by Nicci French
They drove off the motorway and there was no voice except for the satnav, directing them this way and that through residential streets in St Albans.
‘Ever been here before?’ asked Munster.
‘I think there are some Roman ruins,’ said Yvette. ‘I came on a school trip once. I can’t remember anything about it. I’d probably enjoy it if I went now.’
The satnav told them they’d reached their destination. They sat for a moment. Yvette checked the printed sheet on her lap to make sure this was the right address. It was.
Munster looked at her. ‘So are you nervous now?’ he said.
‘If I did it every day,’ she said, ‘I’d get used to it.’
‘Are you going to say it or do you want me to?’
‘I’m in charge,’ Yvette said.
They got out of the car, opened the gate to the miniature front garden and took the three steps that brought them into the little Georgian portico. Yvette pressed the bell, which set off a tinkling chime. A man answered the door. He was thick-set, with short blond hair, shaved at the sides of his head, dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved football shirt. He looked at them enquiringly.
‘Are you Dennis Poole? said Yvette.
‘That’s right.’
She introduced herself and Chris Munster. ‘Are you the brother of Robert Poole?’
‘What?’ he said, looking surprised. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘You are his brother?’ said Yvette.
‘Well, yeah,’ said Poole. ‘But –’
‘Can we step inside?’ said Yvette.
They walked into the front room where the TV was on with a game show Yvette didn’t recognize. She asked Poole to switch it off. Instead he turned the sound down.
‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that your brother’s dead,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I’m very sorry,’ she continued. ‘We found his body on the first of February, but it took some time to identify it.’
‘What do you mean, his body?’
‘His body was found in a house in south London. We’ve begun a murder investigation and we’re currently interviewing witnesses and taking statements. I know this must be a shock.’
‘What do you mean, south London?’
Yvette was used to this. In shock, people lose the ability to process information. You have to take things slowly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know how difficult this must be for you. Are you surprised that your brother should have been in that area?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ said Poole. ‘Rob died six years ago. Seven almost. You’ve made some mistake.’
For a moment Yvette couldn’t speak. She looked at Munster. He was the one who’d tracked down the birth certificate. What kind of disastrous error had he made? She took the sheet from the bag she was carrying.
‘We’re talking about Robert Anthony Poole,’ she said. ‘Born on the third of May 1981. Huntingdon. Father James Poole.’
‘That’s right,’ said Poole. ‘That’s my dad. But Rob died in 2004. Work accident. Some scaffolding collapsed. The company put all the blame on him. He got fuck-all compensation. That’s what you should be investigating.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Yvette. ‘There’s clearly some kind of …’ She paused, at a loss. ‘Problem,’ she finished lamely.
‘I’ll say there’s been a bloody problem.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I’m extremely sorry about all this,’ she said. ‘I promise you that we’re going to investigate and find out what’s happened.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you have any details about your late brother? Papers?’
‘Up in the attic somewhere. It might take some time to dig out.’
‘We can wait,’ said Yvette.
Twenty-two
Josef was suspicious at first. ‘This thing,’ he said. ‘Is for charity?’
‘For you or for her?’ said Frieda.
‘For both.’
‘Karlsson rang me because he thought you could help. I think she’s been left in the lurch. But if she wants any work done, she’ll pay for it.’
Frieda thought he seemed a bit better. At least he smelt clean and he had dressed himself properly; his face was less gaunt, too. Reuben had told her that he was only working from day to day. Building work was still slow. He drove her in Reuben’s car. His old van was still sitting, with its flat battery and its flat tyre, outside the house. The traffic was bad and the journey took almost an hour.
‘The old joke is that it used to be quicker in London when people travelled on horseback,’ said Frieda.
Josef didn’t reply.
‘Except that it’s not really a joke,’ she said. ‘It’s true, I think.’
Josef just looked ahead.
‘If you’re doing a job in a London garden,’ she said, ‘and you cut yourself, you need a tetanus shot. It’s because of the horse shit. In Victorian times, people filled their gardens with it and the bacteria are still active.’
