by Nicci French
‘Liz Barron. A journalist. We all know the consequences of a journalist being murdered.’
‘Yes.’
‘You know how many front pages this story has been on in the last month?’
‘Quite a few, I think,’ said Dugdale.
‘I can’t move for press. Jonah Martin, and now Jessica Colbeck. Twenty-one years old. She looks like my daughter. Like everyone’s daughter. Have you met her parents?’
Dugdale saw their faces when he closed his eyes. Pale, stunned, red-eyed. ‘I talked to them yesterday.’
‘Did you see them on television this morning? On the sofa?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘It made compelling television.’
Dugdale didn’t reply. Leigh turned her attention to Karlsson. ‘And you are here why?’
Karlsson coughed. ‘We all know that Dean Reeve is the main suspect in this case. We believe he used Geoffrey Kernan’s computer and that he used it to search for me.’
‘Why?’
‘His real target is a woman called Frieda Klein. He has a history with her.’
‘Yes, I know about Frieda Klein. In fact, she is responsible for my being here.’
‘How?’ said Dugdale.
‘She destroyed the career of my predecessor. I was brought in to pick up the pieces.’
‘I’m not sure that’s entirely fair,’ said Karlsson.
‘Then we’ll agree to disagree on that. Meanwhile, you have Klein under surveillance?’
There was a silence.
‘Not at this time,’ said Dugdale.
‘Why not?’
‘Because it was what she wanted.’
The words hung in the air.
‘Why is she doing this?’
Dugdale looked helplessly at Karlsson.
‘Frieda knew that Reeve was after her,’ Karlsson said. ‘I think she didn’t want to just wait for him to kill her. So she went off the radar.’
‘You mean to hide?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Possibly? What else could she mean to do?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Karlsson.
‘I did interview her,’ said Dugdale, a little desperately.
‘And you let her go?’
‘She hasn’t committed a crime.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’
There was a silence that was only broken by Leigh rapping the desktop. ‘I have a press conference first thing tomorrow,’ she said. ‘There are camera crews from America. From China. What am I to say?’
‘We’re making progress,’ said Dugdale. ‘Steady progress.’
‘That’s enough,’ said Leigh. ‘You’re coming with me. If that’s all we can say, I want you to be standing next to me.’
‘Are you going to say it’s Reeve?’ asked Dugdale.
She shook her head. ‘Not yet.’
‘But –’
‘Don’t think I haven’t thought it through,’ she interrupted sharply. ‘I have decided, on balance, that it is better to keep this secret for the time being. Can you imagine the attention and the panic there would be if the public knew that Dean Reeve is behind all of this?’
‘The public can be our best weapon sometimes,’ said Dugdale.
‘I’ve made up my mind. It’s on my head. It might look different in a few hours’ time. It probably will. But for the time being, not a word. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Keep this leak-free.’
As the two detectives started to leave, Leigh nodded at Dugdale. ‘You realize what the consequence will be if this goes wrong?’
‘For Klein?’
‘For you,’ said Leigh. ‘And for me.’
‘I’ve considered it.’
She looked at Karlsson. ‘You’re sure she doesn’t have some kind of a death wish?’
‘She’s seen a lot of death. That does something to people. If she thought she’d be saving her friends, she’d do anything.’
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Leigh.
THIRTY-ONE
As soon as Frieda stepped through the door of the house Chloë had arranged, she was confronted with two small cat faces staring up at her, their eyes huge and round. She pushed the door shut and leaned down to stroke them. They both lifted their noses towards her hand, then suddenly streaked up the stairs with a patter of paws. She put her bag down and looked around. There was a mirror on the wall in an ornate golden frame. Next to it a key dangled from a nail. She looked at the key in her hand. It was the same. She began to explore the house. On the left of the hallway was a living room that had been knocked together from two smaller rooms. It was cosily decorated with a blue woven rug on the wooden floor, rustic landscapes on the walls. Another cat, large and black, was curled up asleep on the sofa. Frieda stroked its head gently and it shifted but didn’t get up. It was old and content. She looked around, checking the exits and entrances. At the far end of the room a barred window gave onto a small backyard. Nobody could get in or out that way.
She returned to the hall and walked up the stairs. The house was tiny. There was a bedroom at the front, overlooking the street, then a small bathroom and at the back another tiny bedroom. A black and white cat was lying on the bed: there seemed to be cats in every room. It looked up at Frieda and she stroked its back as she stared out of the window onto the paved yard. Frieda noted that this row of houses didn’t back onto the gardens of another row of houses. Instead there was a gate in the wall that led into an alley that ran parallel with the street. It made the house less secure than she would have liked. You can get in from the front and you can get in from the back. That was something to bear in mind.
She walked down the stairs and then along the short hallway to the kitchen at the back of the house. There were windows on two sides, all with heavy bars on. It was because the access from the alley was so easy. It wasn’t very reassuring. At the end of the kitchen a door opened not into the yard but into a more basic room, with a sink and a washing-machine. There was another door, with heavy bars, that led outside. Both doors had keys in their locks. She turned one of the keys and opened the door into the yard. It was paved, edged with loose gravel. There were no plants except for one sad, straggling ivy trailing from a large pot in one of the corners. Frieda immediately thought of the pots she would have arranged, the plants that would soften the space, then smiled at the irrelevance of thoughts of that kind. That was all for another life, a life she wasn’t living.
