Saturday Requiem (25 page)

In the kitchen, paying no attention to a bewildered Dritan and Josef, she took all the food from the fridge and tipped it into the bin. She poured the milk down the sink. She put every mug and cup and glass into the dishwasher and turned it on. She went up to her garret. Tomorrow she’d have to get her laptop looked at to make sure he hadn’t hacked into it.
She picked up her sketchpad and leafed through it. Had he seen these? She remembered her drawing of the Hardy Tree, whose roots grew among a huddle of gravestones in St Pancras churchyard. A few days ago she’d found it was no longer there. Dean had taken it. At last she felt anger burn through her. He might have found her out, but she was going to find him.

While they were still hard at work and the house vibrated with the noise of drills and hammers – though the midnight deadline had gone – Frieda walked through the rain to the twenty-four-hour supermarket in Holborn and bought underwear, a toothbrush and toothpaste, towels, a pair of jogging trousers and a long-sleeved running top from the limited sportswear section. That would have to do until tomorrow. She also bought milk, bread, butter and a jar of marmalade; a large bottle of whisky. She saw only two other people in the shop, drifting up and down the aisles. Their footsteps echoed.

When she got back, she took a tumbler from the dishwasher, opened the whisky and poured in a couple of inches, adding a small amount of water. She took it into her living room, but couldn’t make herself sit down. Energy coursed through her. The cat was lying asleep in the armchair. She drank the whisky slowly, peat and disinfectant, but still felt icily clear.

‘Done,’ said Josef in the doorway.

‘Thank you both very much. How much do I owe you?’

‘I’ll send the bill,’ said Dritan. ‘Special discount for Josef’s friend.’

‘And it’s secure?’

‘They are good locks, the best.’

‘So nobody can get in?’

‘If someone really wants to get in, nothing’s going to stop them. These locks will slow them down. That’s the best I can promise.’

‘I see.’

‘Tomorrow I can organize alarms for you, if you want. Cameras in every room.’

‘You think that would make a difference?’

‘It would make some difference. But you know yourself, alarms go off when they shouldn’t, especially when you have a cat, and the police often don’t respond anyway. It’s your choice. It depends on how worried you are.’

‘All are worried,’ said Josef.

‘All I’m saying is that there’s good security and bad security, but no absolute security. Every lock can be broken, every house entered in the end.’

‘No alarms,’ said Frieda. ‘No cameras.’ She wasn’t going to give Dean any more power over her.

At half past seven the next morning, Frieda knocked at Karlsson’s door and waited, wondering if he was still in bed. But then she heard the tapping sound of his crutches, a crash as something fell to the floor, a curse. The door opened.

‘Frieda!’

‘Sorry it’s so early.’

‘No. It’s fine. Come in. Coffee?’

‘Please, if that’s OK.’ She had been up all night scrubbing surfaces, scouring her bath and her fridge, washing china and cutlery.

Karlsson made his way into the kitchen and she followed him. ‘Shall I make it?’

‘No. I’m getting used to doing everything propped up on these bloody things. I haven’t fallen over in ages.’ He took in her jogging trousers and top. ‘You look unusually sporty. Have you run here?’

‘I threw away my clothes.’

‘A spring-clean. But without spring.’ He gestured through the window to the sodden garden.

‘All of them.’

‘Why?’

‘And all my sheets and towels.’

‘Hang on a minute.’ There was a roar from the coffee grinder. ‘There. What’s going on?’

She watched him as he poured boiling water over the coffee, then heated some milk and poured it into a small jug. He did everything meticulously, taking a cloth to wipe up spilled
drops on the surface. For some reason, this carefulness made her feel sad for him. He handed over her coffee, then lowered himself onto a chair, his leg stretched out.

Frieda took her mobile from her pocket and pulled up the image Josef had sent her. She passed it to Karlsson, who stared at it without expression, his mouth a hard line.

‘Is this who I think it is?’ he said at last.

‘It’s Dean, yes.’

He laid the phone face up on the table between them. ‘You’re absolutely sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not his brother?’

‘It’s Dean.’

‘When was it taken?’

‘Eight or nine months ago.’

‘How did you get this?’

‘He worked with Josef last summer on that house in Belsize Park. He went under the name of Marty. He was Josef’s friend, his mate. He and Josef looked after Ethan when Sasha had her collapse.’

‘I was there,’ said Karlsson, very softly, under his breath.

‘In the house?’

‘In the garden. I was there. I think I saw him.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ The words she had used to Josef.

Karlsson laid his hand over the phone, then lifted it up again, as though the image would have disappeared, like a magic trick.

‘Josef had a set of my keys with him. He must have taken them and got them cut.’

‘He has your keys?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I got a locksmith round last night and had all the locks changed. But he did. I knew someone had been in my house, rearranging things. He wants me to know.’

‘Right,’ said Karlsson. ‘Right.’

