by Nicci French
‘That’s unusual,’ said Frieda.
The woman stubbed out her cigarette on the mantelpiece and lit another one. Her nails were painted but Frieda could see the yellow around the tips. Her finger had swollen around the large gold wedding ring on her fourth finger.
‘He got it from the reclamation place. It’s from one of those old clothes shops. Those drawers were for little things, like socks or balls of wool. Dean uses it for his tools and bits and pieces, you know, fuses, screws, rulers. Stuff for his models.’
Frieda smiled. The woman seemed happy enough to have someone to talk to, although there were beads of sweat on her large forehead and her eyes were darting around nervously, as though she expected someone to step into the room at any minute.
‘What does he make?’
‘He makes these boats. Real proper miniatures. He takes them over to the ponds and gives them a runaround.’
Frieda looked about as if she were searching for something. She had an odd feeling she couldn’t quite place. As if she had been here before, like a dream that receded the more she tried to capture it. A thin tortoiseshell cat stepped delicately into the room and wound itself around her ankles, and as she bent down to stroke it, another one entered. It was large and a matted grey with giant fur balls hanging off its coat. She stepped back. She didn’t want to touch it. She saw two more cats entwined in the corner of the sofa. That was the smell: cat litter and cat shit and air freshener.
‘How many cats have you got?’
The woman shrugged.
‘They come and go.’
He lay on the floor with his ear to the wood and listened to the voices. The one he knew, and the other one. Soft, clear, a stream running through him. It would take away the dirt. He was a dirty boy. Wash his mouth out. He had no idea. Didn’t deserve. Should be ashamed. Filthy.
‘My name’s Frieda.’ She spoke slowly, feeling as though she had stepped into a looking-glass world. ‘Frieda Klein.’ Then, when the woman didn’t answer, she said, ‘Who are you?’
‘Terry,’ said the woman. She ground her cigarette into an overflowing ashtray, and then took another, holding out the packet to Frieda as well. Frieda had given up smoking years earlier. Ever since, she had felt allergic to it. She hated the smell of it in the air, in people’s clothes. But it would give her an excuse to stay. There was always something companionable about smoking together. She remembered it from teenage parties: it gave you something to do with your hands, something to fiddle with when you couldn’t think of what to say. You still saw it, people standing in doorways on the street. Soon that would be banned as well. Where would they go then? She nodded, took the cigarette and leaned forward as Terry flicked the cheap plastic lighter. Frieda had a drag and felt the now unfamiliar rush. She exhaled and almost felt dizzy with it.
‘Does Dean live here all the time?’
‘Course.’ In the painted, swollen flesh of her face, Terry’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘And he works here?’
‘He goes out.’
‘What does he do?’
The woman looked at her. She chewed her lower lip and tapped the ash into the ashtray. ‘Are you checking up on him?’
Frieda made herself smile. ‘I’m just a doctor.’ She looked around. ‘I guess he’s some kind of builder. Is that right?’
‘He does a bit of that,’ said Terry. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I just met someone who knows him.’ She heard how feeble her words sounded. ‘I wanted to ask him a question. Get some information. I’ll go in a minute, if he’s not back.’
‘I’ve got things to do,’ said the woman. ‘I think you’d better go now.’
‘I’ll go in a minute.’ Frieda gestured with the cigarette. ‘When I’ve finished this. Do you work?’
‘Get out of my house.’
And then she heard the sound of the front door. She heard a voice from outside the room.
‘In here,’ called Terry.
A shape appeared in the door. Frieda saw a flash of leather jacket, jeans, work boots and then, as he stepped into the light, it was unmistakable. The clothes were different, except for the brightly checked shirt, but there was absolutely no doubt.
‘Alan,’ she said. ‘Alan. What’s going on?’
‘What?’
‘It’s me…’ said Frieda, and then she stopped. She realized how very, very stupid she had been. Her mind became a fog. She didn’t know what to say. She made a desperate effort to pull herself together. ‘You’re Dean Reeve.’
The man looked between the two women.
‘Who are you?’ His voice was quiet, uninflected. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I think there’s been a mix-up,’ said Frieda. ‘I met someone who knows you.’
She thought of the woman in the orange jacket and thought of Terry. Dean’s wife. She looked at his expressionless face, his dark brown eyes. She tried another smile but the man’s expression changed.
‘How did you get in here? What are you up to?’
‘I let her in,’ said Terry. ‘She said she wanted to talk to you.’
The man stepped towards Frieda and raised his hand towards her, not as if he was going to hit her but as if he was going to touch her to see if she was really there. She took a step back.
‘I’m sorry. I think there’s been a mistake. Mistaken identity.’ She paused. ‘Has that happened to you before?’
The man looked at her as though he could see inside her. It felt as if he were touching her, as if she could feel his hands on her skin.
He knew he had to warn her. They would catch her and turn her into something else as well. She wouldn’t be a dancer any more. They would tie her feet up. They would block her mouth.
He tried to shout but only made his humming that was trapped inside his mouth and at the back of his throat. He stood up, swaying and with the nasty taste in his mouth that never went away, and jumped up and down, up and down, until there was red in his eyes and his head swam and the walls leaned in towards him and he fell on the floor again. He banged his head against the wood. She would hear him. She must.
