by Nicci French
‘Something smells different,’ she said suspiciously.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Chloë, behind her.
‘What have you done?’
‘We do it together, me and Chloë and my friend.’
‘It was his idea,’ said Chloë. ‘I said you didn’t like surprises.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You like this,’ said Josef, triumphantly. ‘Follow.’ He gestured grandly at them all. ‘All follow. Jack, bring glasses. We toast Frieda.’
They trooped up the stairs.
‘Close eyes,’ said Josef, as they reached the first floor.
‘Oh, please!’
‘Close and I say when.’
Frieda sighed and closed her eyes, feeling her way up the next flight of stairs, still holding her champagne.
‘Stop now. Look!’
She opened her eyes. There was a silence: everyone was looking at her, Chloë with great anxiety. She saw how exhausted Karlsson was, almost grey with it.
‘Is good?’ Josef was gazing at her expectantly.
She put a finger to her lips. ‘Wait,’ she said.
She opened the door and stepped outside into the darkness. The air was cool on her face and London glittered all around her. She turned.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she said.
Josef beamed.
‘Really?’ said Chloë. ‘You like it? You don’t mind?’
‘It’s a gift,’ said Frieda.
They jostled through the door to join her.
‘It feels solid enough,’ Frieda said. ‘But will it take all of us?’
Josef looked offended. ‘It take twenty people. Fifty. You drive a car out here.’
‘I’m just worried about seven adults and a child for the moment.’
She walked across to the railing. It seemed solid enough. She looked around. The evening sky was a mess of oranges and reds and streaks of jet plume. There were lights from the BT Tower close at hand and from Canary Wharf far away. Josef stood beside her.
‘Don’t you trust Josef?’ Reuben said, pouring wine into glasses.
Frieda looked round with a faint smile. ‘You know how I first met Josef?’
‘You mean when he fell through the ceiling?’
‘I thought he was dead.’
‘English builders,’ said Josef, with a contemptuous sniff.
Frieda looked around, at the seasoned decking they were standing on, at the new table and chairs. ‘Josef, I’ve got to pay you for this.’
‘Is my present.’
‘I can at least pay you for the materials. For the planks and this table and the chairs. They’re beautiful. They must have cost a fortune.’
‘They cost nothing,’ said Josef, with a shrug.
Frieda looked at Josef, then at Karlsson and then back at Josef. ‘I’d ask more questions,’ she said. ‘But we’ve got a policeman present.’
‘I’m not on duty,’ said Karlsson.
‘To Frieda,’ said Reuben.
Everyone clinked glasses.
‘You look done in,’ said Jack.
‘I’m all right. Perhaps it all feels unreal still.’
‘We’ve missed you so much,’ said Chloë, her voice trembling.
Frieda looked at each of them in turn. She wanted to tell them that she had missed them all, but in the end she simply lifted her glass to them.
‘You must have been through hell,’ said Olivia. ‘I don’t know where to begin. What to ask.’
‘Don’t ask anything.’
‘But don’t you want to tell us?’
‘No.’
At last only Karlsson and Josef were left on the balcony, with a smudge of a moon above them. Karlsson produced a whisky bottle and Josef went inside and reappeared with three tumblers and a jug of water. Karlsson took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the whisky bottle. ‘I’ve had this in a cupboard for years,’ he said. ‘I was given it as a present. I was saving it for something special. This feels like the time.’
He removed the cap and poured some into the three glasses. Each of them sipped it reflectively.
‘Is good,’ said Josef.
‘Yes, it’s good,’ said Karlsson.
There was silence for a long time. Karlsson refilled the glasses. Frieda seemed to be lost in thought. Suddenly she looked at Karlsson. ‘Go on, then,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Ask what you want to ask.’
Karlsson looked at Josef. ‘Is that OK?’
‘Is OK.’
‘Because I’ve got a feeling that you were involved.’
‘Is OK.’
Karlsson slowly put his glass on the table. ‘All right, Frieda. What happened?’
When Frieda started to speak, it felt like she was talking to herself. ‘Reeve wanted to tell me to go somewhere so that he could kill me.’
‘Why would you do that?’ said Karlsson.
‘I considered it. I thought I could sacrifice myself and then he might stop. I was thinking that when I went to Counter’s Creek – but, of course, the police intercepted him. I had no plan then for what I would do, beyond meeting him.’
Karlsson looked across at Josef, who was refilling his glass. ‘So when did you give up that ridiculous plan?’
‘Ridiculous?’ said Frieda.
‘I mean, ridiculous if you didn’t want to be murdered.’
‘I knew Lola was in contact with him.’
‘You knew?’
‘Yes.’
‘How?’
Frieda told them, in a more dispassionate way, what she had told Lola.
‘So instead of him controlling you, you could control him?’
Frieda’s expression was entirely impassive. Karlsson wasn’t even sure if she was listening to him.
‘You could have collaborated with the police,’ he said. ‘You could have lured him into a trap.’
