Dark Saturday

by Nicci French

  She went quickly through the photos of evidence that had been collected and often bagged up: fingerprints, the blood splatters downstairs, the heavy claw hammer, the clothes belonging to Hannah that had been discovered a few houses down—a dress with a floral pattern and a cardigan, covered with her family’s blood . . . Without warning, they became photos of the crime scene. The main bedroom: photo after photo from every angle and in close-up of Aidan and Deborah. Quickly she put them aside and found herself looking at a photo of Rory. He was wearing his Lord of the Rings pajamas. One arm was flung out. He was lying facedownwards so she didn’t see his face, but she stared at the defenseless nape of his neck, with one little mole on it, his curled fingers and the small feet. At his skull, shattered, caved in.

  She got up, went downstairs and stood in front of Levin, Keegan and Jude.

  “You were right,” she said to Keegan. “I’m just a therapist.” She turned to Levin. “I can’t do this any more.”

  She sat in front of Thelma Scott, her therapist whom she saw only when she felt wrong, dislocated, unsure of what she was thinking. She put her hands on the armrests of her chair and looked into the old, clever face. A colleague had once said that Thelma looked like a frog but Frieda loved the way she looked, battered and calm and alert.

  “I said I wasn’t going to do this again,” she said. “The problem is that I made a deal. This man, Levin, did something for me and now I have to do something for him.”

  “Is it something wrong?”

  “I don’t know. Not so far.”

  “But you don’t want to?”

  “Chloë says I’m like the burned child who loves the fire.”

  “What do you say?”

  “I say that I don’t know. I have a feeling of dread.”

  “And you’ve told these people you won’t do it any more?”

  “Yes.”

  “So?”

  “I feel that I’m abandoning Hannah Docherty.”

  “Frieda,” said Thelma, her voice stern. “You’re not God. Beware the rescue impulse.”

  In spite of the rain and the wind, and the darkness that came rolling in over London, Frieda walked home from Thelma’s house. She made herself a mug of tea and then she had a bath in the beautiful tub that Josef had installed for her. He was from the Ukraine and his English was still limited; he communicated through actions rather than words. She stayed in there a long time. She had meant to go round to her friend Sasha’s that evening. Sasha was on her conscience—she was always on her conscience, since the previous year when events in her personal life had been the trigger for a crime whose reverberations Frieda and all her friends still felt—but she rang and rearranged to go the following day instead. She lit the fire and sat beside it with scrambled egg on toast, looking into the flames, hearing them crackle, hearing the wind outside. Then she played through a game of chess and went up to bed.

  But she couldn’t sleep. There were thoughts that pursued her, half-thoughts, faces in the darkness. At last she got up again and dressed and went out into the night. The rain had stopped but there were puddles everywhere, glinting under the streetlamps. Occasional cars passed. Frieda turned off down a small street. She was not thinking where she was going, but her feet were leading her along crooked byways toward the river. At first, she tried pushing away the impressions that were crowding in on her, but when she reached the road that covered the hidden Fleet River, she let them come to her.

  What she had seen today in all the files was mad, but it wasn’t mad in the right way: it wasn’t a madness that made sense to her. It was both chaotic and organized. There was Hannah’s risible alibi. There was a savage attack—but the bodies were all in their beds. Wouldn’t at least one of the three have tried to run or fight, especially since the killer had waited between Aidan’s death, and Deborah and Rory’s? And Aidan was fully dressed, even wearing his shoes. So, presumably, his body must have been put on the bed next to his wife’s by his killer. But that didn’t fit with the apparent uncontrolled rage of the murders. There was the attempt to hide Hannah’s clothes that were covered with blood. Why had they been put in such an obvious place, where the police were bound to find them? The prosecution lawyer had asked it as a rhetorical question in his summing-up and he had answered it. Because she was in a disordered state after killing her family. But was that right? She was ordered enough to try to hide her clothes but not ordered enough to hide them well.

  She thought of Hannah, beaten by other inmates, cuffed and drugged by the nurses, unvisited for years on end, abandoned and alone. She had no one. She had Frieda. For a while.

  She sent an email to Levin saying that she had changed her mind. She needed to visit Hannah Docherty again. She asked him to arrange it.

  EIGHT

  Frieda had a new client, a middle-aged woman who had been referred to her because she was suffering from acute, disabling panic attacks. She came into the room as if blown by the wind, surging forward, then stopping near the chair. Her dark hair was wet from the weather and plastered to her skull.

  “Hello, Maria. I’m Frieda. Please, have a seat.”

  The woman sat very upright, placing her hands on the arms of the chair as if it was about to speed off with her in it. “This is like going to the dentist’s,” she said. Her voice rasped and she gave a single cough to clear it. “Just don’t tell me to relax.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Right, then.” Her eyes were deep in their sockets, and there were purple shadows under them. She had the look of someone who had lost a lot of weight in a short time. Her black jeans were loose on her and her gray turtleneck jumper was baggy. She turned her gaze on Frieda as though she was forcing herself. Frieda saw her hands clench the armrests. “What now?”

