject to be broached, and now they circled it cautiously, waiting.
‘And that news story?’ he asked.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘But I do. You’re here for twenty-four hours. We have to talk about things like that.’
‘Have to?’
‘You can’t intimidate me with that voice, Dr Frieda Klein.’
‘I didn’t like it. Is that what you want to hear?’
‘Did you feel humiliated?’
‘When you want always to be invisible. Were you angry?’
‘Not like Reuben.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Now he was angry. Still is.’
‘And did you feel that you acted improperly at all?’
Frieda scowled at him and he waited patiently.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said eventually. ‘But maybe I have to feel justified, or it would be too painful. But I really don’t believe so. The man who came to me was a charlatan. He wasn’t a psychopath, just acting out the part. Why should I have taken him seriously?’
‘Did you know that at the time?’
‘In a way. But that isn’t really the point.’
‘What is the point?’
‘The point is that what happened has set me off on something.’
‘What does that mean, set you off?’
‘The man who came to me told me a story.’
‘I know that.’
‘No,’ Frieda said impatiently. ‘There was a story within the story and I felt …’ She stopped, considered. ‘I felt summoned.’
‘That’s an odd word.’
‘I know.’
‘You have to explain.’
‘I can’t.’
‘What was the story?’
‘About cutting someone’s hair. A feeling of power and tenderness. Something sinister and sexual. Everything else was sham, phoney, but this felt authentic.’
‘And it summoned you?’ Sandy was staring at her with a worried expression on his face that Frieda found infuriating. She looked away.
‘That’s right.’
‘But to what?’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
‘Not now, Sandy.’
They ate in a small fish restaurant a short walk from the flat. The rain had stopped and the wind had died down. The air smelt fresher. Frieda wore a shirt of Sandy’s over her linen trousers. There was a candle between them, a bottle of dry white wine, hunks of bread and olive oil. Sandy told Frieda about his first marriage – how it had become an aridly competent affair by the end. How they had wanted different things.
‘Which were?’
‘We imagined the future differently,’ said Sandy. He looked to one side.
Frieda examined him. ‘You wanted children?’
‘Yes.’
A small, weighty silence wedged itself between them.
‘And now?’ she asked.
‘Now I want you. Now I imagine a future with you.’
At three in the morning, when it was as dark and as quiet as a great city ever gets, Frieda put a hand on Sandy’s shoulder.
‘What?’ he murmured, turning towards her.
‘There’s something I should say.’
‘Shall I turn the light on?’
‘No. It’s better in the dark. I’ve asked myself if we should end this.’
There was a moment of silence. Then he said, almost angrily: ‘So at the moment of most love and trust between us, you think of leaving?’
She didn’t say anything.
‘I never had you down for a coward,’ he said.
Still Frieda lay against him in silence. Words seemed futile.
‘And what have you answered yourself?’ he asked, after a while.
‘I haven’t.’
‘Why, Frieda?’
‘Because I’m no good for anyone.’
‘Let me decide that.’
‘I am chock full of unease.’
‘Yes.’ His voice was soft again in the darkness, his hand warm on her hip. She could feel his breath in her hair.
‘Dean’s still out there. He’s been to my father’s grave –’
‘What? How do you know?’
‘Never mind that now. I know. He wants me to know.’
‘You’re sure that –’ She made an impatient movement and he stopped.
‘Yes, I’m certain.’
‘That’s horrible and incredibly disturbing. But Dean can’t get between the two of us. Why should you want to end things with us because of a psychopath?’
‘When I said I felt summoned –’
‘Yes.’
‘It feels a bit like going into the underworld.’
‘Whose underworld? Yours?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then, Frieda, don’t go there. It was just a stupid story. It’s your mood talking, the trauma you’ve been through. It’s not rational. You’re mistaking depression for reality.’
‘That’s too easy to say.’
‘Can I ask you something without you closing down on me?’
‘Go on.’
‘When your father killed himself and you found him …’ he felt her stiffen ‘… you were fifteen. Did you ever talk to anyone about it?’
‘No.’
‘And since then?’
‘Not as such.’
‘Not as such. Don’t you think that all this,’ he made an invisible gesture, ‘all this about Dean, about your work with the police, this new idea you’ve got about some story summoning you – all of this is just about you as a teenage girl finding your father hanging from a beam? Not saving him? And that’s what you should be thinking of, rather than charging off on another rescue mission?’
