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

by Nicci French

‘There is one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  Frieda pointed at the dead plant.

  ‘What’s so unusual about that?’

  ‘If you go on holiday, you get someone to water your plants.’

  ‘You should see my place.’

  ‘I have seen your place. Many times.’

  ‘Then you know that it’s full of dead or dying plants. I keep buying them and I try everything. I overwater them and underwater them. I feed them, I starve them. And still they die.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem like a worrying detail to you?’

  ‘It looks to me like it may have been dead for a long time.’

  The two of them walked together into the bathroom. Frieda opened the cabinet.

  ‘Everything’s here,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Toothpaste, toothbrush, perfume, face cream, face wipes, shampoo, deodorant, Tampax, make-up, dental floss, indigestion tablets.’

  ‘That’s a logical error.’

  ‘What kind of logical error?’

  ‘You can’t see the things that aren’t there. The things she took with her. Her new toothpaste and toothbrush, her favourite perfume, and so on and so on.’

  ‘You may be right.’

  They walked back into the kitchen. Frieda opened the fridge while Karlsson opened cupboard doors. ‘Are we going to confess to Yvette about this?’ he said.

  ‘ “Confess” isn’t the right word.’

  ‘How would you feel if Yvette and I were to do this to your house when you were away?’

  ‘I think I’m beyond caring what people do to my house.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Look,’ said Frieda, holding up a small plastic carton of semi-skimmed milk. ‘Do you leave milk in the fridge when you go on holiday?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Karlsson. ‘Milk and almost anything perishable you can think of. I usually come back to find my fridge has turned into some kind of zoo of mould. It’s part of …’ And then he paused. ‘I’m not sure I want to show you what I’ve found.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Karlsson held up a passport. He opened it. ‘Before you say anything, yes, this is Yvette’s. But it changes nothing. I always assumed she was going somewhere in Britain. Wales or Scotland or the Peak District. Somewhere with lots of remote walks.’

  ‘The plant. The milk. The passport. Doesn’t that add up to something?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it adds up to someone who is distracted and a bit down, and left in a hurry. I’ve always trusted your instincts. Well, except when I haven’t. But, honestly, if you’ve been looking for some kind of smoking gun, this doesn’t amount to one.’

  Frieda felt dissatisfied but she didn’t reply. They went into the bedroom and Frieda opened drawers, picking up items of clothing.

  ‘I feel I shouldn’t be seeing this,’ said Karlsson. ‘For God’s sake, fold them so they’re the way Yvette left them.’

  After another half-hour of searching, Karlsson called a halt. ‘You’re looking in the places you’ve already looked. It’s time to go.’

  Frieda surveyed Yvette’s living room. The idea of leaving was unbearable. ‘There’s something,’ she said. ‘You know how when you have a local anaesthetic and you can’t feel the pain but somehow it’s still there somewhere? That’s what I’m feeling.’

  ‘We’re done here. There’s nothing.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Frieda spoke reluctantly. ‘And thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing me here and for not saying, “I told you so.” ’

  ‘I don’t do that, do I? I’m tempted, of course. But I don’t do it.’

  Back in the car, Karlsson switched on the engine once more.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She shook her head slowly. ‘Switch off the car,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘We’ve done this, haven’t we? Can’t we go home?’

  Frieda’s face was set hard in an expression Karlsson recognized. ‘There’s something wrong with Yvette’s living room,’ she said.

  ‘It could do with a few more pictures,’ said Karlsson. ‘More of a personal touch.’

  ‘It’s the television,’ said Frieda, speaking slowly, as if she wasn’t aware of her surroundings, as if she were somewhere else. ‘You remember the layout?’

  ‘Of course I remember it. We’ve just left.’

  ‘The television is against the back wall. The sofa is against the left-hand wall, and the armchair is facing it on the other side of that little glass table. Right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. So what’s the problem?’

  ‘How do you watch the television?’

  ‘What do you mean how?’

  ‘I mean where from?’

