by Nicci French
“The Dochertys, yes.” She frowned. “Are you a journalist?”
“I’m a consultant working with the police.”
“A consultant? What does that mean?”
“It means I’m asking questions about the inquiry.”
“I’m done with all of that.” She looked at the young woman standing near them.
“I know you are.”
“Now I sell flowers. The police station’s a few yards away. I see police cars racing along the road with their lights and their sirens and I’m just so glad I’m out of it. I don’t want to talk about the Dochertys. I don’t want to think about them.”
Frieda hesitated. “I believe Hannah Docherty is innocent.”
Jane Farthing stared at her. Then she said, “Come out back. I can do the arrangements while we talk.” She nodded at the young woman. “Keep an eye on everything.”
She led Frieda into the neighboring room. It, too, was full of flowers and greenery, and pots and vases in various sizes. A basin ran along the length of one wall, and a long table stood in the middle, with scissors and twine. Jane positioned herself at it. She picked up several thistles and laid them in front of her, then some lilies. “I hate lilies,” she said. “But people always want them at funerals.”
“I hate them too,” said Frieda, thinking of the time that Dean had sent her lilies.
“Why do you think she’s innocent?” Jane snipped at a stem. “There was never any doubt.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying.”
“I’m not the one to ask about it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t you know? All my life I’d wanted to join the police, and on my very first murder case, I couldn’t hack it. I was so determined not to let it get to me. If you’re a woman, you’d better be as tough as anyone, tougher. But I discovered I wasn’t tough. I went to pieces. I kept having flashbacks and being sick and crying.”
“It was an extreme case.”
“You’ve no idea.”
“Can you tell me?”
“What? So that I can have nightmares again?”
“Did you have therapy?”
“One session of counseling. It was useless. I think he was rather religious and he kept talking about evil and I don’t believe in evil. Or I didn’t until then. Do you?”
“No.”
“I don’t remember it the way you probably want me to remember it. I don’t remember it chronologically. It doesn’t have a shape. It has a smell, that horrible sweet stench you can’t get out of your nostrils. Rotten, foul, but almost like food. It’s a smell you taste and then you feel poisoned. And it has a color. Dark red, nearly black. Blood everywhere. There was blood on the ceiling and up the walls. Sticky dark blood.” She snipped more stems. Frieda saw her hands were shaking slightly. “With bits in it. Bits of body. Do you understand? Little pieces of them spread around like some foul stew. And that boy in his pajamas. And her. She was the worst. I never ever want to see anything like that again: what hate can do. The father and the brother were recognizable. But her—God. There was an eye but not in its right place and then nothing, just a mess of bone and flesh and you could hardly tell she had been a person. Hannah must have hated her mother. Except you think it wasn’t Hannah.”
Frieda was surprised by her shock at Jane Farthing’s account. Her memories seemed entirely unprocessed. It was like she had just stepped out of the room and was reporting what she had seen and felt. And smelled.
“I was unlucky in a way,” the woman said now, still snipping.
“In what way?”
“We arrived at the house and the front door was open. I just felt something was wrong and I was the first in the bedroom.” Jane Farthing’s eyes had gone unfocused, unseeing, like someone in a waking dream. Frieda didn’t know if all this was good for her but at the same time she didn’t want her to stop. “Just for a minute my training kicked in. It’s funny that way. I took out my phone and called it in and then I just stood there. They got there so quickly. The photographer had been doing another job in the area. He was there in a few minutes. I think it was a few minutes. Sedge was furious.”
“Why was he furious?”
“Messing up the scene. Contaminating it. It was my own fault. You need to do the forensics first, then the photographs. Preserve the scene. I just wasn’t thinking straight. It was like I was under water and everything was happening slowly and far away. For weeks, I kept thinking it had got onto me. The smell, the blood. We were all just blundering around in shock.”
“Did you meet Hannah?”
“When she identified the bodies. I’ll never forget her.”
“Tell me.”
“She didn’t look real. She was tall and strong and had this long, wild hair, and a glassy, glittering look to her. But, then, nothing about it seemed real.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You read about crime in books and see it on TV and that’s what comes to seem real—something you can solve and understand and sort away. This was like being in Hell.”
“And that was why you had to leave.”
“Yes.” Jane Farthing moved to the basin, turning on the tap to rinse her hands. “And that’s why I can’t help you understand anything, because I didn’t understand anything myself. I just felt like I was looking into a pit that went down and down, and if I didn’t stop looking I’d fall into it myself.”
“I’m glad you opened your shop.”
“A bit of a cliché, perhaps.” She smiled suddenly. “Trying to cure myself with all of this. But I couldn’t think what else to do.”
When Frieda left she bought a tub of early hyacinths, several bunches of daffodils and a paper windmill for Ethan. She walked back down Mare Street carrying them, the little windmill turning, thinking of what Jane Farthing had said and of what she had seen. Who had hated Justine Walsh so much they had obliterated her face? Why had she been lying beside Aidan, in Deborah Docherty’s nightgown? Where had Deborah Docherty been? And Hannah? And she thought of Ben Sedge’s last words to her: Keep an open mind. Because she killed them, you know.