The back wall was quite high, eight feet perhaps, with a heavy grey wooden gate. Frieda turned its brass handle. Locked. She walked back into the utility room and looked around. There it was. Another key was hanging from a hook above the washing-machine. She returned to the kitchen. She had seen everything and felt she had it in her head. Nice place.
She opened some cupboards until she found a tumbler. She filled it with water and drank it in one gulp. Then she refilled it and sat at the kitchen table. She took out her phone and dialled Dugdale’s direct line.
‘Well?’ he said. He sounded abrupt. His voice had a rough edge to it that she hadn’t heard before.
‘I’ve moved,’ she said, but before she could give him the address, he had changed the subject.
‘I’ve just met your young friend,’ said Dugdale.
‘How is she?’
‘Shaky.’
‘Did you learn anything from her?’
‘There wasn’t much to learn. She found the body. She was in a state of shock.’
‘Of course she was.’
‘She talked about you a lot. Like she’s relying on you.’
‘She’s in a precarious situation.’
‘There’s something else. You’d hear it soon enough anyway.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve found where Reeve kept the bodies.’
‘Where?’
‘East. A lock-up in Barking, in an industrial area near the river. He had four freezers.’
‘Empty?’
‘What now?’
‘I’ve been talking to the commissioner. If it was up to her, we’d haul you in and put you under guard.’
‘That would be a disaster,’ said Frieda.
‘For who? You’d be safe. Reeve couldn’t get at you.’
‘He’d get at someone.’
‘Well, we’re doing what we can. We’re conducting a door-to-door both there and where young Jess Colbeck was killed. But it is pretty clear that Reeve hasn’t been to the lock-up for some time – probably since Liz Barron was murdered. He didn’t need it after that. OK, I’ve got a pen. Let me have your address.’
When the call was over, Frieda sat for a few moments, staring ahead and seeing nothing. Then she remembered what she was there to do. Boxes of cat food were piled up on one of the work surfaces. She took out four sachets and squeezed them into four feeding bowls. She put the bowls on the floor. The two young cats were already at her feet, clambering up her legs. She realized she didn’t know their names.
‘You can be A and B,’ she said to them. She walked into the hallway and saw the cat from upstairs padding down. ‘You can be C,’ she said, as he, or she, walked past her into the kitchen. The remaining cat – D – was still lying asleep on the sofa.
‘Old thing,’ said Frieda, picking it up and carrying it through to the kitchen. She placed it on the floor in front of the food bowl but D was apparently unable to see or smell the food. Frieda had to push its head down into the bowl until it noticed and started eating.
She needed to buy some food, washing-up liquid, soap. Instead of leaving through the front door, she went out the back way, unlocking the gate in the yard and walking along the cobblestones in the alley. It led under a railway arch and then along another even narrower alley. A short walk brought her into the noise of Commercial Road.
Back in the house she ate a simple salad of tomato and avocado and a bread roll. She felt as if she had taken a wrong turning and didn’t know whether to retrace her steps or to keep going.
After she had gone to bed in the front room upstairs, cats A and B appeared in the doorway, explored the room and then jumped up beside her. When she tried to stroke them, they ran away, streaking out of the door with a rattle of paws and claws on the wooden floor. But they came back and she could hear their soft breathing in the darkness.
She lay awake for hours, thinking about Jess, about the bodies in the freezer, about Lola, and then she suddenly wondered whether she had remembered to lock the back door. Surely she must have done. But she couldn’t be certain. So she got up and walked downstairs in the dark. She was alert to every sound but there was nothing except a hum of traffic and a rattle of a train passing. The back door was locked. Of course she had locked it.
Chloë looked in dismay at the scene on the upper floor of Frieda’s house. The floorboards were up. The back window had been removed and the wall beneath it partially dismantled. The two steel joists had replaced the wooden ones in the floor and were projecting out into the space above the backyard. Josef and Stefan were sitting in one corner drinking tea from a flask.
‘Can I ask a question?’ said Chloë.
Josef nodded.
‘Don’t you need planning permission to do something like this?’
Josef shrugged. ‘Is invisible.’
‘It’s not in any sense invisible.’
‘No. Nobody see from the road. Nobody look on it. When we finish, it is like always here. No problem.’
There was so much Chloë could have said in reply. She knew of people being prosecuted for illicit building work, of people who had had to restore the property to its original state at their own expense. There seemed little doubt in her mind that Josef and Stefan were conducting illegal building works using stolen property. But in the larger scheme of things, looking at what Frieda was up against, Josef was probably right. Frieda should have her little garden in the sky.
THIRTY-TWO
Dugdale had never liked giving press conferences. He knew he wasn’t good at them and always wished that someone else could do them for him instead. Standing next to Commissioner Leigh wasn’t much better. He felt like a human shield, there to absorb as much of the blast as possible.
