by Nicci French
‘You didn’t sleep,’ said Frieda.
‘I’m working. I’m being paid for sitting here.’
Frieda rather liked the sour tone in which she said this. ‘Not any more. We’re going for a walk.’ She laced up her shoes. They left the house and Frieda eased the front door shut quietly.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Fran Bolton. ‘I don’t think you’ll wake them.’
Frieda set off in the direction of Primrose Hill. ‘Were they as bad as that?’
‘They got quite emotional. They were talking about you.’
‘That doesn’t sound good.’
‘No, it was interesting.’
‘I don’t want to know.’
‘And Reuben told me he has cancer.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it serious?’
‘I’m not sure yet. He only found out a few days ago. It might be.’
Frieda stepped up the pace.
‘I can call for a car,’ Fran Bolton said, struggling to keep up.
‘It’s good to walk.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Holborn.’
‘That’s miles.’
‘Yes.’
‘What for?’ said Bolton. ‘I need to know.’
‘There’s someone I have to talk to about all of this.’
‘Are they involved in the case?’
‘He was the man who put me in touch with Bruce Stringer. I have to tell him. Before I do anything else, I need to talk to him.’
‘That sounds like he’s involved.’
Frieda didn’t reply. They reached the park and walked down towards the zoo.
‘Josef and Reuben, are they, you know …?’
‘A couple? No. I mean, they’re friends and Josef lives there most of the time.’
‘What does Josef do? How do you know him?’
Frieda looked around sharply. ‘You should watch out for Josef.’
‘I thought he was your friend.’
‘He’s a good friend. But women meet him and they sort of want to mother him and then …’
‘I don’t want to mother him.’
‘Well, exactly.’
They crossed over the canal into Regent’s Park, and as they reached the long central avenue, Frieda pointed to a bench and they sat down.
‘We need to get something straight,’ she said. ‘I suppose you have to report back to your boss about me.’
‘You make that sound like a bad thing,’ said Bolton. ‘I have to file reports on what I do. You must know that.’
‘Yes, I know that.’ Frieda thought for a long time. When she spoke, it was as if she was thinking aloud. ‘I’ve always tried to stay clear of power. I don’t like telling people what to do and I don’t like people telling me what to do. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I’m in the police, so …’
‘About a year ago, I was in trouble. I was actually under arrest but a man called Walter Levin appeared and made all the trouble go away. He’d actually done a very dangerous thing to me.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘He’d done me a favour. I owed him. I did him a favour in return. I looked into the case of a young woman who had been accused of murdering her family.’
‘Is that the Hannah Docherty case?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘So am I. And then I asked him if he could help me find Dean Reeve and he put me in touch with Bruce Stringer and now Bruce Stringer is dead.’
‘Is this man a policeman?’
‘No.’
‘Does he work for the government?’
‘I suppose so, but he’s always been a bit vague about who he works for.’
‘Why?’ said Fran Bolton. ‘Why did he do that favour for you?’
Frieda looked at her and smiled. ‘That’s a good question,’ she said. ‘You should be a detective. The answer is, I don’t know and I should know. He works with an ex-policeman called Jock Keegan and they have an office and an assistant and someone must pay for it but I don’t know who.’
She stood up and they walked through the park, which was now becoming busier with the runners and dog-walkers and cyclists. Frieda generally found walking with someone else unsatisfactory. She walked as a way of thinking and also as a way of looking at the world, as if she were a spy. With someone else along, it became different. But Fran Bolton was better than many would have been. She didn’t seem to need to give a running commentary on what she was seeing and thinking. When they crossed Euston Road, Frieda felt something of a pang, being so close to her home. Would she ever really go back to it? She was not superstitious, and yet she believed that places, whether buildings or cities, were haunted by their past. Could she ever sit in her living room again, rest her bare feet on the floor, feel that the world was being held at bay?
Going home would have meant turning right, but they turned left and walked past the university buildings, down through Queen Square, and Frieda found herself outside the house that only recently she had spent so much time in. That time seemed a world away now.
‘I’m going to have to leave you outside,’ she said. ‘I promise that if there’s anything at all relevant to the investigation, I’ll tell DCI Burge.’
‘That would be a good idea,’ said Bolton. ‘But I think DCI Burge might want to talk to him anyway.’
‘Good luck with that.’
The door opened.
‘Hello, Jude,’ said Frieda.
The spiky-haired, brightly dressed young woman had an unusually sombre expression. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’
‘Of course I was going to come.’
Levin and Keegan were sitting in chairs in the front room, facing the door, as if she was arriving for an interview. Both were wearing suits, Levin’s dark, pinstriped, rumpled and dusty; Keegan’s grey, serviceable, making him look like the police detective he had once been. Levin seemed the same as always, with an air of very slight amusement. Keegan’s face was entirely expressionless. Frieda sat opposite them. ‘It’s a terrible thing,’ she said.
‘He knew what he was doing.’ Keegan’s tone was even.
