by Nicci French
“I wanted to ask you about that. You were the one who took her to identify the bodies.”
“That’s right.”
“Why would you take a traumatized young woman to look at the corpses of her family?”
“She was the closest relative. Also, it’s useful to look at their reactions.”
“In case they did it, you mean?”
“Exactly.”
“So how did Hannah react?”
“She just stared. She seemed bizarrely calm, though later she was wild.”
“How did you interpret it? Grief? Pain? Shock?”
“I don’t know.”
“And then she said the woman in the bed was her mother.”
“As clear as anything.”
“And you took her word for it.”
Ben Sedge gave her a tight smile. “As you say, I took her word for it. In my defense, I think most people would have done the same. Because why lie?”
“Because she was in shock?”
“Look. It doesn’t really make a difference, does it? She clearly killed her mother later as well. Or earlier. Who knows?”
“You mean, killed her mother and drove her somewhere and buried her. Did she have a driving license?”
“Hannah? I don’t know. She was eighteen so she might have had. It would be easy to find out. But that’s something you can ask the investigating officer.”
“As I’m sure you already know, they’re not reopening the inquiry.”
“So I was informed, though I haven’t been told to come back to work yet. I’m a case that’s still pending. They’re not pursuing this because what would be the point? This only makes things worse for Hannah, doesn’t it? A fourth murder, and she’s already locked up for life.”
It was what Yvette had said as well. Frieda nodded. “They’re not opening the inquiry, but I am.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think she killed anyone.”
“In spite of all the evidence.”
“In spite of that.”
“Why?”
She couldn’t tell him about Erin Brack, so she simply said, “I have a feeling.”
“A feeling,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“So you’re sitting there saying you have a feeling I didn’t just make a cock-up, that I’m responsible for a wrongful conviction.”
“I suppose I am.”
Ben Sedge stared at her for several seconds. Frieda tried to read the expression on his face: she didn’t think it was anger. It looked more like curiosity, or perhaps a grudging respect. He turned back to the window, where drizzle blurred the glass. “It’s going to rain again,” he said. “Won’t the sky run out of rain eventually? It’s like people crying. I’ve seen people cry so much you can’t believe there’s enough water in their tear ducts. What the fuck do you want from me?”
Frieda joined him at the window. “Perhaps you can help me.”
“You’ve a nerve.” Sedge sounded more admiring than hostile.
“If you were starting the case afresh, with this new evidence, what would you do?”
“Why ask me? I should be the last person you’d turn to.”
“You were there. You know what it looked like, smelled like, felt like.”
“As I say, it was a long time ago.”
“But you must remember some things vividly. It wasn’t an ordinary case.”
“No.” He sounded somber. “It was an appalling case. Some of my team had to have counselling.”
“But not you.”
“What’s strange is that I remember the reactions of my team more than my own. I remember one of the team being sick. I felt I had to be strong to keep everyone going, you know?”
“What would you do now, if you were me? Where would you look?”
“You’re serious, aren’t you? You’re seriously asking me to help you ruin my own reputation.”
“That’s not how I’m thinking about it.”
“For truth and justice, you mean?”
“Something like that.”
Sedge rubbed his hand against his stubbly cheek. “Obviously, the first thing that springs to mind is that Justine Walsh and Aidan Locke were probably having an affair. Otherwise why would she be in bed with him?”
Frieda nodded.
“So I’d need to find out if this was true. If it was, then I’d ask who would be angry enough about that to kill them.”
“And Rory.”
“Perhaps he was collateral damage. He was just there.”
“And Deborah too.”
“It’s odd, I’ll give you that. But you know what? There are odd things in every case, things that don’t make sense.”
“This isn’t just odd, this is an additional murdered woman.”
“I know. What I mean is that you’re staring at a mess and seeing a pattern there. But maybe it’s just a mess. My mess, I grant you. Anyway, I would begin by talking to people who knew Aidan Locke and Justine Walsh.”
“Thank you. Anything else?”
“Yes.” They had both been talking staring out of the window, but now he turned to look at her and she turned as well. “I would say this, of course. Keep an open mind.” He held up a hand to prevent her speaking. “Keep an open mind about Hannah Docherty. I like your spirit and your tenacity. But does it occur to you that you might be wrong?”
“You are certain Hannah is guilty?”
Sedge pushed his hands deep into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “You talk about your gut feeling,” he said eventually. “I know about those. I have them too. They can be dangerous for detectives. You have to both put them to one side and yet hold them there, at the edge of your vision, if you see what I mean.”
“And your gut feeling is that Hannah did it?”
He nodded. “I got a sense of danger from her,” he said. “It was almost like a smell.”
“It could have been the smell of great pain.”
