Sunday Morning Coming Down: A Frieda Klein Novel (7)

by Nicci French

  ‘Wanker,’ said Chloë.

  The image then cut to another man walking along the Thames Path. It was Daniel Blackstock. He stopped and leaned on the railings, looking out across the river as Hal Bradshaw’s voiceover identified him and told the story of how a dogged crime reporter had become the suspect in a series of alleged offences.

  ‘Daniel Blackstock,’ Bradshaw concluded, ‘is a valuable witness. A distinguished crime reporter and then – briefly and absurdly – a suspect, he has seen the legal process from both sides.’ Bradshaw walked into the frame and shook Blackstock’s hand. The two of them began to stroll away from the camera. Another cut, and the two of them were seen from the front, as they strolled along.

  ‘Daniel,’ said Bradshaw, ‘if I can begin with a personal question. How are you, after all you’ve been through?’

  Blackstock’s expression turned sombre. ‘Devastated, of course. I’m a reporter. But I’m not just a reporter. I genuinely wanted to help the inquiry. When I was sent some evidence, I didn’t print it. I went straight to …’ He paused.

  ‘Straight to who?’ said Bradshaw. They had stopped walking and he laid a gentle hand on Blackstock’s shoulder.

  ‘I went straight to Dr Frieda Klein.’

  ‘Maybe you should explain to us who Frieda Klein is.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I need to say too much because she’s a bit of a celebrity, these days. She’s a psychoanalyst who got involved in the Dean Reeve kidnapping and murder case a few years ago. Since then, Reeve has apparently had a strange relationship to her.’

  ‘Strange indeed,’ said Bradshaw. ‘But – I may not be remembering this rightly – hasn’t she had legal problems of her own?’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Chloë shouted at the screen.

  ‘She’s a difficult woman,’ said Blackstock. ‘I believe she’s been arrested a few times. And she was even on the run from the police at one point.’

  ‘And this was the woman who set the police on you,’ said Bradshaw. He pulled his jacket tighter around him and looked up at the sky. ‘It’s getting cold. What say we go and get a coffee?’

  The scene changed to Bradshaw and Blackstock in a café with a waitress placing large mugs in front of them.

  ‘Do you feel angry about what happened to you?’ asked Bradshaw. ‘Do you feel damaged by the experience? Being arrested, being under suspicion, is a terrible thing.’

  Blackstock looked thoughtful. ‘I wasn’t traumatized, because I knew I was innocent. The only anger I felt was that time was being wasted while the real criminal was out there at large.’

  ‘Not everyone would be so forgiving about what a person like Frieda Klein can do,’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘Can’t you sue them?’ asked Reuben.

  ‘No,’ said Josef. ‘I go see him.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Frieda. ‘Nobody’s going to do anything. But I need to hear this.’

  ‘I know,’ said Olivia. ‘It’s rather exciting hearing you being talked about on TV.’

  ‘Shut up, Mum,’ said Chloë.

  ‘It’s just that I haven’t known anybody famous before …’

  ‘Please,’ said Frieda.

  ‘Enough of this,’ Bradshaw was saying. ‘We both have skills in this area. You’re an experienced crime reporter. For years, I’ve tried to show that psychological profiling is a crucial tool in the solving of crime.’

  ‘How’s that going?’ shouted Chloë.

  ‘Sssh,’ hissed Frieda.

  ‘Sadly,’ Bradshaw continued, ‘it’s not been helped by amateurs and attention-seekers. But let’s talk about our own views on this tragic case. My own sense is that Frieda Klein is reaping the whirlwind of her own celebrity. It’s clear that the person who has assaulted friends and colleagues of hers is delivering a message to her. I think it’s significant that the one death has been of a Frieda Klein patient. It’s as if the murderer is telling Dr Klein that she’s in danger of forgetting her true responsibilities.’

  ‘But what about the murderer himself? Or herself?’ said Blackstock. ‘Have you developed a profile?’

