Текст книги "Friday on My Mind"

Автор книги: Nicci French

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

19

The following day, as they returned from the park where Ethan and Tam had been paddling in the pool and Rudi and Frieda had sat on the grass with a punnet of strawberries watching them, it started to rain heavily, as if the swollen sky had split. They ran, the two children holding on to either side of the buggy, splashing through puddles that seemed to appear in seconds, but were drenched to the skin when they reached the house. It made all but Rudi, who was kept dry by the hood of the buggy, strangely happy. Ethan stood in the hallway and dripped rivulets onto the bare boards, a wide smile on his normally solemn face. Frieda collected towels from the bathroom. She stripped their clothes off and dried each child vigorously until they squealed and wriggled. She sat them on a sofa and covered them with a quilt, then made them hot chocolate that they drank with noisy slurps. Outside the summer rain clattered against the windowpanes and bounced off the road.

Rudi kept tipping forward on the sofa, so she put him in the high chair and gave him some wooden spoons to bang. She regarded him curiously: he was a mystery to her, with his darting eyes, his clutching hands, and the sudden piercing sounds he made. Sometimes she could make out emergent words from the jumble of syllables. What did one-year-olds think about? What did they dream about? How did they make sense of the world, when it came at them with so many sights and sounds and smells and clutching hands and peering faces? She picked up the spoon he flung across the room and handed it back to him and he glared at her.

Frieda had a spare set of clothes for Ethan in case of accidents, so now she went up to Tam’s bedroom, where she rummaged through drawers, pulling out some trousers and a striped green-and-white top. On her way upstairs she took the opportunity to replace the photos in the box in Bridget’s desk drawer, though she could do nothing about the broken lock, and on her way downstairs she paused by Bridget and Al’s room, hesitating. She could hear Tam and Ethan’s voices, and the bang of Rudi’s spoons. After the last time, when all she had found had been old love letters that nobody should see except Bridget herself, she had told herself she shouldn’t pry any more. But if that was the case, what was she doing, the counterfeit nanny, towing three tiny children around parks and wiping their faces? The only reason she was here was because something about Bridget’s reaction to Sandy’s death had alerted her. So she pushed open the door and stepped into the room.

The large double bed was unmade, and there were clothes tossed onto chairs and lying on the floor. There was a pile of laundry in the corner. There was no wardrobe in here, and dresses and shirts hung instead from the long clothes rack. Most of them were Bridget’s – colourful garments in cotton and silk and velvet. There was an astonishing number of shoes along the floor. The room felt very female, as if Bridget had taken up most of the space, leaving Al just one side of the rumpled bed, and a small table on which sat a pile of books.

She gazed around her. She didn’t know what she was looking for, or where she should look for it. There were tubs of face cream and tubes of body lotion on Bridget’s bedside table, as well as a novel she had never heard of and a dial of birth-control pills; underwear and T-shirts in the chest; make-up and jewellery on the small dressing-table by the window. She pulled open its small drawers, seeing tangled necklaces, hairbrushes, face wipes, several bottles of perfume. She ran her hand along the clothes hanging from the rack, feeling the soft brush of their different textures. Something jangled in the pocket of a scarlet velvet jacket and Frieda put her hand in and pulled out a set of keys. She held them in her hand. Two Chubb keys, two Yale keys, their metal cold against her palm. She heard the bang of Rudi’s spoon and the hammer of rain outside. She put the keys into her pocket and went downstairs again, making sure to close the bedroom door behind her.

Rudi fell asleep and Tam and Ethan played with some wooden bricks and soft toys and mostly Frieda just sat and half watched them. She intervened from time to time – when Tam tried to wrestle a doll from Ethan’s grasp, or when Ethan reached for an exotic and fragile vase on a bookshelf – but mainly her thoughts were elsewhere and the children were just a slightly agitating noise in the background.

Sasha came home very late, when Ethan was already in bed. She had had a tiring day and her face was drawn. Frieda saw how sharp her cheekbones were, how thin her wrists.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Sasha said. ‘I just couldn’t get away. We had an after-work meeting that went on and on, and all I could think of was that I was –’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Frieda put a hand on Sasha’s arm. ‘Really. That’s why I’m here, so that you don’t have to be anxious all the time. I’ll make you some tea and then I’ll go.’

