Saturday Requiem (24 page)

He swallowed before he spoke. When he did so, his voice had lost its ironic inflection. ‘It was the year after we separated and was quite unexpected. Like a fire suddenly bursting into flames when we both thought it was just ash. I was with Brenda and she was with Aidan. Nobody ever found out. No one knew. Our last farewell.’

‘Just once?’

‘No. But only a few times, over the space of one crazy month when I thought I was going a bit mad. Then we stopped and we never talked about it again. It died away and it was like it never happened.’

‘And you chose not to tell the police.’

‘It wasn’t relevant.’

‘You don’t get to decide that.’

‘Perhaps I was wrong. It felt too intimate. And I thought, once they knew, it was inevitable Brenda would find out as well.’

‘Did you still love her?’

He hesitated, his eyes scanning the horizon. ‘I don’t know
if there’s a proper answer to that. Even when I hated her, I never managed to feel distant from her. She was the woman I’d been married to for years. She was the mother of my children. That doesn’t mean I wanted her back or that I didn’t love Brenda as well. Debs never made me happy like Brenda does. She was too harsh, too unyielding. She was always critical of me, kept wanting me to be someone different.’

‘You say no one knew.’

‘They didn’t.’

‘Hannah?’

‘No. Why would she?’

‘Because she was your daughter.’

Seamus gave a shrug. ‘If she’d known, she wouldn’t have kept it to herself.’

‘Brenda?’

‘No!’

‘One other thing. Rory’s geography teacher was Guy Fiske.’

‘And?’

‘You know what I’m saying.’

‘Stop this. My son was killed. Are you suggesting he was abused as well?’

‘I’m just trying to find out what happened.’

‘What happened is that Hannah killed my son and ex-wife. And now some other woman as well.’

‘I’m not sure that’s true.’

‘Who else could have done it?’ He hesitated. ‘Are you thinking, even as a theory, even for a moment, that I could have killed Debs, killed my little boy?’

‘I’ve got no theories. I’m just asking questions. For instance, what kind of clothes was Hannah wearing in the last few months before the crime?’

‘What does that matter?’

‘Bear with me.’

‘I can’t remember exactly, but they were kind of grungy and torn, ugly really. Like a demonstration of something.’

‘What colours?’

‘Black. Always black or dark brown. But you know that already – you mentioned it last time you accosted me with that bandanna, if you remember.’

‘Yes. And yet the clothes she apparently wore when she killed three people, or now four, and that were found covered with blood, were a flowery dress and a cardigan. Doesn’t that sound strange to you?’

‘I don’t know. When you decide to kill your family, maybe you put on special clothes to do it.’

‘What was the last contact you had with them?’

‘I told the police about that at the time. Debs called me a couple of nights before she died and said she had something she wanted to talk to me about.’

‘You’ve no idea what?’

‘It was probably about holiday arrangements. It was that time of year. I was going to take Rory to Cornwall, Hannah, too, if she agreed to come.’

‘You’re sure that’s what it was about.’

‘It was years ago. Of course I’m not sure.’

Frieda left him there, at the top of the hill, and walked away from the Hampstead side. Every road she went down seemed to be blocked or wind round on itself, leading her back to the beginning. She took out her phone. Jack answered.

‘Meet me at the yard,’ she said. ‘There must be something.’

In the dim light of late afternoon, with rain gushing down from a low brown sky, the joiner’s yard was a depressing place. Frieda and Jack made their way round the large puddles that had formed to the door of the shed. Frieda inserted the key into the rusty padlock and pulled at the double doors; they swung open with a creak. She found the lights and turned them on, seeing once more the objects stacked against the walls and on shelves come into view under the flickering fluorescent lights. The cement floor was damp in patches where rain had seeped through, but the Docherty collection was untouched.

‘Wow,’ said Jack, stepping into the shed. The rain drummed on the corrugated roof above them, and dripped from a leak onto an old pram, making a metallic ping. Water dripped off him and his wet hair lay flat against his skull. He looked younger than usual, thinner. ‘It’s cold in here. I’ll have to bring extra jumpers. And a Thermos flask.’

‘I’ll show you what we’ve got,’ said Frieda, ‘and we can make a plan.’

