Текст книги "Friday on My Mind"

Автор книги: Nicci French

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Nicci French

FRIDAY ON MY MIND

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Follow Penguin

To Kersti and Philip

1

Kitty was five years old and she was cross. The queue for the Crown Jewels had been long and they weren’t so special anyway. The queue for Madame Tussauds had been longer, and she didn’t even recognize most of the waxworks, and she couldn’t see them properly with all the crowds. And it had been drizzling. And she hated the Underground. When she stood on the platform and heard the rumble of an approaching train, it felt like something terrible coming out of the darkness.

But when they got on the boat she became a little less cross. The river was so big that it felt almost like the ocean, heaving with the currents and the tide. A plastic bottle floated past.

‘Where’s it going?’ said Kitty.

‘To the sea,’ said her mum. ‘All the way to the sea.’

‘The Thames Barrier will stop it,’ said her dad.

‘No, it won’t,’ said her mum. ‘It’s not a real barrier.’

As the boat pulled away from the Embankment, Kitty ran from one side of the boat to the other. If she was seeing something interesting on one bank of the river, that meant she was missing what was interesting on the other or in front.

‘Calm down, Kitty,’ said her mum. ‘Why don’t you write a list in your book of everything you see?’

So Kitty got out her new notebook, the one with the elephant on the cover. And her new pen. She opened the notebook at a fresh page and wrote a number one and drew a heart-shaped circle around it. She looked about her. ‘What’s that big thing?’

‘Which big thing?’

‘That one.’

‘The Eye.’

So that was number one.

The boat was almost empty. It was a Friday and it had only just stopped raining. Kitty’s parents drank coffee and Kitty, whose school was closed for a training day and who had been looking forward to this trip for weeks, frowned over her notebook while a voice on the Tannoy said that the River Thames was a pageant of history. It was from here, said the voice, that Francis Drake had set off to circle the globe. And it was here that he returned with a ship full of treasure and became Sir Francis Drake.

Kitty was so busy that she was almost irritated when her dad sat down beside her.

‘We’ve stopped,’ he said, ‘so we can look at the Thames and at London Bridge.’

‘I know,’ said Kitty.

‘Do you know “London Bridge Is Falling Down”?’

‘We done that at school.’

‘Did it.’

Kitty ignored this and carried on writing.

‘So what have you seen?’

Kitty finished the word she was writing, the tip of her tongue protruding from the side of her mouth. Then she held up the notebook. ‘Five things,’ she said.

‘What five things?’

‘A bird.’

Her dad laughed. She frowned at him. ‘What?’

‘No, that’s very good. A bird. What else?’

‘A boat.’

‘What? This boat?’

‘No.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Another boat.’

‘Good.’

‘A tree.’

‘Where?’

‘It’s gone.’ She looked back at her notebook. ‘A car.’

‘Yes, there are lots of cars driving along by the river. That’s very good, Kitty. Is that all?’

‘And a whale.’

Her dad looked at the notebook. ‘“Whale” has an h in it. W-H-A-L-E. But this is a river. It doesn’t have whales in it.’

‘I saw it.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

‘Where?’

Kitty pointed. Her dad stood up and walked to the side of the boat. And then the day that was already exciting got more and more exciting. Her dad shouted something and then he turned to Kitty and shouted even louder. He told her to stay exactly where she was and not to move a single step. Then he ran along the deck and down the steps, and the man who was talking on the loudspeaker stopped and then said things in a loud voice that sounded completely different. Other people started running around on the deck and looking over the side and shouting and a fat woman began to cry.

The loudspeaker said that people should move away from the side but they didn’t. Kitty’s mum came and sat next to her and talked to her about what they were going to do afterwards and about the summer holidays, which weren’t long off now; they were going camping. Then Kitty heard the loud noise of an engine and she got up and saw a huge motorboat heading along the river and getting closer and closer until it stopped and she felt the waves from it move their own boat up and down so that she almost fell over. Kitty’s mum got up and stood with everyone else at the railings. Kitty could only see their backs and the backs of their heads. It was like being at Madame Tussauds where her dad had had to put her up on his shoulders.

This time she could go to the edge of the group and look through the railings. She could read the writing on the side of the boat: ‘Police’. That would be number six on her list. Two men were climbing down on a little ledge at the back of the boat. One of them had big yellow clothes on and gloves that looked like they were made out of rubber and he actually got into the water. Then men used ropes and they started to pull the thing out of the water. There were groaning sounds from the people on the boat and some of them moved away from the railings and Kitty got an even better view. Other people were holding their phones up. The thing looked strange, all blown up and blotchy and milky-coloured, but she knew what it was. The men wrapped it in a big black bag and zipped it up.

