by Nicci French
‘Oh, Mum …’
‘But nobody enjoys being really drunk and falling over and being sick. That’s not a good time. I mean, Frieda, back me up over this. Am I being a wet blanket?’
Frieda was standing by the window, gazing out into the garden. There were unlit candles in jam jars along the gravel path. There was a ring at the door.
‘Oh, God,’ said Olivia. ‘Already?’
‘I’ll get it,’ said Frieda.
She went to the front door and opened it. ‘Josef! You’re just in time.’
Josef wasn’t alone. Next to him was a man who was even taller and bulkier. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. He had long curly hair, tied at the back of his head in a ponytail.
‘This is Stefan,’ said Josef. ‘And he is from Russia but we will be pleasant to him in any case.’
Frieda shook Stefan’s hand and he gave her a slow smile. ‘You are Frieda? I have heard. You are going to have a beautiful bath. It is big and made of iron, like in an old film.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard of you too,’ said Frieda. ‘You helped Josef take my nice old bath away.’
‘It was a bad bath,’ said Stefan. ‘Cheap rubbish. It cracked like that’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘when we took it.’
‘Well, thank you both for doing this. Although I’m worried that while you’re doing it, my bathroom still doesn’t have a bath.’
Josef looked concerned. ‘Yes, Frieda, I must talk with you. There is a small problem.’
‘What problem?’
‘More problem with the pipes. But we talk later. I sort it.’
‘You know, I had to have a shower here,’ said Frieda. ‘While they were preparing for the party. I have to carry a towel round with me.’ She stopped herself. ‘But it’s good of you to do this. You’d better come in. Can I get you something to drink?’
‘Now we will have juice.’ Josef tapped the pocket of his coat. Evidently there was a bottle in there. ‘At the end of the night we will celebrate together.’
Olivia gave Josef and Stefan a variety of instructions, constantly adjusted and added to. Meanwhile the doorbell rang intermittently and young people began to drift in. Frieda stood to one side and watched the scene, as if it was a piece of theatre or an exotic tribe. Suddenly she saw a face she recognized and gave a start. ‘Jack! What are you doing here?’
Jack was training to be a psychotherapist and Frieda was his supervisor. She knew him well, but seeing him in this context was a surprise. He, too, seemed taken aback and blushed a deep, unbecoming red. Even by his own standards, he was wearing bizarre and mismatched clothes – a pink and green hooped rugby shirt, with an ancient, moth-eaten tuxedo over the top, and baggy brown cords.
‘Chloë invited me,’ he said. ‘I thought it might be fun. I didn’t expect to see you, though.’
‘I’m on my way out.’
‘Is that Josef I can see?’
‘He’s the bouncer for the evening.’
After a minute or two Josef looked at her, over Olivia’s shoulder, with a faint smile that was a plea for help. Frieda walked across the room and tapped Olivia on the arm. ‘Let’s go and get our meal.’
‘I just need to check on a few things.’
‘No, you don’t.’
Frieda led Olivia, still protesting, into the hallway, put her coat on for her and pulled her out of the front door. As they went down the steps, Olivia stared around anxiously. ‘I can’t help feeling that I’m locking in the people I ought to be locking out.’
‘No,’ said Olivia, to the waiter. ‘I don’t need to taste it. Just pour it most of the way up. Thanks, and leave the bottle.’ She picked up the glass. ‘Cheers.’ She took a gulp. ‘Christ, I needed that. Did you see them all hugging each other as they arrived? It was as if they’d returned from a round-the-world trip. And as soon as they’ve finished hugging and shrieking they’re on their mobile phones. They’re at a party but somehow they instantly need to talk to the people who’re not at the party or who’re on their way to the party, or maybe they’re checking whether there’s a better party somewhere else.’ She took another gulp. ‘They’re probably sending out a general call to the youth of north London to trash the house.’ She prodded Frieda. ‘At this point you’re supposed to say, “No, no, it’ll be fine.”’
‘It’ll be fine,’ said Frieda.
