by Nicci French
‘What do you mean by that?’
Vanessa drained her glass and refilled it. ‘Doesn’t this bring back memories?’ she said. ‘In the garden at parties?’ In the dark, Frieda could barely make out her expression. ‘People don’t always stand by, you know. A few years ago I was out with a girlfriend – we had a meal or something, a bottle of wine, maybe more than a bottle. Afterwards I was walking back, looking to get a taxi, and I bumped into a group of young men. They started saying things and then it all got out of control. They started touching me, putting their hands on me.’ She stopped while she took another drag on her cigarette. ‘It was horrible, utterly humiliating, and then it became frightening. I thought that was it. Then, quite suddenly, a man walking past intervened. I thought they were going to kill him but he somehow managed to talk them down and take me by the arm and get me away and find me a cab. In the end nothing happened at all and I never knew his name. I sometimes think there’s an alternative universe where that man didn’t walk past and I’m dead and those men are in prison or maybe still walking free.’
There was a long silence.
‘Ewan told me that story,’ said Frieda.
‘Really?’
‘In a slightly different version.’
‘That’s the thing about a marriage. You have your fund of stories.’
Frieda looked at her watch: it was nearly half past nine. ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she said. She made her way down to the playground, which was empty now apart from a man standing alone and smoking a cigarette. Max wasn’t there. She waited a few minutes, then walked swiftly back inside and through the hall into the kitchen. It was full of teenagers. A couple was standing up against the wall, kissing; the boy had his hand up the girl’s skirt, and Frieda recognized the girl as Charlotte. She tapped her on the shoulder.
‘What?’ said Charlotte. ‘What are you doing in here?’
‘I was looking for Max.’
‘That creep. He’s pissed.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ She stared at Frieda, wrinkling her nose. ‘You’re weird.’
Frieda went back into the hall and made almost an entire circuit of it, in the dim lights and grinding music, through the hot bodies and past the grinning, grimacing faces, before she found who she was looking for.
‘Are you having a good time?’ said Lewis. He seemed more sober than anyone else in the room. ‘I’ve been talking to Penny about the old days.’
‘Where’s Max?’
‘Max?’
‘Yes, where is he?’
‘I’ve no idea. Probably still in the kitchen. I saw him a bit ago. He was having a fine old time.’
Frieda felt she should stop worrying but she couldn’t and at first she couldn’t remember why, then suddenly she could. She remembered Vanessa’s words: she had said that Max reminded her of Becky.
‘Ring his mobile.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘We don’t have time: ring his mobile.’
Lewis pulled his phone out of his pocket and called.
‘Straight to voicemail.’
‘We’ve got to find him.’
‘Won’t you tell us what’s going on?’ This from Penny.
‘I’ll explain later. Come with me.’
She pulled Lewis after her and they ran outside, past couples and groups. The night air was cold and damp.
‘He’s not in the hall or the kitchen or the playground. Let’s look in the car park. Keep calling his mobile.’
They hurried through the rows of parked cars. She stared around at the dark crouched shapes of cars, then back at the school where lights spilled out across the gravel driveway. They could hear the music from where they stood, but faintly.
‘How did he get here?’ she asked Lewis.
‘With me and Penny. He’s staying with us for the weekend.’
‘Did he say anything about leaving early or going on somewhere else?’
‘No.’
He could be anywhere. In one of those unlit classrooms, by the bike sheds, on the sports field, on the flat roof that was so temptingly easy to climb on to, in some clinch with one of the girls who’d been laughing at him earlier. He could be smoking with a group of friends. He could have gone on to a pub.
‘We’ve got to go to your house. Where’s your car? Have you got your keys on you?’
‘Yes.’
Lewis wasn’t protesting any more. He had picked up on her urgency. He ran over to a small, rust-spotted car and unlocked the doors. They both climbed in.
‘Is it far?’ Frieda asked, as they drove out of the school gates.
