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

by Nicci French

  ‘Perhaps you try to remember and at the same time try not to,’ said Frieda.

  ‘It’s a blank, Frieda.’ Chloë clutched at her hair. ‘I can’t magically put myself back there.’

  ‘I thought that being here, in the place where it happened, might help.’

  ‘What – that I might sense something? Feel it?’ Chloë wrinkled her nose.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘This is insane.’ Chloë stared helplessly around her, at the people, the buildings, the cars and vans and motorbikes going past in the dusty heat of the day. Three bedraggled pigeons landed by her feet and started pecking at something on the pavement. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  Josef came towards them. ‘Where we go?’ he asked.

  Frieda looked at the two of them, then pointed. ‘Those huge buildings over there,’ she said. ‘That’s where the police are looking. They’ll probably go into the old factory after that. But I believe Yvette is being held in a newer building. Some new development, perhaps, but one that’s not quite finished.’ She heard her words: there was so little to go on.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Josef.

  ‘It must be standing empty, and it can’t be a place where anyone is actually working at the moment. Maybe a project that’s been abandoned – God knows there are enough of those around.’

  She opened up her A–Z and put her finger on a grid of roads. A plane flew overhead, coming to land and so close they could almost feel its heat.

  ‘We’re here.’ She drew her finger in a circle. ‘And this is the area we are going to search. OK?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Chloë.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why there? Why that particular circle? Why not there?’ She jabbed angrily. ‘Or there? Why not a larger circle?’

  ‘Because this is where Daniel Blackstock lives.’ Frieda put a finger on his road. ‘I am treating his house as the centre of the circle. And the circle is this big because that is the amount of ground we can reasonably cover today.’

  ‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?’

  Lee Blackstock left the house. The Stanley knife was in her shoulder bag: it was the one she had stabbed over and over again into her husband’s hand. She remembered how the blood had bubbled up on his skin, but the feeling of excitement had gone. She was cold in spite of the heat and felt slightly queasy. Her eyes ached in the sun’s glare.

  She walked slowly down the road, not looking round. There would be someone following her, Daniel had said, but just one person and it would be child’s play to lose them. He’d told her what to do, staring at her in the hot, impatient way that made her skin prickle.

  First, into the shops. She bought a tin of tuna in the first. She would make a tuna bake for supper, although it seemed impossible that they would sit down and eat a meal together. She walked into the newsagent’s, picked up magazines and put them back, then out again. Then she started walking towards the Thames Barrier Park, still quite slow, her neck aching with the effort of not looking back. Giant cranes hung above her, unmoving. The Thames was sluggish, like something in a bad dream. The grass was parched, the leaves dark and limp on the trees.

  Daniel had said that as she turned the corner by the entrance there would be a gap in the privet hedge that fringed the park that she could slip through and, sure enough, there it was. She went through it, stumbling in her haste, and now she was in the sunken garden, among the shrubs. There were lines of lavender bushes and other herbs, and the dry fragrance made her fear she would start coughing. She could hear footsteps passing by and she scarcely dared to breathe. She began to walk along the hidden path in the direction she had come from, fast now and almost at a jog, her bag bumping uncomfortably on her shoulder. In a few minutes she was back on the main road, among the crowds. She went into the first shop she came across. It was a DIY store, and she walked through aisles of paints, her breath coming in rasps that hurt her chest.

  Standing by the tool section, she took out the map that Daniel had given her and worked out her route to the point he had marked with a cross. When she’d memorized it she put it back into her bag, wiped her sweating palms down her skirt and stepped back out into the busy street.

  57

  ‘I tell you,’ said Chloë, angry so that she wouldn’t be distressed, ‘I’m feeling nothing, I’m sensing nothing. I don’t think I’ve ever been here before but that means nothing either. I don’t know what you expect from me.’

