by Nicci French
“Yes, but lives don’t have a shape like a plane. You can order them in as many shapes as you like. It just depends on the story you want to tell.”
“That sounds a bit like therapy,” said Frieda.
“It sounds like the dangers of therapy. That’s always been my problem. It’s easy to create a narrative. The problem is working out the authentic, true narrative, or the useful narrative.”
“So where are we so far?”
“Follow me and I’ll give you the guided tour.” Jack walked around the shed pointing at the different piles. “This is Deborah Docherty. This is Hannah. This little pile is Rory. This is Aidan Locke. Now it gets a bit fuzzy. That pile is general family stuff. And that pile is stuff that didn’t seem interesting at all. It was just stuff, brochures, programs, minicab ads. It was the kind of thing you find at the bottom of a drawer because you forgot to throw it away.”
“We’ll need to check everything,” said Frieda.
“I think I’ve looked at every single bit of paper. I even dreamed about it last night. I dreamed that you came to check through the papers and asked me how I’d arranged them but I couldn’t remember and couldn’t explain.”
“Talk me through one of the piles,” said Frieda. “Just to give me an idea. Try that one.” She pointed at random.
Jack knelt down and lifted a printed card. “This is the Aidan Locke pile. I think what we have here is mainly the sort of thing you put in a drawer and keep because about once every three years you might need to refer to it. Here’s his NHS medical card, and there’s a P60 for a job he had.”
“What job?” asked Frieda.
Jack looked at the form. “I don’t know. It just gives the name of an employer: Benson Harcourt. But it was in 1995, so it probably doesn’t matter. There’s his paper driving license, which reveals that his middle name was Charles. There’s a vaccination certificate for a cat from 1997. Only one, so I’m deducing that the cat is no longer alive. There’s Locke and Docherty’s marriage certificate. There’s a pile of certificates thanking him for giving blood. He kept them with all his other documents, so he was clearly proud of them, and rightly so. There’s his National Insurance card and a certificate for his ownership of Premium Bonds, which I didn’t think were still a thing. And finally there’s an Enduring Power of Attorney form for Ronald Locke and Jennifer Locke, who I’m guessing are Locke’s aged parents.” He stood up. “And so, Aidan Locke, that was your life. Not much to show for it.”
Frieda crouched down and started leafing through the pile. “He got married, he gave blood, he had a cat. That’s something.” She paused at the blood-donor forms and leafed through them. “He stopped,” she said.
“Stopped what?”
“Giving blood. Two years before he died. I wonder why.”
“Are you serious? What does it matter?”
Frieda stood up and looked at him. “Have I taught you nothing? I don’t mean about crime. I mean about therapy, about life. Everything matters.”
“That’s your problem,” said Jack, his face flushed. “You’re incapable of seeing something as unimportant. Not everything is symbolic. Even Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Frieda smiled. “No, he didn’t.”
“Everybody knows that. It’s his most famous saying.”
“Everybody may know that but they’re wrong. If Freud had said it, he would have been wrong. But he didn’t say it.”
“You want to bet?”
“I never bet. Especially when I’m right.”
Jack took out his phone, walked to the corner of the room and tapped at it energetically. Frieda continued leafing through the papers. She heard a grunt from behind her. She turned to Jack. “Well?” she said.
“All right. Maybe Locke stopped giving blood because he moved.”
“No. Locke and Deborah Docherty moved in together in 1996. He gave blood for three years after that.”
“Maybe he got tired of it. Maybe he didn’t have time.”
“It’s something to consider.”
“Frieda, what could Aidan Locke stopping giving blood possibly have to do with him being murdered two years later?”
“Good.”
“What do you mean good?”
“Finally you’re asking a question we might be able to answer.”
INTERLUDE TEN
Nobody seems quite sure how the Stanley knife got into Chelsworth. It may have been brought in by a visitor, passed across during a familial hug. Or brought by a nurse. Or hidden in a parcel. Or forgotten by a builder. The carving knife is from the kitchen. The scalpel was taken from the dispensary and has been hidden in a mattress for the past month. And the flick knife? Aggie Stretton brought it in herself. How? She looks at the others and laughs.
“How do you fucking think?” she says.
“Didn’t they search you?”
“Yeah, they searched me.”
It took cigarettes, bags of weed, the calling-in of favors, to assemble the four weapons. They look at them spread out on the blanket almost with awe.
“That’ll be enough,” says Aggie. “Even for fucking Hannah Docherty.”
THIRTY-THREE
“I thought you were done with me,” said Yvette, on the phone.
“I thought so too. But I was hoping you could do one more thing.”
“What?”
“Get hold of Aidan Locke’s medical records.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem.” She sounded remarkably compliant.
“Thank you.”
“What am I looking for?”
“I’m not sure. But Aidan Locke gave blood almost all of his adult life. Regular as clockwork. Then, two years before he died, he suddenly stopped, so I’m wondering if there was a reason.”
“OK.”
“I’m grateful.”
“Hang on,” said Yvette, before Frieda could end the call. “Tell me how it’s going.”