She shook her head. ‘The police had already tried that and it was a disaster. And there was only going to be one chance. I thought that if Reeve knew I was going to be at the spot where he killed his brother, he wouldn’t be able to resist that.’
‘And you’d have someone there waiting.’
‘Not just someone. Josef and Stefan. A friend of his.’
Karlsson looked at Josef, who seemed to be lost in contemplation of his whisky glass.
‘How could you be sure that Reeve wouldn’t get there first? That he wouldn’t spot them?’
‘Because when I told Lola, they were already in place. And I didn’t think he would spot them because I trust Josef.’ She glanced across at Josef. ‘I trust him in every way, apart from doing building work in my house without permission.’
Karlsson finished his drink, then refilled the three glasses. ‘So what happened?’
As Frieda started to speak, she suddenly felt outside herself. She was still talking but she could somehow listen to herself talking. At the same time, part of her self, her real self, was not just remembering and narrating but was back there on the River Lea, leaning over the railings and looking into the water. She heard the faint sound of footsteps and still waited, letting the image of her father recede. She took a slow breath, then another. She felt a sense of great calm. Peace, perhaps. She turned and looked at him. She had last seen him eight years earlier in a police interview room. He looked much the same, thinner maybe, streaks of grey in his short hair. He was wearing scuffed brown shoes, blue jeans, a black zip-up jacket with a brown shirt visible underneath. She saw something flash in his right hand, suspended at his side: the blade of a knife. There was an expression in his brown eyes that she found difficult to read. It wasn’t hatred or rage. It was more like curiosity, fascination, even a kind of yearning. He breathed deeply. Frieda thought of someone in a garden, breathing in the scents. He looked like a man who was where he wanted to be.
Frieda’s main feeling was: is that it? Is this what had caused so much death, so much suffering, so many lives ruined? All for what? Something twisted, a crossed wi
re, in a man’s mind.
‘We’re done,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s over.’
‘I’m not done, Frieda,’ said Dean Reeve. ‘Not yet. Soon. It is your time.’
‘No,’ she said.
There was another sound from behind him and Reeve looked round. There was a gap where part of the towpath had collapsed and not been repaired. Two men stepped out on the path. Frieda just saw that one of them, Josef, was holding a wooden club. The other, Stefan, was half hidden behind Reeve. She couldn’t make him out fully. Reeve turned back towards Frieda and a slow smile started to form on his face.
And from that moment, when she looked back, she could never quite remember the sequence of events. Even then, everything seemed to be happening at the same time. Reeve leaped towards her. They were perhaps ten yards apart. While Frieda was wondering if this was how it was going to end for her and whether it would hurt, he suddenly fell to his knees and there was a noise that was so loud she could feel it as well as hear it. She could almost see it. It had a purple-black colour.
Reeve made an effort to raise himself but couldn’t move beyond his knees. He still had the knife in his right hand but Frieda and Josef and Stefan were out of reach and Reeve couldn’t move and a dark red patch was growing on his trousers, just below the knee. Frieda took out her phone and as she did so she looked at Stefan, who was now behind Reeve, holding his gun at the back of his head.
‘Stop,’ she said. ‘That’s enough. You should go right now. I’m calling the police. You don’t want to be caught with that.’
Stefan’s eyes were flashing. Frieda wasn’t sure he could hear what she was saying.
‘What he did to Alexei,’ he said. ‘What he did to all of them.’
‘No,’ said Frieda, more sharply, and Stefan looked at her and then at Josef, who nodded at him.
‘You’ve won,’ said Frieda, more softly. ‘Just walk away.’
Stefan put the gun into the pocket of his jacket. He raised his hand, gave a funny sort of salute to Frieda and walked quickly away.
‘So now?’ said Josef.
They both looked at Reeve, who was staring at Frieda, his eyes fixed on her, still with that expression of longing, yearning.
‘You …’ he began. ‘Frieda. Frieda Klein …’
Frieda ignored him. She had no interest in anything he had to say. She was about to key in the number on her phone. Then she saw a movement: Dean Reeve’s hand lifted a knife with a long and shining blade. He placed the tip in the soft hollow under his left ear and drew it along his neck with a flash of silver. For a second or so, there was nothing there, and then it was bubbling red. He gazed at her for a few seconds, the smile on his face still and the great gaping wound just below it, and then he tipped sideways, like a tree toppling, sideways and slightly forward into the canal. He slid into the dark water almost without a splash and disappeared. Only the knife was left on the towpath.
Frieda threw the phone aside and jumped into the water and felt a shock of cold. She took a breath and dived under, pushing herself down with her hands. Her eyes were open but she saw nothing. She felt around with her hands. Nothing, nothing. Just mud and grit and the slimy trail of weeds. And then she was grasping something. She pulled at it and raised it slowly. She broke the surface and she saw she was holding Dean Reeve, his face down in the water. Josef was beside her.
‘Turn him,’ she said.
‘Why? You want to save him? This man?’
‘Turn him.’
