Friday on My Mind (3 page)

‘Oh, well,’ said Bryant.

‘You sound disappointed,’ said Hussein.

Hussein and Bryant were standing in Sandy Holland’s flat, their feet bagged, their hands gloved.

‘I thought there might be blood,’ said Bryant. ‘Signs of a struggle. But there’s nothing. It looks like he just left of his own accord.’

Hussein shook her head. ‘If you kill someone in their own home, you probably leave them there. Getting the body out is just too much of a risk.’

‘You don’t think the murderer could have killed him here and cleaned the place up?’

‘It’s possible,’ said Hussein, but she sounded doubtful. ‘Forensics will tell us anyway. It looks pristine to me.’

The two of them walked around the flat briskly. It was on the two top floors. There was a living room with two big windows and a narrow kitchen leading off it, a small study and, upstairs, a bedroom with a roof terrace that looked out over rooftops and cranes.

There were shelves of books in every room. Bryant took out a large one, opened it and pulled a face.

‘Do you think he’d read all of these? I can barely understand a single word.’

Hussein was about to reply when her phone rang. She answered and Bryant watched her as her expression changed from irritation to surprise to a kind of alarm.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. I’ll be there.’

She rang off and stood for a moment, lost in thought. She seemed to have forgotten where she was.

‘Bad news?’ said Bryant.

‘I don’t know,’ said Hussein slowly. ‘It’s about the woman who identified the body: Frieda Klein. She popped up on the system. Two weeks ago she reported someone missing.’

‘Alexander Holland?’

‘No, a man called Miles Thornton. Sophie followed it up and the next thing she knew there was a call from the commissioner’s office.’

‘You mean Crawford? What about?’

‘About the case. About Frieda Klein. He wants to see me. Straight away.’

‘Are we in trouble?’

Hussein seemed puzzled. ‘How can we be? We haven’t done anything yet.’

‘Do you want me to come along?’

‘No, you need to stay here.’

‘Where do I start? What am I searching for?’

Hussein thought for a moment. ‘I was looking for a phone or a computer or a wallet, but I didn’t find anything. Could you have another go?’

‘Sure.’

‘And there is a pile of mail by the front door. That should tell us when he was last here. And try to talk to the tenant in the other flat, find out when they last saw him.’

‘All right.’

‘Forensics should be here soon. I know they don’t like being told what to do, but there are a couple of
dressing gowns on the bedroom door. And there are condoms in the bedside table. They should check the sheets.’

‘I’ll nudge them.’

DC Sophie Byrne went with Hussein in the car and guided her through some of the printouts as they drove along by St James’s Park. Hussein felt like one of those people you saw going into an exam still desperately trying to do the revision they should have done earlier. She’d never been one of those people. It made her uncomfortable. She liked being prepared.

She was expected. A uniformed officer escorted her through security and into a lift, then up to a floor that needed a card to access it. There, she was introduced to a receptionist who took her through into the commissioner’s office; her first impression was of a blaze of light and that she hadn’t realized how high up she was. She felt a childish urge to run to the window and enjoy the view over the park.

Looking at Crawford, she was struck by several impressions at the same time. His smiling florid face. His uniform. The size of his desk. And its emptiness, except for a single file. Didn’t he have papers to sign? Or was he too important even for that?

‘Detective Chief Inspector Hussein,’ said Crawford, as if he were savouring each word individually. ‘It’s taken too long for us to meet.’

‘Well …’ Hussein began, then couldn’t think of anything to add.

‘We’re proud to have a senior officer from your community.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Where do you come from, Sarah? Originally.’

‘Birmingham, sir.’

There was a pause. Hussein looked out of the window. The sun was shining. She suddenly felt how nice it would be to be out there, walking in the park on a summer evening, rather than here.

‘This case,’ said Crawford. ‘Alexander Holland. Tell me about it.’ He waved her into a chair in front of his desk.

She told him about the discovery of the body and its state, and about his flat.

‘And you met Frieda Klein?’

‘Briefly.’

‘What do you think about her?’

‘She was the one who identified the body. Holland had her hospital identification tag on his wrist.’

‘That sounds a bit odd.’

‘They’d been a couple.’

‘I mean, I’ve heard of wearing someone’s ring but …’

‘I’d planned to talk to her again.’

‘What do you actually know about her?’

‘Just what one of my DCs told me on the way over. The name rang a bell but I couldn’t place it. I gather she was the therapist who was involved in getting that Faraday boy back a few years ago and with that murder down in Deptford. There was that other one. The tabloids called it “The Croydon House of Horrors”. That was her too.’

‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers.’

‘I’m just going by what was in the police files. Wasn’t she involved?’

Crawford gave a sort of snort. ‘There’s involved and involved,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You know how it is,’ he said. ‘When we get a result suddenly everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon. And the papers love it, the idea of a bloody therapist coming in here and telling us how to do our job.’

‘The only thing I read about her in the papers, she was being blamed for something. I can’t remember what it was.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said Crawford, darkly.

There was another pause.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Hussein, who was feeling irritated now. ‘I’m probably being slow, but I’m not clear what you’re telling me.’

Crawford leaned forward and, with the tips of the fingers of his right hand, pushed the file across the desk. ‘That’s the other file on Frieda Klein,’ he said. ‘That’s
my
file. You can take it away with you.’ He stood up and walked to the window. ‘But I’ll give you the short version.’ He looked around, and when Hussein saw his face, it was as if someone had turned a dial to make him angrier. ‘I’ll tell you, Sarah … Is it all right if I call you Sarah?’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘When someone called me and said that a body had been found and that Frieda Klein was involved, I told myself that this time I was going to find out who was in charge and I was going to warn them in advance. You’ve already met Klein and you probably saw her as some quiet, studious doctor type …’

‘I didn’t really –’

‘But she isn’t. You say you read about her in the papers.’ He stepped forward and rapped on the desk. ‘I’ll tell you
what wasn’t in the papers. Did you know that she killed a woman?’

‘Killed?’

‘Stabbed her to death. Cut her throat.’

‘Was she charged?’

‘No, it was considered to be self-defence. Klein didn’t even admit to
that
. She said it was done by Dean Reeve, the kidnapper in the Faraday case.’

Hussein frowned. ‘Dean Reeve? But he died. He hanged himself before the police could get him.’

‘Exactly. But this is Frieda Klein we’re talking about. She operates under different rules from the rest of us. She has this bee in her bonnet that Dean Reeve is still alive and it was his identical twin who died. Ridiculous, of course. Also, everyone talks about Klein getting that Faraday boy back and the girl. They don’t mention the other woman Klein got involved and didn’t get rescued.’

‘How did Klein get her involved?’

‘What?’ Crawford seemed at a loss for a moment. ‘I can’t remember the details. It’s all in the files. She’s been arrested for assault as well. She got into a brawl in a West End restaurant a few years ago.’

‘Was she convicted?’

‘Charges were not pressed,’ said Crawford, ‘for reasons that were never clear to me.’ He tapped the file. ‘But it’s all in here.’

‘Is she still on the payroll?’

‘God, no. I saw to that. The last I heard she was up in Suffolk crying rape, hurling accusations around, and the man she accused also ended up being murdered. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Sarah. Wherever this woman goes, trouble follows and people get killed. The only
blessing about the last sorry business is that she was up in Suffolk, annoying the police there, rather than down here annoying us.’

‘Rape?’ said Hussein. ‘Was she a victim or investigating a rape or what?’

‘A bit of both, as far as I could gather. It ended up with two people being murdered, as it generally seems to when Dr Klein is involved.’

Hussein reached out her hand towards the file and took it. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I want to be clear about this. What is it that we’re talking about here? Are you claiming that this woman is delusional or are you accusing her of something systematic or do you have certain suspicions or … well, what?’

‘You’ll be wanting to talk to people, I’m sure, in the course of the investigation. I’m going to put you in touch with a psychological expert that we really do employ, Hal Bradshaw. He shared my reservations about her performance, had something of a run-in with her and his house ended up being burned to the ground. About which, I have to say, he has been remarkably forgiving.’

‘Are you suggesting that Frieda Klein is an arsonist as well?’

Crawford spread his hands in a gesture of helpless innocence. ‘I’m suggesting nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m a simple policeman. I just follow where the evidence leads me, and in this case the evidence suggests that where Frieda Klein goes a trail of chaos follows. What her precise role in this happens to be has always been difficult to pin down. As you will probably discover, Frieda Klein also has some strange associates. How these things happen, I don’t pretend to know, but they happen, and they continue to happen.’

‘But when she did work with the force,’ said Hussein, ‘to the extent that she did, who did she deal with?’

‘You see, she’s crafty as well. She worked with one of my DCIs, Malcolm Karlsson. He just fell under her spell and she made use of that.’

‘“Fell under her spell”? Was there some kind of relationship?’

