by Nicci French
‘But Beth Kersey isn’t.’
‘It’s all right, Frieda. We’re guarding the parents.’
‘The parents were never in danger. I talked to Lorna Kersey. Beth never threatened them. She tries to do things for people, what she thinks they want. It’s when she does that, or when people try to stop her, that she turns violent. Very violent. You need to arrange protection for Mary Orton.’
‘That will only meant anything when Poole was alive.’
‘No. Don’t you see? She would try to carry out his wishes. And if he wished Mary Orton dead – Yvette, will you tell Karlsson what I’ve told you?’
There was another pause. ‘I’ll pass on your concern. But, Frieda, can’t you just give this a rest? We’ve been shafted by that bastard Newton and we’re trying to pick up the pieces. The case is over. Please. I’m sorry it happened this way, but we’ve got our own problems.’
‘Just tell Karlsson,’ Frieda said.
But the phone had gone dead. She tried Mary Orton’s number again but, as before, it rang and rang. Who else was there to ring? Was it possible that Josef was still working there? Or nearby? She rang him and went straight to voicemail. She stared out of the window. The traffic wasn’t as bad as it might have been. As they crossed the river, she rang Yvette again.
‘Have you called Karlsson yet?’ she said.
‘I’ve told you. I’ll contact him when I can. Now, please …’
The phone went dead again. Frieda stared at it. At first she felt dazed. There was nothing she could do. And then she thought of one thing she could do. What did it matter now anyway? She dialled 999.
‘Emergency services. Which service, please?’
‘Police.’
There was a click and a whirr, then another female voice. ‘Hello, police. What is the nature of the emergency?’
Frieda gave Mary Orton’s address. ‘I’ve seen an intruder.’
‘When was this?’
‘A couple of minutes ago.’
‘Can you give any description?’
‘No … Yes, I saw a knife. That’s all.’
‘We’ll arrange to send a car. Name, please.’
Frieda imagined what Karlsson or Yvette would think of this. She felt as if she had cut the last fraying bit of thread that attached her to them. But it was the things you didn’t do that mattered more than the things you did.
As the taxi turned into Mary Orton’s road, Frieda expected to see brightly coloured cars, flashing lights, but there was nothing. Jake Newton was right, she thought. Bloody hopeless. She handed a twenty-pound note to the driver.
‘I haven’t got any change,’ he said.
‘Just keep it.’
She walked towards the house. She hadn’t planned for this moment. She moved to press the bell, then saw that the door wasn’t quite shut. She pushed at it and it opened. Had a policeman on the beat arrived? Was Josef working there? She stepped inside.
‘Mary?’ she shouted. ‘Mrs Orton?’
There was no reply. She felt her heart beating too strongly; she felt it in her neck and in her chest. There was a sour taste in her mouth. It was lactic acid, caused by the breakdown of oxygen. You got it when you ran fast or when … She called again. What to do? She couldn’t phone the police. She’d already done that. Where the hell were they? Some false alarm somewhere probably. This was probably a false alarm. She walked through to the kitchen, her footsteps sounding horribly loud, as if they were telling her she was somewhere she wasn’t meant to be.
The kitchen was empty. There was a mug on the table half filled with tea or coffee, an open newspaper. Frieda leaned over and touched the mug. It was warm. Not hot like tea that had just been made, but warmer than the ambient temperature. Mary Orton could have gone out, forgotten to shut the door. She turned and left the kitchen. Was there any point in looking round the house? She opened the door to the front room and stepped inside. She felt an immediate lurching, gulping shock. Mary Orton was lying on the carpet by the bookcase across the room from the door. Frieda knew about these things and she felt her cognitive faculties close and narrow. She was looking at Mary Orton as if through a long tube. Frieda’s first thought was that she’d fallen, like people of Mary Orton’s age so often do. They fall and break a hip and sometimes they can’t get up and nobody finds them and they die. Then, almost dully and slowly, Frieda saw that what she had taken for a shadow of something across Mary Orton and the shadow of Mary Orton on the cream carpet was actually blood. Mary Orton’s blood. She ran across to her, trying to remember the pressure points. Anatomy had been such a long time ago.