  Karlsson shrugged with an expression of puzzlement and slight irritation. ‘You sit on the chair. Or on the sofa.’

  ‘But they’re both at a ninety-degree angle to the screen.’

  ‘So you rotate your head slightly.’

  ‘You could do it once but that’s not the way you would set up your furniture.’

  ‘I cannot believe we’re having a serious discussion about the arrangement of Yvette’s furniture, but perhaps when she wanted to watch TV, she moved one of her items of furniture.’

  ‘You mean she dragged a heavy sofa across the room to watch the news?’

  ‘Or an armchair.’

  ‘We need to go back inside.’

  ‘Oh, please, Frieda.’

  ‘Just for two minutes. One minute.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘I’m counting to ten,’ he said. ‘In my head. Right. I’ve done. Now I’m calm again and we can go back into Yvette’s flat for two minutes.’

  ‘Thank you, Karlsson.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Frieda.’

  But he didn’t speak again as they got out of the car and he locked it, then fumbled for the keys and unlocked Yvette’s front door. As soon as she stepped into the room she fell to her knees and examined the carpet.

  ‘There,’ she said immediately. ‘I can’t believe I was so stupid.’

  Karlsson looked where she was pointing. There was a small depression in the carpet, circular, two inches or so across.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘So the sofa or the chair was there. I was right.’

  ‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘You were wrong. It was the sofa, by the way. Pull it back into position.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said sarcastically.

  He laid his hands on the sofa and pulled it out. Almost immediately he stepped back.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ he said. ‘Oh, fucking fuck.’

  Frieda stepped forward and they both looked at the words written in broad strokes on the wall: ‘Frieda Klein.’

  54

  Things happened quickly after that, although at the same time it all seemed in slow motion: Karlsson calling the police, calling Petra, making sure Frieda didn’t touch anything. Frieda wasn’t about to touch anything, or even move. She stood quite still in the glare of her thoughts, staring at the daubed words, reaching back to the time she’d last seen Yvette and calculating the weeks and days it had been since that time, at her house, when Yvette had emotionally pressed her phone number into Frieda’s hand, then Daniel Blackstock had arrived with that terrible photograph of Chloë. Yes, he and Yvette had met, she thought, and Yvette had talked of her vulnerable state and of her sabbatical. Then almost immediately after had come the attacks, on Reuben, fatally on Morgan Rossiter, on Jack. Two weeks, Frieda thought, counting back. Two weeks and three days. So little time, and yet such a long time if that was when Yvette had gone.

  Gone. But was she dead? She heard Karlsson speaking calmly, precisely, to someone on his mobile, giving instructions. Underneath his calm she heard something else. Horror. She forced herself to think. If Yvette was dead, why wasn’t her body here, beside the painted letters? She remembered Daniel Blackstock in the police station, that look of triumph in his eyes. Al
l this time, she thought, all this time, at every meeting they had had, every contact, he had been thinking of Yvette, his great secret. ‘You have no idea,’ he had said.

  She wasn’t dead, she was being kept by him. She was sure – she had to be sure. Where? She thought of Chloë in that room, pictured the way the light fell on the grubby mattress. She closed her eyes and concentrated, shutting out every other sound or thought, feeling as if a sharp point was screwing its way into her brain, so that at length it would reach some dark, hidden place and she would find the answer. What was she missing? What had she always missed?

  There was a hammering at the door and Karlsson went to open it. Light flooded in and hurt her eyes. People were coming in, men and women with stern faces, for it was one of theirs now, nothing else like it, and Karlsson, taking her by the elbow, was leading her out.

  ‘Karlsson,’ she said.

  But there was Petra, small and wiry, her eyes glittering in her bony face. ‘You were right,’ she said to Frieda. ‘What has he done?’

  Then she walked past and away out of Frieda’s sight. More cars were arriving. The bright day felt like a dream.

  ‘I think she’s alive,’ said Frieda to Karlsson. ‘He’s got her somewhere.’

  He looked at her but didn’t speak.