Olivia gesticulated towards the waiter. ‘Why don’t we order lots of little dishes?’ she said. ‘Then we can just pick at them.’
‘You choose.’
Olivia ordered enough for three or four hearty eaters and another bottle of wine. ‘I’m a big hypocrite, really,’ she said, when the waiter had gone. ‘My real worry about a party like this is that Chloë will do half of what I did when I was her age. Younger than her age. She’s seventeen. When I think of parties when I was fifteen, fourteen … It was technically illegal. People could have gone to prison. I’m sure it was the same with you. David told me one or two things.’
Frieda’s expression became fixed. She took a sip of wine but didn’t speak.
‘When I think of some of the things I got up to …’ Olivia continued. ‘At least people weren’t filming me on their mobile phones and putting it on the Internet. That’s the difference. When we were teenagers, you could do things and they were done, gone, in the past. Now they get filmed and sent by phone and put on Facebook. People don’t realize they’re stuck with their actions for ever. It wasn’t like that with us.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Frieda. ‘People got hurt. People got pregnant.’
‘I wasn’t going to get pregnant,’ said Olivia. ‘Mummy put me on the Pill at about the time I learned to walk. I’m not saying I was a complete wild child, it’s just that … When I look at the some of the decisions I made, well, I’d like to see Chloë choose better than that.’ She topped up her wine glass. Frieda held her hand over her own glass. ‘But in some ways, I think Chloë is more mature than I was at her age. Now, I know what you’re going to say.’
‘What am I going to say?’
‘You’re going to say that if I was less mature than Chloë, I must have been a truly epic fuck-up.’
‘That’s not what I was going to say,’ said Frieda.
‘Then what?’
‘I was going to say that it was a good thing to say about your daughter.’
‘We’ll see,’ snorted Olivia. ‘Meanwhile the house is probably being reduced to its constituent parts.’
‘I’m sure you don’t need to worry.’
‘I don’t know what parties you went to,’ said Olivia. ‘I was once at this party. I was up in the parents’ bedroom with Nick Yates and by the time we were finished for the second time the people downstairs had carried the upright piano out into the garden and started to play it, then forgotten about it and it had started to rain. God. Nick Yates.’ A faraway expression came to Olivia’s face. Then the food arrived.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Olivia filled her plate from the different dishes. ‘Try this shrimp, by the way. It’s to die for. I’ve been talking solidly about myself and my problems and my wicked past. I haven’t even asked about how you’re feeling. I know it’s all been so terrible. How are you feeling? Does it still hurt?’
‘It’s not too bad.’
‘Are you still being treated?’
‘Just check-ups,’ said Frieda. ‘From time to time.’
‘It was the most terrible, terrible thing,’ said Olivia. ‘At first I thought we were going to lose you. You know, a couple of days ago I had a nightmare about it. I woke up and I was crying. Literally crying.’
‘I think it was worse for other people than it was for me.’
‘I bet it wasn’t,’ said Olivia. ‘But they say that when really terrible things happen, it stops feeling real, like it’s happening to someone else.’
‘No,’ said Frieda, slowly. ‘It felt like it was happening to me.’
On the way back to the house, Olivia was walking unsteadily and Frieda took
her arm.
‘I’m looking for smoke,’ Olivia said. ‘Can you see smoke?’
‘What?’
‘If the house was literally on fire,’ said Olivia, ‘we’d be seeing smoke by now, wouldn’t we? Over the roofs. And there’d be fire engines and sirens.’
As they turned the corner into Olivia’s road, they saw the front door open, people milling around. There was a loud electronic beat, a low throb. There were flashing lights. As they got closer, Frieda saw a group sitting on the front steps smoking. One of them looked up and smiled.
‘It is Frieda, no?’
‘Stefan, right?’
‘Yes,’ he said, as if the idea amused him. ‘Frieda, you like a cigarette?’
Olivia gave an indistinct yell, brushed through the crowd on the steps and ran into the house.
‘No, thanks,’ said Frieda. ‘How has it been?’
