by Nicci French
‘Do you need a table?’ asked a young woman, dressed in shredded black, with a lightning streak tattooed down her cheek. Her accent was upper-class Estuary. Her boots were like the Terminator’s.
Frieda heard her name and squinted up the room. She made out Chloë at the far end, waving her arms in the air to attract her attention.
‘This had better be important.’
‘Beer?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Or tea. They do herbal teas here.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘I had to get you here. It’s Ted.’
‘Ted? You mean the young man?’
‘He needs help.’
‘I’m sure he does.’
‘But the thing is, he won’t do anything about it. He just gets angry when people tell him, so I thought I’d have to do it for him.’
‘I can give you names, Chloë, but he’s got to want to –’
‘I don’t need names, Frieda. I’ve got you.’
‘Oh no you don’t.’
‘You have to help.’
‘I don’t. This is not the way to do it.’
‘Please. You don’t understand. I really like him and he’s so messed up.’ She grabbed Frieda’s hand. ‘Oh, fuck, he’s here already. He’s just come in.’
‘You haven’t done what I think you’ve done?’
‘I had to,’ hissed Chloë, leaning forward. ‘You wouldn’t have come if I’d told you and neither would Ted.’
‘Exactly.’
‘You can make him better.’
‘His mother’s been killed, Chloë. How can I make him better?’
Frieda stood up, and as she did, Ted stumbled past the bar and saw them both. He stopped and stared. He was in the same dishevelled, undone state as before – clothes flapping, trousers slipping down, laces trailing, hair falling over his pale face, the hectic blotches on his cheeks. He stared from Chloë to Frieda, then back again.
‘You?’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’
Chloë scrambled to her feet and went over to him. ‘Ted,’ she said. ‘Listen.’
‘What’s she doing here? You tricked me.’
‘I wanted to help you,’ said Chloë, desperately. For a moment Frieda felt very sorry for her niece. ‘I thought if you two could just talk a bit …’
‘I don’t need help. You should see my sisters. They’re the ones who need help. I’m not a little kid any more.’ He looked at Chloë. ‘I thought you were my friend.’
‘That’s not fair,’ said Frieda, sharply. He turned his wretched, sneering face towards her. ‘I agree Chloë acted wrongly. But she did it because she is your friend and she cares. Don’t lash out at her. You need your friends.’
‘I’m not going to lie on your fucking couch.’
‘Of course you’re not.’
‘And I’m not going to cry and say my life is over now I don’t have a mother.’ But his voice rose dangerously high as he stared at her defiantly.
‘No. And it isn’t. Maybe we can just get out of here, the three of us, and have some tea or a mug of hot chocolate or something in the little place across the road, which is quiet and doesn’t have dreadful paintings on the wall, and then we can all go back to our separate homes, and no real harm done.’
Chloë sniffed and gazed pleadingly at him.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had hot chocolate for years. Not since I was a kid.’ As if he was a middle-aged man.
‘Sorry.’ Chloë’s voice was small.
‘It’s all right, I guess.’
‘Good,’ said Frieda. ‘Now can we get out of here?’
Chloë and Ted had a mug of hot chocolate each and Frieda had a glass of water.
‘I don’t think it makes things better,’ said Ted, ‘just because you talk about them.’
‘It depends,’ said Frieda.
‘I think it makes things worse, like jabbing a wound to keep it bleeding. Wanting it to bleed.’
‘I’m not here to make you see someone you don’t want to see. I just think you should drink your hot chocolate.’
‘Don’t you get sick of spending your days with rich, narcissistic wankers going on about childhood traumas, endlessly fascinated by all their noble, manufactured suffering?’
‘Your suffering isn’t manufactured, though, is it?’
Ted glared at her. His face had a peeled look, as if even the air would sting him. ‘It’ll pass,’ he said. ‘That’s what my mum would have said. One fucking day at a time.’