‘Tea? Wine. Frank’s coming round in about an hour to talk about childcare arrangements.’

‘Just a very quick drink.’

But as they went into the kitchen the doorbell rang, and then the door knocker was rapped hard and Sasha’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘It’s Frank,’ she whispered. ‘He’s the only one who does that.’

‘I thought you said he was coming in an hour.’

‘He’s early.’

The bell and the knocker sounded again.

‘I don’t really want to see him,’ said Frieda.

‘No. I know. Oh dear.’

‘I’ll wait upstairs.’

‘He might be ages.’

‘Then I’ll read a book.’

She went swiftly upstairs, and into the little room that served as a spare room and study. The front door opened and she could hear Frank’s voice greeting Sasha and Sasha replying. There was a book of photographs by a German pre-war photographer on the shelves. She pulled it down and turned the pages slowly, looking at the faces of people who were long dead. She thought about what they must have lived through, those who were posing so calmly for the camera. She had a sudden longing, so sharp it was like a physical blow, for her garret room at home, the sketchpad and soft-leaded pencils, the silence of the rooms and London lying outside, vast and glittering in the night.

Their voices came from the front room but mainly she couldn’t make them out. She heard some of Frank’s phrases: ‘We can’t go on like this’; ‘We have to make arrangements.’ Sasha’s replies, such as they were, were just a murmur through the wall. The voices were raised slightly: ‘I know you’ve been having a hard time, Sasha. You look thin and tired. But it doesn’t need to be like this.’

Frieda tried not to listen. She was used to hearing people’s secrets. It was her job. But now she thought of what she was doing in Bridget and Al’s house, ferreting through drawers, knowing what she shouldn’t know; listening to Frank and Sasha as they talked about their future. She went on looking at the photographs, but still she heard the voices, and she thought about Sandy, his bitterness when they had parted. They, too, had loved each other once, and for her the ending had been like the tide going out, the gradual withdrawing of passion and a sense of a shared future. For him it had been like a blow falling, leaving him wounded, humiliated and confused. For a while, he had become like a stranger to her but now that he was dead she felt close to him again, and full of a terrible sadness for him.

She heard Frank’s voice again, the scraping of a chair. He must be standing up.

‘Yes.’ Sasha’s voice was subdued. ‘I will.’

Then the front door opened and shut, and after a few moments, Sasha called up to her that Frank was gone.

They sat at the kitchen table and drank a glass of wine. Sasha was visibly agitated. She told Frieda that Frank thought they should try again.

‘And what did you reply?’

‘I told him I would think about it.’

‘Is it what you want?’

‘I’m just tired out, Frieda. Just tired out.’

‘I know you are.’

‘I feel all wrong.’

‘In what way?’

‘I can’t say.’ She shook her head from side to side. ‘I can’t explain.’

‘You could try.’

‘You’ve got enough going on in your life as it is. You’ve already done so much to help me.’ She took a large mouthful of her wine. ‘Actually, there’s something I should tell you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I met up with everyone last night. Reuben and Josef and Jack, Chloë and Olivia.’

‘Oh.’

‘Everyone wants to help you, Frieda. That’s why we met – it was like a meeting that Reuben convened. With great quantities of Ukrainian food, of course, and vodka.’

‘That’s kind,’ said Frieda, neutrally, imagining them all there without her. ‘You didn’t say anything?’

‘No, of course not, although it felt impossible to behave naturally. Jack kept saying: “What would Frieda do?”’

Frieda smiled. ‘Did he? And what would Frieda do?’

‘No one knew.’

‘Good.’

It was after ten when Frieda left Sasha. The rain had stopped and the night was cool and clear, with a moon showing above the rooftops. Puddles glistened on the streets and the plane trees dripped. She walked at a steady pace and before long she was on such familiar ground that she scarcely had to think about where she was going. Her feet took her along streets she knew well, whose names spoke to her of their history, past an ancient church, rows of houses and shops, and then Number 9, the café her friends ran and where she always took her Sunday breakfast. Down into the little cobbled mews. And at last she was there, standing at the dark blue door.

Was this stupid? Yes, almost certainly it was. It was the most stupid thing she could do, but while her head told her to stay away her heart ordered her to go on, and her heart was stronger. The longing in her was great so she took the keys that she’d found in Bridget’s jacket from her pocket. There were two Chubbs and two Yales. She took the smaller Chubb and inserted it into the locks, then one of the Yales, and as she had known as soon as she had seen them, they fitted, turned. The door swung open and she was home.

