by Nicci French
‘No.’
‘You haven’t even looked.’
The man slid his eyes across the photos. He pushed his plump hands into the pockets of his baggy jogging pants and waited.
‘It was probably a month ago,’ said Quarry. ‘Maybe two.’
‘I’m doing nothing wrong here. People bring stuff they don’t want. Or we collect it. We’re doing them a favour.’
‘I am not accusing you of anything.’
‘Like I said, a freezer’s a freezer.’
‘Or this man.’ He took out the photo of Dean Reeve.
Again the man barely looked. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘It’s important.’ Over the man’s shoulder, he could see shapes moving about. All men, all young, sorting out crap, hauling stolen goods along the grimy floor. ‘You don’t want me to interfere with your business, do you?’
‘I’m doing nothing wrong.’
‘Then look at this photo. I mean properly. And tell me if you’ve seen this man. And if I think you’re doing your best, as a concerned citizen, to help me, then I won’t start asking more questions. And I mean questions you really won’t want to answer.’
The man’s pink face darkened. He took the photo and stared at it. He held it at arm’s length, then drew it closer, so close he was only an inch or so away from the image. He tipped it as if something hidden might be revealed.
‘Sorry. We take stuff people don’t want and give them stuff they do, and they pay us for it and then I don’t think about them again.’
Quarry sighed and handed him his card. ‘If you remember anything,’ he said.
The man slid it into his back pocket. ‘Yeah,’ he said, turned and walked away.
THIRTY-FIVE
Frieda woke Lola at four that afternoon. She was curled on the leather sofa in the front room with the old, blind cat lying against her shoulder.
‘How long have I slept?’
‘Only an hour or so. I thought I should wake you now so that you can sleep properly tonight. How are you feeling?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Of course you’re not fine. But in the meantime we’re going to the shops. You can do an impersonation of being fine by doing something normal.’
‘Will that cure me?’
‘I don’t know, but it will help us get supper.’
There was a family store at the end of the road. Frieda looked at the shelves and Lola glanced from side to side and back towards the entrance, her eyes flickering nervously.
‘What do you want to eat tonight?’ asked Frieda.
Lola turned to her with a dazed expression. ‘I don’t know.’
Frieda bought a cauliflower, some cheddar cheese, butter, milk and a half-baked baguette. She added a small jar of mustard to the basket, two bars of chocolate, apples, a jar of marmalade and some porridge oats.
‘We can use their flour,’ she said.
Then she went over to the shelves of newspapers and picked out six national ones, folding them so that their glaring headlines and their photographs of Jess smiling broadly, a dimple in each cheek, were obscured. As she was paying, she noticed something behind the counter.
‘One of those,’ she said, pointing to a bottle of whisky.
‘I’ve never drunk whisky,’ Lola said. ‘It smells of disinfectant.’
‘It’s like drinking mud and fire.’
‘Is that a good thing?’
When they got home Lola sat in the kitchen with a mug of tea and a book by Gerald Durrell, and Frieda went into the living room with all the papers. She opened them one by one. Each led on the murder of Jess Colbeck, twenty-one years old and brutally killed in her flat. Each linked Jess’s death with the spate of London murders, which several papers called ‘an epidemic’. There were pictures of Dugdale, of the other victims. There were comment pieces and interviews with friends of Jess’s, not with her parents who were too distraught; she was their only child. Frieda read everything, scowling with concentration. It took her a long time, and when she had finished she took all the papers up to her room and put them out of sight.
Then she went into the kitchen and cooked a mustardy cauliflower cheese, which they ate with hunks of baguette. It was comforting, filling, and she was glad to see Lola had a second helping.
After, they went through into the living room. There were china-cat ornaments on all the shelves and a large photograph of Venice on the wall. Frieda opened the bottle of whisky and poured some into two tumblers. She handed one to Lola, who took a sip and started coughing.
‘It just needs practice,’ said Frieda.