There was a message on her voicemail from Tom Morell. He sounded furtive, his voice a half-whisper.
“There was something. It probably means nothing. But that night I told you about, Hannah said something.” There was the sound of a woman calling to him and he broke off, saying Frieda should call him.
INTERLUDE NINE
In the car park, Hal Bradshaw meets Dr. Julia Styles. She is standing near his car, as if she is waiting for him.
“What do you make of her?” she asks.
“Impressive. Interesting.”
“Are you on her side now?”
“I’m a scientist. I don’t take sides.”
“But you want to write a book with her.”
“With her. About her.”
“And you’ll be speaking on her behalf at the hearing.”
“I’ll present my findings. Is that a problem?” He waits, his car key in his hand. “Look, the question we all face is whether we allow redemption to women like Mary Hoyle.”
Styles shakes her head. “The problem is whether she might do it again.”
THIRTY-TWO
“Mal!” Commissioner Crawford’s voice was hearty; his eyes were cold. “Take a seat. Rest that leg of yours. Tell me what it is that’s so urgent it couldn’t wait.” He lifted his wrist and ostentatiously looked at his watch. “I can give you five minutes.”
Karlsson took a deep breath. “Dean Reeve has surfaced. I have the evidence for it.”
He looked away from Crawford’s outraged face and took the folder out of his briefcase, pulling out the photostats of the photographs from Josef’s phone.
“Stop right there,” said Crawford, holding up a hand like a traffic warden. “Right there, Mal. I’m warning you.”
“This is important, sir.”
“Stop. I’m warning you, Mal. This has gone too far.”
“
This is Dean Reeve.” Karlsson held the paper in front of Crawford.
“She’s put you up to this. I can’t believe it. After everything else she’s made you go through.”
“I thought it my duty to tell you.”
“And it’s my duty to tell you that you are out of order. Get out of my office.”
“If you’re wrong, and it was discovered that you’d dismissed the evidence, you might not be—”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m just pointing out that there would be serious consequences.”
“Jesus, Mal.” Crawford picked up the photo and peered at it. “Dean Reeve had an identical twin, right?”
“Right.”
“Who ran out on his wife.”
“That’s what we’re meant to think.”
“Listen to yourself. You’ll be telling me no one actually landed on the moon next. He ran out on his wife. Here you are, then. This is him. Or just another poor fucker who looks a little bit like the man who used to be Dean Reeve but is now just ash.”
“But—”
“That’s all. Time’s up. Go home. Before I stop being in a good mood.”
Frieda opened the door to a man she didn’t recognize. He looked about forty, short brown hair, dark eyes, a wary expression. He was wearing a blue windbreaker, dark trousers and trainers. Ex-sportsman, Frieda thought. Or ex-army.
“I’m Stringer,” he said. “Bruce Stringer.”
“I’m sorry,” said Frieda. “What’s this about?”
“Keegan sent me.”
Frieda poured herself coffee. Stringer wouldn’t take anything more than a glass of water. He placed it on the table next to his chair and didn’t touch it again. He took a notebook from his pocket and a pen. “I’m not totally clear,” he said. “Keegan said you’d tell me. Someone’s bothering you. And you want to find them. Have I got that right?”
“It’s a little difficult to explain.”
“I need whatever you know. A name or two. An address. The question is: what is it you want?”
Frieda paused. She remembered that difficult moment in therapy. Something, some fear or anxiety or depression, had been a part of the patient’s life. Suddenly they had to give it a name, say it aloud, give it a shape, turn it into a narrative. Where to begin?
“I got involved with the police over the kidnapping of a boy called Matthew Faraday. It was done by a man called Dean Reeve. It turned out that years before he had also taken a little girl called Joanna Vine.”
“I read the file.”
“If you’ve read it, you’ll have seen that the police believe he’s dead.”
“He hanged himself.”
“And you’ll probably have read somewhere in the same report that there’s a mad psychotherapist who claims that Dean Reeve staged it and that he’s still alive.”
“And you think he’s out to get you?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“I saw that in the file as well. You were found almost dead at a murder scene involving two women.”
“They’ve got names. They were called Mary Orton and Beth Kersey.”
“You were alleged to have killed Beth Kersey in self-defense. But you claimed it wasn’t you. You said it was Dean Reeve.”
“That’s right.”
“Which seems like a strange way of getting revenge.”
“As I said, it’s complicated. But, look, if you don’t believe me, I can find someone else.”
“No, you can’t. Or you’d have tried.”
“All right. I’ll accept you at your valuation. But, still, you don’t have to do this.”
“Keegan asked me. That’s all I need to know. Well, not quite all. I’ve been around. I was in the force for fifteen years. People get caught and put away, or they’re not caught and they’re not put away. And sometimes they forgive and forget and sometimes they don’t. But this feels different. What is it with this man? Do you feel threatened by him? Do you want him caught? Do you want to meet him? What does he want with you?”
