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

by Nicci French

  Yvette opened her mouth, but the wire around her neck was so tight that she couldn’t speak.

  Frieda looked round at Josef. ‘Have you got anything to cut this?’

  Josef reached into his jacket and took out what looked like a large penknife. He unfolded it, so that it became a pair of miniature clippers. His hands were rough and reddened with work, but he reached around behind Yvette’s head with extraordinary delicacy. There was a sharp sound and he was able to peel the wire away from her neck. She immediately began to cough.

  ‘I can’t see,’ said Yvette, her voice sounding scratchy.

  ‘It’s the light,’ said Frieda. ‘You’ve been in the dark so long. Just wait a moment. Your eyes need to get used to it.’

  Yvette took several deep breaths before she spoke next, and it seemed to take a great effort. ‘She’s here.’

  ‘What? Who’s here?’

  ‘She was saying things and hitting me.’ It came out on a broken sob. ‘Hitting and hitting.’

  Frieda saw the spreading bloodstains on Yvette’s shirt. There was also blood dripping from her forearm, as if she had raised her arms to ward off the blow. Frieda knew – knew from her own experience – that being stabbed felt like being punched. Frieda turned to Josef.

  ‘I go check,’ he said, and left the room.

  Frieda looked more carefully at Yvette’s injuries. There was no spurting, no pulsing of any of the wounds. That was something. She leaned in close again.

  ‘Yvette, can you see me yet?’

  Yvette nodded slightly, as though the movement hurt her shrunken neck. Her face was smeared and dirty, her hair matted.

  ‘I’m here. Josef is here. You’re safe.’

  ‘No,’ said Yvette, in a sort of sob. ‘No.’

  ‘You are.’ Frieda talked to Yvette in a soothing tone, as if she were a child scared of the dark. ‘You’re safe. But you’ve been hurt. You’re bleeding. I’m going to check you to see how things are, all right? It’s important that you stay where you are, keep sitting up, and people will be here to help you any minute.’

  Josef came back into the room.

  ‘Back door is open. Yard behind go into street behind. That where they park car. Bring Yvette in. Bring Chloë in.’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later,’ said Frieda. ‘That knife thing of yours, does it have scissors?’

  ‘Little ones. Small.’

  ‘Yvette. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Tired. Really tired.’

  Now Frieda spoke in a louder, more urgent tone: ‘That’s fine, but what you’re going to do now is to keep talking to us. It’s important that you stay alert. Do you understand?’ Yvette gave a murmur. ‘No, Yvette, you’ve got to say that in words. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to say the words: I understand.’

  ‘I understand.’ Yvette’s eyes stared. Her tongue was thick in her mouth. How long was it since she had had any water?

  ‘And now I’m going to cut your shirt off, so that I can look at you properly. Is that all right? Say yes if that’s all right.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Yvette sounded as if she were about to go to sleep. She mustn’t go to sleep. Frieda took the tool from Josef. First she cut the wire holding Yvette’s hands together and they fell limply to her sides. Then she cut right through the middle of the T-shirt from the bottom up to the neck. She carefully pulled the two sides of the shirt aside, making sure not to touch or move the knife. Blood had dripped down on to the light blue bra, but there were no wounds underneath on Yvette’s breasts. It was as if Lee Blackstock had avoided them out of some kind of compunction, some hesitation. Frieda could see three wounds in the stomach. They were bleeding, so much that the blood was pooling in Yvette’s lap. Even so, it was a good sign. The knife hadn’t hit an artery or a major vein. It was difficult to tell, but it didn’t look as if these stomach wounds were deep. Frieda imagined Lee jabbing at Yvette’s body, as if working up the resolve to really plunge the knife in. She must have been disturbed by the sounds from the street. If not, she would have done it again and again and they would have found Yvette dead.

  ‘It’s looking all right,’ said Frieda. ‘Can you hear me? Say yes if you can hear me.’

  ‘Am I going to die?’ said Yvette, in a slow, dreamy tone.

  ‘No, you’re not going to die. Don’t even say that.’

