Текст книги "Friday on My Mind"

Автор книги: Nicci French

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

25

Frieda walked swiftly, her sunglasses on and her head held high, but she didn’t know where she was going. The police had been waiting for her at the café and they had also tracked her to her new place; everything was closing in on her, all the doors shutting. She briefly thought of calling Josef again, but she no longer had a phone and, anyway, he had done enough, and she couldn’t go to yet another strange and lonely room.

She walked until she had no idea of where she was, in a labyrinth of side-streets and shabby houses. There she stopped and looked inside the bag that Mira had given her. Inside she found her cafetière, the new red skirt that she hated, two shirts, the dark trousers she had bought for June Reeve’s funeral, all the contents of her underwear drawer, the bottle of whisky, which was nearly empty, and a pack of playing cards that didn’t belong to her. And, of course, she still had her money, though it wouldn’t last her long. She let her thoughts rest for a few seconds on what she did not have: her beloved walking boots, a scarf that had been a present from Sandy, her sketchbook and pencils, her toothbrush, her keys … She stood quite still for a moment, with the flat blue sky above her and the hot tarmac under her thin shoes, feeling almost dizzy with the lightness of her life. It was as if she were suspended in space, in time. Then she made up her mind and continued.

An hour and a half later she knocked at the grey door and stood back to wait. When she heard footsteps she removed her sunglasses. The door swung open and Chloë stood in front of her.

‘Yes?’ she said politely. Her hair was cut very short, almost to a bristle, and she had new piercings and a tattoo on her shoulder. ‘Can I help?’ Then she frowned and her mouth slightly opened. ‘Fuck.’

‘Can I come in?’

Chloë reached forward, seized her by the forearm and dragged her across the threshold, slamming the door shut on them both.

Frieda was trying to smile but her mouth felt an odd shape. ‘I didn’t know where else to go.’

The words seemed to take both of them by surprise so that they stared at each other for a few seconds before Chloë threw her arms around Frieda’s neck and hugged her so hard that she could scarcely breathe.

‘I am so happy you’re here,’ said Chloë. There were tears in her eyes.

‘It’s not for long. Just for the night.’

‘Fuck that.’

‘The police are looking for me.’

‘I know that. But they’re not going to find you.’

Frieda felt she had arrived somewhere utterly familiar but that it had become strange and dreamlike: to be here, in this house where she had so often sorted out the chaos of Olivia’s life or cared for Chloë, and where now she was the outcast, the one in need of help.

‘You’ve cut your hair.’

‘I know.’

‘It’s not exactly a foolproof disguise.’

They went into the kitchen, which was in a spectacular state of disorder, but for once Frieda had no impulse to clean it up. She lifted a straw hat and an apple from one of the chairs and sat down in it. ‘Where’s Olivia?’

‘Out for a drink with a new date.’ Chloë gave a snort. ‘She said she’d be back for supper.’

‘I can’t meet the date.’

‘Leave it to me. Let’s have a whisky.’

‘It’s not six yet.’

‘Let me make you something. Scrambled egg? Or a toasted cheese sandwich? I bought one of those toasting machines. I can do it with tomatoes and pickles added, if you want. Or maybe a bath first – would you like a bath? I can run it for you and you just sit here. Just tell me what I can do and I’ll do it.’

‘Just tea. I need to make plans.’

‘Tea. And then you can tell me what’s going on – or maybe you don’t want to. Of course, if you don’t want to, I won’t put pressure on you but I want to say this. I know you didn’t kill Sandy, because you wouldn’t kill anyone and especially not a man you had loved so much – except, of course, I do know that people often kill the ones they love the most. Anyway, I know that if you had killed him, you wouldn’t have gone on the run. I know what you’re like – I know you believe in facing up to things. But if you had killed Sandy …’ She saw the look on Frieda’s face and stopped abruptly. ‘Tea,’ she said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Biscuit?’

‘Just tea.’

‘Right.’

‘And then I think I need to borrow some clothes.’

‘That might be complicated. There’s my grubby black goth clothes or Mum’s drunk ballerina or despairing diva ones.’