  They were standing on a small road that looped around a central patch of lawn with one tree planted at its centre. All the houses were brand new, some with curtains at their windows and cars in the parking spaces, though with muddy, rutted earth where gardens would be, others clearly not yet completed. The day was still hot but the sun was getting lower in the sky.

  ‘Is not here,’ said Josef. ‘Look.’ He pointed at a house several doors down, where two men in hard hats were perched on the roof. ‘People come and go. Is not possible.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Frieda pulled out the A–Z once more. ‘So we’ve been here.’ Her finger described their route. ‘Now we’ll go this way. OK?’

  ‘What’s the point?’ said Chloë. ‘I’m just trailing after you. I don’t know what you expect from me.’

  Frieda looked intently at her niece. Then she took out her phone. ‘Look at the photograph again.’

  ‘I don’t need to. I see it whenever I close my eyes.’

  ‘Please.’

  Josef walked away and stood with his back to Chloë, pretending to be absorbed in the pitch of the roofs.

  Chloë wrinkled her face in a grimace. ‘All right.’

  Frieda handed across her phone. Chloë gazed at the image of herself lying spread-eagled on the stained mattress. She stared at it for a long time, quite expressionless, then handed it back.

  ‘It’s like looking at a stranger,’ she said. ‘I can almost feel that mattress under me. Or feel myself trying to open my eyes but the lids are so heavy I can’t. And a smell.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s it.’

  ‘All right. You tried.’

  As they walked, her mobile rang. She pulled it from her pocket and saw that Petra was calling.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I thought you should know. We’ve lost sight of Lee Blackstock.’

  ‘How the hell could you let that happen?’

  ‘I’m as angry as you are.’

  Frieda paused. She didn’t know what to say.

  ‘What about Daniel? Have you lost him as well?’

  ‘He’s going on long circular walks.’

  ‘He knows he’s being watched.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘He knows.’

  The moment had come at last and he had planned what to do. But just as he was readying himself, his mobile rang. He saw the name on the screen: Suzie Harriman, the journalist from the press agency who was always being given the stories that should belong to him. His chest tightened and he was about to cut off the call, then changed his mind.

  ‘Suzie,’ he said.

  ‘Daniel.’ Her voice was breathy. ‘I’m so glad I’ve got hold of you. I’m writing a story about domestic violence and of course with all your expertise you’re the very person who can help me to –’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I am never going to help you again.’ He had a feeling of freedom and exaltation. ‘Because you’re a shallow, ignorant cunt. Flashing your tits around the office. I wouldn’t fuck you if I was paid to do it.’

  He stopped and waited but there was silence. She’d ended the call.

  For a moment, anger burned in him and the world seemed to sway. He took several deep breaths. That hadn’t felt as good as it should have done. But he mustn’t let himself be diverted: he had a task.

  He walked at a steady pace. He knew they were behind him, but a fair way off, and probably bored because of all the fruitless walks he’d led them on over the past days
. The Docklands Light Railway was on his right and he could see a small red train clattering towards him. Between him and it were expanses of wasteland, the slabs of paving split through and grown over by brambles and nettles and head-high weeds; the old rotting buildings where litter was piled high, smashed-up hulks of rusting cars, heaps of tyres, a remnant of a London bus turned on its side. He’d walked there many times, watching the gulls peck at the heaps of rubbish.

  He turned the corner. This was his chance. He took his mobile from his canvas bag and dropped it into the ditch, then took a deep breath, feeling it rip through his chest, and scrambled over the fence into the neglected area. He felt pain shoot through him as he landed, one knee giving way, a whimper coming from him. But he ran, bent low, to the shed where dozens of fridges with ripped-off doors and beaten-up washing-machines were stacked. He’d gone over this as he lay in bed at night, open-eyed beside Lee, or when he walked the streets, followed by the officers on his tail. He knew every move, so he didn’t have to think. Through the long shed, at a run, a foot kicking something soft – he didn’t want to think what that might have been – out the other end where the walls had given way. Now he wasn’t visible from the road. Past the great mountain of half-crushed cars and vans, seeing without seeing their ripped seats and smashed windows, the plants growing out of their innards. Down the steep incline and along the row of trees. He looked back, half expecting to see them just behind him, but there was no one. He ran towards the line of disused factories, their shadow falling over him so that he was suddenly cold in spite of the sweat pouring down his face.