‘Who are you?’
The voice was the same as well. A bit more sure of itself, but the same.
‘Sorry,’ said Frieda. ‘My mistake.’ She held up the cigarette. ‘Thanks for this. I’ll let myself out, shall I? Sorry to mess you around.’ She turned and, as casually as she could, walked out of the room and tried to open the front door. At first she couldn’t work out which handle to pull but then she found the right one, opened the door and stepped outside. She tossed the cigarette down and walked slowly at first and then, when she turned the corner, broke into a run and ran all the way to the station, even though her chest was hurting and she could hardly breathe and the bile was rising in her throat. She felt as though she was running through a thick mist that obscured all the familiar signposts and made the world uncanny, unreal.
He saw her go. Slow, then faster, then she danced. She had escaped and she would never come back because he had saved her.
The door behind him opened.
‘You’ve been a very naughty little boy, haven’t you?’
When she was safely on the train, she wished, for the first time in her life, that she had a mobile phone. She looked around. There was a young woman a few seats down who looked harmless enough so she stood up and walked over to her.
‘Excuse me.’ She tried to sound matter-of-fact, as if this was an ordinary request. ‘Could I please borrow your mobile?’
The woman pulled her earplugs out of her ears.
‘What?’
‘Could I borrow your mobile, please?’
‘No, you fucking can’t.’
Frieda pulled her wallet out of her bag. ‘I’ll pay you,’ she said. ‘A fiver?’
‘Ten.’
‘OK. Ten.’
She handed it over and took the woman’s mobile, which was very small and thin. It took her several minutes to grasp
how to make a single call. Her hands were still shaking.
‘Hello. Hello. Please put me through to Detective Inspector Karlsson.’
‘Who shall I say is calling?’
‘Dr Klein. Frieda.’
‘Will you hold on a moment?’
Frieda waited. She gazed out of the window at the scarred buildings flowing past.
‘Dr Klein?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m afraid he’s busy at the moment.’
Frieda remembered their last meeting; his anger with her. ‘It’s urgent,’ she said. ‘There’s something he needs to know.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I mean, now. I need to talk to him now.’
‘Do you want to talk to someone else?’
‘No!’
‘Can I take a message for you?’
‘Yes. Tell him to ring me at once. I’m on a mobile. Oh, but I don’t know the number.’
‘It’s on my display,’ said the voice at the other end.
‘I’ll be waiting.’
She sat with the phone in her hand, waiting for it to ring. The train stopped and a group of scruffy, spotty teenagers crowded into the carriage, all boys with jeans pulled down below their concave buttocks, except for one scrawny girl who, under her clumsy makeup, looked about thirteen. As Frieda watched, one of the boys held a can of white cider to her lips and tried to make her drink it. She shook her head, but he persisted, and after a few seconds, she opened her mouth and let him pour some in. The liquid dribbled down her small chin. She was wearing an unzipped fur-lined parka and under that, Frieda saw, just a halter-neck top over her flat breasts and sharp collarbone. She must be freezing, the poor pinched-looking brat. For a moment, Frieda considered going over and hitting the sniggering youths with her umbrella, then thought better of it. She’d done enough for one day.
The train juddered to a halt outside the next station. Snow was falling again, improbably large occasional flakes spinning past her window. Frieda squinted: was that a heron on the bank, tall and still and elegant among the brambles? She stared at the mobile, willing it to ring, and when it didn’t she phoned again, heard the same voice at the other end, once more asked for Karlsson, and was once more told – in a voice stiff with politeness – that he was still not available to take her call.
‘Who was she?’
His voice was calm, but still she shrank away from him.
‘I don’t know. She just rang on the doorbell.’
Dean took her chin gently in his hand and tipped her face so that she was gazing straight into his eyes. ‘What did she want?’
‘I just answered the door. She pushed in. I didn’t know how to stop her. She said she was a doctor.’
‘Did she tell you her name?’
‘No. Yes. Something a bit different.’ She licked her purple lips. ‘Frieda and then a short name. I dunno…’
‘You’d better tell me.’
‘Klein. That’s it. Frieda Klein.’
He let go of her chin. ‘Dr Frieda Klein. And she called me Alan…’ He smiled at his wife and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Wait for me. Don’t go anywhere.’
The train made a sudden lurch forward, then stopped again with a hissing of brakes. Frieda watched the girl drink more cider. One of the boys put his hand up her skirt and she giggled. Her eyes were glassy. The train jerked into motion. Frieda got her little address book out of her bag and flicked through the pages until she came to the name she wanted. She thought about asking the young woman for her mobile again, but decided against it. At last the train creaked into a station, through the slow-falling snow. Frieda got out and went at once to the phone box at the entrance. It didn’t take coins. She had to push in her credit card before dialling.
‘Dick?’ she said. ‘It’s me, Frieda. Frieda Klein.’
‘Dick’ was Richard Carey, a professor of neurology at Birmingham University. She had been on a panel with him at a conference four years before. He’d asked her out and she’d made an excuse but they’d stayed in touch in a vague kind of way. He was just the kind of person she needed. Well connected, knew everyone.
