by Nicci French
At last it was over. The coffin was carried slowly out into the feathery snowfall and Kathy’s family followed. Frieda waited until most of the mourners had left. Then she slipped out of her pew and stood in front of Seth Boundy. ‘It was good of you to be here,’ she said.
‘She was my student.’ His eyes flickered from her face to the stone floor.
Snow was now starting to settle on the gravestones and the roofs of cars that were parked outside. People milled about, hugging each other. Frieda had no intention of staying for the wake. As she reached the gate, she brushed against a tall man.
‘Hello, Frieda,’ said Karlsson.
‘You didn’t say you were coming.’
‘Neither did you.’
‘I had to. She died because of me.’
‘She died because of Dean.’
‘Are you getting the train back?’
‘There’s a car waiting. Would you like a lift?’
Frieda considered for a moment. ‘I’d rather go home alone.’
‘Of course. You might like to know that a Robert Poole has been reported missing.’
Frieda looked startled and Karlsson smiled, his stiff face softening for a moment. ‘Who by?’ she asked.
‘A neighbour. A woman in the flat below. It’s in a house down in Tooting.’
‘Then what the hell are you doing here?’ she asked. ‘Why aren’t you in Tooting, tearing the place apart?’
‘Yvette’s down there today. She can handle it.’
‘Of course.’
‘But are you available?’
Frieda hesitated. ‘Perhaps.’
‘Is that a yes?’
‘It’s a perhaps. This …’ She gestured behind her at the church and the mourners. ‘This doesn’t make me want to be involved again. Ever.’
‘It doesn’t get better,’ Karlsson said. ‘Unless you stop caring. I’ll call you.’
The journey to London took two hours, and Frieda would have been able to get back in time for her afternoon session, with Gerald Mayhew, an elderly and wealthy American banker who had woken up one morning to find himself inexplicably stricken with grief for his long-dead parents. But she had cancelled all her patients that day, and when she arrived at Paddington, she took the Bakerloo Line to Elephant and Castle, and walked through the slush and sleet towards a block of council flats on the New Kent Road. They were grey and unprepossessing, with metal grilles over the ground-floor windows, and a treeless courtyard where a single toddler rode round and round on his tricycle, his body bulked out by quilted layers and his nose dribbling in the icy wind.
Frieda took the stairs and went up to the fourth floor, then along the concrete corridor to a brown door with a knocker and a spy-hole. She knocked and waited. A chain pulled back, an eye peered out.
‘Yes? Who is this?’ It wasn’t the voice she had been expecting.
‘I’ve come to see –’ She nearly said ‘Terry’, but caught herself in time. ‘Joanna Teale. She’s not expecting me. My name is Frieda Klein.’
‘The doctor?’
Frieda had been the one who realized that Dean Reeve’s wife Terry was actually the little schoolgirl, Joanna Teale, who had been snatched more than twenty years previously. She had also insisted to Karlsson that Joanna be treated like a victim, abducted and brainwashed for decades, rather than a perpetrator – although sometimes Joanna had made it hard for others to take her side. She was self-righteous, aggrieved and unapologetic. She treated her parents – who were almost as derailed by her reappearance as they had been wrecked by her going – with a kind of angry indifference and her elder sister, Rose, with contempt. It had been a shocking reunion for them all. Frieda, after the first few weeks, had kept out of everyone’s way, until now.
The chain pulled back and the door opened. On the doormat stood a young woman with a tight bright ponytail and over-shaped eyebrows. She was wearing a short skirt, long socks over her thick tights and had a striped cotton scarf wrapped round her neck, though it felt warm inside to Frieda. She held out a hand. ‘I’m Janine,’ she said. ‘Come in.’
‘Is Joanna here?’
‘She’s in there with Rick.’
‘Rick?’
‘Rick Costello. Joanna, you’ve a visitor.’
‘Who is it?’ Hoarse and slightly slurred – that was the voice Frieda had been expecting.
‘You’ll never guess. Talk of the devil. Shall I take your coat?’