With a great effort, Josef pulled on one side of the body and Dean Reeve’s face appeared, pale and staring. His eyes were open and his mouth was open and the wound in his throat was open. Frieda could see the tendons and the damaged windpipe and the bubbles of water and blood. Suddenly she felt a hand on her. Reeve’s hand was gripping her jacket, holding it tight, pulling, tugging at her, drawing her to him and drawing her down with him. She turned her head to look at it and slowly the grip relaxed and the hand fell away and when she looked back at Dean Reeve’s face, the eyes were glassy and unseeing.
Frieda and Josef scrambled towards the towpath and clambered up. Josef picked up the knife and tossed it into the water. They stood facing each other.
‘You’ve got to go,’ said Frieda.
‘I stay with you.’
Frieda looked at the body, which had rotated once more and was face down, the arms spread.
‘You can’t be found here. You’ve done everything. You’ve done more than everything. Now go.’
Josef shrugged helplessly. ‘All right. I go.’
‘Now,’ said Frieda. ‘And don’t look back.’
He nodded and then, very suddenly, he put his hands on her shoulders and his forehead against hers. When he let her go, she saw his eyes were full of tears.
‘Thank you, my friend,’ she said, and he put his hand on his heart and gave that small bow he had given her the first day they had met. Then he turned and left.
When he was gone, Frieda felt suddenly empty, without relief or gladness. She sat down with her back against a tree. She saw her phone, lying on the towpath, but she didn’t reach for it. What was the hurry? For a few seconds she closed her eyes but opened them again when she heard a sound getting louder and louder, a roar she couldn’t make sense of.
When Frieda had finished her account, none of them spoke for a long time.
‘Thank you,’ Karlsson said finally.
‘Thank you?’ said Frieda. ‘For what?’
‘For just telling me,’ he said.
‘What else would I do?’
‘You could have said, “I’ll only tell you if you promise to keep it secret.” ’
‘I don’t like telling people what to do.’
In response to that, Karlsson managed a slight smile. ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is not true.’
He raised his glass to Josef. ‘And thank you too,’ he said. Josef gave a slight inclination of the head. ‘And tell your friend to get rid of his gun.’
Josef shook his head. ‘He is Russian. You cannot tell him nothing.’
Karlsson poured more whisky into their glasses.
‘Perhaps you can be working together once more,’ said Josef, lifting his drink.
Frieda turned to Karlsson. ‘You know I’ll never work with you again, don’t you?’
‘I know,’ he said.
‘Good. Never ask me.’
‘I promise.’
Josef lit a cigarette. ‘But we are still a team.’ His words were slightly slurred. ‘Team Frieda.’
Frieda snorted. She set the glass down on the small table with a click. ‘I was thinking I should have a plant out here that gives out scent in the evening.’
‘Jasmine?’
‘Something like that.’
The three of them sat on the balcony, slowly sipping the good whisky, not speaking.
‘Time for home,’ said Josef at last, and the three of them went downstairs.
Josef left first, pausing on the threshold to make his small bow. Karlsson and Frieda watched him walk away.
When he was out of sight, Karlsson turned towards her. ‘Frieda,’ he said. ‘There is something I need to say and –’
But she stopped him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not tonight.’
‘But –’
‘Not tonight, Karlsson. We can talk tomorrow.’
He looked into her face. He couldn’t read her, although he knew that she could read him. She knew it all.
FIFTY-SIX
Karlsson left and Frieda washed up the glasses and put water into the cat’s bowl. It was late but she knew she wouldn’t sleep tonight. She didn’t want to. She went back up the stairs onto the terrace once more, into the misty softness of the night. The cat padded out to join her, rubbing itself against her legs, telling her she was home.
Tomorrow she would think of what the future held. Tonight was for the past, a time for memories and for ghosts. She closed her eyes and in the darker darkness saw Dean Reeve’s face – smiling at her, smiling
even as he died. With an effort that felt physical, she made that face become the face of his brother Alan, who had been the identical reverse-image of Dean. Now the brown eyes looking at her out of the self’s night were not sinister, but sad.
Other figures came towards her, more than just memories, dead but still here, vividly absent. She held their faces in her mind: men, women, girls; a mad woman in a cell muttering her own name over and over again. I am here. She saw Sandy among them, and he was no longer a body swollen by the river: he was strong and hopeful and he had eyes that saw her again.
No one is ever like anyone else. No one can be replaced. Every death is the end of a world. And they’re gone, and yet they remain. They walk with us along the secret rivers.
Frieda followed those rivers, covered over, forgotten, but still there. She heard their trickle under the grating, felt their course beneath her feet. She peeled back the bricks and concrete and sludge of years and sat beside them. There were pebbles shining on their beds, small brown fish in their currents, and water flowers, and weeds that looked like human hair.
They flowed past her, ceaseless, and she remembered all of the stories that had ended.
She didn’t know how long she sat there for. Hours, perhaps. The sky was lightening to the east and the cat had gone.
She stood up and went inside. She closed the door.
THE BEGINNING
Let the conversation begin …
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinUKbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Listen to Penguin at SoundCloud.com/penguin-books
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.uk
MICHAEL JOSEPH
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Michael Joseph is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.