Tuesday's Gone fk-2

by Nicci French

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Not exactly. Could I have your name as well, please, and your phone number?’

  ‘Why on earth?’

  ‘I think the police might want to talk to you about him.’

  Reuben hadn’t put potatoes in the oven: he’d made a greasy, rich lasagne, garlic bread and a green salad. The smell greeted them when he opened the door, wearing an apron and his half-moon spectacles balanced on the end of his nose. With one swift glance, he took in the state of Josef, then stepped forward and clapped him on the shoulders.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re back,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to think I was actually going to have to pay someone to mend my roof and assemble my bloody easy self-assembly chest.’

  ‘I not stay,’ Josef mumbled. ‘I just give hello and take my things.’

  ‘Can we come in?’ said Frieda. ‘It’s too cold to be standing out here.’

  So, they bundled him inside, peeled off his jacket and shoes, and Reuben pushed a bottle of beer into his hands and took him to see where the leak came from, and somehow, ten minutes later, Josef was immersed in a scalding hot bath. From where they sat in the warm, fugged-up kitchen, Frieda and Reuben could hear him splashing and moaning.

  ‘What the fuck’s happened?’ Reuben asked.

  Both of them instinctively looked across at the dog-eared photo stuck to Reuben’s fridge that Josef had put there more than a year ago, when he’d first moved into Reuben’s house: his dark-haired wife and his two dark-haired sons.

  ‘He was in Summertown, living on a building site.’

  ‘Why didn’t he say?’

  ‘He’s ashamed.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘It’s lucky I really do have a leaking roof.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well done for rescuing him.’

  ‘I didn’t. I called him up for advice on something.’

  ‘He’s here now, anyway.’

  Frieda nodded, then said, ‘By the way, I’m going to Kathy Ripon’s funeral at the end of the week. I’ve been thinking a lot about her death, and about Dean Reeve. I have these disturbing dreams about him and they don’t go away when I wake.’

  ‘So he’s haunting you from beyond the grave?’

  ‘I wish.’

  That night she was sick. It started with beads of sweat on her forehead and a horrible breathlessness, a taste in her mouth that wouldn’t go away, and even when she lay down, she felt dizzy, her stomach churning.

  She managed to get to the toilet in time and knelt beside it, her eyes stinging, her body cold and sweating, vomiting, half sobbing and choking as she did so. She felt poisoned, every bit of her. But she had barely eaten anything, not for days and days, and soon there was nothing left to vomit, so she just retched and gasped, occasionally laying her forehead against the rim of the toilet, her knees sore on the hard floor and her hair sticky, her mouth foul, every bit of her unclean. She thought of hot baths, fresh sheets, lemon barley water, a cool hand against her hot cheek, and retched again. Wanting to die. She mustn’t die. He would come. That was all she knew or needed to know.

  Sixteen

  Frieda sat in the corner of the pub and waited for Karlsson. He came across, balancing two whiskies and two packets of crisps. He took a seat at the table and ripped open both packets.

  ‘I got salt and vinegar,’ he said, ‘and cheese and onion. I didn’t know which you liked.’

  ‘Neither, really.’

  ‘You probably don’t like pubs either,’ said Karlsson.

  ‘It’s better than the police station.’

  ‘At least it’s an escape from that guy Newton, following me around like a ghost.’

  ‘What’s he there for?’

  ‘Time and motion,’ said Karlsson. ‘Blue-sky thinking. A fresh eye, that’s what the boss calls it. He’s looking at our procedures, our management style. But I think I know what he’s going to find.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The word is that there are going to be budget cuts. Ten per cent, maybe even twenty or twenty-five. If young Jake draws some diagrams to show we can catch more criminals with fewer officers, I think he’ll find a receptive audience.’

  They sipped their drinks and looked at each other.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve made your work more difficult.’

