by Nicci French
It must be Zach lying in front of her at the foot of his bed, but the narrow face, the golden eyes, the rosebud lips that had given her the creeps were all gone – smashed into a pulp. Yvette made herself look properly, not squint in a reflex of horror. She could still make out the delicate ear lobes in his wrecked face. There was blood everywhere. People didn’t know how much blood they had flowing through them, warm and fast – only when you saw it pooled around a body did you realize. Puddles of dark, sweet-smelling blood, thickening now. She laid one finger against his back, under his purple shirt; the skin was white and hard and cold.
She stood up, hearing her knees creak, and thought of Karlsson when he arrived at a crime scene: she tried to make herself into a camera. The muddy streaks in the passageway, the tipped picture above the bed, the thickening blood, the rigid flesh, the way his arms were flung out as if he was falling through the air. She remembered the noise the woman upstairs had said she’d heard last night.
And then she took out her phone. From upstairs, she could make out the sounds of the baby, still howling. They arrived so quickly, the ambulances and the police cars. It seemed only minutes before the flat had been transformed into a makeshift laboratory, bright lights shining, with Zach’s body at the centre. Paper shoes, plastic gloves, brushes to dust for the fingerprints, bottles of chemicals, tweezers and evidence bags, tape measures, thermometers. Riley was talking to the woman upstairs. Munster, standing by the door and taking gulps of air, was talking into his phone. Zach was just an object now, a specimen.
Above the hubbub, Karlsson said to her: ‘Chris is speaking to Greene’s parents. Do you think you could be the one to tell Judith Lennox?’
She felt beads of sweat on her forehead as she thought of the fierce, desolate daughter. ‘Sure.’
‘Thanks. As soon as possible, I think.’
Yvette knew it would be bad and it was. She stood and listened to herself say the words and watched Judith Lennox’s very young, very vulnerable face crumple. She spun round the small room, her slender figure twitching, all the separate parts of her apparently disconnected – hands fluttering, face tweaked in strange grimaces, head bobbing on thin neck, feet slipping in her frantic urge to move. They were in a room that the head teacher had put aside for them. There was a desk by the plate-glass window and shelves full of folders in different colours. Outside, two teenagers – a boy and a girl – walked past and glanced without obvious interest into the large window.
Yvette felt helpless. Should she go and wrap her arms round the girl’s fragile bones, hold her still for an instant? This time it was a shriek that must surely fill the whole school, empty classrooms and bring teachers running. She banged against the desk and was sent in another direction. Yvette was reminded of a moth bruising its soft powdery wings against harsh surfaces.
She put out a hand and caught Judith by the hem of her shirt, heard it rip slightly. The girl stopped and stared wildly at her. She was still wearing dark orange lipstick, but the rest of her face was like a small child’s. Suddenly, she sat, not on the chair, but in a heap on the uncarpeted floor.
‘What happened?’ she whispered.
‘We’re trying to find out exactly. All I can tell you at present is that he has been killed.’ She thought of the mashed face and swallowed hard. ‘In his flat.’
‘When? When?’
‘We haven’t established the time of his death.’ Stiff, pompous, she was embarrassed by her own awkwardness.
‘Recently, though?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry to have to ask but I’m sure you’ll understand. Can you tell me when you last saw him?’
‘Go away.’ Judith covered her ears with her hands and rocked back and forwards on the floor. ‘Just go away now.’
‘I know it’s very painful.’
‘Go away. Go away. Go away. Leave me alone. Leave all of us alone. Get out. Why is this happening? Why? Please please please please.’
Yvette had only once been to Frieda’s house and never to her consulting rooms until now. She tried not to seem curious; she didn’t want to look too intently at Frieda herself, partly because Frieda’s steady gaze had always made her uncomfortable and partly because she was shocked by Frieda’s appearance. Perhaps she was thinner, Yvette couldn’t tell, but she was certainly tauter. She seemed stretched tight. There were dark smudges under her eyes, almost violet. Her skin was pale and her eyes very dark, with a smokiness to them that was different from their usual glitter. She didn’t look well, Yvette decided.
