by Nicci French
‘I will let you know. If I think of anything.’
Afterwards, Karlsson had thought of something. When he had heard that Dean Reeve had been doing searches on him, a part of him had felt secretly pleased: Reeve had been thinking of him as someone close to Frieda, someone she would turn to and confide in, who might know where she was. But the fact was, he didn’t know where she was because she hadn’t turned to him and confided in him. He found it painful to accept that she had left without saying goodbye or explaining her plans to him. Which was why, on his day off, he had found himself walking through Regent’s Park and up towards Reuben’s house.
Reuben McGill had the gauntness, the grey pallor that months of chemotherapy give. There were new lines and creases in his face; his hair was curlier than it used to be. He gave a sardonic grin. ‘I’ve been half expecting you. I’ve got twenty minutes before I have to be at the Warehouse. Come in.’
Karlsson followed him into the kitchen. There were vodka bottles on the table, and on the floor several tools were laid out on a grubby towel. A cat – Frieda’s cat – lay on one of the chairs.
‘I didn’t know you were coming or I’d have cleared up a bit,’ said Reuben, emptying the contents of an ashtray into the bin. ‘Coffee? Tea? Something stronger?’
‘Coffee will be fine.’
Reuben filled the kettle, then sat opposite Karlsson at the kitchen table, propping his chin on one hand and looking at him with amused curiosity. ‘You’ve come about Frieda.’
‘Do you know where she is?’ He stopped. ‘I suppose if you know you wouldn’t tell me. Can you at least tell me if she’s all right? What is she doing? When is she coming back?’
‘So many questions.’ Reuben stood up and poured water over the coffee in the pot. ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘You’re right I wouldn’t tell you, not if she’d asked me not to, so you might not believe this. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know how she is. I don’t know what her plans are – something to do with Dean Reeve, I assume. I don’t know when she’s coming back.’ He put two mugs of coffee on the table and a bottle of milk. ‘Or if she’s coming back.’
‘She has to come back.’ Karlsson spoke before he could stop himself.
There was a silence. They looked at each other; their relationship had always been a wary one, but now with Frieda gone something had shifted.
‘Why?’ Reuben’s tone was unexpectedly kind. ‘Because you miss her?’
‘Because she might be in danger. I worry that she’ll do something reckless.’
‘Indeed,’ said Reuben. Frieda’s recklessness had marked both of their lives.
‘And self-destructive. She wouldn’t ask for help. She would think she couldn’t involve anyone else. I want to tell her that she can. Involve me, I mean.’
‘As a police officer?’
‘As her friend.’
‘Even if it’s not strictly legal?’
Karlsson nodded, and Reuben looked at him with an expression that was almost pitying.
‘Well,’ he continued softly, ‘I can’t help. God knows I wish I could. But I don’t know any more than you do. I don’t think anyone does, though of course she might have said something to Josef. You and I just have to do the hardest thing, which is to wait.’
TWENTY
‘Are you going to tell me why we’re here?’ Lola had found an old bar of chocolate in her bag and was munching it angrily.
‘See the names of the houses?’ Frieda gestured. ‘Shepherd’s Well, Conduit House.’
‘So?’
‘This is the Tyburn.’
‘This road?’
‘There’s a river underneath us.’
‘I still don’t get it. Is this just a tour of your hidden rivers?’
‘I don’t get it either,’ said Frieda. ‘I thought if I came here I might.’ She looked around her.
Lola pushed another square of chocolate into her mouth. ‘Why here? Why not some other river? Like –’ She floundered, trying to remember what she’d read about Frieda’s rivers.
‘Because the Tyburn runs between the Fleet and the Westbourne,’ Frieda replied. ‘Two rivers don’t make a pattern. Three would. Why would Dean miss out this one?’
Lola grimaced. ‘You mean, when you put yourself in the mind of a psychopathic murderer, you’d kill someone just here.’
‘Yes.’
‘But Dean didn’t. Where are we going now?’
‘This road is the course. You can see it and feel it.’
‘You may be able to. I can’t.’
They walked downhill, between the tall, red-brick houses, Frieda glancing constantly from side to side.
‘Are you looking for a body?’ asked Lola. ‘I think someone would have noticed.’
‘I know you’re angry,’ said Frieda. ‘And I can understand why. You’re probably feeling scared as well. But if you’re going to be with me, try to concentrate on what we’re doing. Like this.’
She had stopped just before a small row of shops: a florist, a wine shop, a small café. Propped against the wall was a white-painted bike. Even its leather saddle, its handlebars, pedals and chain were white. In its basket was a shrivelled bouquet of flowers.
‘There must have been a hit-and-run,’ said Lola.
Frieda looked up and down the road. ‘You wanted a coffee.’
The café had only four tables, two of which were occupied. Frieda ordered tea for herself and a cappuccino for Lola. ‘Do you want something to eat?’ she asked.
‘The flan looks nice.’
‘Good, and I’ll have the soup.’
The woman serving came across.
‘That ghost-bike outside?’ Frieda asked, after she had ordered. ‘What happened?’
‘A hit-and-run. He was found in the early morning by a passing motorist, lying on the road with his bike beside him.’