He smiled at her suddenly, his blue eyes crinkling. He appeared both amused and yet in a state of distress. “Well, of course. You can interpret these things any which way. You’re the therapist. But keep an open mind. Because she killed them, you know.”
There was a message from Reuben on her voicemail, asking her to call him as soon as she could.
“Reuben?” she said.
“I thought we could meet.”
Something about his voice stopped her asking why, or making an excuse. “Of course. Where?”
“We could walk somewhere.”
It was raining and he hated walking.
“Are you at the Warehouse?”
“No. I’m on the Heath.”
“I’ll meet you near the bandstand.”
“Right.”
“Give me half an hour.”
There were very few people around. A few dog-walkers and some joggers running through the steady drizzle. She saw Reuben at once, in his dandyish coat, his gray hair damp.
She put a hand on his arm.
“What is it?”
“I have a lump in my neck.”
“Show me where.”
He unwrapped his soft scarf and put two fingers gently on the skin just below his ear. “There.”
“Let me feel.”
She laid her fingers where his had been. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“You should go to your doctor, Reuben.”
“You think it’s serious?”
“You should get it checked out.”
“You think I’ve got cancer?”
“It’s a lump. It doesn’t feel like a gland. You know as well as I do that it could be nothing or it could be something. You need to get it checked out.”
He nodded and looked away at the lowering sky.
“Why don’t you make an appointment with your GP now?”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“Do you have the number on your phone?”
He nodded.
“Make an appointment. And if they can see you at once, we can walk there together. Or we can go and have coffee somewhere.”
She turned away as he called, looked at the dogs and the runners and the rain falling.
“I’m going tomorrow morning,” he said, sliding his mobile back into his pocket.
“Good.” She linked an arm through his. “Let’s go and get that coffee, then.”
“I’ve got a lump under my arm as well.”
“It’s good you’re going to the doctor.”
“I guess.” He nodded glumly, water dripping from his hair.
“I’m glad you told me. Come on now.”
TWENTY-NINE
Frieda had become used to being greeted by Shelley Walsh with a look of irritation or even horror. Not this time. As she opened the door, Frieda saw the face of a woman who had lost her mother for a second time. She was as well groomed as ever, but she was so pale that her skin was almost white.
“Why wasn’t it you who told me?”
“I’m sorry,” said Frieda. “I gave the police your address.”
“You should have been the one to come.” But Shelley didn’t seem angry, more sad and defeated.
“Can I come in?”
Shelley didn’t speak, just stepped aside. By now Frieda knew where everything was: the teapot in the cupboard, the mugs hanging from hooks, the teaspoons in a drawer next to the cooker. She poured the tea and she and Shelley sat in the conservatory, looking out at the garden that was as neatly ordered as the house. Frieda sipped her tea and waited for Shelley to speak.
“So why didn’t you?” she said finally. “Was it easier to get someone else to do it for you?”
“You never seemed very pleased to see me,” said Frieda. “Also, it was the police’s job. I thought they’d need to ask you questions.”
“They seemed embarrassed,” said Shelley. “There was a young policeman and a young policewoman and I think they wanted to leave as soon as they could. But when they told me what had happened, I started crying and asking questions and saying that it didn’t make any sense. That just made things worse. For them, I mean.”
“What did they ask you?”
“Nothing. They waited for me to stop crying and then they left.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?” said Shelley, with some of her old sharpness. “You already explained it. You left it to the police. It wasn’t your responsibility.”
“I’m sorry about your mother. I’m sorry about the way you heard it.”
“You’re welcome.” Shelley paused for a moment. “No. That’s what you say when someone says “thank you”. What do you say when someone says sorry to you? I suppose I should say, “That’s all right. It doesn’t matter.”’
“Have you talked to your husband about it?”
“I told him the body had been found. I had to. I had the crazy thought of not telling him at all, but it wasn’t possible.”
“You can have a funeral now,” said Frieda. “It can be a good thing. We need to say goodbye.”
“It’s not so simple. The police told me about that. There already was a funeral, although they didn’t know it was my mother. And the body was cremated. And the ashes were scattered.”
“You can still have a service or a memorial of some kind.”
“I said goodbye a long time ago. How many goodbyes can one person say?”
“She was an absence. That can be difficult. Now you have something real.”
Shelley was looking down at her tea, fiddling with the mug. Frieda saw she was plucking up courage to say something.
“Do people talk to you about things like this? I mean, in your job.”
“Things like what?”
“You know. Losing a parent.”
“Yes, of course. Often.”
“Do you think it would help? For someone like me?”
“Do you have friends you can talk to?”
“I’ve got friends. Obviously. I’m not sure they’re the kind to talk about this sort of thing with.”