“We’re a bit stuck,” said Frieda. “But I’ve got Jack sorting through all the things I collected from Erin Brack, to see if there’s anything there. She was killed for a reason.”
“And you’re still convinced Hannah didn’t kill her family?”
“I’m convinced that it’s not proven. I’m convinced there was a miscarriage of justice thirteen years ago, which has now, with the refusal to reopen the case, been repeated. I’m convinced that Hannah was not clinically insane at the time, but has been profoundly psychologically damaged in hospital. She’s been in Hell. And, yes, I believe she did not do it.”
“But no ideas who did it if she didn’t?”
“Not yet.”
Olivia’s voice on the phone was loud and shrill. “There’s a man here.”
“What sort of man?”
“He says he knows you.”
“Is his name Bruce Stringer?”
“That’s the one. He says he wants to ask about Dean Reeve. I don’t know why he’s come to me. I mean, I don’t even know if I met him. You say I did, but let’s face it, he is a bit of an obsession with you.”
“You met him, Olivia.”
“Even if I did, I can’t remember much about it. I wasn’t entirely sober.”
“Tell this to him, not me.”
“Yes, but he asked an extraordinary question.”
“What was that?”
“He asked . . .” Olivia lowered her voice. “I don’t even want to say the words.”
“Whether you’d slept with him.”
“In a word, yes.”
“Just tell him anything you remember. You don’t need to tell me.”
“Of course I didn’t! I would remember something like that. What have you been saying?”
“I just gave him your name.”
“Why are you dragging everything up again, Frieda? It’s all in the past. Just let it go. Get on with your life.”
Frieda thought of the smiling face she’d seen on Josef’s phone, the eyes looking into hers. “You don’t need to worry,�
�� she said. “Tell Bruce Stringer whatever you can remember and that will be that.”
Frieda was shocked by Hannah’s appearance when she shambled into the room, her gait heavy and lopsided. She tried to think what Hannah suddenly reminded her of and then she had it: as a child, she had come across a dying badger hobbling across the path, dragging its bloody hindquarters, and had been shocked by how different it looked from the handsome animal in children’s books. It was big, cumbersome, its coarse yellowy hair matted with blood and its eyes glaring but somehow defeated. That was what Hannah looked like now: a wounded animal in its end game. Her face looked dirty with old bruises. She lowered herself into the chair that Frieda held out for her, and winced as she did so.
“Where do you hurt?” asked Frieda. Then she addressed the nurse at the door. “What happened to her?”
“She fell.” The nurse stared at her, barely bothering to make it sound plausible.
“Was she badly injured?”
“Bruises. She’s a tough one.”
“You can leave us.” Frieda turned back to Hannah. “Where does it hurt?”
Hannah didn’t make a sound but she put her hand against her ribs.
“Can I look?” Hannah didn’t respond. Very slowly, to give her time to reject her, Frieda lifted up the grubby T-shirt and looked at the mottled bruises that spread over her torso, purples and yellows and browns. She smelled sour, like a cellar where old apples have been kept. Frieda touched her where her hand had been and a groan came from Hannah. She pulled the T-shirt down again. “You might have broken a rib,” she said. “I’ll make sure you’re properly bandaged up. And these bruises must be very painful. Have you had painkillers?”
“Pain?”
“Did you fall—or were you pushed?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Hannah. Frieda was startled to hear her speak clear words. “Everyone’s gone.”
“What do you mean, Hannah? Who’s gone?”
“All.”
“Your family?”
“Just me.”
Frieda paused. She didn’t know if Hannah’s words made any kind of sense, or if she had any real understanding of what Frieda had asked her. “Can you tell me anything about your family? About where you were that night? The night that they died. Do you remember?”
“Do I remember.” It wasn’t a question, just a dull reiteration.
“You said you met your mother.”
“I can’t,” said Hannah. She looked at Frieda; her eyes were dark and fierce, the pupils huge. “I can’t.”
“It’s OK.”
“No.” She shook her head from side to side vehemently, her hair swinging over her face.
“It’s all right. You don’t need to say anything.”
Hannah wrapped her arms around her battered body. “Please,” she said.
Frieda touched the wrist of her right hand, where the simple tattoo of a red flower spread up toward the palm. “This is new, isn’t it? But I remember this one, the snake.”
Hannah sat up slightly and unwrapped her arms so that they hung loosely by her sides. Her expression was blank.
“And these.” Frieda touched the three crosses on the side of her elbow, with the circles drawn unevenly at their tops. “I remember these.”
Hannah lifted her hand and touched the larger cross with her index finger. “Me,” she said.
“They’re people,” said Frieda. “Of course, I see now.” Crude stick figures, three of them, side by side. “Then who’s this?” She touched the middle one.
Hannah put her finger there. “Him,” she said. A strange noise came from her and then a single tear ran down her broad cheek.
“Oh.” Frieda nodded. “That’s Rory, isn’t it? Your brother.”
“Rory,” said Hannah. “Rory.”
“But then who’s this?” Frieda touched the third stick figure, so little it looked like a plus sign with a dot on top.