The hall was crammed with journalists and there was an almost palpable air of excitement in the room. Cameras flashed. Mikes were held out. He stared at the sea of faces and saw how hyped up they all were. Tiredness pressed down on him. He had been up all night, drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups on the hour, trying to co-ordinate the two new operations. He was hungry and felt stale; his eyes throbbed and he rubbed them.
Leigh gave a brief, essentially meaningless statement. Then questions were asked in a variety of accents. Some of them were aimed at Dugdale. He was asked if there were any leads. He was asked what he had to say to the victims’ families. He was asked how he felt. Afterwards he went to the bathroom and scooped cold water over his face. He saw that his shirt-collar was turned in on itself and the shave he had given himself before he went into the conference had been inadequate. He shrugged: the investigation was what mattered.
The meeting room was barely large enough for the officers who had assembled. Dugdale took off his jacket, aware of the rings of sweat round his armpits, and spoke sombrely. He felt as though someone else was doing the talking. As he dispassionately described the death of Jessica Colbeck, he recalled the scene-of-crime photos. She was so young, there was so much blood. The pathologist said the artery had been entirely severed. Like butchery. He wished she hadn’t said that.
The inside of his mouth felt furry and he took a sip of water.
‘Although it was a terrible day,’ he continued, ‘it was also a day which I feel certain will lead us to Dean Reeve.’
He looked from face to face. They were all exhausted. They knew what was happening, they realized the urgency, they didn’t need him to tell them.
Afterwards, Dugdale waved Quarry over. ‘Find out where those freezers came from,’ he said.
‘Probably Freecycle or eBay or something like that,’ said Quarry. ‘They were old. One of them’s half rust. I’ll get Phelps to do a comprehensive online search. We’ve got all the photos now.’
Dugdale nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We’re closer now than we’ve ever been. I feel it. I can almost smell it.’
At just after nine the next morning, when Frieda had fed the cats and was sitting in front of the computer, her mobile rang.
‘Frieda. It’s me.’ Lola’s voice was hoarse and loud, as if she had been calling for hours to Frieda across a ravine.
‘I know. Tell me how you are.’
‘I’m outside your door. Are you out somewhere or just not answering?’
‘My door?’
‘Yes.’
Frieda realized that, of course, Lola had no idea she had moved.
‘Why are you there?’
‘Where are you? When are you back?’
‘Lola, I told you to go to Karlsson and he’d make you safe. What are you doing there?’
‘I need to talk to you. I need to see you.’
‘What about?’
‘I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel safe anywhere. I need to be with you. Please. Please, Frieda. I’ll go mad.’ Lola started to sob wildly.
There was a long pause.
‘Stay where you are. I have to think about this. I’ll phone you back in a few minutes.’
Frieda sat very still, then called Lola.
‘Do you remember after the inquest, when we walked on the canal past Camden Lock?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then listen carefully. I want you to do that again. Go to Camden Lock, get on the canal and turn right, the Regent’s Park way. Keep walking until you get to the very end of the towpath. Then wait.’
‘What for?’
‘Just do as I say. And do it now.’
The line went dead.
Frieda stood on the bridge over the canal, but on the Regent’s P
ark side of it, out of sight. Ahead, on both sides of the canal, was the zoo. A barge was coming towards her with a slow, chugging sound. At the rear of the boat stood a grey-haired couple, both holding mugs. The woman had her other hand on the tiller. The man looked up at Frieda. His face was impassive. He didn’t smile and he didn’t wave.
It was a weekday morning, but even so the towpath was busy. There were cyclists in both directions, people leading dogs, mothers or fathers or nannies with small children. And then there she was, walking more slowly than she usually did, as if her feet were heavy. Frieda felt a wave of sadness at the sight of Lola, her hands in the pockets of her short blue jacket, her eyes looking down in front of her, her hair in childish pigtails. Who was there to look out for her?
Enough of that, though. Frieda needed to concentrate. Lola passed under the bridge but Frieda didn’t follow her with her gaze. Instead she looked behind. She could see a long way. There were two different cyclists, a woman and a man. There was a runner, late-middle-aged, bespectacled, balding, out of breath. There was a woman pushing a buggy. There were two women in active conversation. And that was all. Frieda forced herself to wait another couple of minutes. Three more cyclists appeared. A man with a dog. A young female runner.
Nobody was keeping Lola under observation.
She took out her phone and dialled. She saw Lola reach into her pocket
‘Frieda, where are you? I’m scared.’
‘Walk back the way you came,’ said Frieda. ‘Just before the canal turns sharply to the left, take the steps up to the right.’
Frieda stayed for a few moments watching as Lola retraced her steps. She looked at the people who had been behind the girl and were now in front of her. None of them reacted. She had done all she could.
Lola walked past the giant birdcage and then up the steps. She didn’t know what to look for but then saw, across the road, a black taxi with a door open and Frieda leaning out. She ran across, stepped inside and shut the door. The cab pulled away.
Lola put her head against Frieda’s shoulder. Her skin felt sore and frail and her eyes hurt. ‘I’m so, so glad to see you,’ she said. ‘I wanted to …’