The two boats moved together and one of the men climbed from the other boat onto the lower deck of this boat. The other man, the one in the big yellow clothes, stayed on the other boat. He was fixing a rope and tying a knot. When he had finished he stood up, and he looked at Kitty at exactly the same moment that she was waving at him. He smiled and gave a wave and she waved back.

Nothing was happening now, so she went and sat down again. She wrote a number six and circled it and wrote ‘Police’. Then she looked at number five. Carefully, letter by letter, she crossed out ‘Whale’ until it was entirely obliterated. With great concentration she wrote: ‘M-A-N’.

2

Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Hussein and Detective Constable Glen Bryant climbed out of the car. Hussein fished her mobile from her pocket, and Bryant took a packet of cigarettes and a pink plastic lighter from his. He was tall and burly with cropped hair, big hands and feet and broad shoulders, like a rugby player; he was sweating. Beside him, Hussein looked small, cool, compact.

‘Something’s come up and I’ll be back late,’ said Hussein, into the phone. ‘I know. I’m sorry. You can give the girls pasta. Or there are pizzas in the freezer. I don’t know what time I’ll be home. They shouldn’t wait up. Nor should you. Nick, I’ve got to go. Sorry.’

A man was approaching them. His face was flushed and his hair was rough and untidy. He seemed more like a trawlerman than a policeman.

‘Hello.’ He held out a hand to Bryant, who looked sheepish but took it. ‘I’m Detective Constable O’Neill. Marine Policing Unit. You must be DCI Hussein.’

‘Actually …’ began Bryant.

‘This is Detective Constable Bryant,’ said Hussein, coolly. ‘I’m DCI Hussein.’

‘Oh. Sorry. I thought –’

‘Don’t worry, I’m used to it.’

Hussein looked along the river to her right at Tower Bridge and to her left at Canary Wharf and across at the smart new riverside flats of Rotherhithe. ‘Nice position.’

‘You should see it in November,’ O’Neill said.

‘I’m surprised it hasn’t been sold off for flats. Riverfront property like this.’

‘We’d still need somewhere to put our boats.’

DC O’Neill gestured at what looked like a large square tent made out of blue plastic sheets. Hussein pulled a face. ‘Really?’

‘It’s where we put them for a quick check. So we can decide whether to call you guys.’ O’Neill pulled the sheet aside and showed her through. Inside the sheets, two figures in plastic caps and shoes and white gowns were moving softly around the body. ‘Sometimes we’re not sure. But this one had had his throat cut.’

Bryant took a deep, audible breath and O’Neill looked round with a smile. ‘You think this is bad? You should see them when they’ve been in the water for a month or two. Sometimes you can’t tell what sex they are. Even with their clothes off.’

The body was lying in a large shallow metal basin. It looked swollen, as if it had been inflated with a pump. The flesh was unnaturally pale but also blotchy, marbled and bruised on the face and hands. It was still dressed in a dark shirt, grey trousers, robust leather shoes – almost more boots than shoes. Hussein noticed the laces were still double-knotted, and she couldn’t help thinking of him stooping and tying them, pulling them tight.

She made herself examine the face. There were remnants of the nose, little more than exposed cartilage. All the features seemed blurred, corroded, but the slashed neck was plain to see. ‘It looks violent,’ she said finally.

Bryant made a small noise of assent beside her. He had his handkerchief out and was pretending to blow his nose.

‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ said O’Neill. ‘Apart from the throat. The river really knocks them about, the birds get at them. And then in summer things happen more quickly.’

‘Where was he found?’

‘Up near HMS Belfast, by London Bridge. But that doesn’t mean anything either. He could have gone into the river anywhere from Richmond to Woolwich.’

‘Any idea how long he’s been in the water?’

O’Neill cocked his head on one side as if he were doing some mental arithmetic. ‘He was floating. So we’re looking at a week. No more than ten days, the way he is.’

‘That’s not much help.’

‘It’s a good way of getting rid of a body,’ said O’Neill. ‘Much better than burying it.’

‘Was there anything in his pockets?’

‘No wallet, no phone, no keys, not even a handkerchief. No watch.’

‘So you’ve got nothing?’