‘That smile. It’s for me. He’s smiling for me.’

‘We’ve got to do something.’

‘What?’ said Frieda. ‘He’s officially dead. Nobody will believe me. They’ll just think it’s another symptom of my paranoia.’ She stopped abruptly. ‘You do, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Good. But who can I turn to? Who can stop this?’

Karlsson closed his eyes for a moment. ‘If I didn’t have this bloody cast on,’ he said at last. ‘We know he’s in London, anyway.’

‘Or has been.’

‘You have to move out of your house, Frieda.’

‘You think he wouldn’t find me? I’m as safe there as anywhere. And, anyway, I’m done with all of that. I’m not going on the run again.’

‘We’ve got to get the case reopened.’

‘You think Crawford’s going to allow that?’

‘He’ll have to. And you should tell Levin about it.’

‘I thought of that.’

‘He’s got the kind of power I don’t. He can make things happen.’

Levin was sitting in his shirtsleeves and braces at a desk piled with files. There was a fire in the small grate, a carafe of red wine on the mantelpiece. He managed, thought Frieda, to turn everywhere into a gentlemen’s club, and he was apparently too polite to notice she was wearing running clothes and walking boots.

‘I want your help.’

‘That wasn’t the agreement.’

‘This isn’t about the Dochertys.’

‘Tell me.’

Frieda told him. The expression on his face was inscrutable. Every so often he took off his glasses and turned them over in his hands, then replaced them, delicately tapping them back onto his nose. She showed him the photograph of Dean.

‘Wait here a moment,’ he said.

He went out of the room, and when he returned, it was with Keegan. He looked exhausted.

‘Frieda has a problem,’ said Levin. ‘Tell him, Frieda.’

She did. Keegan glowered at her throughout, pacing about the room. One day, she thought, he would have a heart attack out of pent-up anger, or perhaps it was only with her that he was so angry. But when she finished, he didn’t argue with her. He stared intently at the photograph on her phone and then at the multiple images of Dean Reeve that Levin pulled up on his computer.

‘Don’t ask me if I’m sure,’ said Frieda.

‘I can tell you’re sure. That doesn’t mean you’re right, of course.’

‘I am.’

‘I’ve a friend.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘He used to be in the Met with me. He finds people.’

‘People like Dean?’

‘Anyone. He’s a bit like you.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by that.’

‘Like a dog with a bone.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I can ask him to take a look.’

‘Thank you.’

Keegan grunted and gave a dismissive shrug.

‘I mean it. Thank you. After all our differences.’

‘We can still have those.’

Frieda went to a department store and bought a pair of black trousers, three shirts, a thin grey jersey and some underwear. There was a thought that she had stowed away and now she pulled it out. Mare Street. What seemed like a long time ago, Yvette had told her that, according to Malik Gordon, Ben Sedge’s sidekick on the Docherty case, one of the police officers, had been so distressed by the murders that she had left the Met and opened a florist’s on Mare Street.

Frieda took a bus there, getting off at Dalston Lane and walking south along the canal. A few years ago, it had been a run-down area; now it was full of young men with beards and round glasses, young women in bright clothes, bars selling vegan food. After five minutes, she came to a flower shop, Jane’s Blooms, and walked into the cool, damp green of its interior. There were buckets of flowers everywhere, bright and perfumed. The bell jingled as she closed the door and a young woman looked up from the counter, where she was counting long-stemmed roses.

‘Can I help?’

‘Is this the only florist on Mare Street?’

‘As far as I know.’

‘I’m looking for the woman who started it.’ She forced her memory back to the police reports she had read, sitting in the small office in Levin’s house. It seemed like years ago. ‘Jane Farthing. Is she here?’

‘Yes, she’s doing flowers for a funeral. Is she expecting you?’

‘No. But I won’t take long.’

Jane Farthing came out from the back, wiping her hands on a large apron. She had curly brown hair, freckles on the bridge of her nose and a professionally friendly smile. ‘Yes?’

‘My name is Frieda Klein. I was hoping to talk to you about something that happened a long time ago, when you
were a police officer.’ She saw the colour spread over Jane Farthing’s face and down her smooth neck. ‘It’s all right. There’s nothing at all to be alarmed about. I’m looking into the Docherty case again and someone mentioned that you’d been involved.’

‘The Dochertys, yes.’ She frowned. ‘Are you a journalist?’

‘I’m a consultant working with the police.’

‘A consultant? What does that mean?’

‘It means I’m asking questions about the inquiry.’

‘I’m done with all of that.’ She looked at the young woman standing near them.

‘I know you are.’

‘Now I sell flowers. The police station’s a few yards away. I see police cars racing along the road with their lights and their sirens and I’m just so glad I’m out of it. I don’t want to talk about the Dochertys. I don’t want to think about them.’

Frieda hesitated. ‘I believe Hannah Docherty is innocent.’

