by Nicci French
‘Who are we talking about now?’ Frieda asked.
‘Well, that was a bit of me, but it’s mainly about Russell Lennox. What I hoped for, obviously, was that we’d tell him about the affair, he’d break down, confess everything, case closed.’
‘But he didn’t.’
‘I should have brought you.’
‘You make me sound like a dog.’
‘I should have invited you to come. As a favour. I’d like you to have been there to see his face at the moment I told him. You notice these things.’
‘But Yvette was there.’
‘She’s worse than I am and I’m bloody awful. You should ask my ex-wife. She’d say that I didn’t know what she was feeling, and I’d say that if she wanted me to know what she was feeling, she ought to tell me and … Well, you get the idea.’
‘If he could sit with you on the day of the murder,’ Frieda said, ‘and not break down, then today would be no problem for him. And I wouldn’t have been any help to you.’
‘Do you miss it?’ asked Karlsson. ‘Be honest.’
Frieda was silent for a long time.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe. Sometimes I catch myself, like when I heard about Ruth Lennox’s secret life. But I tried to stop myself.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Karlsson, with a stab of alarm. ‘You’re meant to be recovering and here I am, trying to drag you back into what nearly killed you.’
‘No! It’s not like that at all. It’s good to see you. It feels like a visit from the outside world. Some of the visits I have from the outside world are bad but this is one of the good ones.’
‘Yes,’ said Karlsson. ‘Listen, Frieda. I’ve only just discovered about that bloody scam. I’d like to wring Hal Bradshaw’s pompous neck.’
‘That probably wouldn’t help my cause.’
‘He’s got it in for you, hasn’t he? You made him look bad, and he can’t bear that and he won’t ever forget it. No wonder he’s had such a smirk on his face recently.’
‘Are you saying he set the whole thing up just to get at me?’
‘He’s capable of it. If I had my way, I’d never have to listen to his drivel about the art of crime again. Unfortunately, the commissioner is a fan.’ He hesitated, then added: ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this, but I’m going to anyway. At the beginning of the Lennox inquiry, I told the commissioner that I didn’t want us to use Bradshaw any more. I thought I was making an informal suggestion, but Crawford hauled Bradshaw in and made me repeat what I’d said in front of him. There’s nothing he loves more than playing one person off against another.’
‘What’s this got to do with me?’
‘Bradshaw started slagging you off so I defended you and said he was jealous of you because you’d made him look stupid. It’s probably my fault for taunting him. I wish there was something I could do.’
‘There isn’t. And if you think of something, please don’t do it.’
‘I’m not going to have him getting his hands on the Lennox children, though.’
‘Are you going to tell them?’
‘Yes. Although perhaps their dad will do it for me. Poor kids. First their mother gets murdered, and then their whole past gets demolished. You know the son already, don’t you?’
‘I’ve met him. Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘I’ve got a proposition.’
‘The answer’s no.’
It was Riley who discovered all the bottles. They were in the small shed in the garden, which was full of the tiny lawnmower, spades, rakes, secateurs, a large ripped tarpaulin, a wheelbarrow, a stack of empty plastic flowerpots, old jam jars, a box of bathroom tiles. Somebody had wanted them to remain hidden, for they were pushed into a corner behind the half-used tins of paint and had been carefully covered with a dust sheet. He looked at them for a while, then went to get Yvette.
Yvette pulled them out one by one and inspected them. Vodka, white cider, cheap whisky: alcohol to get drunk on, not to give pleasure. Were they the children’s or the parents’, old bottles or recent? They looked new. They looked secret.
TWENTY-SIX
Karlsson needed to find an appropriate adult. Often an appropriate adult for a juvenile is a parent, but in the case of the Lennox children, one of their parents was dead and the other was not at all appropriate in the circumstances. He thought about asking Louise Weller, Ruth’s sister, to be present instead – but Judith Lennox said that she would prefer to die than talk about her mother in front of her aunt, and Ted had muttered about Louise getting off on the whole thing.