For a moment, she stood in the hallway and allowed the house to settle around her. It still smelt familiar – of beeswax polish and wooden floorboards and many books, and also of the herbs that she had on her kitchen windowsill. Josef must be watering them for her, as he had promised. A shape slid against her legs and she bent down to stroke the cat that was purring softly, unsurprised by her return. She knew she mustn’t turn on the light, so she made her way into the kitchen to find the torch that she kept there.

Switching it on, she moved from room to room, the cat at her heels like a shadow, taking in everything the torchlight fell on. The chess table, the pieces still there in the pattern of the last game she had played through; the empty hearth and the chair beside it, waiting for her; the large map of London in the hallway; the narrow stairs taking her up to her room, where the bed was made up with fresh sheets, just as she had left it, and the bathroom where Josef’s splendid bath sat. Up the next, even narrower, flight of stairs and into her garret study. She sat down at the desk, under the skylight, and picked up a pencil. On the blank page of the sketchbook she drew a single line. When she returned, she would make that line into part of a drawing.

She went downstairs once more and shook a small amount of cat food into the bowl and put it on the floor. When the cat had finished eating, it left through the cat flap without a backward glance. She washed the bowl and placed it on the rack where she had found it. Then she turned off the torch, put it back into the drawer and then, just as she was opening her front door, she saw something that, for a moment, stopped her in her tracks, her skin prickling. There was a table just inside the door where she put mail and keys. On it was a small metal box she didn’t recognize, about the size of a thick book. A red light flashed intermittently. It wasn’t hers. It was obviously a sort of camera or sensor and, of course, the police had put it there, as she should have known, if she had thought about it, that they would. Put it there just in case she was stupid enough to come back. She had been stupid enough. She had been so careful and now, with one stroke, she was visible again. She quickly left the house, double-locking it behind her.

But she hadn’t finished yet. She walked through Holborn and then along Rosebery Avenue and left up smaller streets until she came to Sandy’s flat. This, too, she knew to be recklessly foolish. She had learned her lesson and she didn’t even try to go inside, simply put the Chubb key into the front door and felt it fit and turn. She pulled it out again and put it back into her pocket, then turned away and left. So Bridget had Sandy’s keys, and she had Frieda’s keys as well.

From Islington to Elephant and Castle was a walk she knew well, the first part at least, following the course of the buried, lost, forgotten Fleet River down Farringdon Road to the Thames, then across Blackfriars Bridge. She stopped to lean over the bridge, as she always did, to see the swirling currents of the great river, as if it were fighting against its own flow. Then she turned south and, though it was the middle of the night, there were still people around and taxis and buses and vans. There was never an escape from all of that. It was nearly dawn before she lay down on the narrow bed and closed her eyes and did not sleep.

20

Frieda was woken by her phone. For a moment, she was disconcerted because so very few people had her phone number. She lifted it up and saw it was Bridget.

‘Sorry to ring so early.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘I wanted to catch you. We’ve got the morning off, so we thought we’d take the children to the zoo. So you needn’t come in until about one, or half past. Sorry about the late notice.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘We’ll pay you anyway.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Well, we can argue about that when we meet.’

Frieda looked at her watch. Ethan was with Sasha today and she had four clear hours. It was a chance she might never get again. Within five minutes, she was washed and dressed. As she was opening the front door, she heard a hiss behind her. She turned round. It was Mira.

‘You take the potato?’ she said. ‘The salad.’

‘What?’ said Frieda. ‘No, I wasn’t here.’

‘Ileana,’ said Mira, darkly.

‘I’ll buy some food while I’m out,’ said Frieda. ‘I’ll make a meal.’

‘Thieves,’ said Mira.

‘What?’

‘Thieves and gypsies. All of them.’

‘All of what?’

‘The Romanians.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Ruse.’

‘I don’t know where that is.’

‘It is Bulgaria.’

Frieda felt in her pocket and took out a twenty-pound note. She handed it to Mira. ‘That can go towards food and whatever. And you don’t mean that about gypsies and thieves.’

‘Lock your door,’ said Mira.

‘There isn’t a lock on it.’

‘That is your problem.’

‘Later,’ said Frieda, opening the door.