‘Thank you, Doctor. But Dean is real. Ruth Lennox was real. And this other thing …’ She turned her body so that now she was lying on her back, gazing up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ she admitted.
‘Stop all that you’re doing. Stay here. Stay with me.’
‘You should be with someone who’s happy.’ She added: ‘And who you can have children with.’
‘I’ve made my choice.’
‘But –’
‘I’ve made my choice. If you want to leave me because you no longer love me, then I have to accept that. But if you want to leave me because you love me and it scares you, I won’t accept it.’
‘Listen to me.’
‘No.’
‘Sandy –’
‘No.’ He propped himself up on one arm and leaned over her. ‘Trust me. Let me trust you. I’ll come into the underworld with you if you want. I’ll wait for you at its entrance. But I won’t be sent away.’
‘You’re a very stubborn man.’
Limb against limb; mouth against mouth; bodies losing their boundaries. Light spilling into darkness and dawn returning.
A few hours later, Frieda packed her toothbrush, checked her passport, said goodbye as if she was going round the corner to the newsagent. She’d always hated farewells.
TWENTY-TWO
It was the weekend and Karlsson had cancelled all arrangements so that he could spend two clear days with Mikey and Bella. His chest ached with the knowledge that in a few days they would be gone, far away from him, just photographs on his desk that he would stare at, tinny voices at the end of the phone, jerky images on Skype. Every minute with them felt precious. He had to stop himself holding Bella too close, stroking Mikey’s hair until he squirmed away from him. They mustn’t know how much he minded them going or feel anxious and guilty for him.
He took them to the pool at Archway, where there was a twisting slide into the deep end and wave machines that made them shriek with gleeful fear. He threw them up into the air, let them duck him, ride on his shoulders. He dived under the turquoise water, his eyes open, and saw their white legs thrashing around among all the other legs. He watched them as they raced into the shallow end, two squealing figures, their eyes pink from the chlorine.
They went to the playground and he pushed them on the swings, spun the roundabout until he was dizzy, crawled through a long plastic tube behind them and climbed up a pile of rubber tyres. My children, he thought, my boy and girl. He held their smiles in his mind for later. They ate ice creams and went to lunch at a Pizza Express. Everywhere he looked, he seemed to see single fathers. He had made mistakes, he had always put work first, thinking he had no choice, and he had missed the bedtime ritua
ls and the morning chaos. There had often been several days in a row when he hadn’t seen his children at all, out before they woke and home after they slept, and had once flown home from holiday early. He had let his wife take up the slack and he hadn’t understood the consequences until it was far too late, and there was no way back. Was this the price he had to pay?
They played a board game that he made sure he lost and he showed them a very simple magic trick he’d learned with cards, and they shouted at him as if he was a wizard. Then he put on a video and the three of them sat on the sofa together, him in the middle, warm and full of sadness.
When the phone rang, he ignored it and at last it stopped. Then it rang again. Mikey and Bella looked at him expectantly and moved away, so he reluctantly stood up, went over to it and picked it up from its holster.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Yvette.’
‘It’s Sunday.’
‘I know, but …’
‘I’m with my kids.’ He hadn’t told her they were leaving. He didn’t want anyone at work to know and pity him. They’d start inviting him out for drinks after work, stop thinking of him as the boss and think of him as a poor sap instead.
‘Yes.’ She sounded flustered. ‘I just wanted to keep you in the loop. You told me I should.’
‘Go on.’
‘Ruth Lennox went somewhere before she went home: a flat near Elephant and Castle. We’ve managed to trace the landlord; he was away so it took a bit of time. He seemed relieved to find that we were only contacting him about a murder,’ she added drily. ‘He confirmed that the flat was rented to a Mr Paul Kerrigan, a building surveyor.’
‘And?’
‘I talked to Mr Kerrigan. And there’s something up. I don’t know what. He didn’t want to talk over the phone. We’re meeting him tomorrow morning.’
There was a silence. Yvette waited, then said forlornly: ‘I thought you’d like to know.’
‘What time?’
‘Half past eight, at the building site he’s currently working on. The Crossrail development, down on Tottenham Court Road.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘Do you think –’