‘She can’t keep away,’ he said. ‘We don’t want her or her cakes or her religion. Or her bloody baby.’
So the appropriate adult was a woman nominated by Social Services, who turned up at the police station prompt and eager. She was in her early sixties, thin as a bird, bright-eyed and glittering with nervous excitement. It turned out that this was her first interview ever. She’d done the training, of course, she’d read everything she could lay her hands on and, what was more, she prided herself on her gift for getting on well with young people. Teenagers were so frequently misunderstood, weren’t they? Often, all they needed was someone to listen to them and be on their side, which was why she was here. She smiled, her cheeks slightly flushed.
‘Very well,’ said Karlsson, doubtfully. ‘You understand that we will conduct three interviews, one after the other, with each of the Lennox children. The eldest, Ted, isn’t strictly juvenile – he’s just eighteen. As you know, you’re simply there to make sure they’re properly treated, and if you feel they need anything, you should say so.’
‘Such a painful and difficult age,’ said Amanda Thorne. ‘Half child and half adult.’
‘I’ll conduct the interviews, and my colleague, Dr Frieda Klein, will also be present.’
When he had told Yvette that he was taking Frieda to talk to Ted, Judith and Dora, not her, she had stared at him with such a reproachful expression that he had almost changed his mind. He could deal with her anger, not her distress. Her cheeks burned and she mumbled that it was fine, perfectly all right, it was up to him and she understood.
Ted was first. He shuffled into the room, laces trailing, hair straggling, hems fraying, all rips and loose ends. His cheeks were unshaven and there was a rash on his neck; he looked unwashed and malnourished. He refused to sit, and stood by the window instead. Spring had come to the garden. There were daffodils in the borders and blossom on the fruit tree.
‘Remember me?’ said Frieda.
‘I didn’t know you were with them,’ he said.
‘Thanks for agreeing to see us like this,’ said Karlsson. ‘Before we begin, this is Amanda Thorne. She’s what is known as an appropriate adult. It means –’
‘I know what it means. And I’m not a child. I don’t need her here.’
‘No, dear,’ said Amanda, rising to her feet and crossing the room to him. ‘You’re not a child. You’re a young man who’s been through a terrible, terrible event.’
Ted gazed at her with contempt. She didn’t seem to notice.
‘I’m here to support you,’ she continued. ‘If there’s anything you don’t understand, you must tell me and I can explain. If you feel upset or confused, you can tell me.’
Ted looked down at her tilted, smiling face. ‘Shut up.’
‘What?’
‘Shall we start?’ Karlsson interrupted.
Ted folded his arms, stared jeeringly out of the window and wouldn’t meet their eyes. ‘Go on, then. Are you going to ask me if I know about my mum and her other life?’
‘Do you?’
‘I do now. My dad told me. Well, he started to tell me and then he was crying and then he told me the rest.’
‘So you know your mother was seeing someone else?’
‘No. I just know that’s what you think.’
‘You don’t believe it?’
Ted unfolded his arms and turned towards them. ‘You know what I think? I thi
nk you’ll get your hands on every bit of her life and make it ugly, dirty.’
‘Ted, I’m very sorry but this is about a murder,’ said Karlsson. ‘You must see that we have to conduct a full investigation.’
‘Ten years!’ The words were a shout, his face contorted with fury. ‘Since I was eight, and Dora was three. Did I know? No. How does it make me feel that it’s all been a lie, a charade? How do you think?’ He turned wildly to Amanda Thorne. ‘Come on, Appropriate Adult. Tell me what I must be feeling. Or you.’ He waved a dirty-nailed hand at Frieda. ‘You’re a therapist. Tell me about it.’
‘Ted,’ said Frieda. ‘You need to answer the questions.’
‘You know what? Some of my friends used to say that they wished she was their mother. They won’t say that now.’