‘No, he didn’t. He didn’t know what he was doing or he wouldn’t have been killed. And he was doing it for me. So I wanted to come to you and say how sorry I was.’
‘All right,’ said Keegan.
‘Did he have family?’
‘He had a wife and a son of seven years of age and a daughter of four years of age.’
Frieda felt a shock that she hadn’t felt before, even when Josef had pulled the planks away and revealed the body. ‘He shouldn’t have been doing this.’
‘It was his job,’ said Keegan.
There was a long pause.
‘How did you hear?’ asked Frieda.
‘Does it really matter?’ Levin’s tone was mild.
‘I suppose you always know.’
‘We do what we can.’ As he spoke, Levin removed his glasses and took a handkerchief from his pocket and breathed on the lenses and polished them, taking his time. ‘It must have caused a bit of a stir.’
‘A stir? Yes. It caused a stir.’
Levin replaced his glasses and looked at Frieda with an expression that she found difficult to read. ‘It must have been a terrible shock. And yet you must feel vindicated. In a way.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I mean about the existence of Dean Reeve. For the past several years you have been claiming that he is alive and a danger to the public and you’ve been disagreed with and mocked and punished for it. Now your detractors will have to face up to the truth.’
Frieda took a deep breath. ‘Some people expect me to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and they want to hug me and comfort me and I find that oppressive. But, no, I haven’t yet got around to feeling vindicated.’
‘Of course.’ Levin nodded once or twice. ‘Of course.’
‘I assume this whole thing must be up
setting for you. After all, you knew him.’
‘I didn’t really know him. He was more an associate of Keegan’s.’
‘But still …’
Levin smiled very slightly. ‘I probably have an unfortunate manner. We’re both shocked, of course.’ He rubbed his head. ‘I suppose this is going to be particularly embarrassing for Commissioner Crawford.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He’ll have to accept publicly that you were right and he was wrong.’
‘A man has been murdered,’ said Frieda, slowly.
‘Exactly. That won’t look good for him.’
Frieda stood up. ‘There’s a police officer outside. My protection. She’ll probably be curious. I find it difficult to tell people what exactly you do.’
Levin also stood up. ‘There’s no need to say anything, really.’
‘I mean, you’re not a policeman.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I mean, yes, I’m not a policeman. That’s a problem with the English language. You can’t answer negative questions yes or no.’
‘You seem to have a problem answering any kind of questions. I used to think you worked for the Home Office.’
‘Did you? You should have asked.’
‘I think I did ask.’
‘Well, the barriers between departments are breaking down nowadays.’
‘All you’re doing is not giving me an answer.’
He looked at her genially. His eyes were cool. ‘Think of me as an enabler.’
‘An enabler,’ repeated Frieda. ‘Is that a sort of consultant?’
‘I try to be more helpful than just consulting.’
‘Enabling.’
‘When I can.’
‘That gets me precisely nowhere. I hope you’ll help with the inquiry.’
‘I’ll do anything I can. As a concerned citizen.’
‘I’ll see her out.’ Keegan held the door open for Frieda.
In the hallway, he started to speak, then stopped and walked with Frieda out on to the pavement where Fran Bolton was waiting. Frieda introduced them to each other.
‘I’m a colleague,’ said Keegan.
‘Ex-colleague,’ said Frieda.
He took out his wallet and extracted a card. He turned it over and wrote a number on the back. ‘You’re probably sick of the sight of me. I’m sure the police will solve all this quickly. But if things get more complicated …’
He handed her the card.
‘Thank you,’ said Frieda.
‘There’ll be a funeral.’
‘Let me know.’
Keegan looked at Bolton. ‘Keep her safe.’
Frieda stopped in front of a newsagent’s window. ‘Already,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘That.’ Frieda pointed to the rack of papers.
As far as she could tell, she was on the front page of every single one of them. Her house was there, her face was there, her name. Lurid headlines. London House of Horror. She turned her head away.
As they approached Reuben’s house they saw a group of people jostling on the pavement, vans parked along the road. For a brief moment, Frieda thought there must have been an accident, and then she understood that she was the accident, the spectacle they had come to see.
‘How did they find out where I was?’
‘They always find out,’ said Fran Bolton. ‘Sometimes before we do. Is there a back way in?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t say anything.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘Not until we’ve decided what the line’s going to be.’
‘The line?’
Someone in the small mass of people, who had until now been turned towards Reuben’s house, noticed them. It was like the wind blowing across a cornfield: in a ripple, they turned. Faces, cameras were looking at them. The knot of people separated and began to move in their direction. Fran Bolton took her arm and was hissing something but Frieda couldn’t make it out. She remembered what she had said to Petra Burge the previous day: that she felt detached, as if she was observing herself. Now she watched herself push through the jostle of journalists. They were calling her name. She saw a woman she recognized, smiling pretty Liz Barron who had taken a hostile interest in Frieda over the years; a man with a beaky nose and hot brown eyes who stepped in front of her and was asking her something; another man, middle-aged and overweight, with a beard that ran in a curly border round the lower half of his face.