  She turned her attention to the knife handle, projecting obscenely from Yvette’s body. Josef followed her gaze.

  ‘I pull it out?’ he said.

  ‘No, no. Don’t even touch it. You might do more damage. It could be pressing against an artery. You’ve got to think of it like …’ She looked at Yvette. She didn’t want to frighten her. ‘It might be stopping something worse happening. It needs to stay where it is.’

  ‘What?’ said Yvette, sounding far away.

  ‘We’ve been checking you over,’ said Frieda. ‘You’re injured but so far as we can see the wounds are not serious.’

  ‘How you feel?’ asked Josef.

  ‘Are you here too?’ said Yvette. ‘Always together. Frieda and Josef. Josef and Frieda. I used to think you’d be a couple.’

  ‘Stop this,’ said Josef, hastily. ‘Rest now. Don’t speak.’

  ‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘She needs to keep talking.’

  ‘She’s wrong in the head.’

  ‘I was going away. On the train. Walking on my own.’

  ‘Where were you going?’ asked Frieda.

  ‘To Scotland. There was a ring at the door. He was there. I saw his face. So I knew then. And I knew he’d kill me. I knew I was going to die.’

  ‘But you aren’t.’

  ‘I’ve not been a good person, Frieda. Not been a good friend.’

  Frieda heard the sound of a siren and then a blue light flashing in the window, voices. She shouted to Josef. ‘Show them up.’

  He clattered down the stairs. Frieda took Yvette’s hands in hers. ‘Darling Yvette. We all just do what we can.’

  Frieda could feel and hear the heavy footsteps on the stairs. The house was shaking with them. And then the room seemed full of people in green uniforms. A tall, strongly built woman crouched beside Yvette.

  ‘Serious blood loss,’ said Frieda. ‘And you can see we’ve left the weapon in place. She’s been held captive. She’s severely dehydrated and malnourished.’

  ‘All right,’ said the woman. ‘Stand away.’

  Frieda stepped back until she felt the wall. Suddenly Yvette looked small and lost beneath the paramedics leaning over her, talking to each other in loud voices. Frieda watched with concern as they connected her to two separate drips, which they suspended above her.

  ‘Dying?’ said Josef, close by, murmuring into Frieda’s ear. ‘But she is strong and fighting, I think.’

  ‘Sometimes being strong and fighting is no help,’ said Frieda. Josef’s expression changed but Frieda shook her head and made an attempt at a smile. ‘But I don’t think she’s dying.’

  Frieda heard a muffled sob beside her. Chloë had come inside with the paramedics.

  ‘I told you to stay outside,’ she said, but not angrily.

  ‘I couldn’t. I had to see where … Is this it?’

  ‘Yes. This is it.’

  Chloë looked at the scene in front of her. ‘What did they …’

  And then she started to cry. Frieda folded her into her arms.

  Now the room was even more crowded, blue uniforms as well as green. Frieda suddenly felt almost faint in this blur of sound and vision.

  ‘You found her,’ said a voice beside her.

  Frieda looked round and saw Petra. ‘You need to find the Blackstocks. Both of them.’

  Lee fumbled for her phone. ‘They’re here,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said her husband.

  ‘I saw them on the street. Frieda. That friend of hers. And the niece. Chloë.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I got out. I had to get out.’

  ‘Co
urse you did. Are you safe?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was hard. Harder than I thought. I did what I could. There was blood everywhere. I got it on me.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘But it’s all gone wrong. They’re here. They know about you. And me.’ She gave a small moan. ‘We’re finished.’

  ‘It had to end this way. But we’re not finished.’

  ‘How can I find you?’

  ‘Not now. I’ve got to do something first.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s better that you don’t know anything.’

  ‘But what do I do? Where do I go?’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ said Daniel. He sounded indifferent. ‘Just don’t go anywhere you normally go. Get yourself something to eat. See a film.’

  ‘A film!’ She was bewildered. Panic rose in her, like a filthy tide.

  ‘Enjoy yourself.’

  ‘Daniel, I’m frightened.’

  ‘There’s nothing to be frightened of. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘When will I see you?’

