by Nicci French
‘I was a cosy, flirty, wholesome presenter trying to make people’s lives a little bit better. If people knew I was actually an old soak who’d ended up in the bin, screaming and attacking people, how do you think they’d react?’
‘I don’t know. But I can see it’s become an area of dread for you. The dread doesn’t shrink, but gets bigger and darker. Maybe it’s the secrecy that’s the problem.’
‘That’s easy for you to say. I can’t risk it.’
‘Is that what Robert Poole said? That you shouldn’t risk it?’
‘How do you know these things?’
‘Because you talked to him the way you talk to me,’ said Frieda. ‘So Poole understood you had a secret?’
‘He said that nobody must find out. That I could be ruined. He was very sympathetic. He said I could always talk to him about it, though.’ Jasmine stopped and looked at Frieda. ‘But you think he was wrong?’
‘I think giving advice is always complicated. But perhaps you should consider the power this part of your life has over you.’
‘You’re a therapist,’ said Jasmine. ‘Don’t you believe that a problem shared is a problem halved?’
‘Maybe. And maybe if you share a problem with one person, you’re giving that person control over you.’
Back at home, Frieda found an email from Tessa Welles. She couldn’t schedule a meeting for the next couple of weeks, but she was going to the theatre in Islington the following evening and could call in to see Olivia beforehand, around six o’clock. Would that be possible? Frieda rang Olivia, who said it wasn’t just possible, it was essential, the sooner the better, or she’d be going round to David’s house with a knife. She sent a reply to Tessa, copying it to Olivia, and gave Tessa Olivia’s landline and mobile numbers.
There was also a message on her phone from Karlsson, asking her to ring. When she got through to him, he said simply, ‘There’s nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Your favour, remember?’
‘Oh. You mean about Alan Dekker.’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re with someone and can’t talk.’
‘Yes.’
‘Because you’ve stuck your neck out for me.’
‘Right.’
‘I’m grateful. So he really has disappeared, like Carrie says.’
‘It seems so.’
‘Don’t you find that odd?’
‘This is as far as I’m going, Frieda.’
She put the phone down and went up to her study in the garret where, from the skylight, she could see the lights of London flickering in the February dark. She sat at her desk and made doodles on her sketchpad with her soft-leaded pencil. She was thinking about Robert Poole, and the light touch with which he had picked people’s secrets from their souls. She was also thinking about what she had said to Jasmine about the insidious power of secrets. You hypocrite, she told herself, hatching in her drawing.
When she finally went downstairs again she found another email on her computer, from Sandy. She sat for a long while and then clicked it open.
I was with someone for a while and now I’m not, because she wasn’t you. Please, Frieda, talk to me.
Twenty-nine
‘Think of it as a day out.’
Yvette was driving and Karlsson was sitting beside her. They had left London early that morning, just as it got light, but had got snarled up on the North Circular and were only now on the M1, heading north. It was cold and blustery, and the lowering sky threatened rain.
‘A long day,’ said Yvette, but she didn’t really mind. She was glad to be spending all these hours alone with Karlsson, and also slightly self-conscious and nervous. ‘Manchester and then Cardiff. Eight hours’ driving, if we’re lucky with the traffic.’
‘We’ll get a pub lunch,’ said Karlsson. ‘I thought it was better to see the Orton brothers on the same day. Get a sense of them.’
‘What do you know already?’
‘Let’s see. The older one, Jeremy – he’s in his mid-fifties – is a company accountant for a large pharmaceutical firm. Must be wealthy. Married, with two daughters. He lives in Didsbury and he doesn’t see much of his mother. Once or twice a year, for a day or so. Frieda took against him.’
‘But she takes against lots of people.’
Karlsson glanced at her. ‘She’s got an instinct,’ he said. ‘We’ve enough people following procedure.’