‘Near the old barracks, up the hill.’
‘I know them.’
‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’
‘I think he’s in danger.’
The car veered round a corner. Rain started to fall heavily; the windscreen wipers had frayed and the loose rubber slapped against the glass. Soon they were out of the centre of the town and were driving along the ridge of the hill, looking down at Braxton. Here, the houses were identical, row upon row of small, flat-fronted buildings in an interlocking grid of small roads and cul-de-sacs. Frieda saw that all the roads were named after flowers: Hollyhock Close, Sunflower Street, Lupin Rise. It felt very quiet, no cars on the roads and no people; most of the windows were unlit, with curtains drawn. Lewis screeched to a halt outside number twenty-seven Campion Way.
At the front door, his hands were trembling and he couldn’t get the key into the lock. Frieda took it from him. The door swung open and they stepped into the tiny hall. Everything was dark and quiet.
‘There’s no one here,’ Lewis said.
They heard the screech of tyres coming from the road at the back of the house as a car drew away. Frieda called out but there was no reply and she ran up the stairs, two at a time.
One door was open and the room empty. One door was closed. She hurled it open and stepped inside, Lewis on her heels. She could hear him breathing, a ragged gasp.
Even before Lewis turned on the light she could see the shape in front of them. Above them. Legs moving slightly. The dazzle of the bulb brought his face into view, blue lips and open mouth. Open eyes staring. Strung from a rope.
‘Hold him up,’ she said. Lewis looked at her unseeingly. She wrapped her arms around Max’s legs and pushed upwards, taking the weight from the rope. ‘Do this. Hold him.’ Lewis was staring at her, his face sweating. He looked like he was in shock. Could he do this? Then, like a man in a dream, he put his arms round his son’s legs and Frieda stepped away.
‘Just for a few seconds,’ she said.
She ran down the stairs again, feeling her ankle turn on the bottom step, into the kitchen, wrenching open drawers until she found a serrated knife, and then upstairs again. She pulled a chair from the side of the bed and stood on it, then sawed at the rope until it gave and Max’s body fell in a soft, heavy heap into Lewis’s arms and toppled him; they lay on the floor together, father and son. Lewis was crying out Max’s name.
She pulled Lewis away from Max, put her phone into his hand. She turned the boy over. He lay there in his ill-fitting black jacket. His eyes were closed now. White drool ran from his mouth. The noose was still around his neck.
She put her hands firmly on his chest and began pumping up and down, up and down. Behind her she could hear Lewis giving his address through retching sobs.
Chest compression. Pause. Mouth-to-mouth. Lewis’s son, who looked so like the boy she used to love. Pause. Chest compression. His eyelids were blue. Mouth-to-mouth again. A bitter taste on his lips. She felt Lewis beside her.
‘Is there anything?’ Lewis was crouching at her side. She could hear his hoarse breathing.
She tried not to think or feel. Just to make her body into the machine that would bring Max back. For they had heard that car screeching off as they entered the house. It couldn’t have been long – seconds rather than minutes, even.
/> ‘Feel his pulse,’ she said to Lewis, and he put his thumb against the blue vein on his son’s thin wrist.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t tell. I don’t know. Frieda.’
They heard the sirens and then they saw the blue lights striping the ceiling. Lewis ran down the stairs. Frieda could hear him crashing, falling. Then the door was opened, and soon the room was full of people, calm voices, instructions, a stretcher. A mask over Max’s chalky, spittled face. The rope removed from his neck. A blanket over his motionless body. She stood up, cramping in all her limbs.
‘Go with him in the ambulance,’ she said to Lewis. ‘And call his mother on the way. I’ll stay here to wait for the police.’
‘Yes,’ He stared at her wildly for a moment, his face a clench of horror, and then was gone.
Frieda could hear the police car coming over the hill. She went quickly into the bathroom and ripped off several sheets of lavatory roll, then returned to Max’s room and to his narrow truckle bed.