In another five minutes she was on the bus with a black coffee. She sat upstairs looking at people heading to work or to the shops. More and more she felt different from all that, all the people in the real world of jobs and houses and attachments, people with places to go, appointments to keep. She felt the same estrangement when she opened the door of the house. It felt as if the family had been snatched away in an instant, leaving toys scattered where they had fallen, mugs and plates on the kitchen table. The house still smelt of the people who had left, the coffee, the perfume, soap, skin cream, talcum powder.

She thought for a moment, and then began to walk from room to room, the kitchen and the living room and upstairs to Bridget’s den and the bedroom. The house felt familiar to her now and she had already searched these rooms. She had opened the drawers and the cupboards. She paused in the bedroom and looked out of one of the large windows that faced the street. An idea had occurred to her: it was somewhere in her mind but she couldn’t quite grasp it. What was it? Let it go. Her rummaging and searching had produced nothing so far. Nothing except the keys. They had the keys to Sandy’s flat and they had the keys to her house. Suddenly the idea came to her. She ran down the stairs two at a time. The device at her house, inside the door. How could she be so careless a second time? She looked at the alarm inside the front door. It was switched off. Frieda felt a sudden jolt of alarm. Was it possible that someone was still in the house? Could Al be on the top floor? No, she told herself. They’d just forgotten to turn on the alarm.

But the idea of Al stayed with her. Frieda had mainly been thinking about Bridget, that she might have had an affair with Sandy. Somehow she seemed like Sandy’s type, maybe more his type than Frieda had been. But Al was his colleague and his friend. Had he suspected something, known something? The rooms she had looked at so far had felt like Bridget’s territory, even the shared bedroom. But she had never been to the top of the house. She walked back up the stairs, past the bedroom, up to the next floor. She knew better, but even so she walked as quietly as she could. The stairs ended in an attic room that had been converted into an office. On the side away from the street there were two large skylights. Frieda walked across and looked out. She could see the Shard and the Gherkin and the Cheese Grater, those big buildings with silly names, as if London were slightly ashamed of them.

She turned to the room. In the centre was a large pine desk, with a computer surrounded by piles of papers and cards and CDs. There was a mug full of pens and a cup containing paperclips. There was a wooden pencil box, two toothbrushes, a Flash drive, a compass, a watch, an energy bill, two pairs of headphones and a small framed photograph of the children. There were books everywhere, on makeshift wooden shelves on two of the walls, stacked on the floor. There were also piles of different scientific journals. On another table there was a CD player and more piles of CDs, a shredder, an empty magnum-sized bottle of wine and a tangle of cables and chargers. On one space of bare wall there was a messy watercolour, presumably painted by Tam, and a photograph of Al crossing the line in the London Marathon. Frieda leaned in close and looked at the time: 04.12.45. Was that good?

Frieda pulled open the drawers of the desk one by one. There was nothing unexpected: chequebooks, blank postcards, a stapler, Sellotape. Another drawer contained a pile of credit-card statements. Frieda scanned them quickly: petrol, railway tickets, a supermarket, coffee, a couple of cinema visits, names that were probably restaurants. Frieda put them back. She didn’t even know what she was looking for. Another drawer contained cardboard files. Frieda took them out one by one and riffled through them. They looked like lectures, presentations, chapters of a book. Frieda replaced them in the order she’d taken them out and turned her attention to the computer.

She touched the keyboard and the screen lit up, no password required. There were dozens of files and documents on his desktop, professional-looking, counterparts of what she had seen in the files. She clicked on his browser and looked at his history. It was a mixture of news, buying a book, weather, the London Zoo website, Twitter, a long article on a university website, a blog article and that was just today. She didn’t have time to make any kind of thorough search.

She clicked on his email. The inbox contained 16,732 messages, but this was easier. She typed in Sandy’s name and the screen filled with messages from him. She clicked on one of them and suddenly it was as if a window had been opened, bringing a familiar smell and a memory of long ago. Sandy was in the room with her. The message was nothing special, just a line saying they should get together before some departmental meeting or other and grab a coffee. The sheer casualness of it, the spelling mistakes: Frieda could almost see him sitting there typing it. It was like she was looking over his shoulder. She had to pause a moment, gather herself, stop thinking about the wrong things.