  “I know that you’ve been having panic attacks and you’re probably feeling nervous about coming here, but today I’ll just do an assessment, asking some general questions, getting a kind of picture of your situation before we start on our actual therapy sessions together. All right?”

  Maria Dreyfus nodded. She wiped the back of one hand across her forehead, which Frieda saw was beaded with sweat.

  “We’ll start with basic things, like where you live, what you do, if you have a partner, children . . .”

  So they began. Slowly, patiently, Frieda extracted information. Maria Dreyfus was fifty-four. She was a fund-raiser and events manager for a mental-health charity. She had been married for twenty-five years, and while there had been ups and downs, of course, she described the marriage as strong. She had two children—a daughter who was a lawyer and a son who was still at university. Her father was alive, but her mother had died of cancer eleven years ago. She herself had had breast cancer in her early forties. She had a sister to whom she was close and a wide circle of friends, although recently she had stopped seeing them, and some of them were offended by that.

  “So I’m lucky,” she said. Her voice was low and attractive. “I know I’m lucky. Nothing bad’s ever really happened in my life, not compared to most people I know. My husband had an affair just after our son was born. That was painful, but it was ages ago and we got over it, though sometimes I can’t believe I didn’t just walk out of the door. My mother died. That was awful. But everyone’s mother dies. I had breast cancer, but they got it early. I was scared, of course, but I didn’t go to pieces or anything. I just dealt with it. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who deals with things. That’s what my friends would say as well. I’m strong. I thought I was. Now I tell myself—” She stopped and frowned. “I don’t know what I was going to say. I don’t know what I tell myself.”

  “Tell me,” said Frieda.

  “What should I say?”

  “Tell me when it started. What happened? Describe it for me.”

  She passed the back of her hand across her forehead once more, then put it against her throat briefly before replacing it on the chair arm. “It’s hard to say. For a long time now—a couple of months, anyway—” Sh
e stopped again. “Does my voice sound weird to you?”

  “Weird in what way?”

  “Thin and dry and coming from far away.”

  “No. But then I don’t know what your voice normally sounds like. You’re probably feeling self-conscious and removed from yourself and that’s why it sounds strange to you—like hearing a recording of yourself.”

  “What was I saying?”

  “You were saying that for some time now—and then you stopped.”

  “For some time I’d been having a peculiar and unpleasant feeling. Like a heaviness in my chest. I found it hard to swallow. And I had a nasty taste in my mouth and sometimes felt nauseous and short of breath. I lost my appetite. I thought maybe it was something physical. A bug I couldn’t shake off. Then one night, I woke.” She took one hand off the armrest and put it on her stomach. Now she was looking away from Frieda, talking toward the window where the rain still streamed down the glass, obscuring the world. She’d had enough of making herself meet another person’s gaze. Silence was thick in the room.

  “You woke?”

  “I woke and I couldn’t breathe properly. I couldn’t breathe, and there was such a pain in my chest, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t make myself move. It was quite dark. I could hear my husband breathing beside me, and I could hear myself trying to take a breath, but I sounded like an animal in a trap. I thought I was dying. I knew I was dying. This was it.”

  Frieda waited.

  Maria lifted her eyes. “I didn’t die. Obviously. I woke my husband and he called the emergency services and I was rushed to hospital with a suspected heart attack. But there was nothing wrong with me. Nothing physical. It was embarrassing, ridiculous.”

  “You were having a panic attack.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they’ve continued.”

  “Yes. Attack is the right word for it. I wake at night and I know it’s coming. It’s crouching and it’s going to get me. I lie there, with a thundering heart and the blood pounding in my head, and I’m pinned to the bed and this thing is going to happen. It’s like that man who has his liver pecked at by an eagle.”

  “Prometheus.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it just at night?”

  “No. Nights are the worst. I used to love climbing into bed but now it’s like climbing onto a torture rack. I lie awake, and I dread the small hours. I feel like an object, a thing, lying there staked out. I’m so tired.”

  “You must be.”

  “Have you ever had proper insomnia?” Frieda didn’t answer. “It’s horrible. But it’s not just at night. It happened at work a few times. It was ghastly. I knew I was making a spectacle of myself, but I couldn’t help it. I’m on sick leave now, though I keep trying to go back. I’m not used to not working. I’ve worked all my life—I’ve always been the main breadwinner. When my children were born I went back after a few weeks. This is the first time in over thirty years I’ve had time off. I used to long to have a painless illness for a few weeks so I could read and rest, you know, but I don’t do any of that. I lie in bed in the dark and listen to my heart banging. Or I just sit on the sofa, doing nothing. Me! I’ve never done nothing—it’s a family joke. I can’t see friends. I dread seeing anyone. I even dread seeing my children, the effort of talking to them. I don’t want anyone looking at me. Into me.”

  “What would they see?”