Very carefully, making sure she didn’t make contact with it, she picked up the little red squirrel that had lost half its tail and had been Becky’s favourite soft toy. It had gone missing but it was now on Max’s pillow. She wrapped it in the toilet tissue so that no bit of it was exposed. Then she lifted up her dress and tucked it under the waistband, arranging her scarf so that it covered the bulge, before she went downstairs to let the police inside.
36
In those minutes of searching for Max and cutting him down and struggling to revive him, it had felt as if time was speeding up and slowing down, a wild night in which lights were flashing, sounds coming and going, loud and soft.
When the police arrived it felt as if normality was being restored, except that everything was slightly grey, everything was moving just a bit too slowly.There were three of them, two men and a woman. After they had introduced themselves to Frieda and taken her name, address and relationship to Max, they went upstairs in slow single file and into Max’s room. They picked up the severed rope and put it into a plastic bag. Then they looked around, opening drawers and lifting up books.
‘He didn’t leave a note,’ said Frieda.
‘You can’t be sure.’
‘I am.’
She could see them exchanging glances.
‘Have you moved or touched anything?’ they asked.
‘No.’
Frieda sat on the bed. It was hard to concentrate on anything while she didn’t know if Max was alive or dead, but she needed to order her thoughts. She felt a weight on the bed next to her. The female police officer had sat down beside her. She had light brown hair tied back behind her head and an eager freckled face. She was young and nervous. She couldn’t have been used to this.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Can we get you something?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Frieda. ‘But thank you.’
‘We’re almost done here,’ the woman said. ‘We need to check that you’re all right and that the premises are secure.’
‘Because it’s a crime scene?’ said Frieda.
‘Crime scene?’ said the officer. WPC Niven. That was her name, Frieda remembered. ‘He just tried to kill himself and it looks like he succeeded. Poor guy.’
Frieda knew that it was probably pointless, that it had all happened before. But she had to try.
‘You need to treat this as murder, or attempted murder if Max survives.’
‘What?’ said Niven. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You need to do a few things,’ she said.
Niven looked suddenly wary. ‘Like what?’
‘This hanging was staged …’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘So Max must have been drugged. You’ll need to organize a blood test. The sooner the better.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’
‘A member of the public has alerted you, which means you need to investigate. You should write it down in your notebook. Just so you don’t forget it.’
Niven’s face had flushed. Frieda wasn’t sure whether it was out of anger or embarrassment. But Frieda saw her write the words ‘blood’ and ‘test’. Her handwriting was rounded, like that of a small child.
‘Also,’ Frieda continued, ‘you need to talk to Ewan Shaw.’
‘Is he a witness?’
‘He did it. Go on, write his name down.’
Niven seemed paralysed, so Frieda took her notebook out of her hand and wrote Ewan’s name, address and phone number, then handed it back to her.
‘There,’ she said.
‘Is he a friend of yours?’
‘I know him.’
‘Why would he have done that?’
Frieda hesitated. The crucial evidence – Becky’s toy – was no use at all. It would only incriminate Max.
‘What it can’t be,’ said Frieda, ‘is a suicide, or an attempt. Max was seen forty minutes ago at the party at Braxton High School. He was serving there, in good spirits. We found him here, unconscious, with no means of transport. When we arrived, I heard a car drive away at the back.’
‘Did you see it?’
‘No, but you could ask Ewan Shaw where he was in the last hour and who saw him.’
‘I’m not sure we can do that.’
‘I know how this works. I’ve notified you of a crime. I’ve informed you of a suspect. At least a witness. You need to respond. The more quickly you do it, the more likely you’ll turn something up.’
‘I’ll talk to my supervising officer,’ said Niven, standing up from the bed.
‘Do it tonight, not tomorrow,’ said Frieda. ‘And while you’re at it, ask him about the death of Rebecca Capel.’
Niven looked puzzled for a moment. ‘The girl who killed herself?’