Crawford pulled a face. ‘I’m not saying there was and I’m not saying there wasn’t. I don’t know anything about it and I wouldn’t like to speculate. All I’ll say is that Mal Karlsson lost his sense of perspective. But you’ll want to talk to him yourself. Be warned in advance, though, that he’s not entirely reliable where Frieda Klein is concerned.’

Hussein looked down at the file. ‘It’s possible that Frieda Klein doesn’t have anything to do with this.’

Crawford walked round the desk and helped Hussein out of the chair. ‘And it’s possible,’ he said, ‘that you can get into a shark pool and that the shark won’t eat you. But it’s better to be in a cage.’

Hussein smiled at the extravagance of the image. ‘She’s just a witness,’ she said.

‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ said Crawford. ‘And if she gives you any trouble, remember, I’m right behind you.’

‘What have we got?’ Hussein looked at the men and women grouped around her in the incident room.

What have we got?
The words she always used during the first hours or days of a case, when they were assembling the corners and straight lines of the investigation, before starting on the jumble of pieces that built up the picture.

‘Shall I begin?’ Bryant said. ‘Our victim is Alexander Holland. He’s a –’ he glanced down at the printed sheet in front of him ‘– a professor of cognitive science at King George’s College, London.’

‘What’s that mean?’ asked Chris Fortune. He was new on the team; she noticed that he jiggled one knee continually and chewed gum with vigour. Probably trying to give up smoking.

‘That he’s cleverer than we are. Or
was
cleverer. The university term ended on June the sixth for the long summer vacation, which explains why no one there was concerned about his absence. Although the records show that a woman …’ he glanced down at his notebook ‘… a Dr Ellison apparently rang the police to say he seemed to have disappeared. It’s unclear why she was worried. It had only been a few days and what she meant was that he hadn’t been in touch with her.’

‘Dr Ellison?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go on.’

‘He’s fairly new to the job. It was created specially for him. He came back from the States, where he had been working for a couple of years, eighteen months ago.’

‘Why?’ asked Hussein.

‘Why what?’

‘Why did he come back?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Go on.’

‘He was forty-two. Previously married to a Maria Lockhart but divorced eight years ago.’

‘Where’s she now?’

‘She lives in New Zealand with her new husband. And, no, she hasn’t paid a visit to London recently to kill her ex. He doesn’t have any children. Parents both dead. He has one sister. We’ve talked to her.’

Hussein thought of the distraught woman in her blue dress, wringing her hands together, shaking her head from side to side in bewilderment. ‘Is he in a relationship?’

‘Not that we know of.’

‘Sophie.’ Hussein nodded at the young woman, who sat up straighter, looking nervous. ‘Tell us what’s been found in his flat.’

She listened intently as Sophie talked. Alexander Holland had not been in his flat long, but something of the man emerged from where he had lived: he had liked cooking – the pots and pans were expensive and obviously used, and there were lots of ingredients neatly stored in the cupboards, as well as recipe books. He had also, it seemed, liked drinking. There was a large number of empty wine bottles in the recycling bin under the
stairs and a healthy supply of full ones in the kitchen, as well as a couple of bottles of whisky. He had been sporty, judging from the tennis and squash rackets and the running clothes, and the several pairs of trainers. He was a bit of a dandy: expensive shirts and jackets hung in the wardrobe. He had liked art – or, at least, there were paintings on the walls, and also two drawings in his bedroom. He was sexually active. There were condoms in the drawer by the bed.

‘
Probably
sexually active,’ said Hussein.

There were two dressing gowns hanging from the hook, one for a man and a smaller one for a woman – and the woman’s had been worn by several different people. There was a supply of toothbrushes in the bathroom cabinet, alongside paracetamol and mouthwash. He read a lot, mostly books to do with his work.

‘What’s noticeable,’ said Sophie Byrne, ‘is what’s not there. No passport. No wallet. No computer. No phone.’

‘Keys?’

‘One set of keys in a bowl near the front door. And then some keys which don’t belong to the flat.’

‘His sister’s, perhaps?’

‘We’re checking.’

‘Any correspondence?’

‘No – but it was probably on his computer, which is also gone.’

‘We should presumably be able to get it from his server. Or perhaps he has a computer in his office at the university. Get onto that, will you, Chris?’

‘Sure.’ Chris gave an extra vigorous chew on his gum.

‘There was a notebook on his desk,’ said Sophie Byrne. ‘But it was mostly lists of things to do, things to
buy. There was also what looked like a schedule written down, dates and times with asterisks by them. It was headed “WH”.’