‘Frieda?’ he said. ‘Where have you been hiding?’
‘I need a name,’ Frieda said.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Frieda had cancelled all her patients that morning but she was back in time for her afternoon sessions, including the one with Alan. As she walked to her office, she felt the smell of Dean Reeve’s house was still clinging to her: cigarette ash and cat shit. The day was closing in already. It was only three days from the shortest day of the year. The snow of the morning had turned to a sleety rain that melted in muddy rivulets on the road. Her feet were damp inside her boots and her skin felt raw. She longed for her house, her chair by the fire.
Alan was the last of her patients. She had been dreading seeing him, with a feeling that almost amounted to a physical repugnance, and had to steel herself when he eventually walked through the door, his face red from the cold and water speckling his duffel coat. She clenched her hands into fists under the long sleeves of her jersey, and made herself greet him calmly and take her seat opposite him. His face looked no different from the last time she had seen him, and no different from the man she had met a few hours earlier. It was hard for her not to gape at him. Should she tell him what she knew? But how could she? What would she say? I’ve been investigating your life, without your knowledge or consent, checking up on the truth of what you tell me in confidence within these four walls, and I have found you have an identical twin. Or did he already know? Was that what he was hiding from her and from his wife? Was there some strange conspiracy going on?
‘What will I do if I can’t cope over Christmas?’
He spoke to her. She strained to hear the words and to reply to them intelligibly. Through his frail voice she heard the tone of Dean Reeve, stronger, almost mocking. When she had met Dean she had seen Alan and now with Alan she saw Dean. At last he was going, standing up and struggling his bulky body into the duffel coat, buttoning up the toggles with painstaking care. He was thanking her. Saying he didn’t know how he would have got through this without her. She shook his hand formally. Now he was gone and she sank back into her chair and pressed her fingers against her temples.
Dean stood on the opposite side of the road, smoking another cigarette. He had been there for nearly one hour and still she hadn’t appeared. When she came, he would follow her, see where that led, but the light in her room was still on and every so often he could see shapes in the window. He looked at each person who went into the building and came out. Some of them were hooded against the rain and he couldn’t make them out. It was cold, nasty weather, but he didn’t much mind that. He wasn’t one of those whingers who couldn’t get their feet wet, who opened an umbrella at the first hint of rain or stood in the doorways of shops and offices to wait for it to pass.
Across the road, the door opened once more and a figure came out. He himself came out. As he looked around, his face was quite clear. Unmistakable. Dean became very still. He stood like that until the figure was almost out of sight. A smile crossed his face and he lifted a hand towards the man who was him, as if he could draw him back.
Well, well, well. Ma, you sly old fox.
Frieda sat motionless for ten minutes, her eyes closed, trying to clear the sludge of her thoughts. Then, abruptly, she rose to her feet, pulled on her coat, turned off the lights, double locked the door and left.
She headed straight for Reuben’s house. She had no doubt that he would be there. He and Josef seemed to have settled into a routine of drinking beer and vodka and watching quiz shows on TV. Reuben would shout out the answers and, if he was right, Josef would marvel at him and toast him with a shot.
As it happened, Reuben was alone, cooking himself an omelette, and there was no sign of Josef, although his ancient white van was parked outside, the front wheel up on the pavement.
‘He’s upstairs,’ said Reuben.
‘Is he alone?’
Reuben gave a challenging smile, as if he was daring Frieda to say something disapproving. She looked at the photograph of Josef’s wife and sons, still stuck with a magnet on the fridge door. With their formal pose, old-fashioned clothes and dark eyes, they belonged to another world. ‘It was you I wanted to talk to. I need your advice.’
‘Strange how you need it now when I’m not exactly in the best state to give it.’
‘Something’s happened.’
Reuben ate his omelette out of the frying-pan while Frieda talked. Every so often he shook Tabasco sauce over it, or lifted his glass to take a sip of water. Halfway through the story, he stopped eating, however, laying down his fork and quietly pushing the pan away from him. He heard her out in absolute silence, though in the brief pauses Frieda thought she could hear a bed creaking upstairs.
‘So,’ she said, when she had finished. ‘What do you think?’
Reuben stood up. He went to the newly installed french windows and gazed out at the sodden, neglected garden. It was dark; only the bent shapes of bushes and bare trees could be clearly seen and, beyond that, the lit windows of someone else’s kitchen. The creaking seemed to have stopped. He turned round.
‘You’ve crossed a line,’ he said, grinning. He seemed unreasonably cheerful.
‘I’ve crossed several.’
‘I think you should, one, go to the police and don’t take no for an answer.’ He was counting them off on his fingers. ‘Two, tell Alan everything you know about him. Three, see this Cambridge expert. In no particular order, but as quickly as you can.’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh – and four, see your own supervisor. Have you still got one?’
‘She’s lying dormant.’
‘Maybe it’s time to wake her up. And don’t be so tortured about it. It doesn’t suit you.’
Frieda stood up. ‘I was going to see if Josef would drive me to Cambridge. This probably isn’t a good time to ask him.’
