‘I’m not sure that will be possible.’
‘It would be a crime not to,’ said Berryman. ‘And when she’s investigated, I’d bet that she’s either been a chronic drinker or drug addict, or that she’s suffered a severe head injury or, most likely, she’s got a brain tumour. So whoever’s investigating her probably needs to get a move on.’
‘She’s a person. A suffering person.’
‘A very interesting suffering person,’ said Berryman. ‘Which is more than you can say for most people.’
‘So her evidence, all the statements she’s made, are just gibberish.’
Berryman thought for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t say that. She doesn’t see the world the way we do. There’s probably not much point in asking whether she killed that man because she doesn’t know the difference between being dead and being alive, but she felt to me like someone who was trying to tell the truth as she saw it. I’d guess it’s pretty frightening. It must feel like she’s been born into a different, very strange kind of world. You could try paying attention to what she says about it. And that’s what you do, isn’t it?’
‘And you don’t?’ said Frieda.
Berryman’s expression hardened. ‘I sometimes feel like carrying around a little card, which I’d give to people like you. It would say that a lot of the science that ends up helping people is undertaken by men and women who are doing it for its own sake, and that going around weeping for those who suffer doesn’t mean you’re actually doing anything to help them. Except that that’s a bit too much to fit on a little card, but you know what I mean.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Frieda. ‘You came all this way with a strange woman on your day off. That was a good thing.’
His expression relaxed. ‘I think she should be moved to a ward by herself.’
‘Do you?’
‘Certainly. Being surrounded by people will not help her one bit. She needs quiet.’
‘I’ll ask,’ said Frieda, doubtfully.
Berryman waved his hand. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll see to it,’ he said airily.
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ He considered Frieda for a moment. ‘You’re working with the police?’
‘At arm’s length.’
‘How did that come about?’
‘Some other time,’ said Frieda. ‘It really is a long story.’ She turned to look at Michelle Doyce, who hadn’t picked up her magazine and was staring in front of her. Then Frieda thought of something quite different. ‘That syndrome,’ she said.
‘Which one?’
‘The one where they think someone they love has been replaced.’
‘Capgras Syndrome.’
‘It must be terrifying,’ said Frieda. ‘I mean, so terrifying that we can’t really imagine how terrifying.’
As they entered the lobby, she stopped him. ‘Can you wait for me for just a couple of moments?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘Thanks.’
Frieda went into the hospital shop. There were racks of magazines, shelves of crisps, sweets and unhealthy-looking drinks, a paltry collection of shrivelled apples and dried-out oranges, books of Sudoku and, in the corner, a basket of toys. Frieda went over and started rummaging through them.
‘Can I help you?’ asked the woman at the desk. ‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’
‘A teddy bear.’
The woman’s face softened. ‘You’ve a child in there,’ she said. Frieda didn’t contradict her. ‘I’m not sure we have actual teddies, though. There’s a very popular doll that cries when you sit it up.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Frieda pulled out a green velvet frog with protuberant eyes, then a rag doll, with long, spindly legs, and a small, shabby-looking snake. Near the bottom of the basket was a squashy dog, with soft floppy ears and button eyes. ‘This will do.’
She ran up the stairs to the ward and stopped at the desk.
‘Do you think you can give this to Michelle Doyce in bed six?’
‘Don’t you want to give it her yourself?’
‘No.’
The nurse shrugged. ‘All right.’
Frieda turned to go, but at the double doors she stopped. Out of sight, she saw the nurse hand the dog to Michelle. Frieda watched intently: Michelle sat the dog beside her on the pillow and nodded at it respectfully. Then she put out one finger and touched its nose, smiling shyly; she picked up her glass of water and held it under its snout. Her face wore an expression of tender solicitousness and anxious happiness; it had taken that little. Frieda pushed the doors and slipped through them.
Some days she slept. It was wrong, she knew, but torpor would settle on her and she would curl herself up into a ball of body and thick clothes and damp hair and close her sticky eyes and let herself go, drifting down through murky dreams, green weeds and silky, shifting mud. She was half aware that she was asleep: her dreams would get tangled up with what was going on around her. The footsteps on the towpath, the rise and fall of voices, shouted instructions coming from the rowing boats that passed her boat.
When she woke, she would feel thick and stale with sleep. And guilty. If he could see her, he would be angry. No, not angry. He would be disappointed. Let down. She hated that. She remembered her mother’s slumped shoulders, the brave smile that wavered and disappeared. Anything was better than disappointing people.
On this day she had let herself sleep, and when she jerked awake, she couldn’t remember where she was – saliva on her chin, her hair itchy and her cheek sore from the rough fabric of the seat where she lay. She couldn’t remember who she was. She was nobody, just a lumpy shape without a name, without a self. She waited. She let herself know herself again. She pressed her forehead against the narrow window and stared outside at the shifting river. Two grand swans sailed past. Vicious, vicious stares.
Nine
‘This case.’ Commissioner Crawford spoke with barely concealed irritation. ‘Are you winding it up?’
‘Well,’ began Karlsson, ‘there are several –’
‘I looked at the preliminary report. It seems pretty straightforward. The woman’s not all there.’ The commissioner tapped the side of his forehead with a finger. ‘So the outcome doesn’t matter much. The victim was killed in a frenzy. She’s already in a psychiatric hospital anyway, out of harm’s way.’
‘We don’t even know who the victim is yet.’
‘Drug-dealer?’
‘There’s no evidence for that.’
‘You’ve done a search through missing people?’
‘Nothing there. I’m about to interview the other residents of the house to see if they can move us forward.’
‘I’m not convinced this is a good use of your time.’
‘He was still murdered.’
‘This isn’t like your missing children, Mal.’
‘You mean people don’t care?’
‘It’s all about priorities,’ said Crawford, frowning. ‘Take Jake Newton with you, at least. Show him the crap we have to deal with.’
Karlsson started to speak but Crawford interrupted him. ‘For God’s sake, wrap this one up for me.’
Today Jake’s trousers were thin-striped corduroys and his shoes were a pale tan, highly polished with yellow laces. He put up an umbrella as he got out of the car – for it was now pouring with a rain that was thickening towards snow – and walked into the house with care, holding his buttonless jacket closed with one hand. The barriers had been taken down, the crowds had long since gone, and there was no sign that a crime had ever been committed here, except for the tape across Michelle Doyce’s door. There was the same rubbish in the hall, the same smell of shit and decay that coated the back of Karlsson’s throat and made Jake Newton wince. He pulled a large white handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose several times, unnecessarily. ‘A bit close in here, isn’t it?’