by Nicci French
He expected her to shake her head, and she did, but to his surprise two bright spots appeared on her cheeks and she turned away.
‘Chloë?’ He took a step nearer to her. ‘You’ve seen her?’
‘She’d kill me if she knew I was telling you.’
‘I want to help her. I can’t help her if I don’t know where she is.’
‘I did see her, just the once. She came up to me as I was leaving work and we walked together for a few minutes. Her hair was cut short and dyed grey. She wanted my help to find a place to stay.’
‘And could you help?’
‘Yes. She went to a friend’s parents’ house that was standing empty while they were away on holiday. I left her the key.’
‘Where is this place?’ asked Karlsson.
‘She’s long gone.’ Chloë stared up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘The parents came back days ago.’
‘So you don’t know where she went?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You’d tell me.’
Chloë nodded. ‘Frieda being angry is better than Frieda being dead,’ she said, and tears began to roll down her cheeks.
‘She didn’t give you a clue where she’d go next?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing. No clue.’
‘I know she said she wouldn’t be staying in the house I found for her for that long.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ said Chloë, slowly, frowning in concentration and biting her lower lip, ‘I think she said about someone else being able to find her somewhere.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. She didn’t say a name.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes. But she said he had friends in high places.’
‘Friends in high places.’
‘Or something like that. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘Yes.’
Walter Levin was sitting at his desk wearing a three-piece suit. His glasses shone under the lights. He removed them and polished them with a white handkerchief.
‘I need to know where she is,’ said Karlsson.
‘Need?’ Levin gave him an amiable smile.
‘I know you know where she is.’
‘Really?’ He sounded mildly surprised.
‘Chloë told me she was going to ask you. Or, at least, ask someone with friends in high places.’
Levin laid his glasses on his desk. ‘She may have meant someone else.’
‘Please,’ said Karlsson, impatiently. ‘I don’t have time for games.’
Levin’s expression chilled. ‘Frieda suspects someone in the police force of leaking information about her. I don’t mean to insult you, but my hands are tied.’
‘I’m not here as a detective. I’m here as a friend who happens to be a detective and who can help her.’
Levin put his glasses back on his nose, tapping them into place.
‘I have to help her,’ Karlsson continued.
‘Of course I’m an outsider, but am I right in saying that she has gone into hiding precisely so that her friends won’t try to help her?’
Karlsson put his hands flat on the surface of the desk and leaned forward, looking into Levin’s cool eyes. ‘Dean Reeve is going to kill her.’
‘As it happens, I don’t know where she is.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Levin smiled at him. ‘Of course, that’s your prerogative.’
‘Christ. Don’t you care what happens to her?’
‘My dear Karlsson. You can be as emotive as you want. The fact is, I am not going to disclose her whereabouts. If I know them, that is.’
‘Even though you know she’s in danger.’
‘Precisely because I know she’s in danger.’
At the door, Karlsson turned. ‘Did you see her?’
‘Just the once.’
‘Was she all right?’
‘I don’t know.’ Levin smiled at him. ‘She’s a code I’ve never quite been able to crack.’
Karlsson walked away from the little house. He didn’t know what to do next. Then he heard the sound of running feet and, turning, he saw the young woman who was Levin’s assistant.
‘It’s Jude, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Ask Jock Keegan,’ she said. ‘He knows.’ And she pressed a card into his hand.
FORTY-FIVE
Josef and Alexei sat on the balcony together, side by side, wrapped up in their waterproof jackets. It was windy and chilly and the first specks of rain were starting to fall. They were eating burgers, and Josef had a bottle of beer that he swigged at between large mouthfuls. Alexei had ginger beer that was so spicy it made him want to sneeze.
‘Soon we sit here with Frieda,’ said Josef to his son, in an encouraging voice. He always spoke to him in English now: he wanted it to be Alexei’s first language. Soon, he thought, his son would hardly remember his mother-tongue and his childhood in Ukraine would be like a dream.
Alexei glanced across at him but didn’t reply.
‘Have I told you story of our first meeting?’ continued Josef.
He had of course, many times, but Alexei shook his head: he knew his father needed to speak about Frieda and, anyway, he liked sitting on this balcony, high up among the rooftops, looking out across London as night fell. It felt both precarious and safe.
‘I crash through her ceiling,’ said Josef. He laughed loudly and drank some more beer. ‘Just like that. Oomph onto her floor, staring up at her in clouds of dust. She was there with a sad man who was telling her his story.’
That sad man had been Dean Reeve’s twin brother and he had been killed by Dean many years since.
‘They both look at me,’ continued Josef, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Like this.’ He opened his eyes wide and stared at Alexei. ‘Frieda, she very cross with me. Not shouting, but stern. That’s how we begin, me falling through a hole in her roof. It has been eight years we are friends. She help me, I help her. Nothing I would not do. Nothing. That is friendship, Alexei. It is always here.’ He knocked on his chest, as if it was a door that might open.
Alexei nodded again. Josef’s eyes shone in the dusk.