She watched Frieda walk towards her red armchair with a limp that she tried to disguise but couldn’t, and thought: This is my fault. For a moment, she let herself remember Frieda lying in Mary Orton’s house, unmoving, the sight of the blood. Then she saw young Judith Lennox flying around the schoolroom, like a broken moth, shouting at her to get out, to leave. Perhaps the simple truth is that I’m a hopeless detective, she thought. She hadn’t even been able to get an alibi from Zach Greene.
Frieda gestured to the chair opposite and Yvette sat down. So this was where Frieda’s patients sat. She imagined closing her eyes and saying: Please help me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Please tell me what’s wrong with me …
‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ she said.
‘I owe you a favour.’ Frieda was smiling at her.
‘Oh, no! It’s me …’
‘You made the complaint against me go away.’
‘That was nothing. Idiots.’
‘Still, I’m grateful.’
‘I didn’t want to meet at the station. I thought this would be better. I don’t know if you’ve heard. Zach Greene was murdered. He was Judith Lennox’s boyfriend.’
Frieda seemed to become even more still. She shook her head slightly. ‘No. I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry,’ she said softly, as though to herself.
‘She’s in a dreadful state,’ Yvette continued. ‘I’ve just left her. The school counsellor was there and the head. I’m worried for her.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You’ve met her. I know about your behind-the-scenes dealings with the Lennox family.’ She held up a hand. ‘That sounded wrong. I didn’t mean it grumpily.’
‘Go on.’
‘I wondered if you could go and see her. Call on her. Just to see how she is.’
‘She’s not my patient.’
‘I understand that.’
‘I hardly know her. Her brother is a friend of my niece. That’s the only connection. I’ve met the poor girl a few times.’
‘I didn’t know how to deal with her. There are things they don’t teach you. I could call up one of our people, I suppose.’ She wrinkled her nose dubiously at the thought. ‘Hal fucking Bradshaw would be only too pleased to tell her what she was feeling and why. But I – well, I guess I thought you could help.’
‘For old times’ sake?’ Frieda asked ironically.
‘You mean you won’t?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
OK. I won’t fly over and hammer at your door and I will trust you. But you make it very hard, Frieda. Sandy
FORTY-FOUR
In the morning Jim Fearby called on the family of Philippa Lewis. They lived on a new estate in a village a few miles south of Oxford. A middle-aged woman – she must have been Philippa’s mother, Sue – slammed the door as soon as he identified himself. He had read about the case in the local paper, the usual story of walking home after staying late at school and not arriving; he had seen the blurry photo. She had seemed a plausible candidate. He put a tick after her name, followed by a question mark.
Up towards Warwick, Cathy Birkin’s mother made him tea and cake, and before the first mouthful he knew that this was a name he’d be crossing off the list. She’d run away twice before. The cake was quite nice, though. Ginger. Slightly spicy. Fearby had started to notice another sort of pattern. The mothers of the runaway girls were the ones who would invite him in and give him tea and cake. He could almost remem
ber the houses and the girls by the cake he’d been served. The one up near Crewe, Claire Boyle, had been carrot cake. High Wycombe, Maria Horsley: chocolate. Was it as if they were still trying to prove that they had done their best, that they weren’t bad parents? The ginger cake was slightly dry and stuck to the roof of his mouth. He had to wash it down with his cooling tea. As he chewed, he felt his own pang of conscience. He’d been putting it off and putting it off. It was on the way and would only be a small diversion.