  ‘I’m still forming my ideas,’ said Bradshaw. ‘But my preliminary thoughts are that the police should be looking for a white man in early middle age, strongly built, educated. He owns a car or a van. He is resident in London.’

  ‘That’s quite a large category.’

  ‘As I said, it’s early days. But what about you, Daniel? With all your experience in reporting crime, who is it that you think you’re looking for?’

  Blackstock paused before answering. ‘I’ve been doing this job for more than ten years. I’ve written about rapes and kidnappings and assaults and a few murders. What I’ve found is that when someone is finally caught, it’s a bit disappointing. They’re just an ordinary person. But I think this case is different.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I think you’re right that these crimes are a message. I just don’t think they’re a message to Frieda Klein. I think they’re a message to someone else.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘To Dean Reeve?’

  ‘You’re the profiling expert, not me. But that sounds like an interesting possibility.’

  ‘It’s my experience that these crimes usually escalate. Do you think it’s possible that, with this murder, this particular spree may be over?’

  Now Blackstock spoke slowly and he looked from the camera to Bradshaw and back to the camera, as if he wasn’t sure which to address. Frieda suddenly had the feeling that he was speaking to her personally. But was it her or could it be someone else?

  ‘I’ve got an odd feeling about these crimes. That was why it felt so strange when I was in custody. I think that this perpetrator, whoever he is, isn’t doing what people think he’s doing. I think he’s one step ahead.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Bradshaw.

  ‘I don’t know. But we’ll all find out.’

  Bradshaw turned to the camera. ‘That was Daniel Blackstock,’ he said, ‘reporter and innocent victim. Until next time, good night.’

  Frieda leaned forward and switched off the television. She looked around at Reuben and Josef and Olivia and Chloë. ‘What?’

  ‘You should report him to the General Medical Council,’ said Reuben.

  ‘I’m not reporting anyone to anything.’

  There was an immediate babble of voices but Frieda paid them no attention, lost in her own thoughts.

  ‘Hey,’ said a voice beside her. It was Reuben. ‘I’m sorry you’re having to go through this.’

  Frieda looked at her old friend and supervisor. ‘That doesn’t matter. I was interested in what Daniel Blackstock was saying. It felt like he was talking to me.’

  Reuben laughed. ‘When people start thinking that their television is talking to them personally, that’s generally the moment when they need to stop seeing a psychoanalyst and start seeing a psychiatrist.’

  Frieda shook her head. ‘There was something there,’ she said.

  When Frieda was led into Petra Burge’s office, the detective was on the phone but she saw Frieda and waved her into a chair. Apparently the person at the other end of the line was doing most of the talking. After several minutes the call ended.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Petra.

  ‘New case?’

  ‘New budget.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I know you’ve got your own problems. I thought I’d be seeing you in here.’

  ‘Did you see the TV?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘So what did you think?’

  ‘I didn’t think much of it. But basically I’d rather Hal Bradshaw was fucking around making TV programmes than fucking around on police inquiries.’

  ‘But what did you think of the programme?’

  ‘Look,’ said Petra, ‘I know it’s worse for you. The police were attacked in general, but you were attacked in person. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I don’t
care about that. If I were Hal Bradshaw, I’d hate me too. None of that matters.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘I thought it was interesting.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Frieda got up. There was a water-cooler in the corner of the office. She walked across, filled two plastic glasses and brought them back.

  ‘One of the things I’ve learned from my job,’ she said, ‘is that when people are asked a question, they answer it. They may not think they’re answering, but they are. They may think they’re lying, but a lie is still revealing.’

  ‘So what lie did Daniel Blackstock tell?’

  ‘I don’t think he even lied. Bradshaw asked him about the killer and he said that he thought the killer wasn’t doing what people think he’s doing and that’s he’s one step ahead. I thought that was a strange thing to say. It’s somehow weirdly vague and weirdly specific at the same time.’

  ‘I can see the vague bit. What’s the specific bit?’