Lola nodded and took another cautious sip. She screwed up her eyes and wrinkled her nose. ‘It almost stings.’ She put the glass on the small table. ‘You’ve been through terrible things,’ she said ‘Violent things. Aren’t you haunted by them?’
‘You saw me at the grave. Everything that happens to you becomes part of you. It’s like what you eat. You metabolize it.’ Frieda took a sip of her drink and then shook her head. ‘I don’t have any answers. We can’t make ourselves forget. We shouldn’t forget. But there are ways of remembering that are helpful and ways of remembering that are not. We shouldn’t go over and over bad things in our past, as if we want to polish them and harden them and preserve them.’ Then she looked at Lola with a keen expression. ‘It was terrible. If you think I can’t understand how terrible, I can. You can acknowledge it. You must confront it. But don’t give it power over you.’
Lola looked frightened. Her eyes grew huge in her round face. ‘Power over me? What do you mean?’
Frieda drained her glass. ‘It’s just something to think about.’
Frieda was woken by a noise. Of course, this house was surrounded by noises. Cars drove past. There was the rattle of a passing train in the distance. A couple shouted, saying terrible things they would regret in the morning. But this was different: it was a high, keening sound. Frieda unzipped the sleeping bag she had bought for herself and walked out of her room and into the smaller room where Lola was. She was scrunched up in bed, her arms wrapped around her head, rocking herself to and fro and crying. Frieda sat beside her, and put a hand on her shoulder. Lola jolted as if an electric current had passed through her and turned towards Frieda, glassy-eyed.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘No, no, no. Please.’
‘I’m here.’
‘Frieda.’
‘Tell me what you’re feeling.’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do.’
Lola sat up, pulling her covers round her. ‘All right. I wish I was dead. Except that wouldn’t help.’
‘No. It wouldn’t help.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Lola. ‘You can’t understand. I don’t know what to do with myself. What shall I do? I can’t bear this feeling. I feel like I’m splitting open with it.’
They sat in silence for a time.
‘You know, there’s a theory about human beings,’ said Frieda. ‘We’re not very fast and we’re not very strong. But we had an advantage over animals. We could run or walk and just keep going and going. Animals like deer could outrun us for a bit. But we could keep after them for hour after hour and in the end the deer would just give up. It would just stop and lie down and give up and be killed.’
‘I don’t know who I’m meant to be in that story. Because I sound more like the deer.’
‘That’s what Dean Reeve wants. He wants us all to fuel his pathetic fantasy of power by giving in to him.’
‘He’s killed a lot of people. That doesn’t sound so pathetic. Have you thought that maybe we are in his power and we’re just doing what he wants us to do?’
‘It’s not just you,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s the two of us. You do realize that, don’t you?’
Lola gazed at her, her lower lip trembling.
‘You’re not alone, Lola.’
‘Do you really think you can protect me?’ Lola was visibly shaking. ‘Could you protect Liz Barron? I read a
bout you and Dean, remember: could you protect that policeman who was working for you? Could you protect Dean Reeve’s brother? Could you protect any of the others?’
‘They all made mistakes,’ said Frieda. ‘It wasn’t their fault but they left themselves vulnerable to him. If we don’t do that, he can’t get at us.’
Lola turned away from Frieda and mumbled something.
‘I didn’t hear that,’ Frieda said.
‘I said, maybe we’ve left that too late.’
‘Do you want me to stay here while you go back to sleep?’
‘All right.’
Lola lay down again but her eyes were wide open. Her shoulders were tense.
‘Do you want to talk about it, Lola?’ There was a silence. ‘You can tell me anything. Anything at all. There is nothing that would shock me or that I wouldn’t understand.’
‘There was so much blood,’ said Lola. ‘It was like an abattoir. And Jess just looked at me. She stared at me and there was blood everywhere. Oh, God.’
‘She wasn’t seeing you.’
‘I close my eyes and I see her face. It was my fault. I don’t want this.’