  Petra came out again, pulled off the gloves, bent down to remove her plastic shoes. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘This is it. Follow me to the station at once. We’ll haul them both in, grill them, call a press conference, the works.’

  ‘No.’ Frieda put a hand on her arm, stopping her as she was about to stride away.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Petra, fiercely. ‘This is what you’ve been asking for.’

  ‘Don’t you see? If he’s got her, we need him free to go to her. He can lead us to her.’

  ‘No.’ Petra shook off her hand. ‘We’re going to bring him in.’

  ‘If he’s brought in, who’s going to give her water, food? It’s very hot. She’ll die in days. You mustn’t.’

  ‘This is my call,’ said Petra.

  ‘No.’ They all turned. The acting commissioner stood on the pavement, tall and imposing, dressed in a charcoal-grey suit in spite of the heat, her face stern. ‘I agree with Dr Klein.’

  Petra looked at the two of them, her eyes flickering with anger at being overruled.

  ‘Is he under surveillance?’ asked the commissioner.

  ‘Of course,’ said Petra.

  ‘Make sure he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He mustn’t be aware of the search either.’

  ‘Which means it’s got to be limited, small-scale.’

  ‘We’ll risk that for the moment.’

  ‘There’s his wife,’ said Frieda. ‘We need her to be watched as well.’

  The commissioner nodded at Petra. ‘See to it. Call me in one hour and give me an update.’

  She turned on her heel. Petra looked at Frieda. ‘You’d better be sure about this.’

  The sun shone bright and hot through the window of Petra’s office. Frieda stood by the large map on the wall and put her finger on an intersection of roads. ‘There,’ she said. ‘This is where he lives. Nearby there’s a wasteland ready for development, a vast abandoned warehouse, floor upon floor of empty rooms. I’ve often wondered if that was where Chloë was held.’

  ‘This is assuming that Yvette is being held where your niece was held, and that it was near an airport, and this airport was City Airport.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She could be anywhere. Not even in London.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She could be dead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right,’ said Petra. ‘We’ll begin our search there.’

  Daniel Blackstock couldn’t stop smiling. Even when he tried to keep his lips firm, he couldn’t; they twitched open and he smiled and smiled. Sweat trickled down his face. The sun pricked his skin. He walked along the street slowly, stopping in front of shop windows, bending to tie his laces. He wasn’t stupid: that man in jeans and a scruffy T-shirt, and before he came, the young woman wearing headphones. Both trying to be casual. There was an ice-cream van and he bought a single scoop in a cone and sat on the bench near the small green to eat it. He took his time. Later, he would write that piece he’d promised his editor on being arrested a second time. Everybody wanted a bit of his story. His phone rang constantly and messages pinged on to his screen, invitations to write, to talk, to give his opinion, share his pain.

  He took another lick of the softening ice cream. Behind him was the river; in front, the old warehouses, the broken windows glinting in the sun. He let himself remember the faces of those two women, Frieda Klein and Petra Burge, as they’d looked at him across the table, one with sharp, pale eyes and one with dark, intense ones. They hated him, but hate was close to love. Dean Reeve knew that. After so many years of being invisible, of people who weren’t as clever as him ordering him about, Daniel Blackstock was now visible.

  He took another lick of the ice cream, then another. When it was finished he ate the cone, slowly, though, nibbling his way down to the point, like he used to do when he was a boy. He licked his fingers and wiped his forehead with a crumpled tissue. Then he stood up and walked home in a zigzag route. Give them some exercise. Tease them with hope.

  Lee Blackstock was sitting at the table in the spotless kitchen and crying. She kept trying to stop, blowing her nose and dabbing her face with a handkerchief, but then she’d remember being in the police station and what they’d said to her, and the tears would start again.

  When she heard his key turn in the lock she jumped to her feet and busied herself at the stove, so that her back was to him when he entered.

  ‘Apple crumble and custard,’ she said. ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘You used to say it was your favourite.’

