‘All right,’ she said reluctantly.
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘You can always ask.’
‘But you won’t always answer. I know.’ Jack avoided her eyes. ‘I’m only asking because the others won’t and –’
‘What others?’ Frieda interrupted.
‘Oh, you know. The usual suspects.’
‘Am I that scary? Go on, then.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘That’s what you – they – wanted to ask?’
‘Yes.’
‘The paper you’ve written was just an excuse?’
‘Well, yes. Kind of – though I have written it. And I would like you to look at it if you have time.’
‘And I’m assuming that you’re asking me because you’re worried that I’m not.’
‘No – well, yes. You seem –’ He stopped.
‘Go on.’
‘Brittle. Like an eggshell. More unpredictable than you usually are. Sorry. I don’t mean to offend you. But maybe you aren’t taking your recovery seriously enough.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘Yes.’
‘All of you?’
‘Well – yes.’
‘Tell everyone – whoever takes it upon themselves to be worried for me – that I’m fine.’
‘You’re angry.’
‘I don’t like the thought that you’ve been discussing me behind my back.’
‘Only because we’re concerned.’
‘Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.’
Later that afternoon, Frieda had a visitor she wasn’t expecting who brought the recent past flooding back. She opened her door to find Lorna Kersey standing on the doorstep, and before Frieda had time to say anything, she had stepped inside and closed the door behind her with a bang.
‘This won’t take long,’ she said, in a voice high and cracked with rage.
‘I won’t pretend I don’t know why you’re here.’
‘Good.’
‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Kersey.’
‘You killed my daughter and now you say you’re sorry for my loss.’
Lorna Kersey’s daughter, Beth, had been an unhappy and dysfunctional young woman who suffered from paranoid delusions and who had killed Mary Orton. Frieda had got to the house too late to stop her. The vividness of the flashbacks in which she remembered Beth standing over her with a knife, and re-experienced the blade slicing through her, still woke her in the night, drenched in sweat. She had known that she was dying, felt herself sliding into darkness and oblivion – yet she had survived and Beth Kersey had not. The police had called it self-defence and even Karlsson hadn’t believed Frieda when she insisted that it was Dean Reeve who had killed Beth and saved her life.
‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Frieda, steadily. It would do no good to tell Lorna Kersey she hadn’t killed her daughter. She wouldn’t believe her, and even if she did, what did that matter? Beth, poor lonely Beth, was dead, and a mother’s anguish was etched into Lorna Kersey’s face.
‘You came to me and you got me to tell you things about Beth we never told anyone. I trusted you. You said you would help find her. You made me a promise. And then you killed her. Do you know what it feels like to bury a child?’
‘No.’
‘No. Of course you don’t. How can you bear to get up in the morning?’
Frieda thought of saying that Beth had been very ill, that in her frantic sickness of the mind she had slaughtered an old woman and would have killed her, Frieda, as well. But of course Lorna Kersey knew all of that. She wanted someone to blame and who more obvious than Frieda?
‘I wish there was something I could say or do that would –’
‘But there isn’t. There’s nothing. My child’s dead and now she’ll never be all right. And you did that. In the name of helping people, you destroy them. I’ll never forgive you. Never.’
Frieda – you sounded a bit distracted today. I know that something is up but in spite of everything that’s passed between us, you’re not very good at confiding in me, are you? Why? Are you scared of being beholden – as if I’ll have some hold over you? I think you feel you have to deal with things by yourself, as if it’s some kind of moral obligation. Or maybe you don’t trust other people to help you. I guess what I’m saying is that you should – can – trust me, Sandy xxx
SEVENTEEN
The Sir Philip Sidney was a pub on the side of a busy road. It looked lost and abandoned between a petrol station and a furniture store. When Fearby walked in he recognized his man immediately and he knew at the same moment that he was a policeman, or an ex-policeman. Grey suit, white shirt, striped tie, black shoes. Slightly overweight. Fearby sat down beside him.
‘Drink?’ he said.
‘I was just leaving,’ said the man.
‘What’s your name?’
‘You don’t need to know,’ said the man, ‘because we’re never going to meet again. You know, we all got pretty sick of you. On the force.’
‘They got pretty sick of me on my paper as well,’ said Fearby.
‘So you must be feeling chuffed with yourself.’
‘Is that what you’ve dragged me out here to tell me?’
‘Are you finished with the story?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Fearby. ‘Conley didn’t kill Hazel Barton. Which means someone else did.’
‘The police are not currently pursuing other leads. As you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Fearby. ‘Is that it?’
‘I was wondering if you had any avenues of enquiry?’
‘Avenues of enquiry?’ said Fearby. ‘I’ve got a room full of files.’
‘I was having a drink once,’ said the man, in a casual tone, ‘and someone told me that on the morning of the Hazel Barton murder, a few miles away in Cottingham, another girl was approached. But she got away. That’s all. It was just something I heard.’
‘Why wasn’t this given to the defence?’
‘It wasn’t thought relevant. It didn’t fit the pattern. Something like that.’
‘So why are you telling me now?’
‘I wanted to know if you were interested.’
‘That’s no good to me,’ said Fearby. ‘That’s just pub chat. I need a name. I need a number.’
The man got up. ‘It’s one of those things that irritate you, that won’t let you go,’ he said. ‘You know, like a little stone in your shoe. I’ll see what I can do. But that will be it. One call and then you won’t hear from me again.’
‘You were the one who called me.’
‘Don’t make me regret it.’
Frieda ordered a black coffee for herself, a latte and a Danish for Sasha. She sat at the table and opened the newspaper. She turned page after page until she reached the article she was looking for. Just a few minutes earlier Reuben had been shouting down the phone at her about it, so she was prepared. She skimmed it quickly.
‘Oh,’ she said, suddenly, as if she’d been jabbed. There was a detail she hadn’t expected.
‘What’s happening with your home improvement?’ Sasha asked. ‘I knew that Josef was giving you a new bath. I didn’t realize it would take so long.’
‘I’ve almost forgotten what my old bathroom was like,’ said Frieda. ‘Or what it was like to have a bathroom.’
‘He probably thought of it as a kind of therapy for you,’ Sasha said. ‘Maybe a hot bath is the one experience you allow yourself that’s a complete indulgence with no redeeming moral features. So he thought you’d better have a good one.’
‘You make me sound … bleak.’
‘I think it was also therapy for Josef.’
Frieda was puzzled. ‘Why would it be therapy for Josef?’
‘I know that you were there when Mary Orton was killed. I know how terrible it was for you. But Josef knew her as well. He looked after her, repaired her house. And she looked after him. Her Ukrainian son. Better than her English sons.’