  For a moment, beside a pile of coal, he stopped to catch his breath. Again, he glanced back and saw no one. Ahead was Pontoon Dock station. He took a baseball cap and a blue top from the bag and put them on. He took the pay-as-you-go phone from the bag as well and put it into his pocket. He’d thought of everything – even a new Oyster card, bought with cash. Although soon, of course, none of that would matter.

  Then he went up the bank and through the undergrowth and came to the station. He straightened himself. He slid his hands into his pockets. He even tried to whistle but his mouth was quivering and his lips were so dry he couldn’t manage it. The train arrived, he climbed on and pressed his face against the window.

  Lee had been walking more and more slowly. She had a raw blister on the heel of one foot and sweat had gathered under her breasts and in the small of her back. Now she stopped, for this was the place. This was the place and this was the time. Soon it would all be over. Once she had tried to kill a rabbit with myxomatosis that was dragging itself along the road outside their house. She had picked up a brick and stood over it, but it had looked at her with its bleeding blind eyes and she hadn’t been able to do it.

  She sat down on a low wall, put her arms around herself and closed her eyes. She stayed like that for several minutes, rocking herself slightly. Then she opened her eyes and put her hand into the bag to touch the Stanley knife and the longer one, the one that would do the damage. This was really going to happen.

  Frieda and Josef had done this once before, walking around a maze of interconnecting streets in search of a lost boy. They were silent, both of them looking, pondering, alert for some kind of sign. Chloë lagged behind them, her feet hot in their boots, not looking outwards at the rows of new houses and the building sites and the fences with large signs telling people to keep out, but inwards. She was thinking of the photograph of herself lying on the mattress with her legs apart and her dress up to her thighs, and she was trying to put herself back in that room.

  They had come to a crossroads with houses radiating out in all directions: small, square, red-brick and identical, each with a garage and a tiny front garden.

  ‘Which way?’ asked Josef.

  Frieda gazed around her. Her face was blank, her eyes dark. She pointed left. ‘That way.’

  It was quite deserted. The sounds of the world – the cars on the main road, the plane rumbling high above her – seemed very far off, like a dream, of normal life. The door was fastened with a large lock that Daniel must have fixed on and padlocked, but Lee had the key. She took it out of her bag, her hand trembling and her fingers thick so that she dropped it and had to grope for it on the gritty earth. At last she unlocked the door and gave a small push. It swung open and she stepped inside.

  The oppressive heat, the musty smell of a house closed up and unaired, of raw brick dust and sawdust, and something else: another smell. What was it? Fear clogged her throat: what would she find when she went up the stairs to the room on the left?

  ‘This is possible,’ said Josef.

  There was a plane high above it in the blue of the sky.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘These houses just left alone,’ said Josef. ‘Nobody come here.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Builders leave marks,’ said Josef. ‘No lorries come here. No scaffolding. Nothing.’

  They were standing at the end of a cul-de-sac, looking at a development of houses that were brand new, yet at the same time seemed neglected and abandoned. They stood in their individual plots of churned-up baked mud, their windows uncurtained and blank, their parking spaces unfilled.

  ‘Many sites like this,’ said Josef. ‘We need many houses. Here are houses. But building companies …’ And he made a dismissive gesture with his hand.

  ‘They go bankrupt?’

  ‘That is it.’

  ‘Let’s look.’

  Josef nonchalantly smashed through the door of the first with his foot.

  ‘Cheapest wood,’ he said contemptuously. ‘Like plywood.’

  Frieda put a hand on Chloë’s arm. ‘All right?’