‘That’s one of the sad things about people dying,’ said Frieda. ‘We talk about them in the past tense. We say what they would have done. But if that’s what she would have said, it’s not stupid. Time does pass. Things change.’ She stood up. ‘And now I think we’re done,’ she said.
Chloë drained her mug. ‘We’re finished as well,’ she said.
When they were outside, Frieda was ready to say goodbye but Chloë seemed reluctant to let her go. ‘Which way are you going?’
‘I’ll walk back through the park.’
‘You’re going in the same direction as us. Past Ted’s house. Except he’s not staying there. They’re staying with neighbours.’
‘I can speak for myself,’ said Ted.
‘All right,’ said Frieda, and they started walking, an uneasy trio, with Chloë in the middle.
‘I’m sorry,’ Chloë said. ‘This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have done this. I’ve embarrassed you both.’
‘You can’t force help on people,’ said Frieda. ‘But that’s all right.’
‘Frieda walks everywhere. She’s like a taxi driver. You could name any two places in London and she could walk between them.’ Chloë was talking as if she was frightened by the idea of a moment’s silence. ‘And she’s really critical of it as well. She thinks it all went wrong after the Elizabethan age or the Great Fire of London. This is Ted’s road. This is where it all happened. I’m sorry, I don’t want to start it up all over again. I’ve done enough damage. This is actually his house, I mean his parents’ house, but I’m going along the road with him to say goodbye and sorry and then …’ She turned to Frieda, who had suddenly stopped. ‘Frieda, are you all right?’
Frieda had been about to make way for a group of people – two men and a woman – getting out of a car, but she had recognized them at the very moment they recognized her.
‘Frieda …’ Karlsson seemed too surprised to say anything else.
The other man appeared more contemptuously amused than surprised. ‘You can’t stay away, can you?’ said Hal Bradshaw. ‘Is that some sort of syndrome?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Frieda.
‘I was going to ask how you are,’ Bradshaw continued. ‘But I think I already know.’
‘Yes. Your journalist rang me up.’
Bradshaw smiled. He had very white teeth. ‘Perhaps I should have warned you. But it would have spoiled things.’
‘What’s this?’ asked Karlsson. He seemed both uncomfortable and distressed.
‘You don’t need to know.’ Frieda didn’t want anyone to know, and particularly not Karlsson, but she supposed that soon enough they all would, and the gossip, the glee, the happy, whispering pity would begin all over again.
The woman was Yvette Long.
‘Frieda. What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve been having cocoa with my niece, Chloë. And this is Ted.’
‘Yes,’ said Bradshaw, still smiling. ‘We do know Ted Lennox. Are you coming inside? I assume that’s what you want.’
‘No.’ Frieda was about to deny any connection, when she looked at the clenched, haunted figure of Ted standing with Chloë. It would have sounded like a betrayal. ‘I was on my way home.’
‘She can go where she pleases, can’t she?’ said Yvette, fiercely, turning her brown-eyed glare on Hal Bradshaw, who seemed unperturbed.
Frieda had to stop herself smiling at the novelty of Yvette defending her. And defending
her from what?
Yvette and Bradshaw walked up the steps to the house but Karlsson stayed on the pavement, hovering awkwardly.
‘Are you involved in this somehow?’ he asked.
‘Chloë knows Ted,’ Frieda said. ‘She wanted me to have a word with him. That’s all.’
Karlsson muttered something to himself. ‘I’m glad to see you anyway,’ he said. ‘You look all right.’
‘Good,’ said Frieda.
‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you. To see you. But now I’ve got to …’ He gestured at the house.
‘That’s fine,’ said Frieda. She nodded goodbye to Chloë, turned and walked away in the direction of Primrose Hill.
Karlsson watched Frieda’s progress, then went with the others into the house. Munster and Riley were already inside. They followed Munster through into the kitchen. Yvette was taking folders from her bag and arranging them on the table. They all sat down. Karlsson thought of the Lennoxes sitting there, rowdy Sunday lunches, then tried not to. He looked at Bradshaw. ‘What was it that Frieda was saying to you?’