  “I don’t know. I just know this is not bearable.” She shifted abruptly in the chair. “That’s stupid. Of course it’s bearable. I’m not dying of it. It’s just . . .” She raised her palms in the air in a gesture of bewilderment. Her gaunt, intelligent face sagged. “I don’t understand it.”

  “And you’re used to understanding things.”

  “Yes.”

  “And to feeling in control.”

  “Yes. This—it’s meaningless. It’s just dread. As if my time of reckoning has come.”

  Leaving her office, half an hour after Maria Dreyfus had gone, Frieda found Jude, as arranged. She got into the car beside her.

  “We need to pick up someone on the way,” Frieda said.

  “What do you mean?” said Jude. “Who?”

  “Someone who can help.”

  “Have you cleared this with Levin?”

  “I only thought of it last night. He’s round the corner.”

  “That’s not really the point.”

  Frieda directed Jude across Tottenham Court Road. He was standing outside the back entrance of the hospital on the pavement reading a book. When he saw the car, he slipped it into a side pocket. Frieda got out and moved to the back seat. Even so, he had trouble fitting himself inside, his knees drawn up.

  Jude pulled away. “So who is this?” she asked.

  “Ask him,” said Frieda.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “We didn’t know anyone was coming along.” “

  “We”? Frieda asked me.”

  “I mean me. The people I work for.”

  He looked round at Frieda with an amused expression. “If this is something awkward, I can get out here.”

  “This is Professor Andrew Berryman. He’s . . . Well, what are you?”

  “Neurology,” said Berryman. “Brains.”

  “Yes, I know what neurology means,” said Jude. “But I thought that was what Levin was using you for.”

  “I’m not really interested in the chemistry of the brain—in neurons and synapses,” said Frieda. “I mean, I’ve studied it and read about it. I’m interested in how behavior originates in experience, memory, trauma.”

  Berryman laughed. “And I’m the opposite. I chose a branch of medicine where you don’t really have to deal with patients. Looking at people’s brains when they go wrong turns out to be a neat way of understanding how they work. I’m quoting from my first year-one lecture.”

  “So you think there’s something wrong with Hannah Docherty’s brain?”

  “We all know there’s something wrong with her brain—or her mind,” said Frieda. “She’s been in a psychiatric hospital for thirteen years.”

  “You ought to have cleared this with Levin,” said Jude.

  “If Levin doesn’t trust me, then he can look him up. He was crucial in solving the Robert Poole case a few years ago.”

  “ “Crucial” is putting it a bit strongly,” said Berryman. “But, then, I should warn you that the last time I saw Frieda, she’d been brought into A & E.” He looked round. Squeezed into the little car as he was, this took a considerable effort. “You were a terrible sight. Are you all right?”

  “As I said at the time, it wasn’t my blood.”

  “Not your blood?” said Jude. “What the hell happened?”

  “It’s complicated,” said Frieda. “You can ask Levin. He probably knows most of it. Actually, he probably knows more than I do. Anyway, the answer is, I’m fine. Other people came off worse.”

  As they drove through London, Frieda gave an account of Hannah Docherty’s case. At one point, Jude interrupted: “You are going to be discreet about this?”

  “Which one of us are you talking to?” asked Frieda.

  “Both of you.”

  “I could be pompous about it. And say I was a doctor.” Berryman looked out of the window. “Of course, if it’s particularly interesting I might have to write a paper about it.”

  Jude turned and stared at him.

  “Names disguised. And places.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Frieda. “He doesn’t have normal human reactions.”

  “It may seem funny to you,” said Jude, “but if it gets into the papers, I’ll be the one in trouble.”

  “I’ll be discreet,” said Berryman. “I promise. So we’re going to talk to Hannah Docherty?”

  “Not immediately,” said Frieda.

  Dr. Christian Mendoza was the clinical director of Chelsworth Hospital. His office was in the original, old part of the house, the faded Gothic construction that looked like the remnant of a
stately home or a castle or a public school. Frieda and Berryman were led along murky corridors and up a winding staircase, but the office itself was spacious, with large windows looking out on lawns and woodland. Mendoza was about sixty years old, with thinning gray hair, so that his pink scalp was clearly visible across the top of his head. He was dressed in a gray suit with a dark blue bow-tie. He wore very small round tortoiseshell spectacles. He waved them toward two chairs that had been placed in front of his wooden desk. Its surface was almost empty, except for a telephone, a mug full of pencils and pens, an open blank notebook and a small pile of files.

  “Dr. Frieda Klein and Dr. Andrew Berryman,” said Mendoza. “A psychotherapist and a neurologist.”

  “That’s us,” said Frieda.

  “That’s the benefit of modern technology. I was able to look you up and I was impressed with what I found. I only wish you’d given us more notice and I could have arranged a proper reception for you.”

  “That’s all right,” said Frieda. “I only decided this yesterday evening.”

  Mendoza took a handkerchief from his pocket, removed his spectacles and breathed on them, then carefully cleaned the lenses. “So, my first question is why, after all these years, a psychotherapist and a neurologist should be interested in poor Hannah Docherty.”