‘Something unobtrusive.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. I keep wanting to touch you to see if you’re real.’

Frieda held out a hand and Chloë grasped it. ‘I am real,’ she said, as though she were telling herself.

She drank her tea very slowly, then poured herself another mug. The sun came through the large, smeared windows and lay across the tiled floor. She could hear Chloë running up and down the stairs, and doors slamming. Eventually she returned to the kitchen.

‘I’ve put a pile of clothes in the spare room,’ she said. ‘Take your pick. They might not be quite the thing. I’m afraid the room’s not very tidy. Mum’s been sorting things in there.’

‘It’s fine.’

‘Have you made your plans?’

‘I’ll have a shower, if that’s OK, then go out. I’ll be back later.’

‘You’ve only just arrived. What if you don’t come back?’

‘I will.’

‘What if someone sees you?’

‘I’ll make sure they don’t.’

‘I want to come with you.’

‘No, I’ve put enough people at risk.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘I do.’

Chloë stared at her, chewing her lower lip. ‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ll answer honestly?’

Frieda hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she said eventually.

‘If I was in your position and you were in mine, what would you do?’

‘I really, really hope that could never happen.’

‘But you’d do something, wouldn’t you? Do you believe you can help other people, but no one can help you?’

‘I don’t think I believe that.’ Frieda thought of Mira and Ileana risking themselves to help her, a stranger about whom they knew nothing. She would be in a police cell now, were it not for them.

‘So. I’m going to help you. If you say no, I’ll follow you anyway. Don’t look at me like that. I will! I’m not going to let you go off on your own again.’

Frieda put a hand across her eyes for a moment, thinking. Then she said, ‘OK. I’ll have a quick shower and put on different clothes and then we’ll go.’

‘Where?’

‘I need to fetch something.’

‘That sounds easy.’

‘Unfortunately there’s a problem.’

Frieda pulled off her clothes but as she was about to step into the shower she saw the phone number Mira had scrawled on her forearm. For an instant she thought she should just scrub it off, but something stopped her. She wrapped a towel round her, went back into the spare room, found a pen and some paper, then wrote it down.

After she’d showered, she pulled from the pile of clothes Chloë had left some high-waisted black trousers with wide legs, Chloë’s old Dr Martens and a white blouse that had see-through sleeves and lots of tiny buttons, with a faint perfume still caught in its folds. Better than Carla’s clothes, anyway. She ran her fingers through her wet, spiky hair, then tied a patterned scarf round it, put on her sunglasses and went downstairs to find Chloë waiting, hot with excitement, by the door.

‘So where are we going?’

‘To the Warehouse. I need to find something there.’

‘Won’t someone report you?’

‘They’ll have gone by the time we get there.’

‘Do you have keys?’

‘No.’

‘But …’ And then Chloë stopped. ‘Oh. Right. That’s amazing. How does that work?’

‘When I was last there, there was a window with a broken latch. It’s been like that for a year.’

‘So we just climb in.’

‘I just climb in. You keep a watch out for anyone coming.’

‘That’s a bit boring.’

‘Good.’

They took the Overground to Kentish Town West, almost entirely in silence.

‘Is this about Sandy?’ Chloë asked.

‘Of course.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not exactly sure.’

‘But you will know,’ Chloë insisted, both confident and in need of reassurance. ‘You’ll find out.’

‘I hope so.’

‘And then you’ll be able to come home properly.’

‘That’s the plan.’

They left the station and walked along Prince of Wales Road towards Chalk Farm.

‘Where have you been, though?’ Chloë asked.

‘Oh. Places where people go when they don’t want to be found.’

Chloë took her arm and squeezed it. ‘I’m so very happy you’re not there any longer, wherever it was.’

‘Tell me how you’ve been.’

‘Me? Well, compared with you, not much has happened. It’s not been so long since you disappeared.’ She made Frieda sound like some magic trick. ‘You know – same old. I like my course, though Mum is disgusted.’

‘Still?’

‘She’s going to be disappointed in me for the rest of her life. Instead of having her daughter the doctor, I’m going to be her daughter the joiner.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

‘As for Dad …’ She rolled her eyes.