He almost hoped that George Conley would be out, but he wasn’t. The small block where he had moved to was neat enough. When Conley opened the door, he gave only the smallest flicker of recognition, but Fearby was used to that. When Conley had talked to him over the years, he had never seemed comfortable looking at him directly. Even when he talked, it was as if he was addressing someone slightly to the side of Fearby and behind him. As soon as Fearby stepped inside he was hit by the warmth and the smell, which seemed part of each other. It wasn’t really identifiable and Fearby didn’t want to identify it: there was sweat, dampness. He suddenly thought of the sour smell you get behind garbage vans in summer.
Fearby had lived alone for years and he knew about life with surfaces that never got properly wiped, dishes that piled up, food that was left out, clothes on the floor, but this was something different. In the dark, hot living room, he had to step around dirty plates and glasses. He saw opened cans half filled with things he couldn’t recognize, white and green with mould. Almost everything, plates, glasses, tins, had stubs of cigarettes on or in it. Fearby wondered whether there was someone he could call. Did someone somewhere have a legal responsibility to deal with this?
The television was on and Conley sat down opposite it. He wasn’t exactly watching the screen. It looked more like he was just sitting in front of it.
‘How did you get this place?’ said Fearby.
‘The council,’ said Conley.
‘Does anyone come round to help you? I know it must be difficult. You’ve been inside so long. It’s hard to adjust.’ Conley just looked blank, so Fearby tried again. ‘Does anyone come to check up? Maybe do some cleaning?’
‘A woman comes sometimes. To check on me.’
‘Is she helpful?’
‘She’s all right.’
‘What about your compensation? How’s it going?’
‘I don’t know. I saw Diana.’
‘Your lawyer,’ said Fearby. He had to speak almost in a shout to be heard above the television. ‘What did she say?’
‘She said it’d take time. A long time.’
‘I’ve heard that. You’ll have to be patient.’ There was a pause. ‘Do you get out much?’
‘I walk a bit. There’s a park.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘There’s ducks. I take bread. And seeds.’
‘That’s nice, George. Is there anyone you’d like me to call for you? If you give me a number, I could call the people at the council. They could come and help you clear up.’
‘There’s just a woman. She comes sometimes.’
Fearby had been sitting right on the edge of a sofa that looked as if it had been brought in from outside. His back was starting to ache. He stood up. ‘I’ve got to head off,’ he said.
‘I was having tea.’
Fearby looked at an open carton of milk on the table. The milk inside was yellow. ‘I had some earlier. But I’ll pop back soon and we can go out for a drink or a walk. How’s that sound?’
‘All right.’
‘I’m trying to find out who killed Hazel Barton. I’ve been busy.’
Conley didn’t respond.
‘I know it’s a terrible memory for you,’ said Fearby. ‘But when you found her, I know you bent down and tried to help her. You touched her. That was the evidence that was used against you. But did you see anything else? Did you see a person? Or a car? George. Did you hear what I said?’
Conley looked round but he still didn’t say anything.
‘Right,’ said Fearby. ‘Well, it’s been good to see you. We’ll do this again.’
He picked his way carefully out of the room.
When Fearby got home, he went online to find the number of the social services department. He dialled it but the office was closed for the day. He looked at his watch. He had thought of calling Diana McKerrow about Conley’s situation, but her office would be closed as well by now. He knew about these compensation cases. They took years.
He went to the sink, found a glass, rinsed it and poured himself some whisky. He took a sip and felt the warmth spreading down through his chest. He’d needed that. He felt the staleness of the day in his mouth, on his tongue, and the whisky scoured all that away. He walked through the rooms with his drink. It wasn’t like Conley’s flat, but it was a distant relation. Men adrift, living alone. Two men still trapped in their different ways by the Hazel Barton case. The police had no other suspects. That was what they’d said. Only George Conley and he knew different.
Suddenly the dirty glasses and bits of clothing, the piles of papers and envelopes scared him. People hardly ever came to the house, but the thought of anyone coming into this room and feeling some part of what he had felt in George Conley’s flat made him flush with a sort of shame. For the next hour he picked clothes up, washed glasses and plates, wiped surfaces, vacuumed. At the end, he felt it was closer to some sort of normality. It needed more. He could see that. He would buy a picture. He could put flowers in a vase. Maybe he would even paint the walls.