She pulled the three cardboard boxes and the suitcase away from the wall and opened them. They squatted on the floor. She could barely bring herself to look once again at the piles of papers, receipts, bills, notebooks, dog-eared photos, certificates, reports, old passports, medical cards and bank statements; at the old clothes with their smell of decay; at the flotsam and jetsam of long-ago lives.

‘Wow,’ said Jack, again, but this time he sounded
uncertain, dismayed. He picked up an empty crisps packet, a single sock with a balding heel. ‘It’s not in any order at all.’

Wherever possible, I’d like you to separate things into four individual piles: Deborah, Aidan, Hannah, Rory. And I guess a fifth pile for everything that doesn’t fit into that.’

‘Like this.’ Jack held up the sock.

‘It will get easier as you go. That sock, for instance: it’s probably Rory’s because of its size.’

‘What am I looking for?’

‘I’m not sure. I suppose for something that feels wrong, that doesn’t fit. Once everything is sorted into piles, you need to go through them and try to get a kind of chronology.’

‘Right.’

‘And there might be nothing to find, Jack.’

‘I get that.’

They heard a sound and looked round. Chloë was standing in the doorway, the steady sheets of rain behind her. She was wearing a leather jacket, heavy boots and a hat pulled down low. Jack gave a small grunt and bobbed his head.

‘I was leaving. How’s it going here?’

Frieda stood up. ‘We’ve just started. Jack’s got some time off and he’s going to help me sort this.’

Chloë looked down at the collection. ‘The stuff that belonged to someone who died?’

‘Yes.’

‘That you said you were just going to go through to make sure there was nothing valuable?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, I can tell you straight away: there’s nothing valuable. Unless, of course, you’re looking for evidence of some kind. This is about Hannah Docherty, right?’

‘Chloë.’

‘I know that tone of voice. I’m an adult now, remember?’

‘Of course.’

Chloë squatted down beside Jack and gazed at the pile of clothes. ‘What are you searching for anyway?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Jack. He looked skinny and pale beside her.

‘So how will you know if you find it?’

‘We don’t know that, either.’

‘Fun way to spend your time off.’

‘I’m doing it to help Frieda,’ said Jack.

‘These clothes are better.’ Chloë was looking into the suitcase. She lifted out the pale blue silk shirt. ‘I wonder where she was going.’

‘Or who the “she” was,’ said Frieda. ‘I don’t think these clothes belonged to Hannah’s mother.’

She looked at the label on the black bra: 34C. She knew from the files she’d read through at Levin’s house that Deborah Docherty was a 32B. These clothes belonged to Justine Walsh, she thought.

‘I could help.’ Chloë sat back on her heels. She was talking to Jack now.

He turned to her. ‘You?’

‘Since I’m just across the yard.’

‘What about your work?’

‘I have lunch hours. And I often finish early. It’d be nice.’ Her voice was amiable, but perhaps sarcastic. Frieda tried to make out her expression. Chloë patted Jack playfully on the shoulder so he nearly toppled. ‘Like the old days.’

That evening, Josef came to her house with a bottle of vodka. Frieda poured herself a tumbler of whisky instead. They sat beside her fire, shutters closed against the weather.

‘I had a phone call,’ she said.

‘Please?’

‘From Emma Travis.’

‘Ah.’ He tipped the vodka down his throat and wiped the back of his wrist against his mouth. His brown eyes shone softly.

‘Josef …’

‘Lonely woman, Frieda.’

‘Exactly. Lonely and vulnerable.’

‘What to do?’ Josef shook his head sadly.

‘She wants you to get in touch. Gutters, is what she said.’

Josef looked at her solemnly, then poured himself another shot. He rubbed the back of his hand against his chin so that Frieda heard the rasp of stubble. ‘I show you picture of my sons?’ he said.

‘I’d like that.’

‘From their mother.’ Josef pulled out his mobile and tapped its screen a couple of times, then handed it to Frieda.

She looked at the two boys, who were tall, dark, smiling for the camera, one with his arm slung round the other’s shoulders. ‘They’re very handsome,’ she said. ‘And they look happy, in spite of everything that’s going on.’

‘Going on?’ said Josef, looking concerned.

‘I mean in the country, in Ukraine.’

‘All right, yes, happy.’ Josef dispatched the vodka. ‘Happy far from me.’

‘Is that what’s troubling you?’