  ‘We got the file back,’ said Karlsson. ‘Charges have been put on hold while investigations continue. That’s roughly what I’ve said in the memo.’ He took a sip of his drink and rubbed his face. Frieda thought he looked more tired than ever. ‘I know why the commissioner did what he did,’ Karlsson continued. ‘Nobody cares much about a case like this. And I know why I did what I did. But what I don’t understand is why you did what you did. Michelle Doyce was never going to prison. She was going to get the medical help she needed. It was all going to be sorted out. Don’t you have enough to do with your own work?’

  Frieda looked at him speculatively. ‘What does it matter why I did it? Maybe I don’t like untidy stories with bits left over. There was a patient I had once, a young woman. You know that feeling when you’ve left the house and you wonder if you’ve left the stove on? For her it wasn’t just the stove. Perhaps she’d left a window open or the tap running or shut her cat in her bedroom. She’d try and check them all before she left but there was no way she could check everything, and then there was the thought that while she was checking she might have opened another door or switched something on by mistake. In the end she couldn’t leave home.’

  ‘How did you cure her?’

  ‘I wasn’t right for her. I sent her to a behavioural therapist. But that’s not my point. What I’m saying is that I’m a bit like that with stories. I couldn’t have left it like that, knowing the body had been found outside in the alley but not knowing why, or who he was, or whom he had left behind. It was like going out knowing the gas was on.’

  Karlsson shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t enjoy my job. I spend most of my life knowing that the gas is on and the bath is overflowing and the window’s open.’

  ‘What makes you think I enjoy life as a therapist?’ Frieda said. ‘So, what happens next?’

  ‘I’ve sent a couple of officers down to talk to your couple in Brixton. Robert Poole is a pretty common name and, at the moment, there’s nothing else. He’s as much a mystery as he ever was.’

  ‘You mean, you know his name but you’ve still no idea who he actually was?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What about his mobile number? Surely that gives you a lead. Can’t you track him from that?’

  ‘His number was from a pay-as-you-go phone, but we’ll see if we can do anything with it. We’ve got a facial reconstruction done and we’ll distribute that – you know, “Have you seen this man?” That, with his name, might do the trick, though usually the people who get in touch are not what you’d call reliable witnesses. We’ve got one old man who’s always seen every single person on the posters. Anyway, it’s worth a try. And we’ll have another look at Michelle Doyce’s room. It is – I should point out – not totally, completely, a hundred per cent certain that the body in the room is this painter and decorator.’

  ‘They recognized the sketch I showed them.’

  ‘Yes. I saw your sketch, and possibly you should have talked to me before flashing it around, but all right, I accept that. Actually, it’s not far off our own visual.’

  Frieda drained her glass. ‘Thanks for telling me,’ she said. ‘I won’t get involved like that again.’

  Karlsson gave a cough, as if he was preparing to deliver a speech.

  ‘There was something else, Frieda. I wanted to say, quite clearly, that, despite occasional differences of opinion, you’ve been a great help and –’

  ‘This sounds like the sort of speech you give when you’re firing someone,’ said Frieda.

  ‘No,’ said Karlsson. ‘Quite the opposite. We need
to get on a proper footing. If you’re going to do work with us, or with me, from time to time, you should be a consultant, with a contract and appropriate fees and agreed responsibilities. What do you feel about that?’

  ‘Hang on.’ Frieda stood up and went over to the bar, returning with two more whiskies.

  ‘Well?’ said Karlsson.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the idea.’

  ‘Why ever not? It would just be making it official.’

  ‘I’ll consider it,’ said Frieda. ‘But at the moment all I can think of is reasons why not. I don’t feel I’ve got anything more to contribute to this case. Once you find out properly who Robert Poole is, you’ll find who did it. That’s the way it usually works, isn’t it?’

  ‘A jealous lover,’ said Karlsson. ‘That’s what it’ll be.’

  ‘Except for the finger.’ Frieda frowned. ‘That looks more calculating.’