‘She return soon, you will see. Tomorrow, I bring her cat back. Everything is ready. She will come. She sit here like this. We do not speak. We look out together at the lights. Bad days are gone and we are safe again.’
After they had eaten a simple meal that Lola barely touched, just prodded at with her fork, Frieda laid out the chessboard. ‘Come and sit down,’ she said.
‘I can’t concentrate.’
‘This won’t take long.’
Lola sat at the table. She was by turns listless and jumpy.
‘Why have you only put those pieces out?’ she asked.
‘This is the endgame,’ said Frieda. ‘I’ll show you. This is from a game that was played by two Russians almost a hundred years ago.’
‘How can you remember that?’
‘There are some games that I don’t forget. I play them over and over, in the winter especially.’ There was a faraway expression on her face and she spoke quietly, as if to herself: ‘I have a little wooden chess table, and when darkness falls, I close the shutters and I light the fire in the living room and I go through the moves. It’s like meditation.’
‘That and walking.’
Frieda nodded. ‘Yes. Everyone finds their own way of letting go of the world.’
‘I used to bake,’ said Lola. ‘And eat. And sit around with friends. Lolling and giggling and watching reality TV.’
‘And you will again.’
Lola gazed at Frieda. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘Of course.’
‘So who won?’
‘White was winning for almost the whole game. He swapped off pieces, simplified the position. And then he did this.’
She moved a bishop. Lola wasn’t looking at the board but at Frieda’s face. She bit her lip. ‘Was that good?’<
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‘It wasn’t good. He’d moved his bishop one square too far. He lost the game, he lost the match, and he must have thought about it for the rest of his life.’
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.
‘That’s what I’m thinking about.’
‘What’s the next river?’
‘Hmm?’ Frieda moved another piece. ‘Well, after Counter’s Creek comes the Wandle, and then the Falcon.’
‘So you think he’ll choose the Wandle next?’
‘I think so.’ She picked up another piece, put it down on a different square, stared at the board through narrowed eyes. ‘The question is when and where. I think I’m almost there. But I want to be ahead of him.’
‘So how will you do that?’
Frieda looked at Lola across the board. ‘You know me by now. When I want to think, really think, I walk, see things more clearly.’
‘Now? It’s cold and rainy.’
‘No. Tomorrow.’
‘Where will we go?’
‘Not we, me. I need to be alone, Lola, for a few hours at least. You can stay here for once. It’s safe, for the time being at least. I haven’t told the police where we are. Only one person in the world knows, apart from us. And I trust him.’
‘So where will you go?’
‘I’ll decide that tomorrow. Perhaps to where it all began, eight years ago.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘You don’t need to know.’
Lola stood up abruptly, scraping the chair across the boards. ‘I’m tired. I’m going to bed,’ she said.
‘Of course.’
‘What time will you go for your walk?’
‘Early.’
‘How early?’
‘I don’t know.’ Frieda smiled at her. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be all right here, I promise. I’ll bring you a mug of coffee before I go, shall I?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Goodnight, then.’
Lola left the room. Frieda could hear the water running upstairs, a door shutting. She imagined Lola lying in her bed, her eyes open, full of fears and gradually drifting towards sleep.
But Frieda sat at the table for many hours, her chin in her hand, listening to the wind outside and waiting for morning.
FORTY-SIX
Frieda boiled the kettle and poured the water over the ground coffee in a jug and stirred it. While it was brewing, she chopped an apple, a nectarine and a few grapes into a bowl. Lola was sitting at the kitchen table, her face still puffy from sleep.
‘I’ve made enough for you,’ she said.
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Lola dully.
Frieda tipped the fruit into two smaller bowls. She took a carton of yoghurt from the fridge and spooned it over the two bowls. She pushed one of the bowls in front of Lola and placed a spoon next to it. She took the tea strainer from the sink and poured the coffee through it into two mugs. One of them she topped off with milk and gave to Lola who just shook her head.
There was silence as Frieda ate all the fruit in her bowl and drank her coffee, then refilled her mug.
‘Are you still going out?’ Lola asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Where are you going? Aren’t you going to the next river?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You said last night you were going to where it all began. What does that mean?’
Frieda looked at her broodingly, her brow gathered in a frown. ‘There’s a spot where Dean Reeve killed his brother,’ she said eventually. ‘I want to go there.’
Lola was silent for a long time. ‘It sounds as if you think it’s haunted. That’s not like you.’
Frieda sipped slowly at her coffee. ‘I do think it’s haunted. We’re all haunted by our past, by things we can’t forget. I walk for different reasons. Sometimes it’s a way of emptying my head, getting away from things. Other times it’s the opposite. When I walk in London I think of everything that’s underneath, that’s buried, all the voices of people who are gone.’
‘Which is it this time?’
‘Both. As I told you, we’re nearly at the end. And as I get to the end I need to go to the place where it started and say sorry.’
‘Sorry to who?’
‘There are lots of people. But Alan, Dean’s brother, for a start. He died because of me.’
‘Sorry to a dead person? What good will that do?’
‘Have you heard of Samuel Johnson?’
‘Who is he?’