Chloë talked on: about carpentry, college, the apprenticeship she was now doing at the run-down workshop in Walthamstow, full of men who didn’t really know how to treat her, about Jack and how very glad she was to be no longer in a relationship with him – her voice rose and wobbled as she said it – and Frieda led them on a circuitous route towards the Warehouse, half listening to her niece but alert for anything that seemed out of place.

At last they were at the entrance to the building, which was set back from the road. It looked imposing, impregnable. Frieda led Chloë along the small side alley where the bins were kept, and round to the back. Looking up at the houses that the Warehouse backed onto, she saw how many windows there were. For an instant, she thought she saw a face at one; then she blinked and it became an earthenware pot on the windowsill. But there really was a figure in the house to the left. A woman was watering the plants in the conservatory, moving tranquilly through the glassy space. Frieda wondered if she should come back later – but then there would be other people to worry about. Best to get it over with.

‘This is the window here.’ She stepped forward and gave it a sharp tug upwards, but it didn’t budge. She put the palms of her hands on the frame and pushed hard. Nothing. Through the glass she saw the corridor and, beyond that, the door to her room. ‘Paz must have got it mended,’ she said.

‘Is there an alarm?’

‘I know the code so I should be able to disarm it. And, anyway, if Reuben is the last to leave he often forgets to turn it on.’

‘Josef should be here. He’d know how to get in.’

‘We need a crowbar.’

‘I’m not exactly carrying one with me. I should have brought my tool bag. What about that loose paving stone?’

‘I’m not sure we should –’

She didn’t have time to finish her sentence, for Chloë had bent down, picked it up and in a single movement hurled it against the window. For an instant, a crazed network of lines appeared in the glass; then, as if in slow motion, everything disintegrated and they were staring at a jagged hole.

Frieda couldn’t think of anything to say and, anyway, there wasn’t time to say it. She picked out some of the glass then untied the scarf from her hair, using it to clear away the fragments sticking to the bottom of the frame. Now they could both hear the beeps of the alarm, ready to break into full sound.

She stepped in through the window and looked down at Chloë’s scared, excited face framed by the bristle of her hair, her glowing eyes.

‘Wait near the front entrance, but out of sight. You’ve done your bit. More than your bit.’

The woman was still watering her plants in the conservatory. A light went on in the upstairs window of the house next door, though the sky was still silver blue. Frieda walked swiftly up the corridor to where the alarm box was, under the stairwell. She punched in the number. The beeping continued. She tried again, slowly, making sure she had it right. Still the red light didn’t change to green. The security code must have been changed, or she was remembering it wrong. And, sure enough, after a rapid warning stutter of beeps the great scream of alarms started up, almost ripping her eardrums and rolling around her skull like pain.

She went back down the corridor, still not running and oddly calm, her heartbeat quite steady, and went into her room. It was as if she had never been away. Everything was in its proper place. The books on the shelves, the tissue box on the low table, the pens in the mug above the Moleskine notebook. She pulled open the deep bottom drawer of her desk and, sure enough, the bin bag was there, loosely knotted. She picked it up, feeling the objects inside slide and clink, pushed the drawer shut, and left again, closing the door behind her. She stepped out of the window. More lights had gone on in the houses. There was someone standing in his garden, his hand shading his eyes, trying to see what the commotion was about.

She walked down the side alley and to the front entrance, where Chloë was pressed against the wall behind a rhododendron bush thick with dying purple flowers. Her face was pinched with fear.

‘They changed the code. Come on.’ She took Chloë’s arm and led her onto the road, turning away from the direction they had come in, weaving through side-streets. Behind them, the alarm. Her feet were uncomfortable in the heavy boots. Her neck stung and when she put a hand up it came away smeared with blood.

‘What about the police?’ Chloë asked.

‘The alarm isn’t connected to the police station. It kept going off by mistake.’

‘Did you get what you wanted?’ Chloë asked, after a few minutes. Her voice was hoarse.

‘Yes.’

‘So it will be all right now?’

‘We’ll see.’

