‘Who did you think it was, before you discovered it couldn’t be?’
‘A local druggie with a record, but it turns out that he has a rock-solid alibi. He was caught on CCTV somewhere else at the time of her death. He admitted to breaking in, stealing some stuff, finding her body and fleeing the scene. We didn’t believe him, but for once in his life he was telling the truth.’
‘So the broken window was him?’
‘And the burglary. There was no sign of a break-in when a neighbour came round earlier – we know Ruth Lennox must have been already dead. Obviously the implication is that she let the killer in herself.’
‘Someone she knew.’
‘Or someone who seemed safe.’
‘Where did she die?’
‘In here.’ Karlsson led her into the living room, where everything was tidy and in its proper place (cushions on the sofa, newspapers and magazines in the rack, books lining the walls, tulips in a vase on the mantelpiece), but a dark bloodstain still flowered on the beige carpet and daubs of blood decorated the near wall.
‘Violent,’ said Frieda.
‘Hal Bradshaw believes it was the work of an extremely angry sociopath with a record of violence.’
‘And you think it’s more likely to be the husband.’
‘That’s not a matter of evidence, just the way of the world. The most likely person to kill a wife is her husband. The husband, however, has a reasonably satisfactory alibi.’
Frieda looked round at him. ‘We’re taught to beware of strangers,’ she said. ‘It’s our friends most of us should worry about.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ said Karlsson.
They went through to the kitchen and Frieda stood in the middle of the room, looking from the tidily cluttered dresser to the drawings and photos stuck to the fridge with magnets, the book splayed open on the table. Then, upstairs, the bedroom: a king-sized bed covered with a striped duvet, a gilt-framed photo of Ruth and Russell on their wedding day twenty-three years ago, several smaller-framed photos of her children at different ages, a wardrobe in which hung dresses, skirts and shirts – nothing flamboyant, Frieda noticed, some things obviously old but well looked-after. Shoes, flat or with small heels; one pair of black leather boots, slightly scuffed. Drawers in which T-shirts were neatly rolled, not folded; underwear drawer with sensible knickers and bras, 34C. A small amount of makeup on the dressing-table, and one bottle of perfume, Chanel. A novel by her side of the bed, Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell, with a bookmark sticking out, and under it a book about small gardens. A pair of reading glasses, folded, to one side.
In the bathroom: a bar of unscented soap, apple hand-wash, electric toothbrush – his and hers – and dental floss, shaving cream, razors, tweezers, a canister of deodorant, face wipes, moisturizing face cream, two large towels and one hand towel, two matching flannels hung on the side of the bath, with the tap in the middle, a set of scales pushed against the wall, a medicine cabinet containing paracetamol, aspirin, plasters of various sizes, cough medicine, out-of-date ointment for thrush, a tube of eye drops, anti-indigestion tablets … Frieda shut the cabinet.
‘No contraceptives?’
‘That’s what Yvette asked. She had an IUD – the Mirena coil, apparently.’
In the filing cabinet set aside for her use in her husband’s small study, there were three folders for work, and most of the others related to her children: academic qualifications, child benefit slips, medical records, reports, on single pieces of paper or in small books, dating back to their first years at primary school, certificates commemorating their ability to swim a hundred metres, their participation in the egg-and-spoon race or the cycling proficiency course.
In the shabby trunk beside the filing cabinet: hundreds and hundreds of pieces of creativity the children had brought back from school over the years. Splashy paintings in bright colours of figures with legs attached to the wobbly circle of the head and hair sprouting like exclamation marks, scraps of material puckered with running stitch and cross stitch and chain stitch, a tiny home-made clock without a battery, a small box studded with over-glued sea shells, a blue-painted clay pot, and you could still see the finger marks pressed into its asymmetrical rim.
‘There are also several bin bags full of old baby clothes in the loft,’ said Karlsson, as she closed the lid. ‘We haven’t got to them yet. It takes a long time to go through a house like this. Nothing was thrown away.’
‘Photo albums?’
‘A whole shelf given over to them. She wrote the date and occasion under each. She didn’t do motherhood by halves.’
‘No.’
Frieda went to stand by the window that overlooked the garden. There were drifts of blossom around the fruit tree, and a cat sat in a patch of sunlight. ‘There’s nothing here she wouldn’t want to be seen,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I always think that nobody’s life can tolerate a spotlight shone into its corners.’
‘But?’
‘But from everything you tell me and everything I’ve seen, hers seems entirely ready for the spotlight, don’t you think? As if this house was a stage.’
‘A stage for what?’
‘For a play about being good.’
‘I’m supposed to be the cynical one. Do you mean you think nobody can be that good?’
‘I’m a therapist, Karlsson. Of course that’s what I think. Where are Ruth Lennox’s secrets?’
But of course, she thought, several hours later and sitting at Number 9 – her friends’ café near where she lived – real secrets aren’t found in objects, in schedules, in the words we speak or the expressions we put on our faces, in underwear drawers and filing cabinets, deleted texts, and diaries pushed to the bottom of the bag. They are lodged far deeper, unguessable even to ourselves. She was thinking about this as she faced Jack Dargan, whom she supervised and, even during her convalescence, met at least once a week to track his progress and listen to his doubts. And Jack was a thorny ball of doubt. But he never doubted Frieda: she was the constant in his life, his single point of faith.
‘I have a favour to ask,’ Jack was saying animatedly. ‘Don’t look anxious – I’m not going to let down my patients or anything. Especially not Carrie.’ Since discovering that her husband Alan had not left her but had been murdered by his twin, Dean Reeve, Carrie had been seeing Jack twice a week and he seemed to have done better than even Frieda, who believed in him, had expected. He laid aside his self-conscious pessimism and his awkwardness and concentrated on the woman in distress.
‘What is this favour?’
‘I’ve written a paper on trauma and before I send it out I wanted you to look at it.’
Frieda hesitated. Trauma felt too close for her to review it dispassionately. She looked at Jack’s flushed face, his tufty hair and ridiculous clothes (today he was wearing brown, balding jeans, a second hand yellow-and-orange shirt that clashed with his colouring and his hair, and a green waterproof even though the sky was cloudless). In his confusion, he reminded her of Ted Lennox, of so many other raw and self-conscious young men.