“I know what I want—to find him, apprehend him, stop him doing more harm. I don’t know what he wants. He feels like something in my head, something only I can see. Sometimes he does things to me, sometimes for me. It’s like he’s sending me messages I can’t read. It’s like he’s haunting me.”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“No, I don’t. And sometimes I really used to wonder if I could be imagining it all. I’ve seen enough patients who believed there were enemies out there, enemies that only they could recognize. Lying awake at night, once or twice, I asked myself if this was what it was like to be mad.”
“And?”
“Well, that’s the kind of question you ask yourself in the middle of the night. I was sure anyway, but then I saw this.” She took out her phone, found the photograph and showed it to Stringer.
He looked at it and shrugged. “It’s not exactly proof.”
“I don’t care about proof. It’s him. And he wanted me to see that.”
“Why? To mess with your head?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I talked to Keegan. And it’s escalating. He’s been here.” Frieda gave Stringer an account of the previous few weeks, the evidence that Reeve had been in the house. “So,” she said, when she had finished. “Can you find him?”
“I need names.”
“What names?”
“Anyone who’s met him. And places he’s been.”
“That’s difficult. Most of the people who met him are dead or they didn’t know who he was when they met him.”
“Just the names. Leave the rest to me.”
“There’s Matthew Faraday, the boy he kidnapped. He barely even saw Reeve and he was very young at the time. And there’s Joanna Vine, the girl he kidnapped. She lived with him for almost twenty years, collaborated in the kidnap of Matthew. But I’m not sure she’ll talk to anyone.”
Stringer was writing on his pad; Frieda saw he was using shorthand.
“Don’t worry about that. I just need the names.”
“Some of it’s a bit complicated. He met my sister-in-law, Olivia Klein.”
Stringer looked up from his notebook. “Met? How?”
“He kind of befriended her when she was drunk and took her back to her house. I don’t think anything happened. But I made her change her locks.”
“He sounds like an animal to me.”
“What do you mean?” said Frieda. “What kind of animal?”
“Marking his territory.”
“Please don’t say that to Olivia.”
“You’ve got a number for her?”
“Would you like me to talk to her for you?”
“It’s better if I do it.”
Frieda gave Olivia’s number to Stringer. She gave him Josef’s number, and the last address she had for Joanna Vine. “She might be rather aggressive.”
“Don’t worry.”
“She’s probably moved.”
“It doesn’t matter. I need places as well.”
“What sort of places?”
“Where he lived, where people he knew lived.”
Frieda had to hunt through some old notebooks until she found the address of where he had lived in Canning Town. She also gave Stringer the name of the old people’s home where Reeve’s mother had lived and died.
“He used to visit her,” Frieda said. “But the people there won’t know anything. And it’s years ago now. The staff have probably all changed.”
“We’ll see. Is that all?”
Frieda thought for a moment. It wasn’t all. There was another name that she could hardly bear to say. But she had to. “Caroline Dekker,” she said.
“Who’s that?”
“Dean Reeve had a brother. Alan Dekker. They didn’t know about each other. Well, not at first. The body found hanging. That was Alan.”
“Allegedly.”
“It was Alan.” Frieda felt suddenly nauseous. “You saw
my statement in the file, didn’t you?”
“Yes, now that you mention it, I think I did.”
“Carrie had a terrible time after Alan was killed. She thought Dean was her husband. She had lived with him as her husband for a day or so.” She paused.
Stringer looked up from his notebook. “Are you saying what I think?”
“I don’t know what you think. But she lived intimately with the man who killed her husband.”
Frieda thought Stringer would express shock or say something sympathetic but he just carried on writing in his notebook. “So she might not be very welcoming, but treat her gently.”
He closed his notebook. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
“I don’t have your phone number or email.”
“I’ll contact you.”
“I suppose it’s easier to find people than it used to be, what with the Internet and mobile phones and credit cards.”
“It depends how much people want to stay hidden. Usually the old way is the best, talking to people, following leads.”
“You know that he’s killed several people, don’t you?”
“I just find them,” said Stringer. “What happens next is up to you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Jack took a gulp of beer directly from the bottle. “Can I get you one?” he asked.
“Not at the moment,” said Frieda.
They gazed at the different piles of paper scattered around on the floor of the shed.
“It’s not like looking for a needle in a haystack,” he said. “It’s just like a haystack with lots and lots of hay. And it’s felt like we’ve just arranged the hay in different heaps.”
“You’ve done very well,” said Frieda.
“I was imagining it like what they do after plane crashes. A plane hits the ground and explodes and it looks like nothing at all, just bits of fuselage and wires and whatever. And they bring it all to some giant hangar and put everything where it belongs and gradually the whole plane takes shape and you can see where it broke apart, where the fault lines were.”
“That’s what I was hoping for.”