Yvette just stared at the road; rain was starting to fall. ‘People like me, boring and awkward and plodding,’ she wanted to say, but didn’t. ‘What about the younger brother?’ she asked instead.
‘Robin. He’s had a more chequered career and personal life. He ran a small company. Garden landscaping, it says here.’
‘Ponds?’
‘I guess so. That went belly-up in the nineties, and since then he’s done all sorts. Now he’s a business consultant, whatever that means. He’s got a son by his first marriage, and another much younger son by his second. Lives near the bay in Cardiff.’
‘And did Frieda take against him as well?’ asked Yvette.
‘He doesn’t see much of his old mother either. But Frieda thought he was the weaker of the two. Not such a bully.’
When they reached the M6 they stopped for coffee and petrol, and by eleven o’clock the satnav was directing them through the more prosperous suburbs of Manchester. Jeremy and Virginia Orton lived in a large detached house in Didsbury, set back from the tree-lined road, with a gravel driveway and two cars parked on it, a BMW and a Golf. There was smoke coming from the chimney and, sure enough, when Virginia opened the door and led them to the living room, a fire was burning in the grate.
To Karlsson, the dark furniture, the silver tray on which coffee was served and the silver-framed photographs of the children in their uniforms that were displayed on top of the baby grand seemed like something from another age.
Virginia Orton was a tiny woman, with a brittle manner and a head of tight burnished curls. But Jeremy was large: not fat, but tall and solid like a rugby player, a centre, with broad shoulders, a large, balding head, big hands and feet. He was wearing a lilac shirt under his jacket and a shiny watch. His grey, slightly protuberant eyes watched them suspiciously.
‘I expected you half an hour ago,’ he said.
‘Traffic,’ said Karlsson. ‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’
‘Thanks.’ Jeremy nodded to his wife in dismissal, and she left the room with the click of heels over bare boards. ‘What’s this about?’
‘As you know, I’m leading the murder investigation.’
‘Yes, yes. But why are you here? I don’t see what I’ve got to do with any of it. Apart from being fleeced by him, of course.’
‘We’ll take as little of your time as we can. But I thought it was your mother who had been fleeced by Mr Poole, not you.’
‘Terrible. An old woman cheated like that.’
‘But you never met him?’
‘Of course not. I’d have seen through him if I had.’
‘Or even heard of him?’
‘No.’
‘Did she tell you she was having work done on the house?’
‘If she had, I’d have told her to get quotes. I know about these cowboys. What about the other men he was working with? Can’t you get hold of them?’
‘We’ve tried, of course. There’s absolutely no record of them. We’ve no names, no contact numbers, nothing.’
‘They were probably Poles.’
‘Did you know her roof was leaking?’ asked Yvette.
‘I don’t know, I can’t remember. What’s the point of all of this? He conned her, he’s dead, she’s had a lucky escape.’
‘So,’ said Karlsson, ‘you had no idea she was having her house repaired?’
‘Well, she wasn’t, was she? It was a way of getting at our money.’
‘Her money.’
‘Our money, her money. We’re a family.’
‘You didn’t know about the repairs,
and you never met Mr Poole, correct?’
‘Correct.’ Jeremy Orton looked at his watch.
‘Because you hadn’t been to visit your mother since the summer?’ put in Yvette. Karlsson looked at her warningly.
‘That therapist’ – he said the word with distaste – ‘has already been on about that to me and Robin. I know what she was trying to say. We’re busy people. We do what we can.’
‘So you had no idea that she wanted to change her will?’
‘She didn’t want to. She was under this man’s influence and in a confused state.’
‘A will that would have given a third of her estate to him.’
‘No. I didn’t know. I’ve had words with Ma. She won’t be so stupid again.’
‘We’re going to need you to inform us of your movements during the last week of January,’ said Yvette.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Just for the record. Can you please let us know where you were during the last ten days of January?’
Jeremy Orton stared at her and then at Karlsson, his face turning crimson. ‘Are you serious?’
