‘What did you do?’
‘I wanted to get up and hug her. But you would have been proud of me. I didn’t do anything.’
Frieda looked at him suspiciously. Was he being sarcastic? ‘What happened?’
‘I gave her a tissue. She finished crying. She apologized. I said she didn’t need to apologize. I said that when she was with me she could say anything, express any emotion. The thing is, she doesn’t know what she feels – whether it’s grief or anger, guilt or humiliation, or the simple sad fact that she doesn’t have a child and all that she ever wanted was to be a mother.’
‘Probably all of those things.’
‘Yeah. Also, I think she was so used to being the strong one for Alan that now she doesn’t know who she is or how to be. That she has to learn again who she is in the world.’
‘It sounds as if it went well.’
‘I still don’t know what that means. The second time, just before she left, she talked about how she’d thought she wanted to talk to someone like you but that now she saw it was better to have a man.’
‘By which she meant better to have you.’
‘Does that sound rude?’
‘No. It makes sense.’ She sipped her green tea. The woman in the shop was cutting open the plastic-wrapped papers and arranging them on racks. ‘I Want My Love Rat Back,’ read one headline.
‘She said she used to hate you,’ continued Jack. ‘She blamed you for everything that happened, but – Frieda? What’s up?’
Frieda pointed towards one of the tabloid newspapers. The Daily Sketch.
‘Oh, my God,’ said Jack. ‘Is that you again? Just ignore it. It’s not worth bothering about.’
‘I can’t ignore it,’ said Frieda. She took the paper from the rack and brought it back to the table.
‘It’s not the main story,’ said Jack.
The main story was about a rock star in rehab. Along the bottom of the front page was a smaller story: ‘Dodgy Doc in Botched Murder Probe’. Alongside there was a photograph of Frieda.
‘Dodgy,’ said Jack. ‘Isn’t that libellous?’
‘I appeared before a medical tribunal. Maybe that’s enough.’
‘Nice picture, though.’
‘Someone’s taken it without me knowing,’ said Frieda. ‘In the street somewhere. They must have been following me.’
‘Is that legal?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s written by Liz Barron. Who is she?’
‘I’ve met her,’ said Frieda. ‘She knocked at my door.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing. Now shut up. I need to read this.’
Frieda took a sip of her tea. She took a few deep breaths and then she forced herself to read the article word by word. She read the story on the front page and when she turned it to continue reading she gave a start. Accompanying the story was a photograph of Janet Ferris and the sketched portrait of Robert Poole that she herself had made, using the photo of his decomposing face. She finished the rest of the article slowly and deliberately, word by word. Then she sat back.
‘What does it say?’ said Jack.
‘Read it for yourself.’
‘I don’t really want to. Can’t you just tell me?’
‘All right,’ said Frieda. ‘I think the basic point is that at a time when the police force is facing severe funding cuts it’s inappropriate that they should be hiring a therapist. Especially a discredited one. Especially when they already have qualified experts, like Dr Hal Bradshaw.’
‘Is he the one who appears on TV?’
‘That’s what they say. And somehow they’ve tracked down Poole’s neighbour, Janet Ferris. She’s not happy with the way things are going.’ Frieda picked up the paper and looked for the exact quotation. ‘“The police aren’t taking this seriously enough,” she says. “Nobody seems to care. Bob Poole was a lovely man, and he was generous to a fault. He used to bring little gifts over, on the spur of the moment. We swapped books, even did a picture swap. He said it was like a change of scene for us both. I returned it, of course. I returned everything that belonged to him, there’s nothing left. But I still can’t believe I’ll never hear his knock at my door or see his smiling face. He has been abandoned by everybody yet I will never forget him.”’
‘How did the journalist find out about this woman?”
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did they talk to Karlsson?’ said Jack, angrily. ‘Did he stand up for you and tell them all that you’ve done?’
Frieda ran her finger down to the end of the article. ‘“A police spokeswoman said, ‘It is not our policy to comment on operational matters but Dr Klein is not playing any significant part in the inquiry. We are always grateful for co-operation from any member of the public.’ She said that the investigation was continuing.”’
‘That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement,’ said Jack. ‘How does it make you feel, being written about like that? Don’t you feel violated?’
Frieda smiled. ‘Violated? Are you being my therapist now?’
Jack looked embarrassed and didn’t answer.
‘So what would you say if you were my therapist?’
‘I’d ask you how the article makes you feel.’
‘And you wouldn’t ask if I feel violated?’
‘I wasn’t saying that as a therapist,’ said Jack. ‘By the way, how does it make you feel?’
‘It makes me feel like somebody else’s property,’ said Frieda. ‘Which I don’t like.’
Jack picked up the newspaper and looked at it. ‘“Abrasive brunette,”’ he said. ‘That doesn’t seem quite right.’
‘Which? Abrasive or brunette?’
‘Both. And “dodgy”. That’s completely out of order.’ He put the paper down. ‘What I don’t understand is why you put yourself through this.’
‘Now that’s a good question,’ said Frieda. ‘And if you were my therapist, we would spend a lot of time discussing it.’
‘Can’t we spend time discussing it even if I’m not your therapist?’
Frieda rummaged in her bag until she found her phone.
‘Do you ever switch it on?’ he said.
‘I’m switching it on now,’ she said. ‘I switch it on when I need to use it and then I switch it off again.’
‘I’m not sure that’s really the point.’
Frieda dialled Karlsson’s number.
He picked up after a single ring. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you,’ he said.
‘How did they find Janet Ferris?’
‘You mean the journalist?’
‘That’s right.’
There was silence on the line.
‘Are you still there?’ asked Frieda.
‘Look,’ said Karlsson, ‘everybody knows that the press have contacts on the force.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Frieda. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It’s a bloody disgrace,’ said Karlsson. ‘But regrettably there are officers who leak material. For a fee.’
‘It didn’t take long to become public.’
‘It’s not exactly a state secret. We’re funded from people’s taxes. But I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that we didn’t seem to be putting up much of a defence on your behalf.’
‘If Yvette Long objects to me being on the case, I’d rather she expressed it to me or to you than to a journalist.’ There was another silence on the line. ‘I suppose she already has expressed it to you. That’s OK.’
‘It’s not like that, Frieda.’
She glanced at Jack, who was staring rather guiltily at the Daily Sketch. He looked up and Frieda made a gesture at him, trying to convey that she would only be a minute. ‘What is it like?’