Silence from Josef. Frieda looked across at him. He seemed like someone who’d had the fight knocked out of him. Frieda knew that he hadn’t told Reuben anything about what had happened. When she had first seen him, after his secret return, she had said she was ready to talk to him whenever he felt like it. But perhaps she was going to have to make the first move.
‘Josef,’ she said, ‘something bad happened at home, didn’t it?’
He stared straight ahead, but she saw his hands tighten on the steering wheel.
‘Do you want to tell me?’
‘No.’
‘Because you believe that I’ll think the worse of you?’
‘I know you think the worse.’
‘Is that why you never told us you were here?’
‘You are good woman. Is easy for you. I am bad man.’
‘Josef, everyone’s good and bad. Everyone makes mistakes.’
‘Not you.’
‘That’s not true,’ Frieda said energetically. She hesitated, then said, ‘Last Friday, do you know where I was?’
‘Friday? When we all have dinner with Olivia?’
‘Before then. I was at the funeral of Kathy Ripon. You know, the young woman who was snatched by Dean Reeve and whose body was finally found in the storm drain.’ Josef, negotiating a mini-roundabout, nodded. ‘I was to blame for her death. No, don’t interrupt. I was. I acted hastily, I didn’t think about what I was doing and she died because of it. So. That’s me. What about you?’
He asked abruptly, ‘You think I am good father?’
‘What does that mean? I think you love your sons and miss them. I think you’d do anything for them. I’m sure you’ve made mistakes. But they’re lucky to have you.’
He braked, turned his heavy face to her. ‘They do not have me now. They have him.’
‘Him?’
‘Him. She have new man, they have new papa. They look at him like hero. Suit and tie and cakes on weekend wrapped up in box with ribbons. They look at me like something on bottom of shoe. Shit,’ he supplied. ‘Like shit.’
‘Why?’
Cars backed up behind them and started sounding their horns. Josef moved off again. ‘Because I am shit.’
‘What happened?’
‘She knew about straying.’
‘Straying? You mean, other women?’
Frieda had also known about the other women. Josef loved his wife with a sentimental, unwavering attachment, but she’d been in Kiev and he’d been in London, and for him it had been as if the two worlds were entirely separate: in one, he had a wife whom he loved, in the other, he didn’t.
‘She knew,’ Josef repeated. ‘I go home with my presents and my tender heart, all gladness, and my loneliness gone at last, and she shut the door. Just shut the door, Frieda. My boys see me turned like a dog away.’
‘Did you ever manage to talk about it?’
He shook his head from side to side, slowly. ‘I try. I meet new man. Good job. Toys for my boys. Cars that m
ove with radio. Computer games with shooting and bombs. They not want my cheap little presents, not want me. Is over. All over. Life turned dust. I come back here again.’
‘So you never actually had a proper conversation about it?’
‘What to say, Frieda, what to do? Everything is over. Gone.’
‘To tell her what you feel, to hear what she feels, to work out if things really are over.’
‘I am nothing,’ said Josef. ‘I have no money. I live in faraway land. I am wicked when her back is turned. Why she want me as husband? Why you want me as friend?’
‘I like you,’ said Frieda, simply. ‘And I trust you.’
‘Trust? Me?’
‘Why else would I ask you for help?’
His eyes filled with tears. ‘Truth?’
‘Yes. Listen, we’re going to talk about this more, Josef. But now we’re here. Turn left. This is where Mary Orton lives.’
Josef found a place to park, and they both got out.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked, as they walked down Brittany Road.
He stopped. ‘I thank you,’ he said, and put his hand on his heart, making his curious little bow.
They looked up at Mary Orton’s large detached house.
‘Is big house for one woman,’ said Josef.
‘Her husband’s dead,’ said Frieda. ‘Her children left home a long time ago. She probably doesn’t want to leave. Maybe she wants somewhere for the grandchildren to stay.’