‘You mean you’ve got nothing. He’s your baby now. But, yeah, there is something. Look at his wrist.’

Hussein pulled on her plastic gloves and bent across the corpse. There was a faint sweet smell she didn’t want to think about. Around the left wrist there was a plastic band. She lifted it gently. ‘It’s the sort of thing you get in hospital.’

‘That’s what we thought. And it looks like it’s got his name on it.’

She leaned right down close. The writing was faint, barely legible. She had to spell it out for herself, letter by letter. ‘Klein,’ she said. ‘Dr F. Klein.’

They waited for the van to arrive, gazing out over the river glinting in the late-afternoon sun. The rain had cleared and the sky was a pale blue, streaked with rose-coloured clouds.

‘I wish it hadn’t happened on a Friday,’ said Bryant.

‘That’s the way of things.’

‘It’s my favourite day, usually. It’s like an extra bit of the weekend.’

Hussein snapped her gloves off. She was thinking about the arrangements she would have to cancel, her daughters’ crestfallen faces, Nick’s resentment. He would try to hide it, which would make it worse. At the same time she was running through the list of tasks that lay ahead, sorting them into priorities. It was always like this at the start of a case.

‘I’ll go with the van to the morgue. You find out who this Dr Klein is and what hospital that tag comes from, if it is a hospital. You’ve got a photo of it.’

Bryant lifted up his phone.

According to the plastic bracelet, Dr Klein’s date of birth was 18 November but they couldn’t make out the year. There were two letters and a series of barely legible digits underneath the name, alongside what looked like a bar code.

‘Missing People,’ said Hussein. ‘Male, middle-aged, reported between five days and two weeks ago.’

‘I’ll call you if I find anything.’

‘Call me anyway.’

‘I meant that, of course.’

The plastic ID came from the King Edward Hospital, in Hampstead. Bryant called them and was put through a series of departments until he ended up with an assistant in the executive medical director’s office. He was told very firmly that he would have to come in person with his request before they gave out personal information about staff or patients.

So he drove there, up the hill in thick rush-hour traffic, hot and impatient. It could almost have been quicker to walk: he should buy a scooter, he thought, or a motorbike. In the medical director’s office, a thin woman in a red suit carefully checked his ID and he repeated what it was he wanted, showing her the image on his phone.

‘I thought it must be someone who works here.’

The woman looked unimpressed. ‘Those wristbands are for patients, not for staff.’

‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’

‘The staff wear laminated passes.’

‘I’m more interested in this one.’

He was asked to wait. The minute hand on the large clock on the wall jerked forward. He felt sweaty and soiled, and kept picturing the bloated, waterlogged thing that had once been a man. The woman returned holding a printout.

‘The patient was admitted here three years ago,’ she said. ‘As an emergency.’ She looked down at the paper. ‘Lacerations. Stab wounds. Nasty.’

‘Three years ago?’ Bryant frowned and spoke almost to himself. ‘Why would he still be wearing his hospital ID?’

‘It wasn’t a he. The patient was a woman. Dr Frieda Klein.’

‘Do you have an address?’

‘Address, phone number.’

Hussein felt a small twitch of memory. ‘Why does that name ring a bell?’

‘I don’t have a clue. Shall I call her?’

‘Yes. Ask her to come to the morgue.’

‘To identify the body? I hope she’s up for that.’

Hussein stood outside the forensics suite eating a bag of crisps and watched Frieda Klein following the officer down the windowless corridor. She was probably the same kind of age as Hussein herself, but taller, and dressed in grey linen trousers and a high-necked white T-shirt. Her nearly black hair was piled on top of her head. She walked swiftly and lightly, but Hussein noticed there was a slight drag to her gait, like that of a wounded dancer. As she got closer, she saw that the woman’s face, devoid of make-up, was pale. Her eyes were very dark and Hussein felt that she was not just being looked at but scrutinized.

‘Dr Frieda Klein.’

‘Yes.’

As Hussein introduced herself and Bryant, she tried to assess the woman’s mood. She remembered what Bryant had said after he had spoken to her: Dr Klein didn’t seem that surprised.

‘You might find this distressing.’

The woman nodded. ‘He had my name on his wrist?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

The morgue was harshly lit and silent and very cold. There was the familiar smell, rancid and antiseptic, that caught in the back of the throat.

They stopped in front of the slab. The shape was covered with a white sheet.

‘Ready?’