‘Who was it, Frieda?’ someone called.
‘How are you feeling?’
A blur of voices. She saw Reuben’s face at the window. It wasn’t fair to put him through this. They reached the little gate.
‘It is true you think Dean Reeve’s alive?’ It was a loud, carrying voice. ‘Is this to do with Dean Reeve?’
There was a sudden silence, more shocking than the shouts had been. Frieda stopped, her hand on the latch of the small iron gate. She could feel the fresh excitement behind her, like an electric shimmer in the air. She heard the babble of sound begin again, louder and more urgent, but none of it made any sense to her, only the repeated name of Dean Reeve, which seemed to be growing in strength.
‘Now we’ll get no rest,’ said Fran Bolton, grimly, and they pushed open the front door, then closed it behind them, shutting out the sea of hungry faces.
5
Frieda and Reuben sat in Reuben’s kitchen, drinking coffee. The blinds were pulled down. Earlier that morning, a photographer had managed to climb a tree on the other side of the garden wall to take photos of Reuben in his embroidered dressing gown.
‘I didn’t realize it would be like this.’ said Frieda. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
‘Why?’ Reuben raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Because I’ve got cancer? I like it that you’re here.’
Frieda turned on her mobile, saw that there were sixty-three missed calls, turned it off again. How did they have her number? There was a loud bang overhead. A curse from Josef.
‘Hangover,’ said Reuben.
Fran put her head round the door. ‘The car’s on its way to take us to your house. Are you ready?’
‘Ready.’
Although the rain had stopped, the cobbles were dark and wet. There was a cluster of reporters at the entrance to the mews and camera lights flashed as they drove past. A single unmarked car was parked outside Frieda’s house, and a tape stretched across the entrance. A man in green scrubs let them in and handed them plastic overshoes, which they pulled on. Frieda was used to the particular smell of her house: the wood of the floorboards and its beeswax polish, sometimes herbs that stood along the sill of the kitchen window, and also a dry but pleasant smell she had come to associate with old books, charcoal pencils, chess pieces, toast. Now the smell was of astringent chemicals and, underneath that, perhaps there was something else, something that had soaked through into the foundations. She stood for a moment, steadying herself.
The room where she usually sat beside the fire or played through games of chess was harshly lit by the lamp that had been rigged up by the forensic team. There were two people in there, one taking photographs. Frieda looked through the yellow glare to the pit where just yesterday Bruce Stringer had lain. Everything was gone, of course. Even the maggots and flies had gone. It was just a hole. The room was just a room – the rugs removed, the furniture pushed back – but it no longer felt like her room. She turned and went into the kitchen.
‘What happened to the cat?’ she asked the man in green scrubs.
‘Is there a cat?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not here now.’
Frieda went upstairs. Everything looked much the same but she could sense that someone had been in here too. Nothing felt like it belonged to her any more. Quickly, she pulled clothes from drawers and pushed them into a canvas holdall; then a couple of books and some toiletries. She went upstairs to her study in the garret and put her sketchbook and pencils in as well. She didn’t know how long she w
ould be away. Living here was a remote memory of a different self. Another life. She imagined Dean Reeve moving softly through her rooms, rifling through her clothes, turning the pages of her sketchbook, bending to stroke her cat. Where was her cat?
‘What have you got?’ Commissioner Crawford asked Petra Burge.
‘It’s early days.’
‘Early days are the important ones.’
‘The autopsy’s being done now, but Ian thought he must have been dead four or five days. The crime-scene guys are certain he was killed elsewhere and put there. I’ve got people talking to the neighbours and going through CCTV footage.’
‘What about Reeve?’ Crawford’s face tightened in a sour grimace as he said the name. ‘Assuming that Dr Klein’s suspicions are valid. Where are we with him?’
‘There are obvious problems with looking for someone who basically disappeared and was presumed dead seven years ago. Frieda Klein always believed he was still alive but she never met him, never even saw him. But two associates of Klein actually claim to have met him. Josef Morozov is a Ukrainian builder. I don’t quite know what his connection with Klein is.’
‘Sexual, probably,’ said Crawford.
‘I’m not sure about that. Everything about him seems a bit murky, including his immigration status. He came across Reeve on a building site.’
‘Knowingly?’
‘No. Reeve was working under an alias. And Klein has a sister-in-law. Olivia Klein used to be married to Klein’s brother. Olivia met Reeve in a social setting. She was quite vague about it. Got talking in a bar.’
Crawford fidgeted irritably. ‘What’s this about? What’s Reeve doing?’
‘It’s all about Frieda Klein. Somehow when they encountered each other, she got under his skin.’
‘Well, I understand that. She got under mine as well. She’s been a bloody irritation from beginning to end. But what does he want? What does he want to do?’
‘It’s not clear. As yet.’
‘What about the widow?’
‘I talked to Mrs Stringer this morning.’
‘And?’
‘She’s distraught, obviously. She’s in a wheelchair. She has MS and apparently he was her carer for several years. They have two small children.’
