Frieda Klein 2 - Tuesday's Gone (44 page)

‘Because you know you’re good at
it?’ suggested Harry.

‘I probably shouldn’t be talking
about this to you. But I don’t know the rules for a police investigation. I
don’t know where the boundaries are.’

‘Can I say something?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re someone that people tell
their troubles to. Maybe you find it hard when it’s the other way round. You can
say what you like to me. I’m not going to run to the newspapers.’

‘That’s kind of you.’

‘What’s troubling you about this
investigation?’

‘The police think they know who it
is.’

‘That’s good, no?’

‘They’ve found new
evidence.’

‘What was that?’

‘Something in the room where Robert
Poole’s body was
discovered, something that was in his pocket
when the body was found. I think they’re going to charge someone soon.’

‘Who?’ asked Harry. He took a
small sip of water.

‘Now that really
would
be
breaking a rule,’ said Frieda.

‘But you’re not
happy?’

Frieda looked steadily at him. Her
expression of concentration almost scared him.

‘It’s not just the
investigation,’ she said. ‘The fact is, I’ve had it with all this. At
first I enjoyed being involved in a police investigation. It was like an escape from my
real life. But now, when I’ve been attacked by people saying, ‘What the hell
is this analyst doing here?’ well, I mainly agree with them. So, I’m going
to do this last thing and then I’m out of here.’

Harry smiled at her. ‘What’s
this last thing?’

‘Oh, you don’t want to hear all
the boring details,’ said Frieda.

‘I do,’ said Harry.
‘I’m interested in what you’re doing, in the things that make your
life so complicated.’

‘All right,’ said Frieda.
‘It’s about Michelle Doyce, the woman who found the body. She’s in a
psychiatric hospital down in Lewisham and she’ll probably never leave. The police
have hardly bothered with her, she’s so obviously delusional. But I’ve
stayed in touch with her. I’ve seen her from time to time, and just recently
she’s been getting more lucid. She was terrified by the noises in the ward, all
the other people, and it made her worse. But they moved her to a room on her own and she
calmed down and she’s starting to talk about things.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Michelle found the body and brought
it back to her room. But from what she’s started saying, I think she did more than
that. I think she saw who dumped the body.’

There was a pause. With great care Harry
took a piece of
goat’s cheese, put it on a piece of toast,
chewed it and swallowed. ‘What do the police say?’ he asked.

‘They’re not interested,’
said Frieda. ‘They’ve got their own case and they’re happy with
it.’

‘So is that it?’

‘No. I’ve got to know a
neurologist who’s an expert on these extreme syndromes. I’m going in with
him on Monday. He’s going to give her a cocktail of medication and I’m
convinced she’ll be able to tell us exactly what she saw. Then I’ll give her
statement to the police and they can do the inquiry the way they should have done it in
the first place, which is properly. But they’ll have to do it without me.
I’m done.’

‘Why do you do this?’ said
Harry. ‘You can’t do everybody’s job for them. Aren’t you just
tempted to walk away now? To get your life back?’

‘And watch an innocent man go to
jail?’ she said. ‘How could I possibly?’

‘The police might just manage to get
the right person themselves,’ he said. ‘Otherwise they wouldn’t be
called police.’

Frieda shook her head. ‘Without this,
they’ll go with the case they’ve got already and move on to something
else.’ She looked suspiciously at him. ‘Don’t you like goat’s
cheese salad?’

‘Not much.’

‘Why did you order it?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m
not hungry, anyway. You know I’m mad about you, don’t you?’

‘Harry …’

‘Don’t say anything. Please
don’t say anything. You know, anyway. That’s why I’m here ordering
goat’s cheese and babbling.’ He put his hand out and touched her face. She
sat
quite still, her eyes fixed on his. Marcus, washing espresso cups
at the counter, watched them.

‘Do I stand a chance?’

‘Not yet,’ said Frieda. She
shifted away from him very slightly and he sighed.

‘Why?’

‘Bad timing.’

‘But one day?’

‘I need to go now. I have a
patient.’

‘Don’t go yet. Please. What do I
need to do?’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘No. Tell me. Give me an
order.’