Stefan gave a shrug. ‘Okay, I think. A quiet party.’
One of the boys sitting next to him laughed. ‘They were great, him and Josef.’
‘Like how?’ Frieda sat on the step beside them.
‘This gang of kids came. Chloë didn’t know them. They started jostling people. But Josef and Stefan made them go away.’
Frieda glanced at Stefan, who was lighting a new cigarette from the old one. ‘You made them go away?’
‘It was no big thing,’ said Stefan.
‘It was a big thing,’ said one of the other boys. ‘It was a very big thing.’
They laughed, and one said something to Stefan in a language she couldn’t understand, and he said something back, then looked at her.
‘He is learning a funny Russian in his school,’ he said. ‘I am teaching him.’
‘Where’s Josef?’
‘He is with a boy,’ said Stefan. ‘A boy is not well.’
‘What do you mean “not well”? Where are they?’
‘The toilet on the upstairs,’ said Stefan. ‘He was sick. Very sick.’
Frieda ran into the house. The hall was sticky under her feet and there was a smell of smoke and beer. She pushed her way past some girls. There was a group outside the closed door of the bathroom.
‘Is he in there?’ Frieda asked them in general.
Suddenly Chloë was there. She had been crying. Mascara was running down her face. Jack was hovering behind her, his hair sticking up in peaks and his face blotchy.
‘They couldn’t wake him,’ she said.
Frieda tried the door. It was locked. She knocked at it.
‘Josef, it’s me,’ said Frieda. ‘Let me in.’
There was a click and the door opened. He was with a boy who was leaning over the lavatory. Josef turned around with an apologetic smile. ‘He was like this when he come almost,’ he said.
‘Is he responsive?’ said Frieda. Josef looked puzzled. ‘I mean, can he speak? Can he see you?’
‘Yes, yes, fine. Just sick. Very, very sick. Teenage sick.’
Frieda turned to Chloë. ‘He’s all right,’ she said.
Chloë shook her head. ‘Ted’s not all right,’ she said. ‘He’s not. His mother’s dead. She was murdered.’
I tell you what, let’s go away somewhere this summer – somewhere neither of us has ever been. Though I can’t really imagine you anywhere except London. That’s where I met you and that’s the only place I’ve known you. Do you ever go anywhere else? The furthest afield I’ve seen you is Heathrow, which must be your idea of a kind of man-made hell. You hate planes, and you don’t like beaches. But we could get a train to Paris, or go walking in Scotland. You love walking the streets at night – but do you like other kinds of walking, where you have a map and a picnic? I know you – but there are so many things I don’t know about you. That’s what I’ve been thinking. But we’ve got lots of time to find things now haven’t we, Frieda? Call me soon – Sandy xxxxxx
EIGHT
‘Can I have a cup of tea?’ said Billy Hunt. ‘I want a cup of tea and I want a lawyer. Tea with milk and two sugars, and a lawyer sitting next to me for every moment that you’re inter-viewing me.’
Munster turned to Riley. ‘Hear that?’ he said.
Riley left the interview room.
‘And a lawyer,’ said Hunt.
‘Wait.’
They sat in silence until Riley returned. He placed the polystyrene cup on the table in front of Hunt, with two sachets of sugar and a plastic stirrer. Slowly, and with great concentration, Hunt tore the sachets open, tipped their contents into the tea and stirred them. He sipped the tea.
‘And a lawyer,’ he repeated.
There was a digital recorder on the table. Munster leaned forward to switch it on. As he spoke the day’s date and identified the people in the room he looked at the device to check that the light was flashing. There was always the worry that it wasn’t working properly. Cases collapsed because of details like that.
‘We’re interviewing you on suspicion of handling stolen property. I’m going to caution you that you don’t have to say anything, but that anything you say can be used in evidence. Also, if you remain silent, that fact can be presented to the court.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Hunt.
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Munster. ‘And I probably do this sort of thing even more often than you do.’