‘Who was he?’
‘I don’t know. Just a random cyclist.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘When?’ She seemed rather surprised at Frieda’s interest. ‘I can’t remember exactly. It would have been a Thursday because it was my day off and I didn’t hear about it until the next day.’
‘Last week? The week before? Or before that?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘We’re looking into road safety,’ said Lola, brightly. ‘For cyclists, that is. Was he wearing a helmet?’
‘It must have been October the sixth. I don’t know about the helmet.’
‘October the sixth,’ repeated Frieda, softly. ‘That would be about right.’
‘About right for what?’ asked Lola, once the woman had left.
‘Geoffrey Kernan was found on October the third, near the source of the Fleet, Lee Samuels on October the tenth, near the source of the Westbourne. This man was found on October the sixth, by the source of the Tyburn, which lies between those two rivers.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I think there’s a technical term for this. In fact, I know there is because we had a lecture about it, although I can’t remember the name. Aren’t you doing that thing we’re told never to do of looking for any evidence that will fit your theory and ignoring everything else?’
Frieda nodded at her approvingly. ‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘Or you could say that I have a hypothesis and I’m testing it.’
‘And your hypothesis is that Dean Reeve is working his way along the rivers as a sign to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘There is still that question of why two bodies were found on the same river.’
‘Perhaps he wanted to make quite sure they weren’t missed, the way this one seems to have been. And he chose Liz Barron to make doubly certain.’
The food arrived. Lola sank her knife into the soft, wobbly flan and gave a sigh of satisfaction. ‘Isn’t it great that even when things are crap you always know you can have a comforting meal?’
‘Gerald Hebb,’ said Frieda, reading from th
e computer later that day. ‘Forty-three. Victim of a hit-and-run and found on October the sixth.’
‘So nothing we didn’t already know,’ said Lola.
She had insisted on stopping at the shops on the way back and was now energetically cutting up aubergines and courgettes.
‘Not yet.’
‘You’ve only got one knife for cutting and it’s blunt. And you still don’t have any black pepper. Black pepper is essential, don’t you think? If you had to choose three spices on your desert island, what would they be? Mine would be ginger, black pepper and cinnamon.’
‘The inquest is tomorrow. I need to go to that.’
Lola threw the aubergine into a pan and wiped her palms down her trousers. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of thinking about it?’
‘Lola.’ Frieda lifted her eyes from the computer screen. ‘I have no choice.’
‘I thought psychotherapists say that you always have a choice.’
‘Usually that’s true. But I ran out of them.’
‘When your partner was killed?’
‘Sandy wasn’t my partner.’
‘That must have been like a nightmare.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you recovered?’
‘Recovered?’ Frieda turned her gaze on Lola.
‘Yes,’ Lola ploughed on. ‘I mean, are you over it?’
‘I don’t think one gets over things exactly. Do you?’
‘It’s just an expression.’
‘I think that the dead are always with us.’
‘Oh,’ said Lola, doubtfully. ‘Well, I don’t know about that.’
‘My friend Josef says that his dead wife comes to him in his dreams and it is his duty to be hospitable to her.’
‘I met him, I think. Sad brown eyes.’
‘That’s Josef.’
‘Frieda.’ Lola stopped chopping. ‘How long is all this going to last?’
‘I don’t know. It won’t be long.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just know.’
‘Don’t you miss your old life?’
Frieda turned her face away, staring out of the window at the darkening sky. But she didn’t speak.
Josef unlocked Frieda’s front door. He switched on the light, stooped and picked up the envelopes on the mat, then unlaced his boots and slid them off. He hung his jacket on the hook next to Frieda’s coat. He stood for a few seconds in the hall, listening. Then he went into the living room. The chess pieces still stood on the board where she had left them. He had twisted sheets of newspaper into tight balls, the way he had seen her do so many times, and laid them in the fireplace with kindling stacked on top, and he had fetched more logs and put them in the basket, ready for when she returned. He took the orange dahlias that he had brought into the kitchen and put them in the vase, throwing away the old flowers. He ran a cloth over the surfaces, took a dead fly from the windowsill, watered the pot of basil.
Josef came to Frieda’s house several times a week. He dusted and cleaned; he moved around the house quietly, slowly, ready to notice any change, making sure everything was ready for when she decided to come home.
But today was different. When he had performed his normal routine, he went to the kitchen and took two tumblers from one cupboard and a bottle of whisky from another. The bottle was only about a quarter full. He made a mental note to replace it, and if he was going to replace it then this needed drinking up. He poured a finger of whisky into one glass and then another finger into the second glass for himself, then looked at it and decided it wasn’t enough and poured a second finger. That was more like it. He took the two drinks and the bottle through to the living room and sat in an armchair. He took a gulp and waited.
He had emptied the glass, refilled it and emptied that one by the time the doorbell rang. It was Chloë. She came in and saw the two glasses on the table.
‘For you,’ said Josef.
‘For a moment I thought Frieda was here.’
She picked up the glass, clinked it against Josef’s and had a sip. ‘When you invited me here,’ she said, ‘my first hope was that Frieda would have come back, though of course I knew she hadn’t. And my second hope was that you would tell me where she is, or what the hell she’s up to.’