Mary Orton was lying sprawled as if she had tried to roll over on to her back and failed.
‘Mary,’ Frieda said, coaxingly. ‘Mary, I’m here.’ Frieda looked into her eyes. She saw the tiniest flicker of something, a glimmer that puzzled her.
‘Mary,’ said Frieda, and saw once again a minuscule movement in her eyes. And then Frieda realized what the movement signified. Barely alive, Mary Orton was not looking at Frieda but past her, over her shoulder, and Frieda thought, Oh, no. Oh, no. She felt a punch, hard and hot in her back, to one side, and from then on everything happened with great foggy slowness. So she had time to think, How slow everything is. And she was punched again, and now it was in her stomach. And she had time to think, Why am I being punched? After that, she was able to remember, quite calmly, that she had read of how being stabbed didn’t feel at all like being stabbed. It didn’t feel sharp. It felt blunt, like being hit by a fist in a boxing glove. Frieda raised her arms in some kind of defence but the next punch came on her leg and quite suddenly it was wet and warm. Frieda knew that she couldn’t stand up any more but she didn’t fall. She stayed where she was, and Mary Orton’s cream carpet came up to meet her. She lay face down on it. She could feel the rough threads on her lips and she was now very, very tired. All she wanted was to sleep. She realized that this was what it was like to die and that she mustn’t die so she made the most terrible, horrible effort to raise herself.
She saw a face, a girl’s face. She had found Beth; Beth had found her. It seemed to be far away, like in a dream. Then, from being slow, everything speeded up. There was a rush of sensations, noises, movement. She felt movement, she was moving herself, and then everything slowed down once more and became dark and first very warm and then very cold, and she felt her head fall back and then her leg started to hurt and then really hurt, so that she cried out and she almost did see something and someone, but it was too much effort and the pain faded, and she fell deeply, gratefully asleep.
Fifty-two
It wasn’t like waking. It was too patchy and painful and messy. She woke in fragments and flashes: a dirty white ceiling, faces leaning over her, faces saying things she didn’t understand, the smell of soap and wetness on her body, being turned over, muttered conversations. Faces she recognized: Sandy, Sasha, Josef, Reuben, Jack, Karlsson, Olivia, Chloë, even Yvette. Some of them cried, some of them smiled. They came close and laid their hands on her shoulder, her face, and she couldn’t tell them that she knew they were there. They talked to her. They talked about her in whispers. Josef sang Ukrainian lullabies between sobs and Sasha read her poetry. Outside in the corridor she heard Chloë shouting at someone, her voice hoarse with fury, and she wished she could tell her angry, clumsy niece that it didn’t matter, nothing mattered so very much, but she was unable to move her lips. Inside, a part of her found something funny. The Frieda Klein reunion party. She couldn’t turn over. Sometimes she felt she was choking. Mostly she slept.
And then one day a voice said to her, ‘Frieda, can you hear me? Blink if you can hear.’ She blinked. ‘I’m going to count to three, then we’ll pull the tube out and you should cough and breathe. All right, one, two, three.’
Frieda felt like her insides were being pulled out through her mouth, as if she were vomiting them, and then she coughed and coughed.
‘That’s a good girl,’ said the voice.
‘I’m n
ot a girl,’ Frieda said huskily, and she started to say that she wasn’t good but it didn’t feel worth the effort. There was more sleep, with occasional vague flashes. Was that Sasha in a chair by the bed reading a book?
There she was again, a hand on hers, looking down at her. This time she spoke to her, in her low and kindly voice: ‘Can you hear me, Frieda?’
She couldn’t hear what she said back. She leaned closer and closer until she was whispering in her ear. ‘Water,’ she said.
Sasha lifted her head so gently and tipped the glass. The water was warm and stale and delicious.
‘Frieda?’ Sasha said. ‘The doctor’s going to see you tomorrow. If you’re up to it.’
‘You said I could tell you.’
‘What?’