Josef looked up at the house and Frieda looked away from it at Josef’s face. She liked that expression, the expression of someone engrossed in something she couldn’t see. ‘What do you think?’ she said.
He pointed up to a window on the second floor.
‘You see a crack there,’ he said. It was like a dark thread running down from the sill. ‘The house move a bit. Not so much.’
‘Is it bad?’ she said.
‘Not so bad,’ said Josef. ‘Is London.’ He held out his flat hands and shifted them about horizontally. ‘Is on clay. You have no rain and then much rain and the houses moved and you know …’ He mimed something, like a tired person flopping down.
‘Settle,’ said Frieda.
‘Settle,’ said Josef. ‘But not so bad.’
The front door opened before they had even approached it. Mary Orton must have noticed the two strangers staring up at her house. Frieda wondered how much time she spent gazing out of the window. She was wearing dark blue corduroy slacks and a checked shirt. Frieda saw that she must once have been beautiful. She was still beautiful, in a way, but her face was more than wrinkled. The flesh looked like brown paper that had been folded and folded and folded again, then flattened out. Frieda introduced herself and Josef.
‘Did the detective tell you that we were coming?’ she said, catching herself talking a bit loudly, as if Mary Orton was slightly deaf and slightly stupid.
She bustled them into the house and through the hall into a large kitchen that looked out on a shockingly large garden. There were two substantial trees at the end and more gardens on the other side and opposite. It was like looking at parkland. While Josef and Frieda were gazing at it through the French windows, Mary Orton busied herself behind them, making tea and getting out two cakes, putting them on plates and cutting slices.
‘A very small piece, please,’ said Frieda. ‘Half that.’
Josef took Frieda’s and ate it as well as his, drank tea and had a slice of the other cake. Mary Orton turned a grateful look on him.
‘If Josef has quite finished,’ said Frieda, ‘he can have a look at what needs doing. He’s very good.’
Josef put his plate into the sink. ‘That is a very nice cake, both of them.’
‘Have some more,’ said Mary Orton. ‘It’s just going to waste.’
‘I will have some more later,’ said Josef, ‘but first, what things was the man doing for you?’
‘It’s so terrible what happened,’ she said. ‘So very awful.’ She passed a hand over her face, seeming dazed. ‘And the detective, the woman, said that he was killed. Is that really possible?’
‘I think so,’ said Frieda. ‘I’m not a policeman. I’m just a …’ She stopped for a moment. What was she? ‘Just a colleague.’
‘He was so helpful,’ she continued. ‘So reassuring. He made me feel in safe hands. I haven’t felt that since my husband died, and that was a long time ago. He said the house needed a lot of work. He’s right, of course. I’ve let it go dreadfully.’ She reached over for a packet of cigarettes and an ashtray. ‘Do you mind?’ Frieda shook her head. She lit a cigarette. ‘There were all sorts of things that needed doing, and he and a couple of men who worked for him patched things up here and there. But the main thing was the roof. He said that other things could wait, but once the roof starts going and water gets in …’
‘Is true,’ said Josef. ‘The roof is important. But outside no scaffolding. Is gone?’
‘No,’ said Mary Orton. ‘They worked at it from the inside.’
‘What?’ Josef wrinkled his face.
‘How long was he here?’ asked Frieda.
‘A long time,’ said Mary Orton, with a smile. ‘I can’t remember. Of course, they weren’t here all the time. They sometimes had to go and do other jobs. But I was flexible about it.’
‘And now it’s still leaking,’ said Frieda. ‘At least, that’s what I heard.’
‘He hadn’t finished,’ said Mary Orton. ‘Suddenly he didn’t come any more. I missed him – not just for the repairs. Now we know why. It’s so terrible.’ Her old face seemed to crumple even more. She turned her head away to hide her expression.
‘Is it all right if Josef takes a look?’
‘Of course,’ said Mary Orton. ‘Shall I show you?’