‘Of course you don’t,’ said Frieda.
‘I want it never to have happened. I want to go back to the way things used to be, missing deadlines and hanging out with friends and worrying about whether Ben fancied me and being overdrawn.’
‘I know,’ said Frieda.
‘I’ll never get over it.’
‘You’ll never be the same,’ said Frieda. ‘But this feeling won’t last.’ She waited a few moments, then said: ‘If you have anything to say to me, this is a good time. It’s dark. You don’t need to look at me. You can just talk as if you were talking to yourself.’
‘I’m the last person in the world I want to talk to.’
Lola gave a hiccupy sob and closed her eyes. Frieda sat beside her and waited until her breathing had deepened. Then she got up, returned to her room and didn’t sleep for a long time.
THIRTY-SIX
Frieda hoped that Lola would be better in the morning but she looked almost worse. Pale with dark patches around her eyes. She was subdued, almost as if she had been medicated. Frieda made tea for them both and then porridge for breakfast. Lola seemed not to notice it and Frieda had to encourage her to eat, which she did with slow mechanical movements. But she didn’t speak and Frieda didn’t urge her.
‘We’re going out,’ said Frieda.
‘Where?’
‘You need a few more clothes.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Just a couple of things.’
Before they left, Frieda put her laptop into a shoulder bag and laid it on the kitchen table. They walked together up towards Commercial Road and then continued for a long way, all the way up to Spitalfields. Lola hardly spoke. She seemed even worse than when they’d set out. She kept chewing her lips, muttering to herself. Frieda looked at her with concern. When they arrived in the market, Frieda felt she had to say something.
‘Sometimes it’s good to talk about things,’ she said. ‘And sometimes it’s better not to talk at all. You decide. But I’m here, all right?’
‘Not now.’
They went into the large Gap store.
‘You just need something for the next couple of days. It doesn’t matter what.’
‘All right,’ said Lola. ‘Could you get me some knickers and socks?’
‘Sure.’
Frieda found some underwear. She spotted Lola at the far end of the shop, holding a big pile of clothes, and went across.
‘All of those?’ she asked.
‘No, but I thought I should try them on, or the trousers at least,’ said Lola. She glanced down at the heap of garments she was cradling: three pairs of jeans, a denim shirt dress, a sweatshirt with a large star on its front, two plain T-shirts and a grey hoodie. ‘I’ve lost weight since all of this. I don’t know what fits me any more.’ Large tears stood in her eyes. ‘I’m shrinking,’ she said.
‘OK. Shall I take the things you’re not trying on?’
Lola handed over everything but the three pairs of jeans and disappeared into the changing room. Frieda waited, feeling too hot in the crowded shop, and after several minutes Lola came out and handed over one pair of jeans.
‘Most of those are in the sale but you don’t need to buy everything,’ she said, looking at the clothes Frieda was holding.
‘It’s fine,’ said Frieda.
When they were done, they emerged from the market in front of the huge church.
‘Shall we make our way back?’ said Frieda.
‘Or could we get a coffee first? I feel trapped in the house, like it’s a prison. It feels better being out.’
So Frieda led her up the road to a coffee shop of artfully mismatched tables and chairs. She got a black coffee for herself and Lola some tea and they sat silently. Frieda looked across as Lola fiddled with her mug, ran her finger round the rim, picked it up and put it down again, did everything except drink it.
Finally she met Frieda’s gaze. ‘I don’t know how you’ve done all this. The things you’ve seen, the things you’ve been through. I don’t know how you’ve survived. You’re strong, much stronger than me.’
‘There are no easy answers,’ said Frieda. ‘Sometimes I think there aren’t any hard answers either. You carry on because it’s better than the alternative. Remember that I’m here. You can say anything to me and you can ask me anything. You don’t need to hide from the things that most terrify you – hiding can be the worst thing to do. Things feel better when they’re looked at.’
Lola gave her a wild look.
‘Come on, time to go,’ said Frieda, and they left the café.