It was very hard to form the words. ‘When I needed to talk.’
She tried to find words, holding on to Sasha’s slim cool hand while the machine behind her bleeped.
‘It’s all right,’ said Sasha, kissing her cheek. ‘We can talk later.’
‘One day,’ said Frieda, sinking back beneath dark waters.
The next day was different. Frieda woke, and was properly awake. She sat up and saw the ward she was in: three beds opposite, and two between her and the window. A woman across the way was complaining to a nurse, and behind a screen next to her she could hear the voice of an old woman saying the same word – ‘teacher’ – over and over again. The day was grey and she felt awful. Her throat was ragged and almost the whole of her body ached. A trolley arrived with breakfast, some kind of porridge, milky tea, orange juice, all of it disgusting.
A nurse bustled across and said to Frieda, ‘He’s here.’
There, standing at the end of the bed, was a very distinguished-looking middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit and a bow tie. Through her bleary consciousness, Frieda managed to feel irritated. Why do consultants still wear bow ties even when they know it’s a cliché?
He smiled down at her. ‘How’s our phenomenon?’ he said.
It took an effort, but Frieda could speak now. Even to herself, she sounded hoarse and halting, like someone who had just learned to speak. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
He sat on the edge of the bed, still smiling. ‘I’m Mr Khan,’ he said. ‘Your surgeon. I saved your life. But you saved it first. I’ve never seen anything like it. You have a medical degree, yes?’ Frieda nodded. ‘Even so. Quite remarkable.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Frieda. ‘What’s remarkable?’
‘You don’t remember?’ said Mr Khan. Frieda shook her head. ‘It’s understandable in the circumstances. One of the stab wounds resulted in a penetrating trauma that sliced a femoral artery. As you clearly realized, you would have bled out in a minute or two. Before you passed out, you managed to apply a tourniquet to your own leg.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Frieda.
‘You were in a state of severe shock,’ said Mr Khan. ‘I have to say that tourniquets are no longer recommended. You risk necrotic damage but not in this case. We had you in theatre in under an hour.’ He was about to pat her leg but stopped himself. ‘You were lucky with the stab wounds to the back and abdomen, if I can put it like that. Neither of them struck an organ. But, as they say, it only takes one. We worried about your leg at first, but you’ll be fine. You may have to delay your triple-jump training until the Olympics after next, but apart from that …’
‘Mary Orton,’ said Frieda.
‘What?’
‘What about Mary Orton?’ said Frieda.
Mr Khan’s smile faded. ‘A friend of yours is here,’ he said. ‘He’ll answer any questions. If you’re strong enough, that is.’
‘Yes,’ said Frieda. ‘I am.’ She lay back on the pillow and saw Karlsson’s face appear above her. She thought of a cloud floating overhead, or a zeppelin. Maybe it was the painkillers.
‘You look terrible,’ she said.
‘We can do this another time,’ he said. ‘The nurse said you needed to rest.’
‘Now,’ said Frieda. ‘Mary Orton.’
Karlsson looked to the side, as if he were waiting for someone else to speak. ‘She was pronounced dead at the scene,’ he said. ‘I think she’d been dead for some time.’
‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘She was alive. I remember her eyes. They were moving.’
‘They said she’d lost a lot of blood. I’m so sorry.’
Frieda felt tears hot on her face. Karlsson reached for a tissue and dabbed them away.
‘We let her down,’ said Frieda. ‘We failed her.’
‘The paramedics had enough on their hands with you. The other two were beyond help.’
‘The other two?’
‘Mary Orton and Beth Kersey.’
‘What?’ said Frieda, trying to raise herself from the pillow. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Easy, easy,’ said Karlsson, as if he were soothing a restless child. ‘Don’t worry. There won’t be any trouble.’
‘What do you mean, trouble?’
‘There’s no problem at all,’ said Karlsson. ‘Quite the opposite. You’ll probably get a medal.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Frieda. ‘I don’t remember anything.’
‘You don’t?’
Frieda shook her head. She tried to think. It all seemed dim and far away.