‘Can you tell me who you are first?’ asked Frieda. ‘You seem to know me but I certainly don’t know you.’
‘I’m working with Joanna.’
‘In what way?’
‘I’m helping her tell her story.’
‘Her story?’ said Frieda, cautiously. ‘Are you a writer?’
‘Me? No. I’m just the PR her publisher has hired to make sure she reaches the largest possible audience. It’s such a terrible story – and the strength it’s taken her to survive. Tragedy and redemption. With a real-life monster, as well. But you don’t need me to tell you.’ Janine looked at Frieda with a knowing smile. ‘I’ve heard about your role.’
Frieda took off her coat. All of a sudden she had a headache, like a band wrapped around her skull. ‘So she’s writing a book?’
‘It’s all done. We’ve been working on it for days. I’m just privileged that I’ve been chosen to help her. But you’re a counsellor so you know all about enabling people, don’t you? She’s through here.’
Janine led Frieda into a small room, hardly big enough for the large leather sofa and the deep, bulky armchair. The room was thick with smoke – and sitting in the thickest part of the cloud was Joanna, curled up at one end of the sofa with her bare feet tucked under her. Last time Frieda had seen her, her dark hair had been dyed blonde; now it was a metallic chestnut. But she had the same slumped posture and the same heavy-set face. It was pale, overlaid with tan makeup. A cigarette hung from her lower lip and an overflowing ashtray stood on the small table at her elbow. Her large body was squeezed into a pair of skinny jeans and a leopard-print top. The folds of her white stomach showed, and Frieda glimpsed the Oriental tattoo there. A young man with a pink baby face, spots on his forehead, was in the armchair. He was looking at Frieda suspiciously. His trousers had ridden up his legs, exposing yellow socks and shiny white shins.
‘Hello, Joanna,’ said Frieda.
‘You didn’t say you were coming.’
‘No.’
‘Why are you here, after all this time?’
‘I came to see how you were getting on.’
Joanna sucked on her cigarette. ‘It’s not just coincidence?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Now that I’m setting the record straight.’
‘I didn’t know about this.’
‘This,’ said Joanna, complacently, nodding towards the young man and jerking more ash from her cigarette, ‘is Rick.’
Frieda nodded to Rick, who held out a limp pink hand.
‘He’s my editor.’
‘Of your book?’ He didn’t look like Frieda’s idea of a publisher.
‘From the Sketch.’
‘I thought you were writing a book.’
‘It’s being serialized,’ said Rick.
‘I see.’
Janine bobbed her head so that her ponytail swung. ‘Can I get you coffee?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘So you didn’t know?’ Joanna asked again. ‘You haven’t been sent to spy?’
‘To spy on what?’
‘On me, on all of this.’
‘It’s too late for that,’ said Rick. ‘We’re pretty much done and dusted. It’s being lawyered as we speak.’
Frieda perched herself on the sofa and looked at Joanna, trying to ignore the two others. ‘You’ve written a book?’
‘That’s right.’
‘About what happened?’
‘What else would I write a bleeding book about?’ She stubbed her cigarette out and lit another. ‘What do yo
u think of that?’
‘It depends on what you’ve said and why you’ve done it.’
‘It’s my story,’ said Joanna. ‘Everything I’ve gone through in my life. Snatched away, hidden, abused, beaten, raped, brainwashed.’ Her voice rose. ‘No one rescued me. And I don’t hold back. I don’t duck it. I looked after Matthew, you know. I saved him. There was a hidden core of strength in me. How else could I have survived everything? A core of strength,’ she repeated. Then: ‘You want to know why I’ve written it. To give hope to others. That’s why.’
‘I see.’
‘I need the money as well. I didn’t get compensation. Not a penny, after everything I endured. I lived in Hell,’ she said, ‘with a monster, for twenty-two years. You can never get back those years.’
‘Have you seen your family, Joanna? Have they read this book?’
‘They don’t understand. Rose comes round, but she just sits and stares at me with those big eyes of hers. She wants me to talk to someone about what happened. Someone like you, I mean.’ She took another drag on her cigarette, inhaling deeply. ‘It’s much better talking to someone like Janine or Rick. Anyway, she didn’t take care of me. She was supposed to be looking after me that day I was got.’