‘And any witnesses who can corroborate what you say would be useful, so that we can check them.’
‘You can’t seriously suspect me of having anything to do with this.’
‘We’re just establishing the limits of our inquiry, that’s all.’
Jeremy Orton rose from his chair. ‘Virginia!’ he barked. ‘Bring me my diary, will you?’
Four and a half hours later, Karlsson and Yvette were in Cardiff. Robin Orton’s house had a view of the sea, but it was more modest than Jeremy’s. His car was parked on the road outside. His wife was at work. Tea came in mugs, not cups. There was no grand piano, although there were photographs of his children on the wall.
Robin Orton was smaller than his brother. Karlsson thought he looked like a man who had lost a large amount of weight in a short time: the skin was slack on his face, and his trousers were loose, held up by a black leather belt.
They went through the same questions, and he gave the same answers, more or less. No, he had never met Robert Poole. No, he had not known about the repairs to the house. No, he had been unaware about the change in the will – but if you were to ask his opinion, it was a complete disgrace that people like this man Poole could go about worming their way into old women’s houses. No, he hadn’t seen his mother very recently. What business was that of theirs? It wasn’t as if Mary Orton made much effort to come to Cardiff to see him and, anyway, she’d always been more interested in Jeremy than in him – and if they really wanted to know what he thought, then he thought that some of that money she’d handed over so casually to whatever rogue came knocking at the door could much more usefully have been given to him to help him with his new business. Old people should be more generous – it wasn’t as if his mother really needed anything for herself. As for that last week of January, as a matter of fact he had been in bed for most of it with a particularly nasty bout of flu. They could ask his wife – though she might call it a cold, but that was women for you. And they could see themselves out and remember to shut the door firmly.
‘Horrible, horrible, horrible men,’ said Yvette.
‘Yes, but what do you really think?’
They were heading back to London, along the M4, and the rain was now falling steadily from a sodden sky.
‘I wish they’d killed him together,’ she said, ‘and could be put away for a long time. Their poor bloody mother.’
‘Does that mean you think they didn’t?’
‘We have to check what they were doing that week, of course, and go back to Mary Orton to confirm they haven’t visited her. But unfortunately I’d bet they hadn’t been to see her since the summer. Because they were so busy.’
‘So,’ Karlsson said, ‘they have a motive, but it’s a motive that comes too late.’
‘I need a shower.’
‘I need a drink.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you want one too?’
‘Yes!’ she said, then tried to mute her enthusiasm. ‘I guess.’
‘On one condition.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That you don’t slag off Frieda.’ She started to protest but Karlsson interrupted her. ‘You two need to work together.’
She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember what spring felt like, or summer, or even bright golden autumn, which had always been her favourite season. She could only remember winter, because that was what she was in – frozen into an unchanging coldness. The trees all bare, the ground churned into icy ripples of mud, the grass beaten down, the river brown and slow and sad, the drip-drip-drip of water from the ceiling, the waxiness of her fingers when she woke in the morning, and the spider webs of frost on the little windows that she had to scrape away with her fingernails, which were breaking. One of her teeth was coming loose, as if her gums had softened.
She couldn’t remember everything he had said to her. What he had told her to do. They were inside her, his words, but she couldn’t find them. She rummaged in the drawers of her mind and found odd things, rags of memory. She didn’t need them any more.
Life had narrowed to this boat, this moment. But she couldn’t remember why.