She nodded once more. The morgue attendant stepped forward and drew back the sheet. Hussein didn’t look at the body, but at Frieda Klein’s face. Her expression didn’t alter, not even a tightening of the jaw. She stared intently and leaned closer, unblinking. Her eyes travelled down to the gaping wound at the neck. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t tell.’

‘Perhaps it would help to see the clothes that he was found in.’

They were on a shelf, folded into transparent plastic bags. One by one, Hussein lifted them down for inspection. A sodden dark shirt. Grey trousers. Those heavy leather shoes, whose laces were blue and double-knotted. Hussein heard a tiny intake of breath beside her. For an instant, the expression on Frieda Klein’s face had altered, like a landscape that had darkened and chilled. She curled one hand slightly, as if she were about to lift it to touch the bag that contained the shoes. She turned back towards the terrible body and stood quite upright, staring down.

‘I know who this is,’ she said. Her voice was soft and calm. ‘This is Sandy. Alexander Holland. I know him by his shoes.’

‘You’re quite sure?’ asked Hussein.

‘I know him by his shoes,’ Frieda Klein repeated.

‘Dr Klein, are you all right?’

‘I am, thank you.’

‘Have you any idea why he was wearing your old hospital ID round his wrist?’

She looked at Hussein and then back at the corpse. ‘We used to be in a relationship. A long time ago.’

‘But not now.’

‘Not now.’

‘I see,’ said Hussein, neutrally. ‘I’m grateful to you. This can’t be easy. Obviously, we’ll need all the details you can give us about Mr Holland. And your details too, so we can contact you again.’

She gave a slight tip of her head. Hussein had the impression she was making the greatest effort to keep herself under control.

‘He was murdered?’

‘As you see, his throat has been cut.’

‘Yes.’

When she left, after they had taken her details, Hussein turned to Bryant. ‘There’s something odd about her.’

Bryant was hungry and he was in need of a smoke. He stood on the balls of his feet, then subsided again. ‘She was calm. I’ll give her that.’

‘Her reaction when she saw the shoes – it was strange.’

‘In what way?’

‘I don’t know. We need to keep an eye on her, though.’

3

When Alexander Holland’s sister opened the door, Hussein noticed several things at the same time. That Elizabeth Rasson was getting ready to go out: she was wearing a lovely blue dress but no shoes and she had a flustered air, as if she’d been interrupted. That there was a child crying somewhere in the house, and a man’s voice soothing it. That she was tall, dark-haired, rather striking in an angular kind of way, and that Bryant, standing just behind her, was stiffly upright, like a soldier on parade. She felt that he was holding his breath, waiting for her to say the words that would change this woman’s life.

‘Elizabeth Rasson?’

‘What is it? It’s really not a good time. We’re on our way out.’ She glanced beyond them, down the street, letting out an exasperated sigh.

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Hussein. This is my colleague Detective Constable Bryant.’ And they both held out their IDs.

Moments like this always got Hussein between the shoulder blades and in the thickening of the throat. However calm she felt and prepared she was, it never became automatic, just part of the job, to look into a person’s face and tell them that someone they loved was dead. She had come here straight from this woman’s brother, lying swollen and decomposing on the slab.

‘Police?’ the woman said. Her eyes narrowed. ‘What’s this about?’

‘You’re the sister of Alexander Holland?’

‘Sandy? Yes. What’s happened to him?’

‘Can we come in?’

‘Why? Is he in trouble?’

Say it plainly, clearly, with no room left for doubt: that’s what they had all been told during training, many years ago now. That was what she did, each time, looking into the person’s eyes and telling them without a quaver that someone they had known, perhaps loved, had died.

‘I’m very sorry to tell you that your brother is dead, Mrs Rasson.’

Suddenly Elizabeth Rasson looked bewildered. Her face screwed up in an expression that was almost comic, cartoonish.

‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Hussein said gently.

‘I don’t understand. It’s not possible.’

Behind them, a young woman came running along the pavement and in through the gate to the front garden. Her ponytail was crooked and her round cheeks flushed.

‘I’m sorry, Lizzie,’ she gasped. ‘The bus. Friday evening. I got here as quickly as I could.’

Hussein gestured sharply at Bryant, who stepped forward and took her by the arm, steering her away from the front door.

‘We were supposed to be going out,’ said Lizzie Rasson. Her voice was dull. ‘To dinner with friends.’

‘Can I come in for a minute?’

‘Dead, you say? Sandy?’

Hussein led her into the living room.

‘Will you sit down?’