‘All right.’ Her voice was
almost a whisper. ‘Leave me alone.’

Frieda finished work just before six. It
was twilight and a damp wind was blowing through the streets. She turned up the collar
of her coat, pushed her hands deep into the pockets and began to walk towards her house,
which felt far off and infinitely desirable. Then someone touched her softly on the
shoulder and she turned and saw Harry. ‘Were you waiting for me?’ She
sounded angry.

‘I’ve been here for over an
hour. I wanted to talk to you.’

‘I’m going home.’

‘Can I come along?’

‘Not this evening.’

‘All right. Can I say something to
you?’

‘What is it?’

‘Not just on the street. Here – can we
talk in here?’ Harry gestured towards the wasteland that Frieda looked at from her
room every day. In the darkness, it seemed larger and wilder than it did when she stared
down at it during the day. Weeds had sprung up; kids had made strange structures from
the boards and metal sheets that the workmen had left when
they’d abandoned the site. The remains of a bonfire lay near the gap in the fence
where Harry stood, its embers still giving out a glowing pulse. He held back a loose
part of the fence.

‘I don’t think so,’ said
Frieda.

‘‘There’s a bench near
here,’ said Harry, coaxingly. ‘I saw it when I walked past earlier. Just a
minute, Frieda. Hear me out.’

Frieda hesitated, then stepped nimbly
through the gap in the fence. Harry followed her and pulled it close.

‘Tell me.’

‘Let’s find this bench of
mine.’

‘I don’t need to sit
down.’

‘This way.’

They walked further into the enclosed space.
There were craters in the earth; a small crane stood motionless in front of them.

‘Frieda,’ said Harry, in a
murmur.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you see, my
darling …’

He didn’t finish his sentence because
a figure suddenly rose from the ground in front of them: an ancient man wrapped in a
blanket, with a bottle in his hand and a strange rusty moan coming from his mouth.

‘He was asleep,’ said Frieda.
Then, to the man: ‘I’m so sorry to have frightened you.’

He lifted the bottle to his mouth and tipped
it so it was nearly vertical, drank.

‘We’re going,’ said
Frieda. ‘It’s all right. We’ll leave you in peace.’

‘Lady,’ he
said, and followed them as they made their way back to the fence, through the gap.

‘What was it you wanted to say sorry
for?’ asked Frieda.

Harry stared at her. It seemed hard for him
to speak. He looked around at the people bustling past, on the way from work, heading
home or for a drink.

‘I wanted a word in private. I
couldn’t come to your place, could I? Just for a moment.’

‘Not now.’

‘All right,’ he said at last.
‘It can wait.’

Michelle Doyce liked the hospital food. It
was soft and greyish. It didn’t look like anything. There was something that
tasted a bit like fish, with a thick grey sauce. But there were no bones, no shape.
There was something that tasted a bit like chicken, also with a thick grey sauce, also
with no bones and no shape. It never looked like it would move, like it would speak to
her. She didn’t like the days. There were too many things all around her that felt
like they were trying to batter at her head, colours and sounds and prickings on her
skin, intertwining and tangling so that she couldn’t tell what was the colour and
what was the sound. It was all just there, like a storm she was wandering around in,
lost.

People came and went. Sometimes they moved
so quickly and spoke so quickly that it was all a blur and she couldn’t make them
out. It was as if she were standing on a station platform and they were on a train that
wasn’t stopping, that was racing past at a hundred miles an hour. Sometimes they
would try and say something but she couldn’t catch it. It had been the same with
the other patients in the ward. She had seen them and heard them, like in the flashes of
a strobe light, and they always seemed to be screaming, shouting in pain or anger or
despair, and she felt their pain and anger and despair herself. It was like spending day
after day surrounded by road drills and sirens and electric buzzers and flashing lights,
with jagged stabbing knives in her eyes and her ears and her mouth. It was like a swarm
of insects had got inside her body and were trying to scratch and chew their way out
with their sharp jaws and claws. Every day she found things and hid
them, then ordered them carefully. There were pieces of leftover soap from the bathroom,
a little piece of silver wrapper from a pill container, a piece of sticking plaster, a
screw. She arranged them in a pill box that had been left on the shelf by her bed. She
would look at them and suddenly realize they were in the wrong order, take them out
again and put them in the right order.