Thirty
At half past two on the same day, acting on a feeling that had been growing in her all morning, Frieda returned to Greenwich, to the Wyatts’. She didn’t tell Karlsson and neither did she call in advance, even though she knew it was likely that nobody would be there. But when she arrived at their apartment, she saw Aisling through the large downstairs window, sitting at the piano and playing. Even from where she stood, among the spring bulbs and the copper pots carefully planted with herbs, Frieda could tell that her hands moved fluently over the keys. She also saw that her posture was tense. She walked to the front door, rang the bell, and the distant piano music stopped. After a few seconds, the door opened.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m sorry to arrive unannounced,’ said Frieda. ‘We’ve met before.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
Aisling looked uncertain. Her thin face was strained and there were small lines around her mouth that Frieda hadn’t noticed before. ‘The children will come back from school soon,’ she said. But she stood aside and Frieda walked into the wide, clean spaces of the apartment, which felt to her like a showhouse rather than a home. It was hard to believe the Wyatts had children, and she wondered how many hours a day the cleaner came. Her feet slid on the polished wood. On the low glass table, bright satsumas were arranged in a pyramid in a carved wooden bowl.
‘Can I get you something? Tea, coffee, anything herbal?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Frieda, sinking into the soft sofa. She disliked furniture that swaddled her. She liked to sit upright.
‘So. Do you have anything you want to ask? Frank isn’t here, of course.’
‘That’s why I came. I assumed he’d be at work and your children would be at school.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I wanted to talk about your affair with Robert Poole.’
‘How dare you?’ She sprang to her feet and stood in front of Frieda, thin and straight, quivering with distressed rage. ‘How dare you?’
‘Someone killed him, Aisling. It might be relevant.’
‘Get out of here.’
‘All right.’ Frieda stood and picked up her coat from the arm of the sofa, feeling in its pocket. ‘But if you want to tell me about it, here’s my card.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘I’m not going to say anything to the police at the moment.’
‘There’s nothing to say.’
The two women stared at each other, then Frieda nodded at her and left. Through the window, she could see Aisling still standing where she’d left her, gazing down at the name card.
‘Come in, come in, come in!’ cried Olivia. She was in hostess mode, expansive and already slightly tipsy. Dressed in green velvet, her hair tied up, earrings dangling, she pulled Frieda into the house and
kissed her on both cheeks, then rubbed off the lipstick marks with a licked finger. The hall was full of shoes. There was also a mousetrap at the foot of the stairs, as yet mouseless.
‘Is she here?’
‘Your solicitor woman –’
‘Tessa Welles.’
‘Not yet. But she rang to say she was on her way. She sounded lovely. She’s bringing her brother.’
‘Why? Is he a solicitor too?’
‘No, but she’s going to the theatre with him and they were coming from the same direction, so …’ Olivia waved vaguely in the air. Her fingernails were chipped scarlet. ‘I said it would be fine.’
‘Of course. Have you got all the documents together?’
‘Well. You see. That’s a bit of a problem. I’ve done my best. You know how these things are. Stuff just disappears.’ And Olivia opened her eyes wide, as if she was a conjuror who’d done a magic trick.
‘She must be used to it. Where’s Chloë?’
‘She’s at some mobile club thing.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Olivia said vaguely. ‘It’s all done on Facebook and, anyway, she’s with Sammy and Sammy’s brother and his friends and she is seventeen.’
The bell rang, and she went to the door, throwing it open with such force that it banged back on itself, and Frieda caught a glimpse of two surprised faces before it shut once more.
‘Sorry,’ said Olivia, reopening it. ‘Do come in.’
They could only have been brother and sister. It wasn’t just that both were tall and rangy, and had the same red-blonde hair, although his was cut short and fading to a peppery grey. They had the same oval face and grey-blue eyes.
‘Hello,’ said Tessa. She saw Frieda and gave her a smile of recognition. ‘This is my brother, Harry Welles.’
Harry shook Olivia’s hand and then Frieda’s. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he said. ‘I can sit in the car, if you like, or just perch somewhere while you talk. I’ve got plenty of work to be getting on with.’
‘Are you joining us?’ Tessa asked Frieda.
‘I asked her here for moral support,’ said Olivia. ‘I thought you might be some terrifying woman in a pin-striped suit. But I think I’ll manage on my own. Come into the living room. It’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. Though I tried to clear things up a bit.’