Frieda took hold of Lola’s elbow as they crossed Commercial Street in the hot roar of traffic. She looked as if she might walk into a lorry, or fall over the kerb.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ Frieda said. ‘You can’t put yourself through this.’
‘Later,’ said Lola. ‘I can’t think now. I can’t talk.’
‘I think you should go to Karlsson and he’ll find you a safe house. That would be better, Lola. You can’t cope with this.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lola. ‘I don’t know anything any more.’
‘Then I’m going to know for you.’
They retraced their steps, back to Cable Street, up the little road. Lola followed Frieda obediently, a few steps behind; her legs felt shaky, as though she had climbed a steep flight of stairs. Frieda unlocked the door, pushed it open and the two of them stepped inside.
As Frieda kicked the door shut behind her, she looked up to her left and then down, expectantly, for the cats. They weren’t there. She tapped Lola’s shoulder.
Lola looked at Frieda and she felt, quite suddenly, as if she were in a dream, as if nothing quite made sense and she had lost all control.
Frieda’s expression was entirely calm but she raised a finger and put it to her lips. What did that mean? Oh, yes. Silence. Frieda took Lola by the arm and led her through the kitchen and spoke in a tone that was very slightly strange, very slightly too loud.
‘We’ll just grab a tea and take it upstairs, OK?’
What did she mean? Lola had just had tea. And she hadn’t even drunk it.
As they entered the kitchen Frieda picked up her shoulder bag, while still walking and still grasping Lola’s arm, and led her to the end of the kitchen. She opened the door to the utility room at the back of the house. What was she doing? Hadn’t she talked about going upstairs?
Then everything changed.
Frieda pushed her hard into the room. She pulled the key from the inside of the door, slammed the door shut, put the key into the lock and fumbled at it. She couldn’t get it to turn.
Lola didn’t just hear the sound of someone in the house, she felt it. Boots on the stairs. She looked at Frieda. The key turned. Frieda stepped across and pushed the washing-machine across the floor with a terrible scr
aping sound and jammed it against the door.
‘Out,’ Frieda said.
Lola tried to turn the handle of the outside door but couldn’t get it open. Was it locked? There was a banging at the other door now. Frieda edged her aside, got the door open and dragged her out into the yard.
Frieda stopped suddenly.
She went back into the house and now everything seemed to be happening slowly, not just like a dream but like a dream where you were under water or moving in soft sand. Frieda re-emerged with a key in her hand. She ran to the gate and unlocked it and pulled it open. Lola felt like she couldn’t move. Frieda came back and dragged her through into the alley. She gestured to the left.
‘Just run and don’t stop,’ she called.
Lola ran a few steps and then looked back. Frieda was bent over, locking the gate. Lola started to run, out of breath before she had started, and before she knew it Frieda was beside her, taking her by the hand, pulling her.
‘Don’t think. Just run.’
Lola felt herself being dragged to the right and the left, under the railway, through a housing estate, all the time not daring to turn her head, to see what might be behind them. They reached a busy road. It was the road they had crossed just a few minutes earlier but now it felt like a different world. Everything seemed a blur of movement and in the middle of the confusion and the noise Lola saw Frieda raising her arm and a taxi pulled up beside them. Frieda pushed her inside and there was the sudden smell of leather and disinfectant.
‘Mile End Tube station,’ Frieda said sharply and Lola felt the cab pull away.
Frieda took her phone out. ‘He was in the house,’ she said. ‘Dean Reeve was in the house. He knew we were there.’
‘Where are you?’ Dugdale’s voice was urgent.
‘We got away. We’re in a taxi.’
‘We?’
‘Lola’s with me.’
‘How is she?’
‘How do you think? But she’s not hurt.’
‘I’ll send some people to the house.’
‘It won’t do any good.’ Frieda looked across at Lola, who was staring ahead of her. ‘I told you where I was and you promised to keep that information to yourself and he knew where we were.’