  ‘Is that all you can think of?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Of course it wasn’t. She thought of being in one of those police vans and getting out, her head covered with a coat so no one could see her face, of standing in the dock and people staring at her. Tears filled her eyes again. She stirred custard power into the hot sweetened milk and watched it thicken.

  Daniel came over and put his uninjured hand on her shoulder and she turned. ‘Your eyes are all pink.’ He sounded irritated. ‘You’ve been crying.’

  ‘I was scared.’

  ‘What did you say to them?’

  ‘I told you. Nothing.’

  ‘Not even to her?’

  Lee Blackstock knew whom he meant: Frieda Klein, with those eyes that looked at her, looked into her, could see everything she most wanted to hide; whose expression was a terrible mixture of knowledge and pity.

  ‘No. I wouldn’t, Daniel. I just said “no comment”.’

  His hand was still on her shoulder, heavy and hot through the cotton of her shirt. ‘That’s right. Good girl.’

  ‘But –’ She stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What have you done?’

  She watched his face darken and was filled with fear.

  ‘If I’ve done anything,’ he said, ‘it’s for us. And if I have, you know what you are, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An accessory.’

  ‘I just did what you told me. That’s all.’

  ‘An accessory,’ he repeated, as if he could taste the word in his mouth. ‘That’s a serious business.’

  It was what they’d said to her at the station. And they’d said that it wasn’t too late: she could tell them what she knew. She lifted her eyes to his and he took his hand from her shoulder at last and tucked her hair, damp from sweat and weeping, behind her ears. ‘There now,’ he said. ‘You just do what I tell you and everything will be fine. You and me together, eh? You and me against the world.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘You and me.’

  There were ten
men, none in uniform. Karlsson was in charge. He separated them into pairs and he told them to be discreet: Daniel Blackstock’s house was just a few hundred feet away. Although it wasn’t visible, the estate was, and the road that circled through it.

  The warehouse where they were to start was like a ruined city that towered over the building sites around it, serried ranks of vast buildings joined together into a wall of red brick, hundreds of windows, dozens of entrances. Karlsson stared up at its crumbling mass and frowned. He needed a hundred men, not ten, and even then they wouldn’t be able to do an exhaustive search. He tried to do a rough calculation of how many rooms there were but gave up. He could see the length of the building but not the width.

  There was a main door, boarded and heavily chained. Before reaching it, there was the fence that circled the entire thing, with a padlocked metal gate. But Karlsson didn’t need to use the key that Feldman’s Security had given him. It was simple to get in through one of the many gaps in the wooden boards and walk across the caked wasteland of yellow-brown mud and thick weeds. Now he did use the key, but he could see that several of the tall windows on this section of the building were smashed and he imagined many others would be as well. Anyone could get in here, kids, couples looking for privacy and shelter, homeless people, the curious, the mad, the lonely and sad.

  Once inside, in the tall atrium that led to the store rooms, it was clear that people had come here. Scraps of litter stirred in the wind that blew through the open door. There were cigarette ends, a few needles, a sodden newspaper, an old shoe, the ammonia smell of piss. In one corner there was an ashy circle from a fire someone had built. Karlsson looked up at the steel girders, the wormy wooden rafters. Beetles must live here, spiders and bats and thick-tailed rats. Birds must build their nests. But was Yvette here? He wanted to call out, his voice echoing through all the empty spaces, to tell her they were here, they were coming, she was safe. Clumsy, tactless, honourable Yvette, who blushed easily and spoke abruptly and walked heavily through life.

  ‘There are ten floors in this section alone,’ he said to the officers. ‘Two floors for each pair. I’ll take the top.’

  He climbed the metal stairs. Some of the steps were missing. There was a thin banister, whose rust stained his hand. It was dim, but at each landing light fell in slabs through the windows that looked out at the shining sweep of the Thames, the Barrier glinting in the distance. His leg ached as he climbed. He could hear the men beneath him, their footsteps and low voices, and then he couldn’t, just the sound of water dripping, an old building creaking, a rustle somewhere, so many secret things stirring behind the walls.