‘Just shop talk,’ said Bradshaw.
‘Right,’ said Karlsson. ‘Let’s sort out where we are.’
‘Are we really not charging Billy Hunt?’ said Munster.
‘It should be him,’ said Yvette. ‘It really should. But the CCTV puts him in Islington at just after four. The neighbour knocked on the door at four thirty and she didn’t answer.’
‘She might have been in the bath,’ said Munster. ‘She might have had headphones on.’
‘What do the forensics say about the time of death?’ said Karlsson, his eyes on Riley, whose expression was blank.
Yvette picked up a file and thumbed through the papers. ‘It’s not much use,’ she said. ‘She could have died any time between half an hour and three hours before she was found. But, look, we’re not taking the word of someone like Billy Hunt, are we? I mean, nothing about his statement makes sense. For example, he says he set off the alarm. If he didn’t kill her, then why didn’t the person who did kill her set it off?’
‘Because she let him in,’ said Bradshaw. ‘Psychopaths are plausible, convincing.’
‘You said before that he was expressing rage against women.’
‘I stand by that.’
‘Why was the alarm on?’ said Yvette.
‘What do you mean?’ said Karlsson.
‘Why would the burglar alarm be switched on if she was home?’
‘That’s a good question.’ Karlsson stood up and walked to the front door. He opened it and stepped outside. Then he returned to the kitchen. ‘This house doesn’t have a fucking burglar alarm,’ he said. ‘We’re being idiots.’
‘There we are,’ said Yvette. ‘So Billy Hunt was lying. Again.’
Karlsson drummed his fingers on the table. ‘Why would he lie about that?’
‘Because he’s a psychopath,’ said Bradshaw.
‘He’s a thieving layabout,’ said Karlsson, ‘but he wasn’t lying.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Yvette.
‘Look,’ said Karlsson, pointing at the ceiling. ‘There’s a smoke alarm.’
‘How could Hunt set off a smoke alarm?’
‘He didn’t,’ said Karlsson. ‘Look at the scene-of-crime file. Riley, what will I find in the file?’
Riley’s eyes flickered nervously. ‘Do you mean, like, one thing in particular?’ he said.
‘Yes, one thing in particular. Oh, never mind. As far as I remember, there was a tray of burned something or other on top of the cooker. That’s what set off the alarm.’
Yvette flicked through the file. ‘That’s right,’ she said.
‘Are you saying Billy Hunt broke into the house and took some burned cakes out of the oven?’ Munster asked dubiously.
Karlsson shook his head. ‘You should talk to the little girl again, but I know what she’ll say. She came home, smelled burning, took the tray out of the oven. Then she found her mother. Check the smoke alarm in the living room, Chris. Hunt said there was an alarm in there as well.’
Munster left the room.
‘All right,’ said Yvette. ‘So that explains the alarm. It doesn’t help us with the time.’
‘Hang on,’ said Karlsson.
Munster came back into the kitchen.‘There isn’t one,’ he said.
‘What?’ said Karlsson. ‘Are you sure?’
‘There’s one in the hallway. That must be the other one he heard.’
Karlsson thought hard. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘Anyway, if smoke sets off the smoke alarm, you don’t talk about alarms. You think of them as one alarm.’
‘Really?’ said Yvette.
‘Are Ruth Lennox’s effects here or at the station?’
‘At the station.’
‘All right,’ said Karlsson. ‘Give me a moment. I need to make a call.’
He stepped outside. After a long pause, Yvette spoke to Bradshaw. ‘Is something up with you and Frieda?’
‘Have you talked about it with her?’ he said.
‘What do you mean “it”?’
‘Your involvement with her incident, accident, whatever you call it.’
‘Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.’
‘It’s just that I hope you don’t feel guilty about it.’
‘Look –’ Yvette began fiercely, and was interrupted by Karlsson coming back into the kitchen.
