by Nicci French
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?’
‘I felt exposed.’
‘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 rituals 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 –’
‘I said I’ll be there.’
Karlsson put the phone back in its holster, already regretting his sharpness. It wasn’t Yvette’s fault.
Later, after Mikey and Bella had been collected by their mother and he’d gone for a run, he paced the garden with one of his illicit cigarettes. Birds were singing in the dusk, but that just made him feel sourer and more defeated. He went indoors and picked up the phone, then sat on the sofa where his children had been just a couple of hours previously. He held the phone and stared at it as if it could tell him something. At last, before he could change his mind, he called Frieda’s number. He had to talk to someone and she was the only person he could bear to unburden himself to. The phone rang and rang; he could almost hear it echoing in her tidy, empty house. She wasn’t there. He called her mobile, although he knew that she almost never turned it on or even listened to messages left there – sure enough, it went straight to voicemail.
He closed his tired, sore eyes and waited for the feeling to recede. The thought of work was a relief from the thought of life.
‘What was it like?’ said Sasha, later that evening.
‘When I got out of the tube,’ said Frieda, ‘on the way back from the airport, it was quite strange. For just a moment, London seemed different. It looked grubby and stunted and quite poor. It was like moving to the third world.’
‘I was really asking you about New York.’
‘You’ve seen the movies,’ said Frieda. ‘You’ve probably been there several times. You know what it’s like.’
‘When I was asking you about New York, I was really asking you about Sandy.’
‘He thinks I should move there,’ said Frieda. ‘He says I should be somewhere that’s less dangerous.’
‘And be with him.’
‘Yes. That too.’
‘Are you tempted?’
‘I said no before,’ said Frieda. ‘Now – I don’t know. I miss him. But I’ve got things to do here. Things that need finishing. Now, when am I going to meet this new man of yours?’
Frieda, my dearest heart, it all feels like a dream. You here in this city, this fla
t, this bed. Everything feels different now. Thank you for being here and remember everything I said. We’ve come too far together to stop now. We’re on a journey together.
TWENTY-THREE
At twenty past eight, Karlsson was standing on the edge of a vast crater in the heart of the city, looking at the activity in front of him: small diggers trundled across mashed earth, cranes lowered huge pipes into trenches, men in yellow jackets and hard hats gathered in groups, or sat on top of machines, operating their articulated metal arms. Around the site were several Portakabins, some of them seeming almost as permanent as the buildings they were next to.
He saw Yvette walking towards him. She looked solid and competent to him, with her robust shoes and her brown hair tied tightly back. He wondered what he looked like to her: he felt fragile, incomplete. His head banged from the three whiskies he’d drunk last night, and his stomach felt hollow.
‘Morning,’ she said cheerfully.
‘Hi.’
‘He said he’d meet us in the office.’ Yvette jerked her head towards the main Portakabin, a few yards away, with wooden steps leading up to the door.
They made their way over the rutted ground and up the steps, then Yvette knocked at the door, which was opened almost at once. The man in front of them was also wearing a yellow jacket, although his was over a pair of brown corduroy trousers and a grey-striped shirt. He was solidly built, with a creased face and brown eyes. Although he could only have been in his mid-forties, his hair was a thick silver-grey.
‘Paul Kerrigan?’
‘That’s me.’
Yvette held up her ID. ‘I’m DC Yvette Long,’ she said. ‘We spoke on the phone. And this is DCI Malcolm Karlsson.’
Karlsson looked into the man’s soft brown eyes and felt a tremor of anticipation. He nodded at him.
‘You’d better come in.’
They entered the Portakabin, which smelt of wood and coffee. There was a desk in there, a trestle table and several chairs. Karlsson sat to one side and let Yvette ask the questions. He already knew that they had reached a watershed: he could feel the inquiry shifting under their feet, turning into something altogether different and unexpected.