But Lizzie Rasson remained standing in the middle of the room. Her attractive face had taken on a bony, vacant look. Upstairs the child’s screaming got louder and higher, piercing enough to break glass; Hussein could picture the furious red face.

‘How did he die? He was healthy. He went running most days.’

‘Your brother’s body was found in the Thames earlier today.’

‘In the Thames? Sandy drowned? But he was a good swimmer. Why was he in the river anyway?’

Hussein paused. ‘His throat was cut.’

Suddenly the crying stopped. The room filled with silence. Lizzie Rasson looked around her as if she were searching for something; her blank gaze drifted across furniture, books, family photographs. Then she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said assertively. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘I know this is a terrible shock, but there are questions we need to ask you.’

‘His throat?’

‘Yes.’

Lizzie Rasson sat down heavily in one of the armchairs, her long legs splayed. She looked suddenly clumsy. ‘How do you know it’s him? It could be someone else.’

‘He has been identified.’

‘Identified by whom?’

‘Dr Frieda Klein.’

Hussein was watching Lizzie Rasson’s face as she spoke. She saw the involuntary flinch, the tightening of the mouth.

‘Frieda. Poor Sandy,’ she said, but softly, as if to herself. ‘Poor, poor Sandy.’

They heard footsteps running down the stairs and a solid, open-faced man with reddish hair came into the room.

‘You’ll be glad to know he’s asleep at last. Was that Shona at the door?’ he said, then saw Hussein, saw his wife’s stricken face, stopped in his tracks.

‘Sandy’s dead.’ Saying the words seemed to make them true for the first time. Lizzie Rasson lifted a hand to her face, held it against her mouth, then her cheek. ‘She says his throat was cut.’

‘Oh, my God,’ said her husband. He put a hand against the wall as if to steady himself. ‘He was killed? Sandy?’

‘That’s what she says.’

He crossed the room and squatted beside the chair in which she was sprawled, lifting both her slim hands in his large, broad-knuckled ones and holding them tightly. ‘Are they certain?’

She gave a strangled, angry sob. ‘Frieda identified him.’

‘Frieda,’ he said. ‘Jesus, Lizzie.’

His arm was round her shoulders now and her blue dress was crumpled. Tears were gathering in her eyes and starting to roll down her cheeks.

‘I know.’ She gave a gulp, swiped her wrist under her nose.

He turned to Hussein at last. ‘You don’t need to believe everything that woman tells you,’ he said. His pleasant face had hardened. ‘Why did she identify him, anyway?’

Bryant entered the room and stood beside Hussein; by smell, she knew he had smoked a cigarette before coming back in again. He hated things like this.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Hussein. ‘But there are questions we need to ask you, and the sooner we do so the better for the investigation.’

She looked at the couple. It wasn’t clear if they understood what was being said to them. Bryant had taken out his notebook.

‘First of all, can you confirm your brother’s full name, date of birth and current address – and can you tell us the last time that you saw him?’

By the time they left the Rassons’ house, the sky was dark although the air was still soft and warm against their skin.

‘What do we know?’ asked Hussein, climbing into the car.

Bryant took a large bite from the sandwich he’d bought. Tuna mayonnaise, thought Hussein – that was what he always had, that or chicken and pesto.

‘We know,’ she continued, not waiting for him to answer, ‘that Alexander Holland was forty-two years old, that he was an academic at King George’s and his subject was neurology. He came back from the US a couple of years ago after a brief stint there. He lived in a flat off the Caledonian Road.’

She held up the key that Lizzie Rasson had given them.

‘That he lives alone. That he has no regular partner, as far as his sister knows. That she last saw him eleven days ago, on Monday, June the ninth, when he seemed much as usual. That his throat was cut left to right, so it’s likely we’re looking for a right-hander, and he was found floating in the Thames. No indication of where the body entered the water. That he has been dead a week minimum, so that gives us a window of possibility, from June the tenth, or even late on the ninth, to Friday, June the thirteenth.’

‘Unlucky for some,’ put in Bryant.

Hussein ignored this. ‘That he was found on Friday, June the twentieth. That, according to his sister, he has many friends and no enemies. The last of which cannot be true.’

She held out her hand and Bryant handed her his sandwich. She took a bite from it and gave it back. Her phone vibrated in her pocket but she didn’t take it out: it was probably one of her daughters and would make her feel guilty and distracted.

‘Anything else?’ she went on.

‘They don’t like Frieda Klein much.’