by Nicci French
‘Just a friend.’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘You wanted to see me.’
‘I wanted to ask a favour.’ He brought his own coffee to the table, dropped in several sugar cubes and stirred vigorously, then took a small sip. ‘You know Hal Bradshaw.’
Karlsson did indeed know Hal Bradshaw, psychologist, criminal profiler, used by the Met. He popped up every time the media wanted a quote on a particularly nasty crime, and he had crossed swords with Frieda on multiple occasions. What was more, Dean Reeve had once set fire to his house. ‘I do,’ was all he said.
‘He’s doing some series on TV. Forget the title – Crimes in Mind or something. I’ve agreed to be interviewed.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. But I’m having cold feet. I wanted to ask you – as an old friend – if you think it’s a bad idea.’
Karlsson tried to keep his surprise off his face. Crawford had tried to fire him. He’d treated Frieda with hostility that had become almost pathological by the end. Was the man so friendless that he thought of Karlsson as his friend?
‘I suppose you need to establish what areas the interview will cover.’
‘It’s about various cases I was involved in over the years. Can I trust Hal, do you think?’
‘Well, everyone has their own agenda.’
‘Obviously.’
‘And he hates Frieda.’
A little smile came over Crawford’s broad, florid face.
‘I’d be careful,’ Karlsson said softly. ‘He might be using you.’
It was the smell.
Sofie Kyriakos was on a baking course, and when she was at home in her top floor flat in Dalston, she spent most of the time in her tiny kitchen, making the starter and then the leaven, kneading dough, watching it rise into a soft pillow. Gradually, beneath the yeasty, crusty, doughy aroma, she noticed something else – a rotting, rubbishy smell with a touch of sweetness to it that was even worse. Had a rat died somewhere? She had heard of that. A rat would eat poison and become ill and crawl into a recess under the floorboards or behind panelling and die and rot and there was nothing for it but to wait until the smell went away. But this was too strong.
She went out on to the public landing. There were three other flats on this level and three more on the floor below. The smell was even worse there. She knocked on one of the doors. No answer. She knocked on the other two with the same result. Everyone was at work or away. She didn’t know any of the other tenants. People came and went and the flats were sublet and friends stayed. She saw names on the envelopes piled up inside the street door, but most of those were of tenants who were long gone.
After another day of it, she couldn’t take any more. She met the man in flat three who said it must be the drains. Sofie said, no, this wasn’t drains. She tried to call the landlord and emailed him and messaged him. But he lived out of London somewhere. He only got in touch when a tenant was late with the rent, and then only with a solicitor’s letter. So she called Hackney Council and couldn’t even get an actual human being to answer the phone. In the end she called the police. Had she checked all the tenants? Had she called the health department? Couldn’t it just be the plumbing?
Finally two young police officers arrived. They seemed bored and irritated as she met them downstairs and told them that it was at the top, up three flights of stairs. Finally they arrived, breathing heavily, outside her door.
‘There,’ said Sofie. ‘Can you smell it?’
They could. They looked at each other, then things started to happen quickly. They made a series of calls on their radios. Sofie began to edge away. One of the officers noticed her and told her to stay where she was.
‘On their way,’ the other said.
They started to question Sofie without any significant result. She couldn’t tell them when she had last seen the tenant because she didn’t know who it was. She didn’t even know if it was a man or a woman. Had she heard anything? She was always hearing things but she couldn’t tell what flat any particular noise came from.
The officers went downstairs and then she heard a thumping and rumbling of boots coming up and then the landing filled with men in uniform, so many Sofie couldn’t count them. A heavily built grey-haired man approached her. ‘You the neighbour who called?’
‘Yes.’
‘Stay here. But you’d better stand back.’
Two officers came forward, carrying a long metal battering ram. The corridor was too narrow for it and they couldn’t get the right angle against the door. There was much muttering and some raised voices.
‘Just hit it sideways,’ said the grey-haired man.
Four men, two on each side, took hold of the ram and swung it. It took several attempts before there was a splintering sound and the door swung inwards. There was a wave of hot air from inside that Sofie could feel from several yards away. Two officers stepped inside and she heard gasping and swearing. One of them, pale-faced, sweating, appeared at the door and addressed the grey-haired man. ‘You’ll want to see this, Sarge.’
‘Can I go?’ said Sofie.
‘Not for the moment,’ he said, and went inside.
Another of the officers emerged. He walked towards Sofie and leaned against the wall, taking deep, slow breaths.
‘What is it?’ Sofie asked, but he just raised his hand. He didn’t seem able to speak.
After a few minutes, the grey-haired sergeant came back out. ‘Fucking hell,’ he said. ‘We need to call this in.’
‘What is it?’ Sofie asked again.
The sergeant looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. ‘There’s a body in there. It’s in a bit of a state. All the gas was left on, all the heaters.’ He paused. ‘So you didn’t know him?’
‘No.’
‘Frieda Klein,’ said the sergeant.
‘What?’
‘Do you know someone called Frieda Klein?’