‘He was a writer, poet, three hundred years ago. He felt he hadn’t paid proper attention to his father so once, when he was grown-up, he went back to Lichfield, his home town, and to the market square and took his hat off and stood in the rain for an hour.’
‘That sounds like a complete waste of time.’
‘I don’t agree,’ said Frieda, draining her mug. ‘People may be dead but we’re never free of them.’
‘You haven’t asked me whether I want to come with you.’
‘Do you want to come with me?’
‘No. I can’t do this any more.’
‘I guessed that. But, in any case, I said yesterday that I needed to be alone today. I have to think about what I’m going to do next.’ Frieda started to put on her jacket.
‘Can I ask a question?’ said Lola.
‘Of course.’
‘Dean Reeve wants to kill you.’
‘That isn’t a question.’
‘Don’t you have some kind of protection?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like a gun?’
Frieda shook her head. ‘You know I don’t have a gun. Where would I get one?’ she said.
‘You know some strange people.’
‘I do know some strange people. I’m not sure that they’d trust me with a gun. And I’m not sure a gun would be much use to me.’
‘Or a knife. You’ve used a knife before. I read about it.’
There had been a faint smile on Frieda’s face at the idea of her wielding a gun but at the mention of a knife her expression turned sombre. ‘Yes, I’ve used a knife. If I pulled a knife on Dean Reeve, I think it’s more likely it would be used on me. Anyway, today I’m safe. I don’t know where he is and he doesn’t know where I am.’
Frieda walked out of the room and returned with her bag over her shoulder.
‘Stand up,’ she said.
‘What for?’
‘If nothing else, move around, get your blood flowing.’
Lola stood up.
‘Here, take this.’ Frieda held out several twenty-pound notes.
‘Why?’
‘Just to tide you over.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I’m not coming back,’ said Frieda.
‘Why? What do you mean?’
‘I can’t protect you any more. You’re probably not in danger now anyway. But just in case.’ Frieda took a little torn-off piece of notepaper from her pocket and handed it to Lola. ‘Malcolm Karlsson’s number is on that. I’ve given it to you before and you didn’t make any use of it. This time you must. He’ll protect you better than anyone. Better than me.’
Frieda put up her hand and stroked Lola’s cheek gently. It was so pale.
‘I should say thank you,’ Lola said, in a faint voice, almost a whisper. Fat tears were rolling slowly down her cheeks and her eyes were huge.
‘Maybe you should and maybe you shouldn’t,’ Frieda said. ‘There’ll be a time to talk about things like that. At least, I hope there will be. If there isn’t …’ She gave a nod. ‘Tell Karlsson I’m counting on him to look after you.’
Frieda turned to go but Lola clutched at her sleeve. ‘Have you got some clever secret plan you’re not telling me about?’
Frieda put her hand on Lola’s and tapped it. ‘That’s what this walk is about.’
‘Don’t go,’ said Lola, in a rush. She clutched Frieda’s sleeve. Her lips were bloodless and her voice cracked. ‘Please don’t go.’
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sp; ‘I have to.’
‘Frieda, please. Please don’t go. You can’t.’
‘Can’t?’ Frieda smiled at her.
‘Mustn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t bear it.’
‘You can, Lola. You will.’
When Frieda left the house she walked towards King’s Cross, but then turned left and went through the little network of streets and red-brick apartment blocks that line the south side of Euston Road. She walked past the university buildings and the hospital and across Tottenham Court Road and Fitzroy Square and, with a growing ache in her chest, arrived at Saffron Mews and her own front door.
She opened it and stepped inside and felt a rush of emotion she could hardly bear. She felt like a ghost, returning from the dead for just a few seconds. She laid her bag down. She looked around and sniffed. There was an unfamiliar smell, sawdust and something else, something industrial. Well, that was a matter for another time. She could see into the kitchen, where a vase of crimson dahlias stood on the table, and a pot of basil on the windowsill. She went into the living room. The fire was neatly laid, kindling over scrunched-up newspaper and logs stacked on the hearth. On the chess table, the pieces had been lined up. Everything was waiting.
She heard a sound, a familiar sound, a brindled cat padding across the floor towards her, the claws tapping on the wooden floor. Frieda crouched down and stroked the cat’s head and along its spine. ‘Hello, you,’ she said. ‘So you’ve come home at last. You’ve seen some things in your time, haven’t you? If you could talk, what tales you’d have to tell.’
It looked at her with its yellow eyes; she could feel its body vibrating.
‘I should have given you a name,’ she said. ‘But it’s probably too late for that. You don’t mind, do you?’
The cat purred and arched its back and didn’t seem to mind. Frieda stood up. That was enough: more would turn the solace into a terrible homesickness. She opened the front door and stepped outside, closed the door and walked away from her house without looking back.
FORTY-SEVEN
When Frieda closed the front door, Lola lay down on the beige carpet and pulled her knees up to her chin. She stayed like that for several minutes, balled tightly and rocking slightly. Small moans escaped her. Everything hurt: her head and her heart and her stomach and her eyes. She felt as if she was turning inside out so that all the soft and hidden parts of herself were exposed.