Frieda thought of Rose Teale’s stricken face, her enduring guilt: a good woman who’d been almost as much a victim of Dean Reeve as her younger sister. ‘She was nine, Joanna.’
‘My big sister. They all let me down. That’s what they can’t cope with.’ Joanna dropped the cigarette end on to the pile of dead stubs. ‘But I forgive them.’
‘You forgive them?’
‘Yeah.’
Frieda forced herself to think of why she had come here. ‘When Dean died,’ she said, ‘were you surprised that he took his own life?’
Joanna’s eyes flicked to Janine, then back to Frieda. ‘It showed he loved me, that he knew he’d abused me. It was his last spark of human decency, that’s what it was.’
Gobbets of the book flew past Frieda, phrases about strength, evil, goodness, survival, victims. She steadied herself. ‘So you never thought it was out of character?’
Joanna gazed at her, off-script at last. She gave a shrug. ‘He’d reached the end of the line.’
‘Have you seen Alan?’ asked Frieda.
‘Who’s he?’
‘Dean’s brother, his twin.’
‘Why would I see him?’
‘So you haven’t, not even once?’
‘No.’
‘What about June, Dean’s mother?’
Joanna pulled a face. ‘She’s gone demented. She wouldn’t know me if I did go and see her, which I wouldn’t anyway.’ She paused, then found her lines again. ‘The curse that’s passed down generations,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be on TV, you know. Rick says. He’s setting it up. And I’m in the paper next week.’
‘A major serialization,’ said Janine. ‘Over four days. You should read it yourself. An Innocent in Hell. You wouldn’t believe some of the things that are in it.’
‘I probably would.’
‘I don’t want to see you again, though,’ said Joanna. ‘I don’t like the way you look at me.’
Eighteen
For Yvette, it was mainly a matter of bureaucracy and logistics, like most of her job. Early in the day she obtained confirmation in writing that, since Flat 2, 14 Waverley Street, was associated with an indictable offence, no search warrant was required. She contacted the police station in Balham where the disappearance had been reported. From there she got a number for the woman who had reported Poole missing. She phoned Janet Ferris, and when she told her that a body had been found, the woman started to cry. From her, Yvette got the number of the landlord, a Mr Michnik. She arranged to meet Janet Ferris at the address, then phoned Mr Michnik and asked to meet him there as well. She had just booked the scene-of-crime team when her phone rang and she picked it up. A female voice told her that she had Commissioner Crawford for her. Yvette took a deep breath.
‘Is that DC Long?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Where’s Karlsson?’
‘He’s in Gloucester. At a funeral.’
‘Family?’
‘No,’ said Yvette. ‘It’s Katherine Ripon.’ There was a pause. ‘The woman Dean Reeve snatched.’
‘Oh, her.’
‘The one we didn’t find,’ said Yvette.
‘There was a pause. She stared out of the window and waited.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘What’s happened with that murder charge? The Deptford lunatic case.’
‘We’ve got the file back, sir. From the CPS.’
‘I thought that one was finished,’ he said, his voice deepening ominously. ‘I made it quite clear.’
‘There was new evidence. It’s turned out to be a bit more complicated.’
‘Really?’
‘We know who he is.’
Crawford sighed.
She could hear a pen tap-tapping and knew the grim expression on his face. ‘Do you want me to tell you the details?’ Yvette asked.
‘Anything I need to know? Anything operational?’
‘No.’
‘Just get on with it, then.’
Before she had a chance to say yes, the line had gone dead. She was left with the feeling she had done something wrong but she wasn’t sure what it was.
Her car was late picking her up and they got stuck in traffic on Balham High Street. By the time she arrived at the house, she saw that the scene-of-crime van was already there. It was an ordinary pebbledash house on a residential street. A man wearing an anorak was standing outside.
‘Mr Michnik?’ she said.