‘I was stabbed first from behind,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even see her. Or at least – I barely remember. But there’s something. I was losing blood, a lot of blood, and I passed out. I remember hearing something. That’s all.’
‘I see this all the time,’ said Karlsson. ‘You’ll probably never recover the memory. But it was easy to reconstruct what happened when we saw the scene. Christ, there was blood everywhere. Sorry, you don’t need to hear this.’
‘But what happened?’
‘We can save this for later, Frieda.’
‘Now,’ said Frieda. ‘Tell me.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Karlsson. ‘It’s clear what must have happened. You acted out of self-preservation. After you were stabbed, you must have fought over the knife while you were bleeding yourself. You got hold of the knife and stabbed her in self-defence.’
‘How?’
‘What?’
‘How did I stab her?’
‘She died of blood loss from a laceration to her throat.’
‘I cut her throat.’
‘Yes, and then you took her belt and tied it around your leg. The doctors say that if you hadn’t done that you would have bled out in a couple of minutes.’
Frieda gestured to the drink of water. Karlsson brought it to her lips. It hurt to swallow it.
‘Sleep now,’ he said. ‘It’ll all be fine.’
‘All right,’ Frieda said. Speaking seemed the hardest thing in the world just now. ‘But one thing.’
He leaned close to her. ‘What?’
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘I’ve told you,’ Karlsson said. ‘You won’t be in trouble. It was pure self-defence.’
‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘I didn’t. I couldn’t have. Besides …’ Frieda made herself think of the moments before she had passed out. She tried to separate it from all that had followed, the oblivion, the nightmares, the fragments of waiting. ‘I heard something. But I know anyway. It was him.’
Karlsson looked puzzled and then alarmed.
‘What do you mean “him”?’
‘You know who I mean.’
‘Don’t say that,’ hissed Karlsson. ‘Don’t even think it.’
Fifty-three
Sandy parked the car near the western gate of Waterlow Park. On the steep drive up Swains Lane, Frieda had felt as if they were taking off and leaving London behind them.
‘I think the park’s open this time,’ Sandy said, with a smile that was full of pain.
Frieda winced as she got out of the car. She still felt sore, especially when she’d been sitting down.
‘Are you up for this?’ said Sandy.
Frieda had hat
ed the pain, the treatment, the medication, the continuing hospital visits, but even worse was the sympathy, the attention, the concern, the look that came into people’s eyes when they saw her, the way they worried about the right thing to say. She walked slowly and stiffly through the gate. A yellow dazzle of daffodils swaying in the wind.
‘It really looks like spring now,’ said Sandy. ‘For the first time.’
Frieda took his arm to support herself. ‘If you don’t talk about spring and how it represents revival and new life, I won’t say it’s the cruellest month.’
‘Isn’t April the cruellest month?’
‘March is pretty cruel as well.’
‘All right,’ said Sandy. ‘I’ll keep quiet about what a beautiful day this is and how the daffodils are out and how Waterlow Park has this wonderful position overlooking London. We could go next door to the cemetery, if that suits your mood more.’
‘You know me,’ said Frieda. ‘I like cemeteries. But this is good for today. I love this park. I don’t know how Sir Thomas Waterlow earned his money. He probably stole it from someone or inherited it undeservedly. But he gave this park to London and I’m grateful to him for it. And I’m grateful to you.’
‘Well, gratitude isn’t exactly –’
‘Sssh. I know what you’ve gone through, Sandy, and what you can’t say to me. You’re too much of a gentleman, aren’t you? You came back here and we met again and it was good. No, it was lovely. This should have been the time for us to think about our lives, make decisions, take pleasure in each other. Instead – well, you get to sit beside a hospital bed day after day, watching me sip thin chicken soup out of a straw or pee into a bowl.’
‘Thinking you might die.’
‘That, too.’
‘When I thought you were going to die –’
‘I know.’
They made their way towards the pond. The park was busy and families were scattered along the path. Children were feeding ducks and pigeons and squirrels with nuts and stale bread.
‘Look at that,’ said Sandy.