‘Bad, bad times. Frieda. This is not right. I am their father.’

‘I know.’

‘I am scared for them.’

‘Of course you must be. Are they still in Kiev?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want them to come here?’

Josef shook his head slowly from side to side, his large brown eyes deep and mournful. ‘They have new father.’

‘Stepfather. You’re their father.’

‘Look like men now,’ he said. ‘Not boys. Grown.’

‘So you feel you’ve missed their childhood?’

‘Is too sudden,’ he said, coming over to her chair and taking the phone from her hand. ‘Look. I show you them a year ago.’

He started to scroll through the photos with his stubby forefinger. Frieda watched the stream of images. And then she felt a pinching of her attention, as though something were trying to force its way into her mind; something too large and sharp to get through.

‘There,’ said Josef. ‘One year. Boys then. Now men.’

‘It must be painful,’ said Frieda, softly, trying to keep her thoughts on Josef and his sons. ‘Do you talk to them?’

‘Skype. But is bad. They bored. I am far away. Just a memory, while they live in land of fighting.’

‘Have you asked them if they want to come here?’

Something. Something she had seen. A door opened in her mind; a door into darkness.

‘Every time. Every time I ask.’

He returned to his chair and poured more vodka. ‘Life is hard,’ he said, with a sigh, but then his face brightened. ‘I help Reuben make shed in garden.’

‘Reuben wants a
shed
?’

‘He says.’

‘That’s difficult to imagine. Josef, there was a photograph I saw just now, when you were scrolling through.’

‘Yes?’

‘It reminded me of someone.’

‘Which?’ He picked up the mobile and turned to the photos again.

‘There were pictures of that house you were working on last year.’

‘When you were running away?’

‘Yes.’

Frieda thought back to that terrible summer, when Sandy’s body had been fished from the Thames, his throat cut, and Frieda had been the main suspect. She had gone into hiding in order to find out the real murderer, living in strange rooms among a community of the dispossessed in abandoned parts of London. The truth, when she finally found it, was intimate and dark, like a deep trap.

‘In Belsize Park,’ he said. ‘People with too much money.’

‘Can I see the photos?’

Josef seemed puzzled but he tapped on his phone, then handed it over.

Frieda was looking at a long garden that had been turned into a building site, with three figures in the distance, by the kitchen door, one in a hard hat. They had their backs to her, but still … It was the set of the shoulders. Her guts coiled and her throat thickened.

She drew her finger across the screen. A wall with a hole torn through it. Again, and a section of a loft conversion. Then a group of builders drinking tea. There. Was it? Was it?

‘Frieda,’ Josef was saying. ‘Frieda.’

She drew her finger once more across the screen for the next photo, and now he slid into view, full on, unmistakable. She sat very still, staring at the image she held in her hand. Solid and strong, with broad shoulders. Hair clipped right down and greying now. Brown eyes with those small pupils. That amused half-smile. Yes, she remembered the smile. And she was absolutely certain that he was smiling at her, imagining the day when she would see this photograph. He had posed for her. Dean Reeve, her ghost.

At last she put the phone on the table, screen up so the figure was visible. ‘This man.’

‘Marty? He was my mate on the site. He helped me.’

Frieda remembered Josef talking of Marty, how he had worked alongside him; how he had covered for him when he was helping her; how he had been there when the police had interviewed him in the garden and, putting two and two together, had understood Josef knew Frieda. And she remembered, too, how this Marty had spent time with Sasha’s little boy, Ethan, when Sasha was ill. Ethan had taken a shine to him. Marty. She felt the blood coursing through her body, pulsing in her wrists, drumming in her heart.

‘Where is he now?’ she asked.

Josef held his hands out, palms up. ‘Gone away.’

‘Where?’

‘I not know, Frieda. Frieda? What?’

‘You have no idea where he is?’

‘He say he is free always. Finish job, then off again.’

Frieda reached out and turned the phone upside down. She made herself look Josef in the eyes, although she didn’t want to see his expression. ‘This isn’t Marty,’ she said. ‘This is Dean.’

Josef’s mouth opened but he made no sound.

‘Dean Reeve,’ continued Frieda.

‘No,’ said Josef. ‘No. Big mistake, Frieda.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘This is Marty. He say.’