‘I am the owner of the house.’ He had an accent she couldn’t place exactly. Something Eastern European. ‘I let the people in already.’ Yvette looked up. The window on the first floor was illuminated by the lights they’d set up inside. ‘Is he dead?’
‘We’ve found a body,’ she said. ‘We think it may be Mr Poole’s. Did you know him?’
‘He is my tenant. I meet him.’
She took a notebook. ‘At some point we’ll need a proper statement from you,’ she said, ‘but, first, can I ask when you last saw him?’
‘Two months,’ Michnik said. ‘Maybe three. I don’t know. I meet him just a few time. He pays the rent regular. He’s not trouble, so I don’t see him.’
‘When did he move in?’
‘I check that when you ring. He come here in May last year. The beginning.’
‘Do you know what his job was?’
Michnik thought for a moment. ‘A businessman, maybe. He wears a suit.’
‘What kind of person was he?’
‘He pays the deposit, he pays the rent. He’s not trouble. He’s polite. He’s good.’
‘How many people live in this house?’
‘There are three flats.’
‘I talked to Janet Ferris.’
‘Yes, she is on the ground floor, and there is a German on the top floor. He is a student but he is a good student. He is an older student.’
‘Are the flats furnished?’
‘Not the ground, not Miss Ferris. But the others. All the chairs and tables and pictures, they are all mine.’ He seemed to remember something. ‘What is happening to the flat?’
‘We’ll be sealing it,’ said Yvette. ‘We’re treating it as a crime scene for the moment. You shouldn’t go in there and I should warn you that it is an offence to take anything away or move things around.’
‘How long is this for?’
‘It shouldn’t be too long. Is Janet Ferris here?’
Michnik frowned. ‘I will take you inside.’
Janet Ferris answered the knock at the door so quickly that Yvette suspected she’d been standing inside, waiting. She was a middle-aged woman, red hair streaked with grey, a thin, anxious face. ‘Is it really true?’ she said. ‘He’s dead?’
‘We need to confirm it,’ said Yvette. ‘But we think so.’
/> ‘Oh, God.’ She pressed her ringless left hand to her chest. ‘That’s terrible.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘It must have been about the twentieth, twenty-first of January. I remember because I met him when we were both going out and I said something about posting a card to my niece for her birthday, which is on the twenty-fourth.’
‘Did he seem worried about something?’
‘No, he was completely normal. His usual friendly self, always so helpful.’ Her voice wavered slightly. ‘I was on holiday. I went to see my sister and her family in the south of France. I always go at this time of year. He was supposed to look after my flat while I was away, water the plants, pick up the mail, things like that. It was our arrangement: he would look after mine and I would look after his. I always fed his cat for him. When I came back, I saw at once he hadn’t been in. All my mail was piled up, and when I went into the flat, my plants were shrivelled. It wasn’t like him to forget. He was very thoughtful. Then I noticed his mail was piled up too.’ She pointed to a bundle of letters in the corner. Yvette knelt down and picked through them. It was all junk mail.
‘I went and knocked at his door,’ Janet Ferris continued, ‘but, of course, he didn’t reply. I let myself in, and I knew at once something was wrong. That’s why I went straight to the police.’
‘Did people come to visit him here?’ she asked.
‘I never saw anyone,’ said Janet Ferris. ‘But he was out at work a lot, and I work in the day. He was away sometimes.’
‘Were you friendly with him?’
‘He came in for coffee several times. We used to talk.’
‘Did he say anything about himself?’
‘He wasn’t like that,’ Janet Ferris said. ‘He seemed interested in my life, my work, where I came from, why I moved to London. He didn’t talk about himself at all.’
Yvette arranged for Janet Ferris to give a full statement, then walked up the stairs. She was met at the door by Martin Carlisle from the scene-of-crime team. Gawky, with untidy dark curly hair, he looked as if he belonged in a sixth-form chemistry lab. ‘There’s nothing to see here,’ he said. ‘No stains, no signs of a struggle. And it looks like a place where he perched, rather than lived, if you see what I mean. Too neat. We’ve got a toothbrush and a hairbrush for DNA.’