35
Petra Burge hated waiting. The traffic was bad, the sun shone through the car’s window; she felt hot and in a fury of impatience. At the traffic lights she told her driver she would walk the rest of the way, then opened the door and almost ran along the busy road, dodging other pedestrians. At last she reached the mouth of the cobbled mews, where she slowed to catch her breath and order her thoughts. Frieda knew that she was coming, but she didn’t know why.
When Frieda opened the door, Petra saw how dark her eyes were and how pale her face was, in spite of the long hot weeks they’d had. Petra’s own face was splashed with summer freckles from the hours she spent running, through parks and along canals, mile after mile until her body ached and her mind was calmer.
‘Come in,’ Frieda said. ‘Can I offer you anything? Tea?’
‘Just water.’
They went into the kitchen. Petra watched her as she ran the water till it was cold, filled a tumbler, dropped in an ice cube, then wiped her hands on a tea-towel before handing it over. There was a pot of basil on the windowsill, a vase of yellow roses on the table. She was wearing a grey shirt with the sleeves rolled up and cotton trousers; her hair was gathered in a loose coil at the back of her head and she seemed cool, self-possessed. Everything she did was so ordered and yet her life was filled with violence and disorder.
They both sat. Frieda looked at her and nodded.
‘Do you know a man called Morgan Rossiter?’ She thought she saw Frieda flinch, very slightly. There was a tightening in her expression.
‘He used to be a patient.’
‘But isn’t any longer?’
‘I wasn’t the right person for him. Why?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘What?’ said Frieda.
‘He was murdered. His body was found last night. You might ask why I’ve come to you about this.’ She waited but Frieda didn’t speak. ‘Your name was found.’
‘I was his therapist,’ said Frieda, in a low voice.
‘Is it common for people to paint the name of their therapist on
the wall?’
Frieda put one hand to her throat; the silence in the room seemed to thicken. ‘A message,’ she said at last.
‘Of some kind.’
‘Can you tell if he wrote my name himself?’
‘We’re working on that but I think we can assume that he didn’t.’
‘So whoever killed him did it.’
The two women looked at each other across the table, then Frieda stood up abruptly. ‘Can we walk?’ she said.
‘Walk?’
‘Yes. I have to walk.’
‘Where?’
‘Anywhere.’
‘All right.’
They left the house together. Frieda strode in an apparently random direction, turning left and right on small streets until they were in a large square. They went into the public garden at its centre. At the far end, two men were playing tennis; Frieda walked over to a bench in the shade of a tall plane tree and sat down. ‘Someone abducted my niece,’ she said. ‘They held her for an entire weekend. They took photos of her lying unconscious on a mattress and sent it to me. Someone went to Reuben’s house and beat him up so badly it still hurts him to walk – and don’t forget this is a man who has cancer and is very ill and frail. It could have killed him. This someone has now killed a man who was my patient.’
Petra nodded.
‘I had just told him I could no longer be his therapist.’
‘Why?’
‘We were incompatible,’ Frieda said shortly. ‘It’s not uncommon.’
‘I see. There’s nothing else you can tell me?’
Frieda turned her face away. Petra saw her hands clench and unclench in her lap. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.
‘Right.’
‘I think –’ She stopped.
‘Yes?’
‘This isn’t Dean Reeve. He already sent his message via Alexei. But it’s also not Dean because it feels out of control, frantic. Karlsson once told me that Dean likes to fish. He sits by the water hour after hour, waiting for a fish to bite, and never gets frustrated. He’s a very patient man, very controlled. The person who is doing this is not patient, not patient at all. He’s in a hurry. On a binge. Or she, or they. Three people in three weeks, and the third has died. Because of me.’ She turned to Petra. ‘And who will be next? Olivia?’
‘You?’
‘I’m his audience.’ When she spoke again, her voice was so low Petra had to strain to catch it. ‘Perhaps if I wasn’t here to watch him, he would stop.’
The public gardens were quiet in the heat, only the sound of the tennis ball, hit back and forwards, the occasional call of one of the men, a bird overhead. A plane was unspooling its vapour trail in the flat blue sky.
‘That’s one possibility,’ said Petra, emphatic.
‘What’s the other?’
‘If this person is a copycat, as we believe, then Dean is his audience, not you.’
‘Meanwhile we do what?’ asked Frieda. ‘Just keep on waiting until this person gets another chance.’
‘I have a suggestion. Which you won’t like.’
‘What?’
‘We go public on all of this.’
Frieda’s instinct was to say no but she had no other idea to offer, so she let Petra continue.
‘Last time, we set up three journalists to interview you. Now we should go wider: TV, radio, newspapers, whatever. We’ll make the link between you and the violent attacks and now this death, and you’ll also make yourself available to be interviewed.’
‘All right,’ said Frieda. Her voice was dull.
‘I knew you’d hate the idea.’
‘I do hate it, but that doesn’t mean I disagree.’
‘I’ll set it up.’
Frieda gave a sigh and rubbed her hand against her forehead. ‘I need to talk to Chloë. Even if we don’t mention her by name, it will soon be public knowledge, won’t it?’
‘It would be hard to keep it secret.’
‘I’ll call her now.’