Mainly it was bad. She felt she had been put
out on a rock in the middle of the sea where she was completely alone, too hot or too
cold, too dry or too wet, and she could never sleep because if she slept she would be
washed off and battered and swept away and lost.

But it had got better when she was moved
into a room of her own, as if she had escaped into a little quiet hole, away from the
drills and the flashing lights. There was a TV. She would sit there and at first the
speckly light and the jagged sound would be a torment but it was also soothing, like
something warm washing over her, and she would watch the moving shapes for hour after
hour. There were magazines as well, bright, smiling faces looking at her, asking for her
friendship and her approval. She could hear them talking to her and she would smile back
and sometimes she would catch them talking about her and she would shut the magazine,
trap them, teach them a lesson. And there was the nurse. Sometimes she was white, but
with an accent; sometimes she was Asian; sometimes she was African. But she would lead
her through a bright corridor, so bright that it dazzled her eyes, and sit her in a
chair and lean her back and wash her hair. She could feel the fingers warm on her head.
The feeling reminded Michelle Doyce of something long, long ago, deep down, when she was
being held and kept safe. Then there were the two animals: the teddy bear and the dog.
They
sat on her bed; they slept with her. The dog had buttons for
eyes. She knew they were only toys. But she had a feeling. She couldn’t stop the
feeling. Like a child lying in bed with a heavy sleeping parent beside them. Not moving
but warm and alive. They knew things; they were watching. When the noises and the lights
got too much, she could look at them, feel them against her.

Best of all were when the lights went away
and the noises sank like a storm blowing itself out. There would be a shout and a
murmuring and a flickering and the lights would go out. It didn’t get dark
straight away. The light stayed in Michelle Doyce’s eyes, like a dull ache, an
after-light of sour green turning to dirty yellow, then back to green, gradually fading
to brown and to black. The darkness felt warm. Now even the lights felt more friendly.
They blinked outside, in through the window, from far away in the night. They blinked
inside, lights on machines, red and green and yellow. Even the noises were friendly,
beeps and meeps. Sometimes, far away outside her room, there were groan and moans and
cries that reminded Michelle Doyce of all the pain, but the dark was like a big furry
cloth that mopped up the messy noises and squeezed them out somewhere into a river that
would carry them away. The day wasn’t for waking and the night for sleeping. It
was all a sort of long doze and she wasn’t sure whether the pictures in her head
and the voices were on TV or whether they were the people coming and going in the ward
or whether they were stories she was telling herself, and what did it matter anyway?

But the nights were good. The lights became
soft and the sounds softened, too, and the sharp edges of things became rounded.
Michelle Doyce would have been happy for life to be like this always, and to go on for
ever and ever, sleeping and waking, warm and safe.

Voices came out of the
darkness. They were part of her dream. She had been walking in a street and then she had
been back somewhere inside, somewhere that seemed familiar. She was making tea. She
filled the kettle and prepared cups and saucers. A bear and a dog with button eyes were
sitting at the table.

‘Michelle,’ said the quiet voice
in the darkness. ‘Michelle Doyce.’

There were two shapes in the black night.
Two dark shapes, dark against the darkness, moving around her bed.

‘Michelle,’ said another voice,
right by her ear. A hiss, a whisper, but lighter. That had been a man. This was a
woman.

‘Is it her?’

Michelle Doyce didn’t know if her eyes
were open or closed but she saw a tiny light, a firefly, floating in the dark, at the
foot of the bed. It showed up the ghost of a face, a man’s face. She felt
something out there in the darkness, pain or anger or fear.

‘Yes, it is,’ said a voice. The
woman’s again.

Michelle Doyce opened her mouth. She wanted
to say something but it came out as a groan and then the groan stopped. Something was
stopping it. The blackness had become blacker. She wasn’t making a sound. She
couldn’t make a sound. There was a weight on her, heavy and black, and she felt
she was sinking down under it, down into a dream that was itself becoming dark so that
she was sinking out of the dream and fading and sinking.