by Nicci French
“So we’re done,” said Waite.
“Good.”
“What I don’t understand is why you wouldn’t answer questions, and then you phone your friend—a man who turns out to know people who know people—and he comes all the way down here and then you change your mind and answer my questions and really say nothing much at all. That’s what I don’t understand.”
“As I said, I was confused.”
“That’s the thing. You don’t seem like the sort of person who gets confused and shocked. What’s this about?”
“I thought the interview was over.”
“You know that interfering with a police inquiry is a serious criminal offense?”
“I’ve told you everything I know.” Frieda stood up.
“This isn’t one of your games,” said Waite. “A woman is dead.”
“Then why are you talking to me?”
Before she turned and walked away, the expression on Waite’s face almost frightened her.
INTERLUDE SEVEN
“That nurse,” says Hal Bradshaw.
“What nurse?” asks Mary Hoyle.
“James Moss. He was attacked. He’s badly hurt.”
“There are dangerous people here. Sometimes I’m glad I’m in solitary.”
“It’s just that you mentioned him last time.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose that if Moss said things about me, he probably said things about other people as well.”
“How does it make you feel, hearing about what happened to him?”
“My therapy has helped me. I realize now that violence is never an answer.”
“And Hannah Docherty?”
“What about her?”
“Is she safe now?”
When Hal Bradshaw thinks of Mary Hoyle, it’s her blue eyes he sees, those expressive, beautiful, confiding blue eyes. Now she turns them on him.
“I can only speak for myself,” she says. “I don’t know what other people might think she deserves.”
TWENTY-TWO
Keegan said his orders were to take her straight to Levin, but Frieda insisted on being dropped at her house. Without stopping to remove her coat, she went straight up to her study. First of all, she opened up the small brown case. It was packed full of women’s clothes, the smell of age and decay in their folds. She looked through their layers and saw nothing suspicious. She closed it and pushed it under the desk, then picked up a splitting garbage bag and up-ended it so that all its contents spilled out onto the floor with a rustle and a clatter: folders and papers and knick-knacks, even a few pieces of jewelry. She did the same to the next one, objects and scraps of paper tumbling onto the floor, but left the third, softly bulging, which appeared only to contain clothes. She stood back and surveyed the heap in front of her: it looked like rubbish and reminded her of the times she had seen Chloë trying to sort out the chaos in her room, tossing old essays, fliers, letters, torn tights and scrunched-up tissues into a discard pile. But Erin Brack might have been killed for a clue that was buried here, among the cast-offs of a family’s life.
She sat on the floor and picked up an eyeshadow palette, greens merging into brown. Her mobile buzzed: it was Levin. She ignored it and started to pick things out at random: bills, torn photos, old postcards, spiral-bound notebooks. She opened a cardboard folder and saw car-insurance details. Her mobile buzzed again. There was a battered paperback of Catcher in the Rye. The pages were damp and moldy. A bobble hat. A wristband. Swimming certificates. Guarantees for the boiler and the dishwasher. A wall calendar with nothing written on it. Frieda pushed her hand into the pile and pulled out a handful of paper: a birthday card from Hannah to her mother, a Valentine card with a large question mark inside and the inscription ‘From your secret admirer,’ a shrivelled horse chestnut on a string, a four-leafed clover stuck with yellowing brittle adhesive tape to a piece of stiff white paper. Perhaps one of these things contained the clue that Erin Brack had died for—but, if so, it was like having a key but no lock, not even a door.
A text pinged onto her screen. It was from Levin. “Come at once.” She sighed and pushed everything back into the bags.
“So.” Levin took off his glasses and laid them on the table in front of him. He didn’t give his usual vague smile; everything about him seemed different today. “Erin Brack.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve just looked at her website.”
“So you have an idea of what she was like.”
“I have an idea of what she believed.”
“Every conspiracy going.”
“And yet perhaps in this case . . .” Levin didn’t finish the sentence. “What are you thinking?”
“Before Erin’s death, I believed that the sheer incompetence of the original investigation meant they might have convicted the wrong person. Now that Erin has been killed—and I’m certain it was murder—I feel sure of it. I believe that Hannah Docherty has spent thirteen years in a hospital for the criminally insane, often in solitary confinement, for a crime she didn’t commit. I don’t believe she was psychologically ill at the time her family was murdered, just angry and troubled, then traumatized by grief and suspicion. The insanity came later.”
As she spoke, Frieda thought of Hannah—or, rather, Hannah’s image rose up in her mind. A dark shadow.
Levin nodded. “And someone else got away?”
“Yes.”
“And they’ve killed Erin Brack because she might inadvertently have in her collection something to incriminate them.”
“Yes.”
“Which they know about because she wrote publicly about it.”
“That’s right. She even gave the date I would take it away.”
“But you arrived early.”
“Yes.”
“So whoever torched Erin Brack’s house, with her inside, believes they’ve destroyed the evidence.”
“Yes.”
“So you know why I was anxious to see you and what you need to do at once.”
“Look through everything more carefully.”