‘Are you saying you had absolutely no idea?’
‘Do you want to take a break?’ Amanda Thorne asked.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Karlsson said sharply.
‘Of course I had no idea. She was the good mother, the good wife, the good neighbour. Mrs fucking Perfect.’
‘But does it make sense to you now?’
Ted turned to Frieda. He seemed bony and brittle, as if he might crumble into a pile of sharp fragments if anyone touched him, tried to hold him. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘You’re suddenly and painfully having to see your mother in a new way – not the person everyone seems to describe as safe and calm and unselfish. Someone with another, radically different, side to her, with needs and desires of her own and a whole life she was leading in secret, separate from all of you – and I’m asking if in retrospect that makes any sense to you.’
‘No. I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it. She was my mum. She was …’ he closed his eyes for a moment ‘… comfy.’
‘Exactly. Not a sexual being.’
‘I don’t want to think about it,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t want the pictures in my head. Everything’s poisoned.’
He wrenched his body sharply away from them once more. Frieda sensed he was on the verge of tears.
‘So,’ Karlsson’s voice broke into the silence, ‘you’re saying you never suspected anything.’
‘She was a terrible actor, useless at things like charades. And she couldn’t lie to save her life. She’d go red and we’d all laugh at her. It was a family joke. But it turns out she was a pretty fantastic actor and liar after all, doesn’t it?’
‘Can you tell us about the day she was killed, Wednesday, the sixth of April?’
‘Tell you what?’
‘When you left home, what you did during the day, what time you returned. That kind of thing.’
Ted gave Frieda a wild stare, then said: ‘OK. My alibi, you mean. I left home at the usual kind of time. Half eight, something like that. I had to be early at school, which is only a few minutes away, because I had my mock art exam. For which I just heard I got an A star by the way.’ He gave a savage grin. ‘Brilliant, wasn’t it? Then I was at school for the rest of the day. Then I met Judith, we hung about for a bit and came home together. And found police everywhere. Good enough for you?’
‘Good enough.’
Judith Lennox was next. She came through the door quietly as a ghost, staring at each of them in turn with her pale blue eyes. She had coppery curls and freckles over the bridge of her nose. Although her hair needed washing and she was dressed in old jogging pants, with a baggy green jersey that probably belonged to her father, down almost to her knees and with long sleeves covering her hands, she was obviously lovely, with the peachy bloom of youth that days of crying couldn’t entirely conceal.
‘I’ve nothing to say,’ she announced.
‘That’s quite all right, dear,’ murmured Amanda Thorne. ‘You don’t need to say anything at all.’
‘If you think it was Dad, you’re just stupid.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘It’s obvious. Mum was cheating on him so you think he must have found out and killed her. But Dad adored her, and anyway, he didn’t know a thing, not a thing. You can’t make something true just by thinking it.’
‘Of course not,’ said Karlsson.
Frieda considered the girl. She was fifteen, on the edge of womanhood. She had lost her mother and lost the meaning of her mother; now she must fear that she could lose her father as well. ‘When you found out about your mother –’ she began.
‘I came home with Ted,’ said Judith. ‘We held hands when we found out.’ She gave a small sob. ‘Poor Ted. He thought Mum was perfect.’
‘And you didn’t?’
‘It’s different for daughters.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was her darling boy. Dora was her sweet baby. I stole her lipstick – well, I didn’t, really. She didn’t go in much for makeup or stuff. But you know what I mean. Anyway, I’m the middle child.’
‘But you’re sure that no one knew?’
‘That she was cheating on Dad all that time? No. I still don’t really believe it.’ She rubbed her face hard. ‘It’s like a film or something, not like real life. It’s not the kind of thing she would do. It’s just stupid. She’s a middle-aged woman and she’s not even that attractive –’ She broke off, her face twisting. ‘I don’t mean it like that, but you know what I’m saying. Her hair’s going grey and she has sensible underwear and she doesn’t bother with what she looks like.’ She seemed suddenly to realize that she was talking about her mother in the present tense. She wiped her eyes. ‘Dad didn’t know anything, I promise,’ she said urgently. ‘I swear Dad didn’t suspect a thing. He’s gutted. Leave him alone. Leave us alone.’
