Frieda remembered what Karlsson had told her about Michelle’s compulsive collecting – her bottles and nail clippings, all neatly ordered. Perhaps she had been trying to make the drab room in a run-down house in Deptford into a home, filling it with the only possessions she could lay her hands on – all the detritus of other people’s lives. Maybe she had been trying to fill the emptiness of her days with the comfort of things.
‘Who is it that you want to stay?’ she asked.
Michelle looked at Frieda blindly, then abruptly lay down flat in the bed.
‘Sit beside me,’ she said. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling, where strip lights flickered.
Frieda sat. ‘Do you remember why you’re here, Michelle, what happened?’
‘I’m going to the sea.’
‘She keeps going on about the sea, and the river,’ said Karlsson.
Frieda looked round at him. ‘Don’t talk about Michelle as if she isn’t here,’ she said. ‘Sorry, Michelle, you were saying about the sea.’
The woman who was wailing in the ward gave a sudden shriek, and then another.
‘Lonely, lonely, lonely,’ said Michelle. ‘Not for them, though.’
‘For who?’
‘They come to be near again. Like he did. Admirable.’ The unexpected syllables came out of her mouth like stones. She looked surprised. ‘That isn’t the right word. Not a patch on it.’
‘The man who was on your sofa …’
‘Did you meet him?’
‘How did you know him?’
She looked puzzled. ‘Drakes on the river,’ she said, in her rusty voice. ‘He never left me. Not like the others.’
She held out her roughened hand; Frieda hesitated, then took it. Outside the curtains, a nurse was talking in a brisk voice to the weeping woman.
‘Never left,’ repeated Michelle.
‘Did he have a name?’
Michelle stared at her, then down at their two clasped hands, Frieda’s clean and smooth, the hands of a professional woman, Michelle’s calloused and scarred, with broken nails.
‘Did you notice his hands?’ Frieda asked, following Michelle’s gaze.
‘I kissed it where it hurt.’
‘His finger?’
‘I said, “There there, there there.”’
‘Did he talk to you?’
‘I gave him tea. I welcomed him. I said to him, “My home is your home,” and then I asked him not to go away, I said “please” at the start of the sentence and at the end as well. Everyone leaves because they’re not really here. That’s the secret no one else understands. The world goes on and on with nothing to get in its way, just the empty world and then the empty sea. You can feel the wind that comes all the way from the beginning, and then there’s the moon looking at you and it takes a hundred hundred years to see. You want a final resting place. Like him.’
‘You mean like the man on your sofa?’
‘He just needs feeding up. I can do that.’
‘Was there an accident?’
‘I cleared that away. I told him it didn’t matter at all and he mustn’t be embarrassed. It happens to the best of us. I like to help people and give them things so they might want to stay. Wash their clothes and comb their hair. Sharing is caring. A problem halved. I could even give him some of my things, if he wanted to stay.’
‘Did something happen when he was with you, Michelle?’
‘He rested and I tended him.’
‘His neck was hurt.’
‘Poor love. He was so uncomfortable until I cleaned him up and made him better.’
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘Well, now. Dreaming all the while and then catching fish and then, of course, it was the one who never came home alive.’
‘This is getting us nowhere,’ Karlsson said, from the end of the bed.
‘Michelle.’ Frieda’s voice was quiet. ‘I know that the world is a scary and a lonely place. But you can speak to me. Sometimes talking makes things a little bit better.’
‘Words,’ said Michelle.
‘Yes. Words.’
‘Sticks and stones. I pick them up.’ Michelle stroked the back of Frieda’s hand. ‘You’ve got a nice face and so I’m going to tell you. His name was Ducks. His name was My Dear. You see?’
‘Thank you.’ Frieda waited a few seconds, then stood up and tried to pull away her hand. ‘I must go now.’
‘Will you come again?’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ said Karlsson.
‘Yes,’ said Frieda.
Eight
Frieda guessed it was him as soon as he appeared at the bottom of the road. He ran up the steep hill, his long, loping stride speeding up as he approached her, pushing himself harder and harder. He stopped beside her and bent over, panting heavily. The morning was bright and sunny and cold, but the man was wearing only an old T-shirt, running shoes and trainers.
‘Are you Dr Andrew Berryman?’
The man removed a pair of green earphones. ‘Who are you?’
‘I was put in touch with someone who passed me on to your boss and he told me to contact you. I need to talk to someone about extreme psychological syndromes.’
‘Why?’ said Berryman. ‘Have you got one?’
‘It’s about someone I’ve met. My name’s Frieda Klein. I’m a psychotherapist and I’m doing some work with the police. There’s a woman who’s involved with a murder and I’d like to talk to you about her. Can I come in?’
‘It’s my Friday off,’ said Berryman. ‘Couldn’t you have phoned?’
‘It’s urgent. It would only take a few minutes.’
He paused for a moment, weighing it up. ‘All right.’
He unlocked the front door and led Frieda up several flights of stairs and then unlocked another door to his flat on the top floor. Frieda stepped into a large bright room. It had almost nothing in it. There was a sofa, a pale rug on the bare boards, an upright piano against the wall and a large picture window overlooking Hampstead Heath.
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ Berryman said, and walked through a door to the left.
‘Shall I make coffee or tea?’ Frieda said.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ he shouted from the next room.
Frieda heard the sound of the shower and walked slowly around the room. She looked at the music on the piano: a Chopin nocturne. Then she stared out of the window. It was so cold that it was mainly only people with dogs who had braced themselves to go out in it. There were a few small children in the playground, wrapped up so they looked like little bears waddling around. Berryman reappeared. He was wearing a checked shirt, dark brown trousers and bare feet. He walked with a stoop as if he was apologizing for his tallness. He went through to the kitchen, switched on a kettle and heaped coffee grounds into a jug.
‘So you’re playing Chopin?’ said Frieda. ‘Nice.’
‘It’s not nice,’ said Berryman. ‘It’s like a neurological experiment. There’s a theory that if you do ten thousand hours of practice in some particular skill you attain proficiency at it. Constant practice stimulates myelin, which improves neural signalling.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘I’m about seven thousand hours in and it’s not happening,’ said Berryman. ‘The problem is, I’m not clear how the myelin is supposed to distinguish between good piano playing and crap piano playing.’
‘And when you’re not playing Chopin, you’re treating people with unusual mental illnesses?’ said Frieda.
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘I thought you were a doctor.’
‘I am technically,’ said Berryman, ‘but it was really just a mistake. I started studying medicine but I didn’t want to deal with actual people. I was interested in the way the brain works. These neural disorders are useful because they settle disputes about the way we perceive the world. People didn’t realize we had a bit of our brain that recognizes faces until patients had a headache and suddenly couldn’t recognize their own children. I’m not particularly interested in treating them, though. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be treated. It’s just that I don’t want to be the one to do it.’ He handed a mug of coffee to Frieda and suddenly smiled. ‘Of course, you’re an analyst. You’ll be thinking that my wish to turn medicine into a philosophical subject is an evasion.’