  Karlsson gave a triumphant smile. ‘You can’t stop yourself. You’re interested. She could have cut off the finger to take back the wedding ring. For the gold. Or an extreme form of divorce. My wife would have done that to me, if she could.’

  ‘It was the wrong finger,’ said Frieda. ‘Anyway, the idea of a contract worries me. Then I’d have duties and I’d have to be responsible. I helped you because I felt I needed to, and I didn’t have to worry about justifying my expenses or ticking a box.’

  ‘Don’t say no,’ said Karlsson. ‘I mean, don’t say no straight away without thinking it through. Give it a few days. You see, I’m going to be the therapist for a moment –’

  ‘Oh, please –’

  ‘No, honestly. I think you rather like the idea of getting involved when you aren’t meant to, when you’re telling people things they don’t want to hear. You have difficulty with being invited in. Wasn’t there the old joke about not wanting to join a club that would accept you as a member? That’s you.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ she said.

  ‘About the case?’

  ‘Not this one. Remember I took that neurologist Andrew Berryman along to see Michelle Doyce? That, incidentally, is the kind of thing I wouldn’t be able to do if I was under contract.’

  ‘You’d have to ask in advance,’ said Karlsson. ‘Which I know you don’t like doing.’

  ‘And I’d have to justify it and fill out a form and it would get turned down, but that’s not the point. There’s something he told me that I can’t get out of my mind. While we were talking about Michelle Doyce’s perceptual problem, he told me about a neurological disease called Capgras Syndrome. Certain, very rare, cases of neural damage result in the patient suffering the delusion that a close family member or friend has somehow been replaced by an impostor.’

  ‘Sounds uncomfortable,’ said Karlsson. He paused. ‘Well?’

  ‘The idea of it obsessed me. And I didn’t know why. Then I thought about Carrie Dekker.’

  ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘She said that after Dean died, her husband’s behaviour changed. Then, quite suddenly, he left her and disappeared. I thought of Carrie with a husband who seemed to have been replaced by an impostor.’

  Karlsson’s face took on a bemused expression and when he spoke it was as if his brain was working slowly. ‘I don’t get this,’ he said. ‘Are you saying that Caroline Dekker was suffering from an incredibly rare brain disease?’

  ‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘The opposite, in a way. What kind of person could have the symptoms of Capgras Syndrome but not the disease?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘If it wasn’t a delusion.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Karlsson. ‘Do you …?’ And then he stopped. ‘Oh, God. You can’t be serious. We found Dean’s body. I met Alan afterwards. He was with her.’

  ‘I was fooled by Dean. I was as close to him as you are to me. I talked to him. I didn’t see a difference.’

  ‘But we had the body.’

  ‘What does that prove?’ said Frieda. ‘Dean and Alan were identical twins. They even shared the same DNA.’

  Now Karlsson frowned. ‘What’s your evidence for this?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s just a feeling,’ said Frieda. ‘Because of what happened to Alan. Or Dean. I always felt strange about it but I couldn’t pin it down.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Karlsson. ‘He couldn’t fool his own wife. He wouldn’t know about their life, he wouldn’t know who their friends were.’

  ‘He was only there for a matter of days. He refused to do anything, see anyone. It was a perfect way of escaping – in full view of everyone. It gave him the opportunity to really escape – to escape without anyone realizing he’d got away.’

  ‘So where is he?’ said Karlsson. ‘According to your theory.’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘There’s no evidence.’

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ said Frieda. ‘And there won’t be.’

  ‘Just your feeling.’

  ‘You see, that’s why you should think twice about giving me a contract. And I should think twice about signing one. I’m not like a policeman and I don’t want to be.’