Chloë went into the house first, to check Olivia was alone. Then Frieda followed. The instant Olivia saw her she burst into noisy and ecstatic sobs, as though someone had pressed a button on the back of her neck. She wept, exclaimed, waved her hands in the air. Mascara ran down her cheeks. She yanked the fridge open and pulled out a bottle of sparkling wine, even though there was already wine open on the table.

Frieda sat at the kitchen table. She still felt oddly calm, distant from what was going on around her. Chloë made them all scrambled egg. Olivia drank – from her own glass and Frieda’s and Chloë’s as well – and talked and asked questions that Frieda didn’t answer. The bin bag was at her feet. She thought of the last time she had seen Sandy. He had hurled it at her, his handsome face wild, and shouted. But what had he said? She couldn’t remember. She should have paid more attention, before it was all too late.

Frieda lifted piles of clothes, books, photo albums off the bed and put on clean sheets. She had a second shower and pulled on the nightdress Olivia had lent her – white, with a ruffled neck, it made her look like a character out of a Victorian melodrama. Then she slid the contents of the bin bag onto the bedroom floor. A bottle of shampoo rolled across the carpet. There was only an inch left in it.

She picked up items, one by one, starting with the clothes. There was some underwear, a thin blue shirt, a pair of grey trousers, a very old jersey in flecked colours. A copper bangle. A small travel chess set. A sketchbook – she opened its pages and saw drawings she had made all that time ago: an ancient fig tree that grew out of the cracked paving near her house, a bridge across the canal, Sandy’s face, unfinished … Body lotion. Two books. Lip balm. A green bowl that she had given to him and he was now giving back, wrapped in newspaper – she was surprised it hadn’t broken. An apron he had bought for her. A hairbrush. A toothbrush. A spiral-bound pad full of notes she had made for a lecture on self-harm. A photograph of herself that he had taken, and used to keep in his wallet. She turned it so that it lay face down. A phone charger. A packet of wild-flower seeds. Hand gel. A slim box of charcoals, broken into fragments. Five postcards from the Tate Modern. She stared at them: there was one in dusty colours of a woman standing looking out of an open window; stillness and silence. She shook the bag and heard something clink. Pushing her hand inside, she found a pair of earrings and a laminated name tag that she must have worn to some conference.

Frieda sat back on her heels and considered the objects. As far as she could tell, there was absolutely nothing here that was suspicious. Just the remnants of a relationship that had ended: all the happy memories that had become sad.

26

‘So what did Sophie and Chris tell us about this place?’ asked Hussein. They were driving up the New Kent Road in the early-morning cool. Shops were opening their metal shutters, delivery vans unloading boxes.

Bryant shrugged. ‘They were tipped off anonymously that she was there. But it seemed to be a dead end. Two women – Eastern Europeans – live there and no sign of Klein. That’s all.’

He turned the car up a smaller road and parked outside Thaxted House. They got out; Bryant spat out his chewing gum and adjusted his trousers, then looked around.

‘That’s the one,’ he said, pointing to a door on the ground floor.

‘OK.’

Hussein walked up to it, pressed the bell, which didn’t seem to make a sound, then knocked hard. The door opened on a chain and a segment of face appeared. ‘Yes?’

‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Hussein.’ She held up her ID. ‘And this is my colleague Detective Constable Bryant. Can we please come in?’

‘Why?’

‘There are some questions we would like to ask you.’

‘We have already answered questions.’

‘They were preliminary enquiries. We’d like you to answer them again.’

The face disappeared. They heard another voice in the background, then the door shut again, the chain was dragged across, and it reopened to show two women standing before them. One was tall, with brown hair and eyes that were almost black under a heavy brow; the other was smaller, with a shock of peroxide-blonde hair and blue eye make-up. They both had their arms folded across their chests in an almost identical gesture of resistance.

‘What questions?’ asked the darker woman.

‘As you were told by our colleagues previously, we are looking for a woman.’ Hussein paused for a beat; neither face showed anything at all. ‘We have reason to believe she has been staying here. Her name is Frieda Klein.’

Neither woman said anything.

‘She wouldn’t have been using that name,’ continued Hussein.

‘Like we said, no woman,’ said the darker of the two.

‘Can we have a look?’ asked Bryant.