She clicked on message after message and she quickly became frustrated. Sandy had never been one for treating emails like old-fashioned letters. They were for saying ‘Yes’ or ‘Maybe’ or ‘Make it 11.30’ or, on occasion, ‘We need to talk’. He’d never even been very comfortable talking on the phone. He’d told her that if there was anything important to say, you needed to say it to someone’s face, so you could see their eyes, their expression. Otherwise it wasn’t real communication. She clicked on the last message he had sent:

If you really want to talk about this (again), I’m in my office tomorrow.

S

Frieda thought for a moment. That seemed like something. She looked at the previous message from him. It was from a week earlier, a routine message telling Al about a change of room for a seminar. She read the last message again. Talk about what? She clicked on Al’s ‘sent’ messages and scrolled down to the most recent, just an hour earlier than Sandy’s message:

Dear Sandy,

I’ve taken the weekend and you’re wrong, I’m still angry. If you think I’m just going to roll over about this, then you don’t understand me.

Yours, Alan

The previous message to this was from a week earlier and enclosed the CV of a Ph.D. student; the one before and the one before that contained nothing significant.

And then Frieda heard a sound from downstairs. Or thought she did – just a faint scraping. She stood quite still and listened but all she could hear was the thump of her heart and in the far distance a radio playing, a door slamming. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face. She should quickly finish what she was doing and leave. She turned back to her task, but then she heard another sound, definite this time, louder. It was the front door opening and then closing. She took a step back from the computer and tried to breathe steadily.

Frieda tried to remember something she might have been told. Did they have a cleaner? Was someone coming to stay? Perhaps that was why the alarm hadn’t been turned on. She thought of staying where she was in the hope that the person would leave – but what if they didn’t leave? Or if they came upstairs? If they came into this room and found her standing there? She waited, scarcely daring to breathe, and could hear nothing from downstairs. Whoever it was who had come in must be standing in the hall, not moving – unless they were moving silently, on their toes, coming up the stairs towards her. She turned her head towards the door, half expecting to see someone standing there, but who?

Then she did hear footsteps. Not fast but purposeful. Perhaps they would go towards the kitchen and she could dash into the hall and through the front door. But the footsteps paused at the foot of the stairs and then there was no doubt: they were coming towards her. She took a deep breath. There was no choice, really. She restored Al’s computer to the way it had been and walked down the stairs, which curled round themselves, so that as she approached the main flight she had a clear view: Bridget was standing a few steps up the stairs, hand on the banisters and face gazing at her with an expression of fierce contempt. For a moment the two women stared at each other, neither of them moving, and it seemed to Frieda that everything she said now would be a charade. Nevertheless she adopted a light tone as she walked down towards Bridget.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I came over because I thought I’d left my watch here. I took it off when I was playing with the children.’

The words sounded so lame as she spoke them that Frieda could anticipate Bridget’s questions: why couldn’t you just collect the watch later? Why were you looking for it upstairs? Frieda was composing plausible answers in her head but Bridget simply said: ‘And did you?’

In answer Frieda held up her left hand, showing her watch on her wrist.

Bridget barely glanced at it, but kept her gaze fixed on Frieda’s face. Her eyes glowed. She had a very faint smile on her face now, not a happy one.

‘I thought you were at the zoo,’ Frieda said. She could feel the pulse in her neck and she put out a hand to touch the wall’s reassuring solidity.

‘Yes. I know you did.’

‘Is something wrong?’

Bridget looked at Frieda as if she were assessing her and then seemed to make up her mind.

‘Follow me,’ she said. ‘Carla.’

The two women walked through to the kitchen. Bridget pulled open a drawer in the kitchen table.

‘I’ve got my watch,’ said Frieda, her voice sounding tinny in her ears. ‘I can leave now and come back for the children later.’

‘Oh, stop it, for goodness’ sake. Just stop.’ Bridget’s voice rang out clear and sharp, and Frieda felt a tingle of shame spreading through her.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll stop.’

Bridget took out a newspaper and threw it down on the table. Frieda barely needed to look. She saw the headline: ‘Police Psych Goes on Run’. And there was a picture of her, one that had been used before. It had been taken of her without her knowledge.

‘It looks like you’ve made some attempt to disguise yourself. It wasn’t enough.’

‘Obviously not.’