  ‘I think we’ve been looking at things the wrong way round,’ said Frieda. ‘We’ve been waiting for him to do something. What if he’s already done it?’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘That’s the problem. I can’t see what it would be.’

  ‘There’s another minor problem, of course, which is that it can’t be Daniel Blackstock. You may remember he has an alibi.’

  ‘Yes, I wanted you to talk about that.’

  Frieda looked around. Petra had a map of central London on her wall. Frieda walked over to it and described how she had walked from the hospital in Poplar to Olivia’s house in Islington, how Blackstock could have managed it with a car, but that it would have needed the help of his wife.

  ‘Convinced?’ she said, when she had finished.

  ‘All right, it’s not physically impossible. But would it work? Would he do that to himself?’

  ‘I think he would have needed her to do it for him,’ said Frieda.

  ‘Possibilities aren’t evidence.’

  ‘But you realize that this is urgent. Last night I think Daniel Blackstock was telling us – telling me in particular – that he’s already done something. We can’t just wait.’

  ‘Yes, we can.’

  ‘In particular, you can’t. You have to bring them in. Both of them. Put them under pressure. Her especially.’

  ‘Under pressure?’ said Petra. ‘What is this? Guantánamo Bay? We can ask them questions and they can refuse and that’s that.’

  ‘No,’ said Frieda, shaking her head. ‘There’s something happening out there. You have to act now.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I’m not convinced Daniel Blackstock is a suspect,’ said Petra. ‘And, to be honest, I’m not convinced he was talking specifically to you via the television.’

  ‘Petra, you have to bring him in.’

  ‘I don’t think they’ll crack in twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I thought it was ninety-six hours in a murder case.’

  ‘In very specific circumstances, which we don’t have.’

  ‘But will you do it?’

  Petra drummed her fingers restlessly on the desk. ‘I’ll consider it.’

  52

  ‘Déjà vu,’ said Daniel Blackstock. His nose was red from the sun, his cheeks pink. He smiled at Petra, smiled at Don Kaminsky, settled back in his chair, put his hands behind his head. Maybe he wasn’t so calm, after all, thought Petra. There were circles of sweat under his arms. She read him his rights again.

  ‘Got you.’ He sat up straight and took a notebook out of his jacket pocket and a pencil. ‘All right with you two if I make notes?’

  ‘It’s all going to be on tape.’ Petra gestured at the machine, which was silently whirring.

  ‘For my next story. Part two, as it were.’

  ‘You are also entitled to a lawyer. If you don’t have one, we can get you one.’

  ‘I do believe you’re using the exact same words as last time.’ He wrote busily.

  ‘Would you like a lawyer?’

  Daniel Blackstock bounced his pencil on his notebook a few times.

  ‘Maybe I would,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve been a crime reporter too long to have much faith in the police.’

  ‘Very well. Shall we get one for you?’

  ‘Do that.’

  ‘Right. In the meantime, we’ll go and talk to your wife.’ She looked at his expression; it didn’t alter. But he jiggled his right knee. He seemed an odd mixture of nervous and cocky.

  ‘No comment,’ said Lee Blackstock. She sat very straight in her chair, her hands folded in her lap. She was wearing a pale blue shirt-dress and her hair was slightly greasy so that it lay flat on her head, the fringe almost in her eyes, making her blink. Her lips were pale and dry and she licked them repeatedly. She spoke dully, like a schoolgirl repeating a lesson learned by rote, each word separated from the next, and did not meet Petra’s gaze but looked slightly to one side.

  ‘You do understand, Mrs Blackstock, that the charge of conspiring with another to pervert the course of justice is a serious one, which can carry a long prison sentence.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We are interested in the night that your husband injured his hand. Do you remember that night?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘It’s a simple enough question, surely.’ Lee Blackstock continued staring just past her. ‘Was he at home with you that evening, when he cut his hand?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘On August the twenty-ninth, at about half past nine in the evening, you called one one one and reported the accident.’ Lee didn’t say anything. Petra saw her unfold her hands and wipe the palms on her dress. ‘Was your husband with you when you made that call?’ She waited a few seconds. ‘Or did you make the call, then drive to meet him at a prearranged place?’ She thought of what Frieda had said yesterday. ‘Lee, did you perhaps inflict that wound yourself, to give your husband an alibi?’