‘It’s Dean.’ Now Frieda looked away from Josef and into the flames. She was talking to herself, not Josef. ‘The man who abducted Joanna Teale when she was a tiny child and turned her into his brainwashed wife, who abducted Matthew Faraday and would have killed him, who murdered the research student Kathy Ripon, who killed his own twin
brother and who slept with the dead man’s wife, who killed Beth Kersey to save me, who burned down Hal Bradshaw’s house to avenge me, who tortured and killed the man who raped me to avenge me, who is stalking me and protecting me and trying to control my life. Who the world thinks dead. This is Dean.’

Josef stood up. ‘He trap me, pretend to be my friend,’ he said. ‘Tell me. I do anything.’

‘He’s been in my house, Josef.’

‘Your house? Here? When?’

‘I’ve had a feeling that someone’s been here, changing things around a bit. He wants me to know, or suspect.’

‘But how?’

‘He could have taken my keys from your jacket and got spares cut.’ Josef didn’t reply. ‘He could, couldn’t he?’

‘This fucking bad, Frieda.’

‘Yes.’

‘You must not be here.’

‘I’m not going to run away again. But I have to change every lock in the house. Do you know a good locksmith who would come out at once, even though it’s late?’

‘Yes. My friend Dritan from Poland. He has shop on Mare Street but I know him. He come if I ask.’

At the mention of Mare Street, Frieda felt a flicker of memory, but she pushed it away for later.

‘Good. And send me that photograph, please. I’ll talk to Karlsson about what we should do.’

‘We get him,’ said Josef. He held up the vodka bottle in a kind of pledge, then drank.

‘You think so?’ Frieda took a sip of her whisky and waited for its burn to fade. She felt oddly disconnected, as if all of this was happening at a distance. Hadn’t she known all along it was Dean, stealing into her house, putting his fingers on
all of her possessions, drinking from her mugs and creeping upstairs to riffle through her drawings that she let no one see, to look at her bed, touch her sheets, run his hands through her clothes? She shuddered. How could you protect yourself against someone who wasn’t really there, or catch someone if he was already a ghost?

Dritan arrived with two huge canvas bags. He and Josef shook hands and clapped each other on the back before he turned to Frieda. He was small and dark, with thin fingers, weathered skin and eyes that were almost black.

‘Thank you for coming out so late,’ said Frieda.

He shrugged. ‘Josef asked me. I mean, told me.’

‘I want every lock changed, on the windows as well as the doors.’

‘How secure do you want them to be?’

‘What do you recommend?’

‘The double-format Avocet ABS cylinder, front and back.’

‘Is that good?’

‘It prevents the snap and bump key attack.’

‘And that’s important?’

‘What people don’t understand is that most cylinders have sacrificial leads that can be snapped, but the Avocet is designed to snap twice and –’

‘I’ll take them.’

‘How many keys?’

‘Two.’ One for her; one to leave with Karlsson, she thought. No one else must have one.

‘Rods for windows and fixing points top and bottom. Are you happy with that?’

‘Look, I don’t know about locks. Just make this house as secure as possible. I should have done it before.’

‘It won’t be cheap.’

‘But will it be quick?’

‘Josef will help me. We will be done by midnight.’

Frieda made them both tea, then called Karlsson but got his voicemail. She left no message. She went up to her bedroom and stood for a while, looking around her. What had he touched? What had he done in here? This house was her safe place, her bolthole against the world, where she came to be alone, and Dean Reeve had been here. She went to the bed, pulled off the duvet, the sheets and pillowcases and threw them into the corner of the room. She could put on clean sheets, but she didn’t want to use the duvet or the pillows. They were contaminated. She took the sleeping bag Chloë used sometimes from the top of her cupboard and unrolled it, laying it on the bare mattress. She looked at all of her clothes hanging from the rail. He knew what she owned, what she wore. She went into the kitchen and collected a roll of bin-bags, returning to the bedroom with them. She pulled all the clothes off their hangers and stacked them on top of the bed linen, not looking at any of them. She opened the top drawer of her chest and removed all her underwear, then her T-shirts from the second drawer, then her jerseys. She swept every bottle or tub of lotion into a bag. Her perfume. Her scarves. She took the dressing-gown from the back of the door and threw that away as well, and her slippers. She took the towels from the bathroom, her toothbrush, her flannel.