‘Well? Well?’ Bridget slammed her fist on the table so hard that the mugs on it jumped. ‘Is that all you have to say? Sitting there so cool and proper. My nanny. Fuck. The woman who screwed up Sandy’s life, finding your way into my house, looking after my children, snooping through my possessions.’

‘Have you called the police?’

As Frieda asked the question, she was making calculations in her head, asking herself questions. What was Bridget planning? Was Al really with the children or was he in the house as well? Or perhaps he would be waiting outside. She pictured the network of roads and tried to think of which way she would run.

‘Ha! Not yet.’ She slid her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out a mobile, held it up. ‘But my fingers are itching.’

‘Where’s Al?’

‘Out. With the children. Where you can’t get at them. How could you?’ Bridget’s voice was suddenly loud. ‘This isn’t some kind of game. Those are our fucking children. Clearly you don’t mind what happens to yourself, but what about them? You’re a fugitive, you’re wanted for murder, you probably are a murderer. A murderer of my dear friend.’

‘I looked after them well,’ said Frieda. She glanced at the back door. The key was in the lock. She could feel her muscles tensing in readiness.

Bridget raised her hands and Frieda stepped back. She let her hands fall.

‘I’ve never hit anybody in my life. But I could punch you and grab you and kick you.’

‘I understand.’

‘No, you don’t. You’ve been in this house, this house where you would never have been welcome, and you’ve lied and you’ve lied. How can you do that? How are you so good at that?’

‘I’m sorry I lied. But I was looking after your children like anyone would look after them.’

Bridget gave a bitter shout of laughter. ‘Are you insane? Is that your line of defence? I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re off my scale.’ She took a few deep breaths, as if she were trying to calm herself down. ‘Let’s go out into the garden. I feel trapped in here, as if I’m going to explode with something.’

Bridget and Al’s home was just a medium-sized terraced house, but when they stepped into the garden, Frieda felt as if they were stepping into a park. The garden was narrow but quite long and there were gardens on either side and another row of gardens at the far end. There were huge plane trees and a birch and fruit trees, all hidden from the streets that surrounded them. Bridget led them along a path to a paved area with a wooden table surrounded by metal chairs.

Frieda sat on one. It felt cold even on this sunny morning. ‘Why haven’t you called the police?’ she asked.

‘I’m asking the questions, not you.’

‘All right.’

‘I wasn’t asking for permission. And I’m on the brink of calling the police. But I wanted to talk to you myself first. You’ve been going through our stuff. At first I couldn’t believe it. Things had been moved around – at least, I thought they had. But nothing was gone. I just had to be sure. Now I am. You’re the woman Sandy’s friends hated. You’re the woman who’s wanted for his murder. And you’re in my house, looking after my children.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s your turn. Did you kill Sandy?’

‘No.’

‘Why should I believe you? The police obviously don’t.’

‘If I’d killed him, I wouldn’t be here trying to find his murderer.’

‘So that’s what you’re doing, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You would say that.’

Frieda shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But it’s true. That’s all I can say. I did not kill Sandy.’

‘And why here, in our house? What are you doing? What the fuck are you doing, Frieda fucking snoop Klein?’

‘You and your husband weren’t just friends with Sandy.’

‘Oh, weren’t we?’ Bridget folded her arms across her chest and glowered.

‘What was the problem that Al had with Sandy? The one he was complaining about.’

An expression of distaste appeared on Bridget’s face ‘Go on,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll answer your question, but only after you tell me – truthfully – how you know that Al was having a problem with Sandy.’

‘Because I read his emails.’

‘Do you never think about people’s privacy?’

‘Not when somebody has been murdered. Not when I’ve been accused of killing him.’

‘So you read through Al’s emails. And?’

‘Is it true that Al was angry with Sandy?’

‘Disappointed.’

‘He seemed extremely disappointed in the message I read.’

‘Sandy was shaking up the department. One thing he did was to shut down a research project that some of Al’s Ph.D. students were working on.’

‘Was he being unfair?’

Bridget shrugged. ‘Who knows? I suppose it was Sandy’s job to make decisions like that and it was Al’s job to feel a bit aggrieved about it. He was pissed off, he probably slammed a few doors, but he wasn’t going to kill Sandy because of it.’

‘You’d be surprised at the little things that would make someone kill someone else.’

‘You learned that as a therapist?’

‘Partly.’

‘Al couldn’t do something like that.’