Levin shook his head reprovingly at her. “You need to get those things out of your house immediately. I assume that’s where they are?”
“You think—”
“Of course. Someone killed Erin Brack for them.” He paused, softly tapping his fingers on the table. “It will make the collection safer—but it won’t necessarily make you safer, since we can’t exactly make a public announcement about the removal.”
“I don’t think anyone knows I have them.”
“Someone always knows.”
“You’re right. I’ll take the stuff somewhere else.”
“We could do that for you.”
“I’ll do it. I need access to it. There must be something there.”
Levin looked dissatisfied. “You’re sure about this?”
“Yes.”
He put his glasses back on. “I feel there’s something wrong with this plan.”
“Well, if there is, say sorry to Keegan from me.”
“You’re sure no one comes in here?” asked Frieda.
“Well, obviously, people come in here.” They were standing in a yard with the workshop Chloë worked in behind them. Chloë was tussling with a key and a large, rusty padlock. “Like us, now. If I can open the door.”
“But they don’t spend time here, or work here.”
“It’s a storeroom. It’s full of old planks and weird stuff that no one wants but never gets round to throwing away. You’re being a bit odd, if you don’t mind me saying. What’s in those bags anyway?”
With a wrench, the key turned and the padlock sprang open. Chloë took it off the metal hoop and pulled at the double wooden doors. They swung outward to reveal a large, cement-floored space, shed more than room, with light glimmering through the high windows onto piles of wood and old tools. There was a large saw with a broken handle and something that looked like an ancient mangle. Chloë pressed th
e light switch. Long fluorescent bars flickered for several seconds before steadying. Corners came into view, a pram without wheels and a porcelain sink, a crooked column of stacked cardboard boxes. On a high shelf there were two empty bird nests.
“Perfect,” said Frieda. “It’s much bigger than I expected.”
“Welcome to Walthamstow.”
“So that’s where you work.” Frieda gestured toward the workshop.
“Not so different from a hospital, really.”
Frieda looked at her niece. She was wearing old canvas trousers held up with a broad belt, and a long-sleeved T-shirt that looked suspiciously like one Frieda used to own until it had disappeared. On her feet were stout scuffed boots. Her hair was cut short. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She looked strong and contented, as if she was standing on her own ground at last.
“One day you can make me that bench. Or maybe a stool.”
“I might start with a chopping board. I’m good at those.”
“Olivia still unhappy about your career choice?”
“It’s just the way she is. There always has to be a drama. It’s Dad who’s really cross. You know how he is.” Frieda did know. “That’s all right, though. It’s my life, not his.”
“Good.”
They carried the bags and the case inside and piled them against a wall.
“So, are you going to tell me what’s in them?” asked Chloë.
“I don’t really know myself.”
“That means you’re not going to tell me.”
“It means I don’t know.”
“Whose are they?”
“They belonged to someone who’s died and, for reasons that are too complicated to explain, I’ve inherited them. So I’ve got to make sure there’s nothing important before I throw them away. I didn’t want them cluttering up my study.”
“You were never very tolerant of mess, were you? Anyway, I’ll leave you to it.”
She handed over the chunky key and left.
Alone, Frieda stared inside the bags that she had so recently emptied and stuffed full again. It was clear that the only way she was going to find anything was to put all of this in some kind of order—but what kind of order? What was the structure she was going to impose on mess? There was so much, and she didn’t know where to start because she didn’t know what she was looking for. She went across to the stacked cardboard boxes and lifted off the top ones. Then she knelt on the floor and took each item from the garbage bags and inspected it before dropping it into a box. Some of it she had already seen when she had riffled through the pile in her study; the rest seemed more of the same, a reminder of all the things people collect through the years: bills, receipts, school reports, certificates, notebooks, a couple of old passports with their corners snipped off, quotations for repairs to subsidence, Aidan’s birth certificate, a small plastic photo album with holiday snaps in it, dozens of bank statements, none showing an overdraft or any large, inexplicable sums of money going out of the bank or into it, although Frieda didn’t put them into a particular order or look through them properly, birthday cards, half a pack of envelopes, a sheaf of recipes. One by one she transferred them from bag to box. It took a long time, and the light outside faded. She heard splatters of rain on the corrugated-iron roof and then they gathered in force, hammering down. Would the rain ever stop?
Two of the boxes were full. She pulled the clothes from the next bag, shook each garment out and folded it before laying it in the third box. Just a random assortment, from the look of it: a strappy top, a pair of gray men’s trousers, a flecked jersey, boy’s trainers, their laces still knotted, a sweatshirt, a colorful patterned scarf, a checked shirt with a grubby collar, several ties. The moths had got at some of them and there was a musty, unwashed odor.
Finally Frieda turned to the case. The clothes she had glanced at earlier were smarter than the ones in the bag and presumably had belonged to Deborah. They were neatly folded: two thin shirts, one white and one pale blue, a black skirt, a black bra and matching knickers, a cardigan, a leather belt, several pairs of sheer tights rolled into a ball, a pack of Kleenex. That was all. Frieda closed the lid and pushed the case against the wall, then sat back on her heels. It just seemed like a few leftovers from an ordinary kind of family, made extraordinary by the manner of their deaths. If there was something here, she couldn’t see it, or not yet.