Josef smiled. It was one of the few times Frieda had seen him smile since his return. ‘I know the way to the roof,’ he said.
When Josef had gone, Frieda looked around the kitchen. There were snapshots of children on the dresser, all in little frames. ‘Are they your grandchildren?’
‘Yes. They’re more grown-up now, of course.’
‘Do you see much of them?’
‘My two sons don’t live in London. They come to see me when they can in holidays. I have friends, of course.’
She sounded almost defensive. Frieda picked up one of the pictures. It was a primary-school photograph dated 2008. Three years ago: a long time in a child’s life, she thought.
‘It must have been quite nice just to have Robert Poole around,’ she said.
‘Oh, well, he was a kind young man,’ said Mary Orton, seeming embarrassed. ‘He asked me about my life, took an interest. When you get old, people usually stop seeing you. You become invisible. But he wasn’t like that.’
‘Attentive,’ Frieda said.
‘Yes, I suppose he was. It’s hard to believe he’s dead.’
There was a thump on the stairs and both women turned as Josef came into the kitchen.
‘Mrs Orton.’ He stood solidly in front of her. ‘There is a small leak. I fetch my bag from the car and in just five minutes I stop the water. Then maybe just one day’s work, or two days. I fix it for you. All fine.’
‘That would be wonderful. Can you do that?’
‘No problem. I go to the car. Frieda?’ He nodded at her. ‘Mrs Orton, you excuse us one moment?’
Frieda followed him out into the hall. ‘Everything all right?’
Josef pulled a contemptuous face. ‘The roof. That all bullshit. I know it when I don’t see scaffolding. He did nothing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, he did nothing up there. Bit of banging maybe, no new roof.’
Frieda was baffled. ‘Maybe you just didn’t see what he’d done.’
‘Frieda,’ said Josef, ‘I show you if you want. I go there, I climb up ladder in top bedroom and I shine torch. I look at roof boards, rafters. There is some new boards, some …’ he waved his hands around, searching for t
he word ‘… felt, but is nothing. And the water is coming in.’ He tapped his head. ‘Maybe she’s …’
‘All right,’ said Frieda. ‘You should go ahead and fix the hole.’ She put out a hand and touched his shoulder. ‘And thanks, Josef.’
He shrugged and went outside. Frieda thought hard for a couple of minutes, then walked back into the kitchen. She sat down next to Mary Orton at the kitchen table and pulled her chair even closer, so they could talk in low voices.
‘I want to ask you something. Can you tell me how much you paid Robert Poole?’
Mary Orton blushed red. ‘I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘I just paid him in bits, from time to time. I didn’t really think of the amount.’
Frieda leaned closer, put her hand on the woman’s forearm. ‘I wouldn’t ask this if it wasn’t important, but could you show me your bank statements?’
‘Well, really …’
‘You don’t have to show me,’ said Frieda, ‘but if you don’t, I’m afraid the police will come and look anyway.’
‘All right.’ Mary Orton nodded. ‘But it feels a bit strange.’
She left the room. Frieda heard sounds on the stairs, going up and then coming down. Mary Orton came back into the kitchen and put a bundle of papers on the table. ‘They’re in a complete mess,’ she said. ‘My husband used to do all that sort of thing.’
Frieda found the current-account statements and arranged them in order of date, then started to scan them. After just a few seconds, she felt her heart beating faster. She could feel it pulsing in her neck. She put the last sheet down and turned to Mary Orton.
‘I was only making a rough count. Maybe I missed a couple of payments. But I make it about a hundred and sixty thousand pounds you paid him. Does that seem right?’
Mary Orton took another cigarette from her packet and lit it. Her hands were trembling and it took two matches to get it alight. ‘Yes, it could be. But roofs are horribly expensive, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ said Frieda. ‘That’s what I’ve heard.’
Twenty-three
There had been eight names or pairs of names in Robert Poole’s notebook. Yvette read them out. ‘One: Mrs Mary Orton.’