Hunt drummed his fingers on the table. ‘I guess I can’t smoke.’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘I can’t think when I don’t smoke.’
‘You don’t need to think. You just need to answer some questions.’
‘And what about my lawyer?’
‘I was about to inform you that you are entitled to legal representation, and that if you don’t have representation of your own, we can arrange it for you.’
‘Of course I don’t have fucking legal representation of my own. So, yeah, get me one. I want a lawyer sitting here beside me.’
‘It doesn’t work like that any more,’ said Munster. ‘Money’s tight. That’s what they’re telling us. We can bring you a phone and a phone number.’
‘Is that it?’ Hunt seemed baffled. ‘No cigs and no lawyers?’
‘You can talk to one on the phone.’
‘All right,’ said Hunt. ‘Get a phone.’
It was twenty minutes before Billy Hunt had finished on the phone, Munster and Riley were back in the room and the recorder was on again.
‘So,’ Munster began. ‘You’ve talked to your lawyer.’
‘It was a bad line,’ said Hunt. ‘I couldn’t make out most of what she was saying. She had an accent as well. I don’t reckon English is her first language.’
‘But she gave you legal advice?’
‘Is that what you call legal advice? Why can’t I get a real lawyer?’
‘If you’ve got a problem, you can take it up with your MP. But that’s the way the system works now.’
‘Why is that window all boarded up?’
‘Because someone threw a brick at it.’
‘Can’t you get it mended?’
‘I don’t really think that’s your problem.’
‘And the room at the front – it’s like a building site. You’ll be next,’ he said. ‘You’ll be out looking for a real job like the rest of us.’
‘You’ve now officially got legal representation,’ said Munster. ‘Take a look at this.’ He slid a piece of paper across the table.
Hunt examined it with a puzzled expression. ‘What’s this?’ he said.
‘An inventory.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A list of what was stolen. Including, as you’ll see, the silver forks you sold. Is there anything else there you remember?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Those forks were all I got.’
‘From Dave,’ said Munster.
‘That’s right.’
‘So,’ Munster went on, ‘the items we retrieved were part of a larger haul, but you never saw the rest.’
‘That’s right.’
&nb
sp; ‘And your link to this theft was Dave, whose second name you don’t know, who you think lives south of the river, and who you have no means of contacting.’
Hunt shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘You know the way things are,’ he said.
‘And your only alibi for the day of the burglary would be provided by a man called Ian, also with no second name, now currently on his travels. And uncontactable.’
‘Sorry about that,’ said Hunt.
‘In other words,’ said Munster, ‘you can’t tell us anything we can check, apart from what we already know.’
‘You’re police,’ said Hunt. ‘I don’t know what you can check and what you can’t check.’
‘Of course, if you were to put us in touch with whoever passed that silver to you, we’d seriously consider dropping the charge against you.’
‘Then I wish I could put you in touch with him.’
‘Dave?’
‘Yeah. But I can’t.’
‘Is there anything at all you can tell us?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Hunt. ‘Just ask.’
‘Where did you spend last night? At least you can tell us that.’
‘I’ve been moving around,’ said Hunt. ‘I haven’t got anywhere regular.’
‘You can only sleep in one place at a time. Where did you sleep last night?’
‘It’s in these flats, down near Chalk Farm. There’s this friend of mine, friend of a friend. He’s away. He lets me doss down there.’
‘What’s the address?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘Then take us there.’
It was a short drive, then the three of them – Munster, Riley and Hunt – walked into the courtyard of the battered, dishevelled estate and up a staircase. On the third floor, Munster stopped and leaned on the balcony railing, looking across at the William Morris building. They were in the John Ruskin building. Beyond were houses that, even now, were worth more than a million pounds but here one in every three or four flats was boarded up, waiting for a renovation that had probably been put on hold until someone was ready to pay for it. Hunt walked along the balcony and stopped. He took out a key from his jacket pocket and unlocked a front door.
‘Stop,’ Munster said. ‘Don’t go in. You wait out here with DC Riley.’