‘I just talked to the woman in Storage,’ he said. ‘And I found what I expected to find. What Hunt heard in the living room was Ruth Lennox’s phone. It had an alarm on it. It was set to go off at ten past four in the afternoon. That was the other alarm that Billy Hunt heard.’
‘It may have been,’ said Yvette.
‘It was,’ said Karlsson. ‘Put everything together. Look what we’ve got. Biscuits or cakes burning in the oven. A smoke sensor. And a phone alarm set for ten past four. It’s reasonable to suggest that the alarm was to remind her that they were ready.’
‘Possible.’
‘It’s also reasonable to suggest that when the alarm went off, Mrs Lennox was no longer able to respond to it. So she was dead by ten past four, at the very latest.’
There was a silence around the table.
‘Fuck,’ said Yvette.
FIFTEEN
She was expecting him. She glanced at herself in the mirror to make sure she was looking in control and reasonably healthy – she couldn’t stand the thought of anyone’s pity, and certainly not his – then ate the slice of quiche standing by the kitchen window, with the cat at her feet, rubbing its flank against her calves. The house was quiet now after a day of terrible bangs and tearing sounds and drilling. Stefan had been there again as he and Josef had carried two industrial-looking beams into the house. But they were gone now. Frieda didn’t know what she actually wanted, but she did know that she felt suddenly more alert and less jangled, as if a knob had been turned very slightly and her world had come into clearer focus.
The doorbell rang at ten minutes past nine.
‘Hello, Frieda,’ said Karlsson. He held out a bunch of red tulips, wrapped in damp paper. ‘I should have brought these to you weeks ago.’
‘Weeks ago I had far too many flowers. They all died at the same time. This is better.’
‘Can I come in?’
In the living room, he took one of the chairs by the empty grate. ‘I always think of you sitting by a fire,’ he said.
‘You’ve only really known me in the winter.’
There was a silence: they were both remembering the work they’d done together, and the way it had ended so violently.
‘Frieda …’ he began.
‘You don’t need to.’
‘I do. I really do. I haven’t been to see you since you left hospital because I felt so bad about what had happened that I went into a kind of lockdown about it. You helped us – more than that, you rescued us. And in return we got rid of you and then we nearly got you killed.’
�
��You didn’t get rid of me and you didn’t nearly get me killed.’
‘Me. My team. Us. That’s how it works. I was responsible and I let you down.’
‘But I wasn’t killed. Look at me.’ She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, smiled. ‘I’m fine.’
Karlsson shut his eyes for a moment. ‘In this job you have to develop a thick skin or you’d go mad. But you can’t have a thick skin when it involves a friend.’
Silence settled around the word. Images of Karlsson flitted through Frieda’s mind: Karlsson at his desk, calm and in control; Karlsson striding along a road with a tight face; Karlsson sitting by the bed of a little boy who, they thought, was perhaps dying; Karlsson standing up to the commissioner for her; Karlsson with his daughter wrapped around his body like a frightened koala; Karlsson sitting beside her fire and smiling at her.
‘It’s good to see you,’ said Frieda.
‘That means a lot.’
‘Have your children left yet?’ she asked.
‘No. They go very soon, though. I was supposed to be spending lots of time with them. Then this case came up.’
‘Hard.’
‘Like a toothache that won’t go away. Are you really OK?’
‘I’m fine. I need a bit of time.’
‘I don’t mean just physically.’ Karlsson flushed and Frieda was almost amused.
‘You mean am I in a state of trauma?’
‘You were attacked with a knife.’
‘I dream about it sometimes.’ Frieda considered. ‘And I need to tell you that I also think about Dean Reeve. Something happened a few days ago that you should know. Don’t look anxious, I don’t want to talk about it now.’
There was a silence. Karlsson seemed to be weighing something up in his mind. To speak or not to speak.
‘Listen,’ he said finally. ‘That boy Ted.’
‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘That’s not what I wanted to say. You know about the case?’