“No one. Never. All gone.”
She wrapped her arms back around her bulky body and began to rock, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, a faint keening sound coming from her and her eyes fixed on nothing.
On her way out, Frieda stopped in Christian Mendoza’s office.
“You should have made an appointment,” he said.
“I don’t need an appointment to say this. Hannah is a patient under your protection. She is being repeatedly beaten. Each time I have seen her, her condition is worse. I don’t know who is doing it, the staff or other patients.” She put a hand up and spoke over his protests. “But at the very least there is a wanton disregard for her safety and her well-being. It must stop. Keep Hannah from harm, Dr. Mendoza.”
Josef was waiting outside in his van, and Frieda could see as she approached that he was singing along to something on the radio, tapping out the time on the steering wheel.
“Home?” he asked, as she climbed in beside him.
“No. Can you drive me to Walthamstow, please? I told Jack I’d drop in on the way back. I’ll give you directions.”
Her mobile vibrated in her pocket. “Hello?”
“It’s Tom Morell. I missed your call.” Frieda had tried him twice and only got through to voicemail.
“Yes. Is this a good time to talk?”
“Maybe we could meet.”
“OK.”
They made an arrangement to meet in two days’ time at Number Nine. As soon as she finished the call, another came through.
“Yvette?”
“I got hold of the medical records.”
“And?”
“I think I can tell you why Aidan Locke no longer gave blood.” She paused.
“Yes?”
“In 1999, he had a course of chemotherapy.”
“That makes sense. If you’ve had chemo, you can’t be a blood donor. So he’d had cancer.”
“Testicular cancer. It was quite advanced. He had his testes removed.”
“Poor man. Was he in remission?”
“As far as I could make out.”
“I see.”
“I looked at her medical records as well.”
“Deborah’s?”
“Yes. There was nothing significant there.”
“Thanks, Yvette.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with him being killed.”
“Maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know.”
Frieda ended the call. Something was bothering her, a faint tingle in her brain, like an itch she couldn’t scratch.
Josef dropped her off outside Chloë’s workshop and she made her way to the shed. Jack looked round from a battered leather armchair as she entered. He had a Thermos beside him and a mug in his hand; there was a storage heater in the corner that had made the air warm and dry. Near to him was a small fold-out table with a deck of cards on it and a paper opened at the crossword.
“Don’t get up.”
“Coffee? And there are some biscuits as well.”
“I’m fine.”
“Or there’s wine in the cooler.” He gestured toward the square bag at his side.
“Not right now. I’m glad you’re making yourself comfortable.”
“Chloë gave me one of their chairs.”
“Good. How’s it going?”
“I can’t say I’ve unearthed anything very interesting. Rory was dyslexic. I’ve just read through a very long report by an educational psychologist. Hannah used to be very good at tennis and cross-country running. Deborah was on their school’s PTA. Aidan was fined for speeding. They went skiing as a family a few times. They had a pest-control person out to their house a month before they died because they had a problem with mice. They had several quotations for a new boiler. Rory was going to go to a paintballing party the day after he was killed. You?”
“Aidan Locke had testicular cancer two years before his death.”
“That doesn’t sound good. But does that get us anywhere?”
“I don’t know. There’s something . . .”
�
��What?”
“I’m not sure.”
Jack tipped the last of his coffee into his mouth, shook the drips from the mug, then reached into the cooler and pulled out the bottle of wine, pouring a small amount into the mug. “Cheers.”
“Have you seen much of Chloë?”
“Chloë? Oh. You know.”
“I don’t.”
“Some.” He fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair.
“How is your thinking about your future going?”
“I thought about taking a year out and seeing what it felt like. I might do a boat-building course.”
“Really?”
“Something with my hands. Chloë says it’s therapeutic.”
“Do you like boats?”
“I went on a ferry to France.”
“Last time we talked about this, you said you might want to be a gardener.”
“They’re both outside.”
“Do you like being outside?”
“When it’s nice weather. That’s not the point, Frieda. I need to step out of my own life for a while. I feel I’ve been suffocating in myself, if that makes sense.”
“It makes sense.”
“Good.”
Frieda looked at the open door. Outside it was getting dark and the wind gusted in the yard, rattling at the bins and scraping pieces of wood and litter over the paving stones. “I’ve got to go,” she said.
“Where are you going?”
“There’s someone I need to see, though I don’t think he’ll be very pleased to see me.”
Brenda Docherty opened the door. She was wearing a soft gray cardigan and a pair of comfortably baggy trousers; her graying hair was rumpled. “He’s not here,” she said.
“I saw him through the window.”
“Then you’ll know that, when I say he’s not here, I mean go away.”
“There’s one question I want to ask him, and then I will.”
Brenda Docherty folded her arms. “What is it you don’t understand about the words, go away?”
“Why is Seamus so unwilling to see me? His son and his ex-wife were murdered, his daughter’s in a hospital for the criminally insane. What could be worse than that?”
“I’ll tell you what could be worse: someone like you coming and opening up old wounds, making him remember it all over again.”