‘WH?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. What about phone calls, Glen? Any joy?’

‘Ah.’ Bryant looked pleased, cleared his throat, picked up a sheaf of printouts stapled together. ‘His mobile’s missing, as you know. But we’ve got a record of the calls that were made, going back six months to the beginning of the year.’

‘And?’

‘Over a third of all calls were made to the same number.’

‘And whose number was that?’ asked Hussein, already guessing the answer.

‘Frieda Klein’s.’

‘Are you going to call a press conference?’ Bryant asked Hussein, after the meeting.

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Shall we bring her in?’

‘Dr Klein? Not yet. There’s a couple of people I think I need to talk to first.’

Then she remembered something else that had been like a small niggle in her brain.

‘When Frieda Klein’s name first came up on the system, it was because she had reported someone missing. Miles Thornton. Can you look into that?’

‘Come in, come in,’ he said, holding out his hand and grasping hers with a wrenching firmness.

Hal Bradshaw had bare feet and artfully unkempt hair, glasses whose frames were long, thin rectangles that made it hard to see the whole of his eyes. Perhaps that was the point. He led her through into his study, a bright, book-lined room with several framed certificates above the desk, a photograph of himself shaking the hand of a prominent politician and a long sofa to which he gestured. She took a seat at one end and he sat rather near to her. He smelt of sandalwood.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, Dr Bradshaw. Especially on a Sunday.’

‘Professor, actually. Recent thing.’ He smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’

She was slightly perplexed. ‘I know. I rang you to make the appointment.’

‘No, I mean as soon as I heard about her finding the body of her friend. Her ex-friend.’

‘Can I ask how you know about that?’

Bradshaw gave a modest shrug. ‘It’s part of the arrangement.’

‘With the police?’

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘They keep me in the loop. The commissioner himself called me on this one.’

‘In fact, Dr Klein didn’t actually find Alexander Holland. She was the one who identified him.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, as if she were corroborating what he had said. ‘Can I offer you some tea, by the way? Or coffee?’

‘No, thank you. I’m here because Commissioner Crawford suggested it would be useful to get some background information about Dr Klein.’

The expression on Bradshaw’s handsome face was thoughtfully sad. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

‘I’ve read the file that the commissioner gave to me. Can we perhaps begin with the case of Dean Reeve?’

‘Dean Reeve is dead.’

‘Yes, I know, but –’

‘But Frieda Klein is convinced that he is still alive. And …’ he leaned towards Hussein ‘
… out to get her.
’

‘Do you know why she thinks that?’

‘I’ve written a book about the very thing.’

‘Perhaps you could summarize your argument.’

‘People like her – clever, articulate, neurotic, highly self-conscious and self-protective – can develop a personality trait that we call
narcissistic delusion
.’

‘You mean she makes things up?’

‘A person like Frieda Klein needs to feel at the centre of the world and she is incapable of acknowledging failure, of taking responsibility. In the case of Dean Reeve, you may or may not know that he murdered a student directly as a consequence of her interference.’

‘I’ve read that a woman called Kathy Ripon was supposedly killed by Dean Reeve.’

‘She has compensated for that by deluding herself into believing he is still alive and out to get her. Thus she makes herself into the target and the victim, the hero of the story if you like, rather than dwelling upon the consequences of her own actions.’

‘She saved Matthew Faraday, didn’t she?’

‘She likes to insert herself into investigations and then take credit. It’s not uncommon. It’s another symptom, in a way. And you know about that poor young woman, Beth Kersey, whom she killed?’

‘I read that Beth Kersey was psychotic and that it was self-defence.’

‘Yes. But that’s not what Frieda Klein says, is it? She says that she
didn’t
kill Beth Kersey, in self-defence or otherwise. Dean Reeve did. Are you beginning to see a pattern?’

‘I see what you’re suggesting. But perhaps she was telling the truth,’ said Hussein.

Bradshaw raised his eyebrows. ‘Sarah,’ he said. ‘Can I call you Sarah?’ Just like the commissioner, thought Hussein, irritably, and didn’t bother to answer. ‘So, Sarah, she probably believes that she is telling the truth. Her version of the truth. I am a charitable man and I like to think I’m quite perceptive.’ He paused but Hussein didn’t feel the need to add anything. ‘Even if I have good reason to believe that she actually set fire to my house.’

‘You have no real proof of that.’

‘I know what I know.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Perhaps I am what she wants to be. I’ve attained a respect she resents.’

