‘Is Joanna here?’
‘She’s in there with Rick.’
‘Rick?’
‘Rick Costello. Joanna, you’ve a visitor.’
‘Who is it?’ Hoarse and slightly slurred – that was the voice Frieda had been expecting.
‘You’ll never guess. Talk of the devil. Shall I take your coat?’
‘Can you tell me who you are first?’ asked Frieda. ‘You seem to know me but I certainly don’t know you.’
‘I’m working with Joanna.’
‘In what way?’
‘I’m helping her tell her story.’
‘Her story?’ said Frieda, cautiously. ‘Are you a writer?’
‘Me? No. I’m just the PR her publisher has hired to make sure she reaches the largest possible audience. It’s such a terrible story – and the strength it’s taken her to survive. Tragedy and redemption. With a real-life monster, as well. But you don’t need me to tell you.’ Janine looked at Frieda with a knowing smile. ‘I’ve heard about your role.’
Frieda took off her coat. All of a sudden she had a headache, like a band wrapped around her skull. ‘So she’s writing a book?’
‘It’s all done. We’ve been working on it for days. I’m just privileged that I’ve been chosen to help her. But you’re a counsellor so you know all about enabling people, don’t you? She’s through here.’
Janine led Frieda into a small room, hardly big enough for the large leather sofa and the deep, bulky armchair. The room was thick with smoke – and sitting in the thickest part of the cloud was Joanna, curled up at one end of the sofa with her bare feet tucked under her. Last time Frieda had seen her, her dark hair had been dyed blonde; now it was a metallic chestnut. But she had the same slumped posture and the same heavy-set face. It was pale, overlaid with tan makeup. A cigarette hung from her lower lip and an overflowing ashtray stood on the small table at her elbow. Her large body was squeezed into a pair of skinny jeans and a leopard-print top. The folds of her white stomach showed, and Frieda glimpsed the Oriental tattoo there. A young man with a pink baby face, spots on his forehead, was in the armchair. He was looking at Frieda suspiciously. His trousers had ridden up his legs, exposing yellow socks and shiny white shins.
‘Hello, Joanna,’ said Frieda.
‘You didn’t say you were coming.’
‘No.’
‘Why are you here, after all this time?’
‘I came to see how you were getting on.’
Joanna sucked on her cigarette. ‘It’s not just coincidence?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Now that I’m setting the record straight.’
‘I didn’t know about this.’
‘This,’ said Joanna, complacently, nodding towards the young man and jerking more ash from her cigarette, ‘is Rick.’
Frieda nodded to Rick, who held out a limp pink hand.
‘He’s my editor.’
‘Of your book?’ He didn’t look like Frieda’s idea of a publisher.
‘From the Sketch.’
‘I thought you were writing a book.’
‘It’s being serialized,’ said Rick.
‘I see.’
Janine bobbed her head so that her ponytail swung. ‘Can I get you coffee?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘So you didn’t know?’ Joanna asked again. ‘You haven’t been sent to spy?’
‘To spy on what?’
‘On me, on all of this.’
‘It’s too late for that,’ said Rick. ‘We’re pretty much done and dusted. It’s being lawyered as we speak.’
Frieda perched herself on the sofa and looked at Joanna, trying to ignore the two others. ‘You’ve written a book?’
‘That’s right.’
‘About what happened?’
‘What else would I write a bleeding book about?’ She stubbed her cigarette out and lit another. ‘What do you think of that?’
‘It depends on what you’ve said and why you’ve done it.’
‘It’s my story,’ said Joanna. ‘Everything I’ve gone through in my life. Snatched away, hidden, abused, beaten, raped, brainwashed.’ Her voice rose. ‘No one rescued me. And I don’t hold back. I don’t duck it. I looked after Matthew, you know. I saved him. There was a hidden core of strength in me. How else could I have survived everything? A core of strength,’ she repeated. Then: ‘You want to know why I’ve written it. To give hope to others. That’s why.’
‘I see.’
‘I need the money as well. I didn’t get compensation. Not a penny, after everything I endured. I lived in Hell,’ she said, ‘with a monster, for twenty-two years. You can never get back those years.’
‘Have you seen your family, Joanna? Have they read this book?’
‘They don’t understand. Rose comes round, but she just sits and stares at me with those big eyes of hers. She wants me to talk to someone about what happened. Someone like you, I mean.’ She took another drag on her cigarette, inhaling deeply. ‘It’s much better talking to someone like Janine or Rick. Anyway, she didn’t take care of me. She was supposed to be looking after me that day I was got.’
Frieda thought of Rose Teale’s stricken face, her enduring guilt: a good woman who’d been almost as much a victim of Dean Reeve as her younger sister. ‘She was nine, Joanna.’
‘My big sister. They all let me down. That’s what they can’t cope with.’ Joanna dropped the cigarette end on to the pile of dead stubs. ‘But I forgive them.’
‘You forgive them?’
‘Yeah.’
Frieda forced herself to think of why she had come here. ‘When Dean died,’ she said, ‘were you surprised that he took his own life?’
Joanna’s eyes flicked to Janine, then back to Frieda. ‘It showed he loved me, that he knew he’d abused me. It was his last spark of human decency, that’s what it was.’
Gobbets of the book flew past Frieda, phrases about strength, evil, goodness, survival, victims. She steadied herself. ‘So you never thought it was out of character?’
Joanna gazed at her, off-script at last. She gave a shrug. ‘He’d reached the end of the line.’
‘Have you seen Alan?’ asked Frieda.
‘Who’s he?’
‘Dean’s brother, his twin.’
‘Why would I see him?’
‘So you haven’t, not even once?’
‘No.’
‘What about June, Dean’s mother?’
Joanna pulled a face. ‘She’s gone demented. She wouldn’t know me if I did go and see her, which I wouldn’t anyway.’ She paused, then found her lines again. ‘The curse that’s passed down generations,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be on TV, you know. Rick says. He’s setting it up. And I’m in the paper next week.’
‘A major serialization,’ said Janine. ‘Over four days. You should read it yourself. An Innocent in Hell. You wouldn’t believe some of the things that are in it.’
‘I probably would.’
‘I don’t want to see you again, though,’ said Joanna. ‘I don’t like the way you look at me.’
Eighteen
For Yvette, it was mainly a matter of bureaucracy and logistics, like most of her job. Early in the day she obtained confirmation in writing that, since Flat 2, 14 Waverley Street, was associated with an indictable offence, no search warrant was required. She contacted the police station in Balham where the disappearance had been reported. From there she got a number for the woman who had reported Poole missing. She phoned Janet Ferris, and when she told her that a body had been found, the woman started to cry. From her, Yvette got the number of the landlord, a Mr Michnik. She arranged to meet Janet Ferris at the address, then phoned Mr Michnik and asked to meet him there as well. She had just booked the scene-of-crime team when her phone rang and she picked it up. A female voice told her that she had Commissioner Crawford for her. Yvette took a deep breath.