‘I do not know.’
‘If anyone knows, it’s you, Josef.’
He shook his head. ‘And, anyway, even to know where she is is dangerous maybe.’
‘Fucking Dean Reeve.’
All of Josef’s attention seemed to be focused on the problem of refilling his glass. When he was done he gestured towards Chloë’s.
‘No, thanks. I want to keep my thoughts clear,’ she said. ‘Josef, if you thought Frieda had some kind of death wish, if you thought she was going to let herself be killed by Dean Reeve as a way of getting him to stop, you’d prevent her, wouldn’t you?’
Josef was looking round the room, seeming to pay no attention, but then he turned to her. ‘How?’
‘By telling her. By telling us. By protecting her. By kidnapping her, if necessary.’
‘I do not know where she is.’
Chloë looked at Josef through narrow, suspicious eyes. ‘So Frieda isn’t here,’ she said. ‘And you’re not going to tell me anything about her or what her plans are. So why are we here? To steal her whisky?’
Josef looked indignant. ‘I buy new bottle. But we are not here to drink. Come.’
Chloë followed Josef as he walked up the stairs to the first floor and then to the second. He stood in front of a window in the rear wall of the house, just below the garret room in the roof. ‘Look,’ he said.
Chloë stepped to the window. ‘At what, specifically?’
‘You like view?’
The window looked out on the blank back wall of an office building. But it was only two storeys high. Above it you could see the jagged London skyline to the south, the BT Tower, church spires. ‘It’s all right. What about it?’
Josef pointed downwards. ‘You see roof?’
It was the flat roof of the bathroom on the floor below.
‘Yes.’
‘It feel bad, coming here, coming here, coming here, just picking up mail and watering plants. We do a surprise for Frieda.’
‘What kind of surprise?’ asked Chloë, warily.
Josef waved his hands as if he were conjuring with them. ‘Take window away, put door here. Make balcony there on roof. The wood decking, the railings. A place to sit in the evening, to sit, to drink.’ He looked round at Chloë with an enquiring expression.
‘Have you thought of running this by Frieda?’ she asked.
‘Is not possible.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I tell you it’s a surprise.’
Chloë frowned. ‘Why are you telling me about it?’
‘You make things. Like me. We do this together.’
‘All right,’ said Chloë. ‘Before I get into my manual-labourer role, I just want to make a couple of observations. I’m not sure that Frieda likes surprises.’
‘I surprise her before. With the bath. She was happy with that.’
Josef had indeed previously rebuilt Frieda’s bathroom without telling her in advance.
Chloë looked doubtful. ‘She was happy in the end. I’m not sure she enjoyed the actual process so much.’
‘She not here for process. Is perfect.’
There was a long pause.
‘I just can’t stop thinking,’ Chloë said, ‘about what Frieda would say if she knew we were in her house doing something like this without her permission.’
‘But she is not here.’
Another pause before Chloë spoke again. ‘I suppose we should check the roof. If it’s strong, we can put a platform on top.’
Josef shook his head. ‘We need beams.’
‘Beams? That sounds like a big job.’
‘No, no,’ said Josef. ‘Beams. Door here. Platform. Railing. All done.’
‘It’s easy to say the wor
ds.’
‘Think of us standing there. With drink. In evening.’
Chloë thought of it but didn’t reply.
Not far away, a man sat by a river in the dusk, whistling through his teeth, patiently waiting for a fish to bite.
TWENTY-ONE
Quarry knocked at the door of 39 Launceston Crescent and waited, ID in hand. He heard a sound, faint at first but then louder. A baby was crying. No, yelling. It hurt to listen even through the closed door.
Then the door swung open and the yelling became like a fire alarm. Quarry held out his ID to a thin, exhausted-looking woman, who was holding a large baby. Its mouth was opened so wide it almost swallowed the whole of its red, angry face. Attached to one of the young mother’s legs was a small boy. He’d seen the tired look that was on her face before. It reminded him of the period when the woman he’d married had become the woman he’d let down, the woman he argued with, the woman he found any excuse to avoid going home to.
‘Charlotte Beck?’ asked Quarry, raising his voice to be heard.
‘I can’t help it if she cries all night. What do they want me to do?’
‘Who are they?’
‘The neighbours,’ Charlotte Beck crooned, rocking her slightly.
The baby looked too large for her mother’s slight frame, and writhed in her arms so wildly that Quarry was scared she would fling herself to the floor. ‘The neighbours haven’t complained. At least not to me.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Can I come in?’
Charlotte stepped back to admit him. ‘I haven’t had time to clear up.’
She walked down the hall, her daughter howling over her shoulder and her son still attached to her leg so she dragged her foot along the floor, like a convict in chains. She was right that the living room was a mess – it looked as if there’d been an explosion in a toy factory, with wooden bricks and plastic figures and soft toys flung in all directions.
Charlotte Beck lowered herself into a chair with both children still stuck to her.
‘I’m here about the incident in Hampstead.’
‘I don’t think there’s anything I can add.’
The little boy was now trying to climb onto his mother’s lap, pushing away his howling sister as he did so.