‘She didn’t kill herself. If it would be any help, I could come with you to see Ewan Shaw.’
Niven looked down at her notebook. ‘Dr Klein,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t really work like that.’ She went across to the other two officers. Frieda saw them conferring, and the two young men glanced round at her. As she stood up, ready to leave, one approached her. He seemed almost resentful.
‘I’ve been talking to my colleague,’ he said. ‘We always investigate occurrences like this. And we’ll conduct interviews.’
‘Including Ewan Shaw.’
‘We’ll talk to him. If you have any relevant information, let us know.’ He wrote a number on a pad, tore it off and handed it to her.
‘Is this a direct line?’ Frieda said.
‘You’ll be put through to the right person.’
Frieda turned on her heel and walked out of the room, out of the front door and into the slanting rain. Her phone rang and she snatched it out. Lewis: only when she saw his name on her screen did she understand how scared she was, clogged with fear for the young man who looked so like the boy she had loved once, and who had touched her heart with his rawness and his troubles.
‘Lewis. Tell me.’
‘He’s alive.’ There was a strangled sound at the other end, and she realized that Lewis was weeping. ‘He’s alive, Frieda.’
‘I’m so glad.’
‘I don’t understand …’
‘All that can come later. Go back to him now.’
‘Yes. Yes. But, Frieda …’
‘Go to your son. He needs you.’
She ended the call and stood for a few moments, letting the knowledge seep through her. Max was alive. She had discovered her rapist, Becky’s killer. Her job was done now, although nothing seemed quite over. She walked through the maze of roads named after flowers, on to the road that looked down at the centre of Braxton, where the lights glinted in the darkness. Her mother was there, dying. Her school was there, with its corridors and classrooms and ancient, tainted memories. Her past was there, but not her future. She turned her back on the town and started to walk, pressing buttons on her phone as she did so.
‘Reuben?’ she said. She had left her coat at the school, and was we
t and cold.
‘Frieda?’ His voice was thick with sleep.
‘Have you drunk anything?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Tonight.’
‘I was at the theatre. I had one glass of wine beforehand.’
‘Can you come and fetch me?’
‘Can’t you get a cab?’
‘I’m in Braxton.’
‘Hang on. Wait.’ She could picture him sitting up in bed, turning on his light. ‘From Braxton?’
‘Yes.’
There was a silence.
‘All right.’
‘Thank you, Reuben.’
‘You’re crazy. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Maybe.’
‘But you’re all right?’
‘Yes. I really am.’
37
‘When this is over,’ said Reuben, ‘you’ll need to talk to someone about all of it.’
‘It is almost over,’ said Frieda, staring out of the streaming window of Reuben’s shabby old Prius. ‘And I don’t think there’ll be much to say about it.’
‘Does that mean nothing much has come of all of this?’
She touched his arm. ‘Reuben, I’m grateful that you’ve done this. I feel like you’ve saved me from something.’
‘I think you’ve saved me from time to time. Saved me from myself. I had a feeling that at the end of your expression of gratitude you were about to say “but”.’
‘Friends are meant to be the people you can talk to. I was going to say that you’re one of those friends I can be silent with.’
‘That sounds like a funny thing for one therapist to say to another.’
‘I’ve had some good sessions that were largely silent. Sometimes I’m pleased when my patients stop talking.’
‘I’d be relieved if almost all of my patients stopped talking,’ said Reuben. ‘But before we descend into silence, where do you want to go? Shall I drop you at home?’
‘Yes,’ said Frieda.
‘You’ll probably be glad to be alone in your own house at last.’
‘Except I don’t think I will be alone.’
Frieda opened the door as quietly as she could, but Chloë came down the stairs before she had time to shut it, rubbing her eyes blearily. She was wearing boxer shorts and one of Frieda’s T-shirts. Her hair was tied up on the top of her head and her face, rubbed clean of any makeup, looked young and anxious.