“Then yes. You ought to talk to someone.”
Now Shelley looked up and faced Frieda directly. “I was thinking of you.”
“There are two reasons why I couldn’t do that for you. The first is that we have a personal connection now. When you see someone in that way it needs to be someone outside your life. Talking to a therapist isn’t like talking to a friend. It’s quite different. But I could have a preliminary talk with you. We could decide between us what you need and then I could find the right person for you.”
Shelley seemed cast down. “I know it’s because I wasn’t very welcoming when you first came here.”
“It’s not because of that. I’ve told you why.”
“You said there were two reasons.”
Frieda hesitated. She wasn’t quite sure how to put this. “The police told you that they weren’t proceeding with an investigation.”
“They didn’t tell me anything.”
“As you know, Hannah was convicted of all the murders. With your mother being found at the scene, and Hannah’s mother being found elsewhere, it looks rather different now. But the police still believe that Hannah Docherty did it. That she killed her mother and your mother as well.”
“And you don’t?”
“It’s complicated. I want to look into it. And while I was doing that, I couldn’t be talking to you as a therapist.”
“I’m confused. You think that Hannah killed her family but that someone else killed my mother.”
“No. That doesn’t sound right. I’m not sure what happened, but it needs looking at.”
“Hannah was a difficult girl.”
“I’ve known lots of difficult girls.”
“But you think you know better than the police.”
“The thing is, Shelley, you’ll need to talk to someone who can help you work through the feelings you had as a girl, with all that happened between you and your mother, and also your feelings now that you know she’s dead.”
“And you can’t do that?”
“No. Because a therapist will need to ask you one kind of question while I want to ask you another kind.”
“What kind?”
Frieda looked out of the window. A squirrel was running along the top of the wooden fence at the back of the lawn. It disappeared into the next garden. “For the moment, I want to ask you just one or two questions. But they may be painful for you, and if they are, you only have to say so.”
“What sort of questions?”
“Did the police tell you where your mother’s body was found?”
“In the Docherty house.”
“In the bedroom of the Docherty house.”
“They told me that.”
“And what did you think?”
“What I thought was that it was terrible that my mother hadn’t just disappeared but that she had been murdered and that it hadn’t been known about.”
“That’s not what you thought, that’s what you felt. Why do you think your mother was there?”
Shelley took a deep breath as if she’d been stung. “Is that the sort of question you ask your patients?”
“I told you. I can try to help you but you can’t be my patient. Why do you think your mother was in the Dochertys’ bedroom?”
“How should I know? She didn’t talk to me about things like that.”
“Things like what?”
“You’re trying to get me to say that my mother was having an affair.”
“Well, was she?”
“What’s the point of even asking me?”
“Because you’re her daughter.”
“All right, the answer is no. I don’t think my mother was having an affair with Hannah’s father.”
“Hannah’s stepfather.”
“Either of them.”
“You don’t think your mother was the sort of woman who had affairs.”
Shelle
y looked tired now. Frieda wondered if she had pushed her too far.
“You don’t understand what my mother was like.”
“So tell me.”
“It’s not just that her life was a mess. You know that. It’s that I can’t believe she would have had the energy to have an affair, the sense of purpose or whatever you want to call it. Not at that period of her life.” Shelley wrinkled her nose. “I can imagine her letting herself be fucked—” she looked taken aback at the word she’d used, her eyes blinking rapidly “—but not doing anything that needed planning or commitment. If I try to remember my mother, I think of her lying on the sofa with her legs splayed out and a bleary look on her face. Or tottering around screaming at me with her hair all matted, looking like a madwoman. Or crying and saying she was sorry, with mascara running down her cheeks. Or having a good day, and that felt even worse than the bad days because it made me hopeful, but at the same time I knew it didn’t mean anything. That was my mother.” Shelley’s voice wobbled. “Useless. Of course she couldn’t have had an affair.”
“And yet she ended up dead in the Dochertys’ bed, beside Aidan.”
“It doesn’t make sense. I don’t think she even knew the Dochertys. I’d knocked around with Hannah but there wasn’t much chance of the two families socializing, I can tell you that.”
“So what was she doing there?”
“You ask me as if I’m somehow responsible. Maybe she came round and confronted Hannah and Hannah snapped. As someone who knows Hannah—or knew Hannah—that sounds more likely.”
“So Hannah killed your mother,” said Frieda. “And then killed her own family.”
“That’s enough. You said I should tell you if I didn’t want to answer questions. I’m telling you. I don’t want to answer questions.”
Frieda stood up. “It was courageous of you to talk to me at all. I promise you, Shelley, if I learn anything new about your mother, I’ll let you know.”
Shelley looked up at Frieda. “Why would I want to know?”