Jane Farthing stared at her. Then she said, ‘Come out back. I can do the arrangements while we talk.’ She nodded at the young woman. ‘Keep an eye on everything.’

She led Frieda into the neighbouring room. It, too, was full of flowers and greenery, and pots and vases in various sizes. A basin ran along the length of one wall, and a long table stood in the middle, with scissors and twine. Jane positioned herself at it. She picked up several thistles and laid them in front of her, then some lilies. ‘I hate lilies,’ she said. ‘But people always want them at funerals.’

‘I hate them too,’ said Frieda, thinking of the time that Dean had sent her lilies.

‘Why do you think she’s innocent?’ Jane snipped at a stem. ‘There was never any doubt.’

‘That’s what everyone keeps saying.’

‘I’m not the one to ask about it.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Don’t you know? All my life I’d wanted to join the police, and on my very first murder case, I couldn’t hack it. I was so determined not to let it get to me. If you’re a woman, you’d better be as tough as anyone, tougher. But I discovered I wasn’t tough. I went to pieces. I kept having flashbacks and being sick and crying.’

‘It was an extreme case.’

‘You’ve no idea.’

‘Can you tell me?’

‘What? So that I can have nightmares again?’

‘Did you have therapy?’

‘One session of counselling. It was useless. I think he was rather religious and he kept talking about evil and I don’t believe in evil. Or I didn’t until then. Do you?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t remember it the way you probably want me to remember it. I don’t remember it chronologically. It doesn’t have a shape. It has a smell, that horrible sweet stench you can’t get out of your nostrils. Rotten, foul, but almost like food. It’s a smell you taste and then you feel poisoned. And it has a colour. Dark red, nearly black. Blood everywhere. There was blood on the ceiling and up the walls. Sticky dark blood.’ She snipped more stems. Frieda saw her hands were shaking slightly. ‘With bits in it. Bits of body. Do you understand? Little pieces of them spread around like some foul stew. And that boy in his pyjamas. And her. She was the worst. I never ever want to see anything like that again: what hate can do. The father and the brother were recognizable. But her – God. There was an eye but not in its right place and then nothing, just a mess of bone and flesh and you could hardly tell she had been a person. Hannah must have hated her mother. Except you think it wasn’t Hannah.’

Frieda was surprised by her shock at Jane Farthing’s account. Her memories seemed entirely unprocessed. It was like she had just stepped out of the room and was reporting what she had seen and felt. And smelt.

‘I was unlucky in a way,’ the woman said now, still snipping.

‘In what way?’

‘We arrived at the house and the front door was open. I just felt something was wrong and I was the first in the bedroom.’ Jane Farthing’s eyes had gone unfocused, unseeing, like someone in a waking dream. Frieda didn’t know if all this was good for her but at the same time she didn’t want her to stop. ‘Just for a minute my training kicked in. It’s funny that way. I took out my phone and called it in and then I just stood there. They got there so quickly. The photographer had been doing another job in the area. He was there in a few minutes. I think it was a few minutes. Sedge was furious.’

‘Why was he furious?’

‘Messing up the scene. Contaminating it. It was my own fault. You need to do the forensics first, then the photographs. Preserve the scene. I just wasn’t thinking straight. It was like I was under water and everything was happening slowly and far away. For weeks, I kept thinking it had got onto me. The smell, the blood. We were all just blundering around in shock.’

‘Did you meet Hannah?’

‘When she identified the bodies. I’ll never forget her.’

‘Tell me.’

‘She didn’t look real. She was tall and strong and had this long, wild hair, and a glassy, glittering look to her. But, then, nothing about it seemed real.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You read about crime in books and see it on TV and that’s what comes to seem real – something you can solve and understand and sort away. This was like being in Hell.’

‘And that was why you had to leave.’

‘Yes.’ Jane Farthing moved to the basin, turning on the tap to rinse her hands. ‘And that’s why I can’t help you understand anything, because I didn’t understand anything myself. I just felt like I was looking into a pit that went down and down, and if I didn’t stop looking I’d fall into it myself.’

‘I’m glad you opened your shop.’

‘A bit of a cliché, perhaps.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘Trying to cure myself with all of this. But I couldn’t think what else to do.’

When Frieda left she bought a tub of early hyacinths, several bunches of daffodils and a paper windmill for Ethan. She walked back down Mare Street carrying them, the little windmill turning, thinking of what Jane Farthing had said and of what she had seen. Who had hated Justine Walsh so much they had obliterated her face? Why had she been lying beside Aidan, in Deborah Docherty’s nightgown? Where had Deborah Docherty been? And Hannah? And she thought of Ben Sedge’s last words to her:
Keep an open mind. Because she killed them, you know
.

There was a message on her voicemail from Tom Morell. He sounded furtive, his voice a half-whisper.

‘There was something. It probably means nothing. But that night I told you about, Hannah said something.’ There was the sound of a woman calling to him and he broke off, saying Frieda should call him.