  The desk sergeant knew the type. They’d come into the station as if they’d wandered in out of the rain. They’d glance at the desk, then look around, at the posters on the wall, maybe even start reading them. Sometimes they’d lose their nerve and just leave. Otherwise they would make their way across, casually, as if it didn’t matter. This woman was in her late forties, she thought, perhaps older. Smartly but unshowily dressed, professional, as if she’d come on her way home from work. Old workaday shoes, but polished. She didn’t look like the victim of a crime. It took her several minutes to approach the desk and peer through the security grille.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘It’s my neighbour,’ she said. ‘He lives in the flat upstairs.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘He’s disappeared.’

  The sergeant assumed her most comforting expression and embarked on the explanation she gave every week or two, about how common it was for people to go away and, unless there was a particular reason, there was almost certainly no cause for concern.

  ‘No,’ said the woman. ‘I’ve got a key. I feed the cat when he’s away and water his plants. I went to check. The mail was just piled up on the doormat. The food in the fridge had gone off. There was no food in the cat’s bowl. The cat wasn’t there, thank God. He comes in and out on the sill and there’s a sort of shelf he walks along to get down on the roof of the bike shelter in next door’s front garden. Something’s happened.’

  The desk sergeant sighed. ‘This is an adult male?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said the woman. ‘It’s completely out of character. What can you do?’

  The desk sergeant walked across to a filing cabinet and, after trying one drawer and then another, returned with the form.

  ‘We fill out this form,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll put the details on the computer, and if his name comes up anywhere, it’ll pop up on the screen.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to look for him?’

  ‘This is the normal procedure,’ said the sergeant. ‘Unless it’s an emergency.’

  ‘I think this is an emergency.’

  ‘They usually turn up,’ the sergeant said. ‘But let’s start with the form. What’s his name?’

  ‘Bob,’ said the woman. ‘I mean Robert. Robert Poole.’

  Seventeen

  Frieda walked from Gloucester station. Tiny flakes of snow were catching in her hair and melting on the streets. She had thought all the snow was over, that the bitter cold of the winter was lifting at last. Perhaps this was the end of it, like a reminder of what they were leaving.

  She arrived at the church early, walking quickly past the photographers and journalists already gathered at the entrance, and took a seat at the back, next to the wall. Gradually, other people started to slide into the pews, pulling o
ff hats and gloves, removing their thick coats, glancing around and nodding at people they knew in a blend of conviviality and self-conscious seriousness. A group of young people arrived together, and Frieda guessed they were Kathy’s fellow students, with cheeks flushed from the cold. She picked up the order of service and looked through the hymns they were to sing. The church filled and people had to squeeze into pews or stand at the back. An elderly couple walked slowly up the aisle, the woman leaning on the man’s arm as they made their way to the front. Kathy’s grandparents, she guessed. A man in a long camel coat passed her pew and she recognized Seth Boundy. Kathy Ripon had been his student and researcher and he had sent her to her death. He and Frieda.

  His hasty shuffle was very different from the stately stride she associated with him; his head was down and his collar pulled up, as if he didn’t want to be noticed. But perhaps he felt Frieda’s gaze upon him, for he turned, briefly glanced at her, then dropped his eyes and moved on. At last Kathy’s family arrived: her parents, hand in hand, and behind them two young men, awkward in unaccustomed black suits, hair brushed, faces shaved raw.

  The coffin was carried by the undertakers’ assistants, young men with professionally sad expressions. Frieda pictured the swollen remains that lay inside, then the young woman’s shrewd, pleasant face. As the congregation sang ‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’, she thought, as she had thought every day for the last fourteen months, that if it hadn’t been for her, Kathy would still be alive, and her parents wouldn’t be sitting with hunched shoulders in their pew, pale and old. A child would be dead but Kathy would be alive. A young woman with a long, sad face went to the front and played the flute. One of Kathy’s brothers read a poem, but couldn’t reach the end. He stood in front of them, his face working furiously, and everyone leaned forward, willing him on, tears rolling down cheeks. The vicar stood and said a few words about a life cruelly cut short, about how at last her parents could bury their daughter. He mentioned a merciful God and the triumph of good over evil, of love over hate. Frieda closed her eyes but she didn’t pray.