  ‘I’ll find you. When I’m done.’

  59

  Daniel had always known that this time would come. He was in the end-game, but he could still win. After that, they could do what they liked and it wouldn’t matter. He would be justified.

  So Lee had done it. Who would have thought it? She had been the weak link in his plans, but she’d held together in the end, and now she’d outlived her usefulness. He wondered what would happen to her, when they would find her, but idly, for it seemed now that his old world and his old self were dissolving away, and all that remained was what was here and now. This was his moment – like standing in a spotlight, with darkness all round its bright circle. He, Daniel Blackstock.

  He had got off the train at Bank and taken the Underground to the Angel, Islington. When Lee had called he had been sitting by the canal, near the tunnel. On one side of him a man with a long straggly beard, wearing a combat jacket, was fishing with fanatical patience. On the other, a man wearing eye shadow and a purple cape was smoking a joint and singing to himself dreamily.

  People walked past in groups or singly. Runners plugged into their earphones; cyclists; dog-walkers. A boat chugged by. The two women and three men on deck were drinking wine and dancing to music he couldn’t hear. The sun was low in the sky. Soon it would be twilight. Soon it would be night.

  Daniel stood up and brushed himself down. He put his phone back in his pocket. He threw his baseball cap into the water. He opened the canvas bag and made sure everything was there: Yvette Long’s police ID; a length of coiled rope; several screwdrivers; a knife. He had spent long enough in Saffron Mews to know which buildings would give access to her yard. He needed only to wave Yvette’s ID in people’s faces and they’d let him through. And if the place was already crawling with police, he would improvise, like he had all the way. Look at what he’d done, how he’d come through, quick-witted and always thinking on his feet, making the plot up as he went along. He had written story after story about the crime that he himself had committed. He had been its director and its star and its publicist. He had snatched Chloë from under the nose of her friends. He’d taken Yvette Long, who was a police officer, and all those people whose job it was to find out such a thing hadn’t even noticed she was missing. He had wiped that smile off Reuben McGill’s face. He’d done for Morgan Rossiter for good, like snuffing out a candle. He’d stamped on young Jack’s hand until he had heard the bones crack and, at the same time, made himself an alibi that had foxed them all. No, not foxed her, but that was all. He let himself remember the way she looked at him with her dark eyes; looked into him, looked through him.

  But I am not nothing, he thought. Look at me. Look. Here I am. No escape for her. No escape from me.

  He lifted himself up on to the balls of his feet, then down again. He flexed his shoulders. His heart was beating loudly but quite steadily; his breathing seemed normal. He wiped his palms down his shorts and started to walk. Like a soldier walks: one two, one two, arms swinging, feet slapping on the hot ground, chin up, eyes ahead, looking for danger and seeing none. Past the homeless men and women, past the Canada geese with their outstretched necks, through Camden Lock and the thick throng of drinkers, glistening with summer excitement.

  He didn’t stop. If someone was in his way he barged them aside, spilling their beer, making them shout out crossly. Some looked curiously at the small man, who was smiling as he pushed into them, whose eyes were fixed ahead on nothing, and who walked like an automaton.

  Far from him, Lee Blackstock sat huddled in the thick undergrowth. She hadn’t moved since she had talked to Daniel on the phone. Perhaps, she thought, she would sit there all night and darkness would come and the stars would shine above her, and all the time she could watch the river ripple past in the distance. But then it would be morning again and what would she do? What would she ever do?

  The grass scratched against her bare legs and she looked down and saw blood. On her calf. On her left forearm. Perhaps there was some on her face. She licked the tips of her fingers and rubbed her cheeks and forehead. She felt hollow with hunger but nauseous as well. Maybe this was what morning sickness was like, but she would never have a baby now. It was all she had ever wanted: her own baby to hold and look after; to love and be loved. But Daniel had always said – she squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to think of Daniel. Or of that woman on the floor and what it had felt like stabbing and hacking at her flesh and blood everywhere and the eyes staring up at her.