Frieda watched Petra walk away through the gardens, a small wiry figure, light on her feet, slightly bow-legged, looking both younger and older than her years. A curious woman. Should she have told her about Rudkin and what he’d discovered about Morgan Rossiter? She almost had.
She called Chloë and, after a small silence, Chloë said that of course she agreed, if Frieda thought it was necessary. Frieda ended the call. The sun poured down through the limp green leaves. She knew whom she needed to talk to.
There’s a song he can’t get out of his head. An earworm. Horrible name. Now he can’t stop imagining a worm softly winding its way down the ear and into his head. ‘It was on a Monday morning that I beheld my darling, she looked so neat and charming in every fine degree.’ Something like that. ‘Dashing away with the smoothing iron.’ Day after day. He couldn’t stop humming it. ‘In every fine degree.’ He didn’t know all the words.
He doesn’t need sleep and now he doesn’t want food either. He pushes it away. Piles of mashed potato. Slabs of meat. He can’t put it into his body. He feels hollow, light on his feet; his head is clear.
36
Frieda poured whisky into two tumblers. She set a small jug of water between them and gestured to Karlsson to add what he wanted. The cat came into the room and wound itself round her legs, asking to be stroked. The last light was gone and now the room was dim, shutters closed, a standard lamp throwing a soft pool of yellow.
Karlsson raised his glass, took a small sip, felt it burn in his mouth and throat. He had rarely seen Frieda look so bleak. Her face was all angles and shadows; her dark eyes glowed. ‘Tell me,’ he said.
Frieda was visibly making up her mind. ‘I’m talking to you as a friend,’ she said at last.
‘Why does that make me feel nervous?’
‘You know I hired that private investigator.’
‘Rudkin.’
‘I asked him to look into the people who had recently come into the lives of Olivia, Chloë, Reuben and Jack.’
‘That sounds reasonable.’
‘I didn’t ask about Josef, and that might have been a mistake. It’s hard to know where to stop.’
‘I can imagine.’
Frieda put a hand to her throat, a gesture she had only recently started making. ‘It was probably illogical. I had a sense that whoever was doing these things is somehow among us, in our lives, and I had to do something.’ She leaned forward as she spoke.
‘Did Rudkin find anything useful?’
‘I don’t know if it’s useful. He certainly found things out.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as Chloë works with a man who was abused as a child and has been on the wrong side of the law. Olivia’s got lots of friends who are creeps and who are pretending to be single when they’re married, or pretending to be employed when they’re not. Jack’s met up with a young man who bullied him very badly when they were at school, who’s very rich from deals in the City and whose parents were killed in a road accident a few years ago.’
‘So you know things you shouldn’t.’
‘I’ve spied on my friends.’
‘For their own good.’
Frieda made a grimace of disgust, then poured more whisky into his tumbler. ‘But that’s not what I want to tell you about.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I asked him to investigate two of my patients. They are both new. Were.’ She waited to see if Karlsson would speak. His expression didn’t alter. ‘I don’t need to tell you that’s not allowed. It’s also wrong. I mean morally wrong. Rudkin found that one of them had some secrets in his past: serious sexual assaults. Though he was never charged. Knowing that, I couldn’t keep him on as my patient so I told him I wasn’t the right therapist for him. He was very angry.’
‘I see.’
‘And then yesterday his body was found.’
Karlsson stared at her. ‘Morgan Rossiter was your patient?’
‘Yes. And my name was written on the wall of
his flat.’
‘My God, Frieda.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m not sure where to start.’
‘Then let me start: should I tell Petra Burge about hiring Rudkin?’
Karlsson was silent for a long time, one minute, two minutes. Frieda could hear the traffic rumbling along Euston Road. ‘No,’ he said finally.
‘Don’t just tell me what you think I want to hear.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you what would happen. It would get leaked to the papers by someone, your career would be finished, and it wouldn’t even help the case. The police will find out about his past in five minutes.’
‘I don’t need to be told I’m right.’
‘You know, Frieda, I’d stand by you if you were wrong. God knows I’ve done it in the past. This time you were probably right, in a messy sort of way. You need to think about what’s happening next. By the way, what is happening next?’
‘We’re going public. Tomorrow morning there’ll be wall-to-wall coverage. Petra Burge thinks it might help.’
Karlsson nodded. ‘That makes sense.’
‘No more hiding.’ She glanced around the room. ‘No more privacy.’
‘Are you dreading it?’
‘That’s irrelevant. Someone must know something.’
Karlsson stood up. ‘One thing,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Did you have me investigated too?’
For the first time that evening, Frieda smiled. ‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘You think I should have done?’
‘I’m your friend too.’
‘You are indeed.’
37
Everything was different: there had been attacks, but now someone had died. Morgan Rossiter’s face was in every newspaper, on the TV news. A middle-class young man brutally slaughtered, an apparently motiveless murder. None of the stories mentioned Frieda but she knew that was about to change.
All through that morning of interviews, she felt it was happening to someone else, not Frieda Klein but a stranger who was impersonating Frieda Klein. The same questions and the same answers, sentences on a loop, till by the end she couldn’t remember if she had repeated them or missed them out: performing what was real.