The interview with Dora Lennox wasn’t really an interview. She was scrawny and limp and exhausted, smudged from all her weeping. Her father had grown years older in the days since his wife had died, but Dora had become like a tiny child again. She needed her mother. She needed someone to gather her up and cradle her in their arms, make all the horror go away. Frieda laid a hand on her damp, hot head. Amanda Thorne cooed and told her everything was going to be all right, seeming not to grasp the idiocy of her words. Karlsson stared at the girl, his brow furrowed. He didn’t know where to start. The house was too full of pain. You could feel it prickling against your skin. Outside, the daffodils glowed in the warm brightness of spring.
When Yvette asked Russell Lennox about the bottles he just stared at her as if he hadn’t understood a word.
‘Do you know who put them there?’
He shrugged. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Perhaps nothing, but I need to ask. There were dozens of bottles hidden in the shed. There might be a harmless explanation, but it suggests that someone was drinking secretly.’
‘I don’t see why. The shed’s full of junk.’
‘Who uses the shed?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Who goes into it? Did your wife?’
‘It wasn’t Ruth.’
‘Or perhaps your son and his friends –’
‘No. Not Ted.’
‘Did you put the bottles there?’
The room filled with silence.
‘Mr Lennox?’
‘Yes.’ His voice rose, and he looked away from her as though he couldn’t bear to meet her gaze.
‘Would you say –’ Yvette stopped. She was no good at this. She asked questions too harshly. She didn’t know how to sound clear yet unjudgemental. She tried to imagine Karlsson asking the questions. ‘Do you have a drink problem?’ she asked abruptly.
Russell Lennox jerked his head up. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘But those bottles …’ She thought about the white cider: nobody would drink that if they didn’t have a problem.
‘People think that because you drink, you have a drink problem, and they think if you have a drink problem you have a larger problem underneath.’ He spoke rapidly, his words running together. ‘It was just a stupid phase. To help me through. I put them in the shed becau
se I knew everyone would say what you’re saying now. Make it shameful. It was simpler to hide it. That’s all. I was going to throw them away when I got the chance.’
Yvette tried to separate out his sentences. ‘To help you through what?’ she asked.
‘It. Stuff.’ He sounded like his son.
‘When did you go through this phase?’
‘Why?’
‘Recently?’
Russell Lennox put his hand to his face, half covering his mouth. He made an indistinct sound through his fingers.
‘Are you still drinking?’
‘Are you my GP now?’ His words were muffled. ‘Do you want to tell me it’s not good for me? Do you think I don’t know that? Perhaps you want to tell me about liver damage, addiction, the need to acknowledge what I’m doing and seek help.’
‘Were you drinking because of problems in your marriage?’
He stood up. ‘Everything is evidence to you, isn’t it? My wife’s private life, my drinking too much.’
‘A murder victim doesn’t have a private life,’ said Yvette. ‘They both seem relevant to me.’
‘What do you want me to say? I drank too much for a bit. It was stupid. I didn’t want my kids to know so I hid it. I’m not proud of it.’
‘And you say it wasn’t for any particular reason?’
Russell Lennox was grey with weariness. He sat down again opposite Yvette, slumping in his chair. ‘You’re asking me to make everything neat. It wasn’t like that. I’m getting older, my life felt stale. Nothing changing. No excitement. Maybe Ruth was feeling the same thing.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Yvette. ‘But did your wife know you were drinking?’
‘What’s that got to do with her being dead? Do you think I killed her because she found out my guilty secret?’
‘Did she?’
‘She suspected. She had a nose for people’s weaknesses.’