He took a lasagne from the freezer and put it into the oven. The back of the packet said fifty minutes from frozen. That would give him time. He went to his study. This was the one part of the house that had always been tidy, clean and organized. He took the map from the desk, unfolded it and laid it out on the floor. He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out the card covered with red stickers. He peeled off one sticker and carefully placed it on the village of Denham, just south of Oxford. He stood back. There were seven of them now and a pattern was clearly forming.
Fearby took a sip of whisky and asked himself the question he’d asked himself many times before: was he fooling himself? He’d read about murderers and their habits. How they were like predatory animals that operated in territories where they felt comfortable. But he’d also read about the dangers of seeing patterns in random collections of data. You fire arbitrary shots at a wall, then draw a target around the marks that are closest together and it looks as if you were aiming at it. He examined the map. Five of them were close to the M40 and three to the M1, no more then twenty minutes’ drive from a motorway exit. It seemed completely obvious and compelling. But there was a problem. As he’d read through newspapers, checked online, for missing teenage girls, one of his main criteria in weeding them out was looking for families near motorways, so maybe he was creating the pattern himself. But he thought of the girls’ faces, the stories. It felt right to him. It smelled right. But what good was that?
FORTY-FIVE
Karlsson sat down opposite Russell Lennox. Yvette started the recorder and sat to one side.
‘You know you’re still under caution,’ Karlsson said, ‘and that you’re entitled to legal representation.’ Lennox gave a faint nod. He seemed dazed, barely responsive. ‘You need to say it aloud. For the tape, or chip, or whatever it is.’
‘Yes,’ said Lennox. ‘I understand. I’m fine.’
‘You’re quite a family,’ said Karlsson. Lennox looked blank. ‘You seem to do damage to everyone you come into contact with.’
‘We’re a family in which the wife and mother was killed,’ said Lennox, hoarsely. ‘Is that what you mean?’
‘And now your daughter’s boyfriend.’
‘I didn’t know about that, until I heard about the death.’
‘The murder. Zach Greene was hit with a blunt instrument. Like your wife.’ There was a pause. ‘How did you feel about him?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘About your fi
fteen-year-old daughter’s relationship with a twenty-eight-year-old man.’
‘As I said, I didn’t know about it. Now that I do, I feel concern for my daughter. For her welfare.’
‘Mr Greene died some time during the day yesterday. Can you tell us where you were?’
‘I was at home. I’ve been at home a lot lately.’
‘Was anyone with you?’
‘The children were at school. I was there when Dora came home at about ten past four.’
‘What did you do at home?’
Lennox seemed terribly tired, as if even talking was a great effort. ‘Why don’t you just ask me if I killed that man? That must be why you brought me in here.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘All right, so what did you do at home?’
‘I pottered around. Sorted through some things.’
‘Maybe you can help us by coming up with something we can check. Did someone call round? Did you make any calls? Did you go online?’
‘Nobody came round. I probably made some calls and went online.’
‘We can check that.’
‘I watched a bit of TV.’
‘What did you watch?’
‘The usual rubbish. Probably something to do with antiques.’
‘Probably something to do with antiques,’ said Karlsson, slowly, as if he was thinking about it as he repeated it. ‘I’m going to stop this now.’ He leaned forward and pressed a button on the recorder. ‘You’re going to go away and have a think, maybe talk to a lawyer and come up with something better than what you’ve said. And meanwhile we’ll make our own checks on who you were phoning and where you were.’ He stood up. ‘You need to think of your children, your family. How much more of this are they meant to take?’
Lennox rubbed his face, like a man checking whether he’d shaved. ‘I think about them every minute of every day,’ he said.
Chris Munster was waiting for Karlsson in his office. He had just returned from Cardiff where he had been interviewing Josh Kerrigan’s girlfriend, Shari Hollander.