  ‘No comment,’ said Lee Blackstock. Her voice was hoarse. She coughed, putting up a hand to her mouth.

  ‘I know that it is very painful to give evidence against a partner,’ said Petra, softly. ‘Very hard. But you need to tell us, Lee. If your husband has done something bad, you mustn’t shield him. That would be very wrong and you’d be getting yourself into big trouble.’

  The silence in the room was thick. Petra could hear the cassette machine running; beside her Don Kaminsky shifted in his seat. She watched Lee’s face intently.

  ‘This is about a series of brutal attacks,’ she said. ‘And a murder. Someone has been killed. So if there’s anything you know, you can tell me. It’s not too late.’

  Lee looked down into her lap; now Petra could see only the crooked parting in her hair.

  ‘No comment,’ she said.

  The duty solicitor, Simon Neaves, was a man in late middle age, with receding grey hair and pouches under his eyes. Everything about him seemed worn, from his suit to his battered leather briefcase to his air of frayed tiredness.

  ‘We are interested in your alibi for the evening of August the twenty-ninth,’ said Petra, after she and Don Kaminsky had resumed their seats, turned on the tape and read his rights once more. ‘I know you gave us an account of that evening before.’ She picked up her file and pulled out his statement. ‘Yes. Here we are. I’d just like to go through it again.’

  Simon Neaves nodded at Daniel Blackstock. Daniel Blackstock nodded at Petra.

  ‘I’m not going to say anything different,’ he said genially. ‘I was cutting lino tiles. My hand slipped. The Stanley knife cut my hand. My wife called one one one. Then she drove me to the hospital and I was stitched up. I’m sure you’ve had all this corroborated by the hospital.’

  ‘What time did the accident occur?’

  ‘About nine thirty.’

  ‘And when did you get to the hospital?’

  ‘Sometime around ten fifteen. I’m sure the hospital records will give you the exact t
ime.’

  ‘So at exactly the time that someone was attacking Mr Dargan, you conveniently have a verifiable alibi.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Simon Neaves. ‘Which makes it rather strange that Mr Blackstock is here.’

  ‘There is no evidence at all that you were in your house at the time of the accident. We only have your wife’s word for it.’

  ‘My hand –’ began Blackstock, then stopped with a visible effort.

  ‘Your wound could have been inflicted anywhere. Outside the hospital, for instance.’

  Blackstock’s face flushed. He leaned forward, but the solicitor laid a hand on his shoulder briefly and he sat back again, straightened his shoulders. ‘No comment,’ he said.

  ‘You could have driven from Islington, met your wife and driven to the hospital. And that would make sense,’ continued Petra, ‘of the unrealistic neatness of the timing, and of the fact that your alibi was established after we had taken you in for questioning. Almost as if you attacked Mr Dargan to prove that you hadn’t attacked either him or anyone else.’

  ‘Are you going to ask a question?’ Blackstock made the words sound derisory.

  ‘We are talking to your wife, of course, to see if she wants to change her story. And we are checking CCTV.’ She watched his face carefully. He looked hot. His brown eyes were sharp. ‘But in the meantime, I want to ask you about other times and dates. Can you tell me where you were on August the twenty-second?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘As you probably know, this was the night that Reuben McGill was attacked and badly injured in his own home. Do you have an alibi for that evening as well?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Where were you over the weekend of August the thirteenth and fourteenth?’

  ‘How do I know? Probably with my wife, watching telly and –’ He broke into a strange smile. ‘I don’t know. Domestic tasks. Like cutting lino tiles.’

  Petra rang Frieda.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I don’t know, Frieda. He’s a smug bastard, but so are lots of people. I haven’t got anything on him.’