‘She burned your house down out of jealousy?’

‘It’s a theory.’

‘What are you saying, Dr Bradshaw?’

‘Professor. I’m saying be careful. Be very careful. She can be persuasive. And she has surrounded herself with people who prop up her sense of importance. You’ll probably meet some of them. But she’s not just an unreliable witness. She’s dangerous. A year and a half ago, she was crying rape and two people died. And you know she was arrested for attacking that therapist – another rival, perhaps? Mm?’

‘She wasn’t charged.’

‘It is my belief that her behaviour is escalating. I wasn’t surprised when I heard about her lover being found dead.’

‘What are you implying?’

‘I just want you to know what you’re dealing with, Sarah.’

‘A violent arsonist and fantasist who may have killed several people, you mean? I’ll watch my step.’

Bradshaw frowned, as if he were suspicious of Hussein’s tone. ‘Whose side are you on here?’

‘I didn’t know it was a question of sides.’

‘The commissioner might not like it if you ignored his warnings.’

Hussein thought of Commissioner Crawford’s florid face. She remembered Frieda Klein’s dark eyes and her stillness, the almost imperceptible flicker that had crossed her face when she stood beside the body.

‘Thank you for your time,’ she said, rising to her feet.

At the door, Bradshaw put his hand on her arm. ‘Are you going to see Malcolm Karlsson?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Of course, he’s someone who has collaborated with Klein.’

‘You make that sound like a bad thing.’

‘Colluded with her.’

‘That sounds even worse.’

‘You can judge for yourself.’

‘What can I say?’ said Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson. ‘She has been a valued colleague and she’s a friend.’

‘Did you also know Alexander Holland?’

‘Sandy.’ Karlsson spoke soberly, but kept his glance fixed on her. ‘Yes.’

‘You may or may not be aware that he has been killed.’

Karlsson was visibly shocked. He looked away for a moment, collecting himself. Then he started asking questions and Hussein had to go through the explanation, the discovery of the body, its state, the plastic tag on the wrist bearing Frieda’s name, and Frieda’s visit to the morgue. He sat forward in his chair, listening intently.

‘Can you tell me something about his relationship to Dr Klein?’ she asked.

‘Not really.’

‘I thought you were friends.’

‘Frieda is a very private person. She doesn’t talk about things like that. They split up well over a year ago, that’s all I can tell you.’

‘Who ended it?’

‘You’ll have to ask Frieda.’

‘Have you seen him since then?’

Karlsson hesitated. ‘A couple of times,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Briefly.’

‘Was he upset at the ending of the relationship?’

‘Again, you’ll have to ask Frieda. I can’t comment.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Hussein. ‘I don’t think that’s a proper answer.’

‘I mean that I don’t really know. It’s not the kind of thing that Frieda would ever talk about to me.’

‘Commissioner Crawford seems to think that Dr Klein is at best unreliable, at worst dangerously unstable.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘He is your boss.’

‘Yes. You’ll just have to judge for yourself.’

‘I intend to. And Dr Bradshaw –’ She stopped and grinned to herself. ‘Sorry,
Professor
Bradshaw put it even more strongly.’

‘You’ve been busy.’

‘There’s nothing you can tell me that might help?’

‘No.’

She turned to leave, then stopped. ‘Do you have any idea what the initials “WH” might stand for?’

Karlsson thought for a moment. ‘They might stand for the Warehouse,’ he said.

‘What is that?’

‘It’s a therapy clinic.’

‘Is Dr Klein connected to it?’

‘She works there sometimes. And she’s on the board.’

‘Thank you.’

An officer called Yvette Long showed her out, glowering, as if Hussein had said something to offend her.

Bryant called her as she was leaving. ‘That person Dr Klein reported missing.’

‘Yes?’

‘Miles Thornton. He was a patient of hers.’

‘Was?’

‘He was her patient on and off – more off than on recently, because he was sectioned for a few weeks. He was psychotic and deemed to be a danger to himself and others. Now he seems to have disappeared. Or, at least, he hasn’t been seen recently. His family aren’t overly worried: they say he often goes AWOL.’

‘But Dr Klein reported him missing.’

There was a slight pause. Hussein could imagine Bryant
chewing the edge of his thumb, thinking. ‘Why is this relevant?’ he asked at last.

‘It probably isn’t. But don’t you think it’s a bit odd how she’s surrounded by distress and violence? Bradshaw would say that’s just evidence of her narcissistic delusion.’