At two in the morning, Frieda woke. She lay open-eyed in the darkness while the rain fell outside. Something was troubling her. She realized she was thinking not of the case but of Shelley Walsh, so brittle and bright and respectable, so full of a repressed sense of abandonment. She was like a small child playing at being a grown-up, scrubbing her house as though her life depended on it. She might not be able to help Hannah, but she could perhaps help Shelley. She could hear Thelma Scott’s stern voice cautioning her: beware the rescue impulse.
The next day, when Shelley Walsh opened the door and saw Frieda, her face fell. “We’ve already talked,” she said.
“I want to talk to you again.”
Shelley looked at her watch. “My husband will be home soon.”
“Then we’d better be quick.”
“You’re a woman,” Shelley said. “Don’t you understand what I’ve been through? I put it behind me. I made myself a new life. I became a new person.”
“Hannah Docherty didn’t escape.”
“Not everybody is strong enough.”
“Are you going to let me in?”
Shelley looked at her watch once more. “Ten minutes. And I really shouldn’t be doing this at all. You’ll have to talk to me while I cook.”
She led Frieda through to the kitchen where a complicated meal was in progress, vegetables, chopping boards, pans in different stages of use. Shelley started slicing an onion. “Don’t ask me what I’m cooking. Just say what you have to say. You probably want to hear more about boyfriends and drugs.”
“No, I don’t.”
Shelley paused in her chopping. She lifted her left hand and looked at it. Suddenly the tip of her index finger bloomed red and blood dripped from it.
Frieda looked around, saw some paper towels, tore off a piece and handed it to her. “Are you all right?”
“Don’t say anything.” She wrapped the paper round her finger.
“I often do that,” said Frieda, although she didn’t.
“I wouldn’t have done it if you weren’t here. I’m trying to think of too many things at the same time.”
“I’ll go in a minute. I just need to ask you a couple of questions.”
Shelley didn’t look at Frieda. She started chopping the onion again. “There’ll probably be blood all over them.”
“You know what I’ve found, over the years?”
“No, I don’t, and I don’t want you to tell me.”
“If there’s an easy, quick way of settling a case, then that’s the way it gets solved. Even if there are things left over, bits that don’t fit. But those bits are what interest me. That’s what I can’t let go of.”
Still Shelley didn’t look up. Chop, chop, chop.
“I keep thinking about the house you and Hannah were in,” Frieda continued. “I want to get a clearer picture of it.”
“I thought you said it wasn’t about boyfriends and drugs.”
“Tell me about Tom Morell.”
“Tom Morell?”
“You lived with him.”
“I know who you mean, but what do you want me to say? He was just—well, just there. Always there.”
“What was he like?”
“Nice.”
“That word has always worried me.”
“What’s wrong? Can’t somebody just be nice?”
“It can be an evasion. It’s not very illuminating.”
“Sorry about that.” Shelley’s voice was high and sarcastic. “What do you want me to say? He was polite and overweight and always kind of hovering in the background. Better?”
“Mu
ch better. How did he get on with Hannah?”
Shelley made a clicking sound with her tongue. “How would I know?”
“Because you were there.”
“I wasn’t thinking about Tom Morell.”
“But if you think about him now.”
“He liked her. He probably had a thing for her.”
“A thing.”
“You know. And he was the kind of man who liked to rescue people. Perhaps he thought he could rescue her.” Shelley had stopped chopping. Now she put down the knife and wiped a wrist against her eyes. “I don’t know why Hannah needed rescuing more than me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hannah had a home she could go back to. She was just slumming it. I didn’t. Why didn’t someone want to rescue me?” Shelley blinked rapidly several times. She had a little smile on her face, which twitched as she tried to keep it in position.
“Did your mother never want to?” Frieda asked her gently. “I mean, before she went missing from your life.”
“She didn’t ‘go missing.’ She left, she moved away. You know what? Good riddance.”
Frieda was about to return to the subject of Hannah, but the sight of Shelley trying not to cry as she scraped the onions into the pan, the stiffness of her thin shoulders and her bright, angry smile, stopped her. “How was your relationship with your mother?”
“I left home when I was fifteen. You can work it out for yourself.”
“Tell me about her.”
“Tell you about my mother? My mother who left and never told me she was going, never bothered to say goodbye? Why? What is there to say? I’m not going to be a mother like that. I’m going to look after my child and protect it and keep it safe.”
“She didn’t keep you safe?”
“I ended up living in a squat and taking drugs.”
“What was she like? Describe her for me.”
“She was a mess. She had no self-control. She was irresponsible, that’s the word.”
Shelley put the pan on the hob and lit the flame under it. She tipped in some oil and stirred the onions vigorously with a wooden spoon.
“In what way?”
Shelley picked up an aubergine and turned it in her hands. Her small neat face wore a look of distaste. “She drank,” she said.
