Just before six, she got up, pulled on a dressing-gown and went downstairs to light the fire in the living room and make herself a pot of coffee. It was Sunday: she had no patients to see, no conferences to attend, no duties to see to. She had planned to go for a walk through the watery streets, visit the flower market, buy provisions, pop in at her friend’s café, Number 9, for a bowl of porridge or a cinnamon bagel, perhaps spend an hour or so making a drawing in her study, which was like an eyrie at the top of her narrow house. Instead, she sat by the fire, occasionally crouching to blow strength into the flames, drank mug after mug of coffee, and attempted to sort through the events of her week and the murky emotions that had been stirred up by the hearing and by Karlsson’s surprise reappearance in her life.
Then the doorbell rang.
Ten
Karlsson looked strange on Frieda’s doorstep, as if he was in fancy dress. He was wearing black jeans, a sweater and a leather jacket, and was damp from the rain. His hair was wet and clung to his skull, making him look older and thinner.
‘You gave me a shock,’ she said. Anxiety curled through her: he was not bringing good news. ‘You’re not wearing a suit.’
‘It’s Sunday,’ he said.
‘Can I get you a coffee?’
‘I don’t think so. Another time perhaps.’
‘Are you going to come in?’
‘Just for a minute.’ He stepped over the threshold. ‘I wanted to tell you that we’re having a meeting about the case tomorrow morning. We’re probably winding it up. I’d like it if you were there. You’ve probably got a patient, though.’
‘What time?’
‘Nine thirty.’
‘I’ve got a gap. I could come for an hour.’
‘Good. Someone you probably know is going to be there. Dr Hal Bradshaw.’
‘I’ve heard of him.’
‘He does some profiling for us. He’s pricey but the commissioner’s keen on him.’
‘I don’t want to get into a turf war.’
‘We’ll be deciding whether to send the case to the CPS. Will you come?’
‘All right,’ said Frieda. ‘But you didn’t arrive at my house early on a Sunday morning to tell me about a meeting.’
‘No.’
Now that the moment had come, he felt unwilling to speak the words.
She looked at him with concern. ‘Come through to the kitchen. I’ll make us that coffee – I’m having some myself anyway and you look like you could do with it.’
He followed her and she pulled a packet of coffee beans from the fridge. She took a white poppy-seed roll from a bag and put it on a plate for him. He stood by the window and watched her, not speaking. Only when the mug of coffee was in front of him and he had taken off his jacket did she sit down opposite him.
‘Tell me, then.’
‘With all the rain,’ he said, ‘there’ve been floods.’ He stopped.
‘Floods …’ Frieda prompted him.
‘Yesterday morning someone’s dog came across some bodily remains floating in a storm drain in Poplar. In the next couple of days, they’re doing the full identity check. Dental records, probably. But I know what they’re going to find.’
Frieda was quite still. She gazed at him with her dark eyes. He put out a hand and laid it across hers for a second. She didn’t respond, but neither did she pull away.
‘Kathy Ripon,’ she said at last.
Kathy Ripon: the young research student whom Professor Seth Boundy, specialist in identical twins and their genetic implications, had sent to Dean Reeve’s house the December before last, following information that Frieda had given him. Kathy Ripon, who had never been seen since but whose parents still waited for. Kathy Ripon, who lay across Frieda’s conscience like an unyielding boulder, and whose narrow, intelligent face appeared to her in dreams and in waking hours.
‘There was a locket,’ said Karlsson, quietly, removing his hand and picking up his mug of coffee.
Frieda had known that Kathy Ripon was dead. She’d known it a hundred per cent. But, even so, she felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. Speaking was a great effort. ‘Do the parents know?’
‘They were told yesterday afternoon. I wanted you to know before you saw it in the papers.’
‘Thank you,’ said Frieda.
‘It was different from the children,’ said Karlsson. ‘Dean didn’t need her. He didn’t want her. He just had to get her out of the way. She was probably dead by the time we heard she was missing.’
‘Probably. Maybe.’ She made a great effort to look at Karlsson. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘What? For being the bringer of bad news?’
‘Yes. You didn’t need to.’
‘Yes, I did. There are some things –’ He was interrupted by a harsh electronic version of ‘The March of the Toreadors’. He took his phone from his pocket and looked at it.
She saw his face become grim. ‘Work?’
‘Family.’
‘You should go.’
‘Yeah. Sorry.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Frieda.
After she had let him out, she scarcely moved, just leaned her head against the inside of the door. She tried to stop herself thinking about what it must have been like. That sort of empathy is no good to anybody, she told herself. But still. There had been all the celebrations about the children being found, triumphant press conferences, and all the time Kathy Ripon had been under the ground with nobody coming for her: a clever young woman, hard-working, anxious to please her boss, standing eagerly with her notebook and her researcher’s questions on the rim of the black hole of Dean Reeve’s life – and then being sucked into it.
Frieda hoped so much that Karlsson was right and that Kathy Ripon had died quickly, had not been toyed with or buried alive. You heard of such things: victims knowing their would-be rescuers were above them, but unable to make them hear. She shuddered. For a moment, her little house – huddled in the mews and surrounded by tall buildings, its rooms dim and painted with rich dark colours – felt like a vault rather than a refuge, and she like an underground creature hiding from the bright world.
And then, like a body rising to the surface of a murky lake, the thought came to her of Carrie Dekker talking about Alan, her husband, Dean’s identical twin. How he’d disappeared. She pressed her head harder against the door, feeling her brain working, her thoughts hissing. She couldn’t stop herself: the past was seeping into the present and there were things she needed to know. She wondered why she was doing this. Why was she going back?
On Monday morning, she had an eight o’clock session with a man – he seemed more like a boy – in his mid-twenties, who sat crouched over in his chair, his bulky body shaken by sobs for the first ten minutes, and then, stumbling from his seat and sinking down beside her, tried to get her to hug and hold him. He so badly wanted reassurance, a mothering presence to tell him that everything would be all right, that she would take the burden of it all for him. He was lonely and loveless and lost, and he wanted someone to care for him. He thought that Frieda could become his mother-figure, his friend, his rescuer. She took him by the chapped hand and led him back to his seat. She handed him a box of tissues and told him to take his time, then waited in her red chair while he wept and mopped his streaming face, all the while sobbing out apologies. She watched him in silence until his weeping subsided when she asked, ‘Why did you keep saying sorry?’