  Chloë’s face was chalky. She bit her lower lip. ‘I think …’ she began.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The smell.’

  Josef gave a loud sniff. ‘Many houses smell like this. Cheap bricks and cheap wood, is it.’

  ‘You remember?’ asked Frieda, urgently.

  ‘Maybe. Yes. Yes, I do.’

  ‘Good. Well done. Now we need to search all these houses. Quickly.’

  Lee went up the stairs like an invalid, one foot on the step, then drawing the other foot up beside it. There wasn’t a sound save for the faint tap of her shoes and her laboured breathing. She stood outside the door on the left, listened and heard nothing. She pressed it with her fingers and it eased open an inch. The smell was stronger here, as if something was decaying. The light was dim: Daniel must have covered the window.

  She pushed the door open further and she stepped inside.

  ‘This is not good,’ said Josef, after the third house. He looked up the road. ‘There are many houses, Frieda.’

  ‘It’s one of these. It must be. We have to separate. Is that all right with you, Chloë?’

  Chloë nodded. Her lips were bloodless. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Frieda looked at Josef, who was staring ahead, his hand shielding his eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘Look.’ He pointed. ‘The house up there.’

  ‘Yes?’

  To Frieda it looked just the same as every other house.

  ‘The upstairs window. You see?’

  ‘It looks different,’ said Frieda slowly. ‘It’s not glinting.’

  ‘Is covered. Someone puts something over it.’

  And now they were running down the road, the three of them together.

  58

  ‘Call Petra,’ Frieda said.

  ‘I don’t have the number.’

  Frieda handed her phone to Chloë. ‘You’ll find it there. Stay outside for them.’

  They stood in front of the house. To Frieda it looked the same as its neighbours, but Josef shook his head. ‘Lock is different,’ he said. ‘Is changed.’

  ‘Can you get in?’ said Frieda.

  Josef gave something like a laugh and raised his foot and kicked at the door, then once more and there was a crack and the door swung inwards. He ran up the stairs, Frieda close b
ehind him. He turned at the top of the stairs and ran towards the front of the house. The door was shut. They both looked at it. Frieda moved to open it. Josef held her back and pointed to himself. Frieda shook her head. She turned the handle as softly as she could and pushed the door inwards. It was dark. Josef stepped forward and moved his hand inside, feeling for the light switch. There was a click and the room was illuminated. Frieda pushed past Josef. There was a shape on the far side, against the wall, and it took her a moment to make sense of it.

  ‘Ambulance,’ she said to Josef. ‘Now.’

  She stepped towards the shape, a hooded figure, seated on the floor, back against the wall. Frieda tried to take it all in. Something around the neck, some sort of ligature. Hands tied together with wire. Blue T-shirt with dark patches, oozing blood. On the body’s right side, high up above the breast, a knife-handle protruding, the blade sunk deep into the flesh.

  Frieda knelt down and pulled the hood off and saw what she was expecting to see, though so thin it was barely recognizable: Yvette’s pale, sweaty, dirty face, spotted in sores, eyes staring wide and huge in their sunken sockets. Her mouth was covered with masking tape. She gave a groan that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside. Frieda put her hand to Yvette’s cheek and stroked it. There was a smell of the filthy, emaciated body decaying. Mortal flesh.

  ‘Yvette. I’m here. Listen to me. I’m going to pull the tape off. It will hurt, just for a moment.’

  Frieda knew that she had to do this but she also knew that Yvette was bleeding. She didn’t know how seriously. The wrong movement could do even more damage. She put her left hand against Yvette’s forehead, holding it firmly against the wall. With her right hand she tried to get some purchase on the tape. With her thumbnail she managed to ease a corner of it away until she could grip it between her thumb and forefinger. She pulled it sharply away.

  ‘Take it slowly,’ said Frieda. ‘Just stay calm. I’m here. We’re all here. You’re safe.’