  She rubbed at the patch of blood on her leg but it was sticky and wouldn’t come off. She scratched it away but now the blood was under her nails. She needed to wash, to change out of her clothes, to sleep. But where could she go? Not home. It wasn’t home any more: just a little box where she and Daniel had lived. The police would be there now. They’d be trampling across her clean floor, looking at everything, opening drawers, putting hands among her underwear, her little bits and pieces.

  She looked at the phone lying in her lap. He wouldn’t call again. He didn’t care. He had never cared, and she had always known that really. Now he was gone and here she was, just her, alone among the shrubs and weeds and darkness growing around her. She pulled her legs up and put her arms around them; she put her head on her knees. She waited, but waited for nothing.

  There was a sound above her and she looked up: a police helicopter was hovering. Was it searching for her? She held her breath and remained quite still, not a movement, though her limbs were quivering with terror and her chest was sharp with pain. At last it moved on, drawing the light with it. She let out her breath.

  She looked at her phone: it was past nine o’clock. She could call someone, beg for help, weep and confess and ask what she should do. Who could she call? Perhaps the woman at the residential home who came from Turkey. She couldn’t speak much English but she seemed friendly. But Lee didn’t even have her number.

  She had no one. She had nothing. She was no one, nothing, never. She was over.

  Lee Blackstock stood up. She put her phone in her bag and walked down the slope towards the river. The helicopter was far off now, like a toy. Still holding her bag, she walked into the Thames.

  Nobody had ever taught her to swim. The water was cold, and then it wasn’t so cold any more and it closed over her heavy, sad body, and for a while the body tried to save itself. But soon the struggle was over and what had been Lee Blackstock was carried east with the outgoing tide.

  Daniel Blackstock kept walking: around the corner and past the floating Chinese restaurant; under the bridge. The day was dimming. Ahead he could see the aviary of London Zoo, and large birds circling under its vaulted netting. He turned off the canal and was now on the edge of Regent’s Park. Cars, buses, bikes. He stepped into the road and heard horns blaring. He saw the s
un on the horizon, like a dark yolk. He heard someone laughing. A fresh wind was blowing and it cooled the sweat on his face and made him feel strong and ready. The world was rushing into him.

  Screwdriver. Rope. Knife. He saw her face before him. Cool face, watching eyes. How dare she look at him like that? Who was she, after all, but the woman he was going to kill?

  He was quite near her house now, just a mile or so away. The little house in the cobbled mews, with herbs in a pot and a tortoiseshell cat. He imagined her when she realized he had come for her.

  Left, right, left right. ‘Left, left, you had a good home and you left. Right, right, it serves you jolly well right.’ No stopping now. Traffic roaring, the hot fumes of exhaust on his legs, and then a curved road where there was silence. He could see the Post Office Tower. Great cranes against the sky.

  Just a few minutes away. He put his shoulders back and felt a tear trickle down his cheek.

  There was a van parked on the road in front of him, and as he approached, the door opened. A figure got out, but because the sun was behind it, Daniel couldn’t see the face. Just a cut-out blocking his path.

  ‘Daniel,’ said the figure.

  ‘What?’ said Daniel, and then he understood.

  ‘I knew you’d find me,’ he said. ‘We’re together now.’

  But before he had finished speaking, everything went black.

  60

  ‘I don’t agree,’ said Frieda.

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ said Petra Burge. ‘You might as well have “I don’t agree” printed on a card and just hand it to me after everything I say.’

  ‘If your team hadn’t let Blackstock get away, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.’

  Karlsson stopped pacing up and down Frieda’s kitchen and sat down at the table with the two women. Frieda looked at him with an expression that, even after all these years, he found unsettling.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to tell me to calm down,’ she said.

  ‘My leg’s only just recovering. I’m not risking another injury.’ He gave her a small smile, but his expression was sombre. Frieda knew that he was thinking of Yvette, in hospital a few streets away. ‘But look, Frieda, one thing we know is that Blackstock has nothing to lose. It’s almost certain that he’ll try to get at you. It’s Petra’s duty to make sure that doesn’t happen. You will be guarded both inside your house and out until further notice. End of.’