‘No woman,’ the darker one repeated.

‘Who lives here?’

‘We live here.’

‘And your names are?’

‘Why you want to know?’

‘We’re conducting an investigation,’ said Bryant. ‘We ask the questions and you answer them.’

‘I am Ileana. She’ – she jerked her thumb – ‘is Mira. Enough?’

‘For the time being,’ said Hussein. ‘Are you the only people living here?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many bedrooms do you have?’ asked Bryant.

‘Ah, this is the bedroom-tax question.’

‘No.’ Hussein took another step into the hall.

‘Is because our neighbours don’t like people like us.’

‘It’s because we are looking for a woman called Frieda Klein.’ She took the picture of Frieda from her briefcase and held it in front of them. Neither made a move to take it, just glanced at it without expression. ‘Do you recognize her?’

‘No.’

‘So you’ve never seen her?’

‘Not that I know.’

‘She is wanted by the police for questioning on a very serious charge and we have been told that she is or was staying here.’

‘You have the wrong information.’

The blonde unfolded her arms. ‘Look and see if you don’t believe.’

Hussein and Bryant went into the kitchen first, where they found nothing except pans on the draining board, a well-stocked fridge and half a bottle of vodka on the side, with some playing cards. Then they went into each room. There was a third bedroom, but it was quite empty: just a bed with no sheets on it, a bedside table and a threadbare rug. There was nothing else there at all.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Hussein said politely.

‘If you’re withholding information …’ began Bryant, and Hussein put a hand on his arm.

‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘We’ve taken up enough of their time.’

‘It was just another wild-goose chase,’ Hussein said to Karlsson later. ‘First that bloody farce at the café and now this.’

‘There was nothing at all?’

‘Nothing. Unless you think that wearing make-up at seven in the morning and drinking vodka and washing your dishes is suspicious.’

‘Who did the tip-off come from?’

‘No idea. Maybe it’s like the women said: someone who doesn’t like living next door to women from Bulgaria and Romania. How can someone just disappear?’

‘It’s hard.’

‘Unless she’s getting help.’ And she looked levelly at Karlsson.

He lifted a hand in repudiation. ‘I don’t know where she is, Sarah.’

‘And if you did? If you had an idea?’

‘I believe she should come back and give herself up.’

She rose to go and then at the door stopped. ‘Do you really believe she didn’t do it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you speaking as a police officer or a friend?’

‘Is there a difference?’

But it was as a friend, not a police officer, that he went in the early evening to Thaxted House, parking several streets away and walking there slowly through the evening warmth. When he knocked at the door, there was no reply. He tried to lift up the letterbox, but it was impossible to see anything. There were no lights on and he could hear no sound.

‘What do you want?’ a voice asked behind him. Two women stood there, one dark and one blonde. They were carrying bags, and from where he stood, Karlsson could smell Chinese food.

‘My name’s Malcolm Karlsson and I was hoping you could help me.’

‘We have already spoken to the police. They find nothing.’

‘I’m a friend of Frieda.’

‘We know no Frieda.’ The dark woman fished a key from her back pocket and inserted it into the lock. The door opened onto a dark hallway. ‘Leave.’

‘Fuck this, I know Frieda was here. Whatever name she was using. And I know Josef was also here.’

Neither said anything, but he saw the startled look they exchanged. ‘I sent Josef here with a letter for Frieda. I wanted to warn her.’

‘You?’

‘Yes. Please, can I come in for a few minutes?’

‘Mira?’ said the dark one. Mira gave a minute nod. They stood aside and he passed into the flat.

They sat at the kitchen table on rickety mismatched chairs and the two women took lids off their steaming cartons of food. Karlsson saw the vodka on the side and recognized it as Josef’s brand.

‘Hungry?’ asked Ileana.

No, thank you,’ said Karlsson, although he suddenly was, his mouth watering at the smell billowing from the cartons. ‘I don’t want to get you into any trouble and I understand that you don’t trust me. You’re right to be cautious. I don’t expect you to tell me if Frieda was here. But do you know where she is now? Do you know if she’s all right?’

‘We know no Frieda.’

‘Whatever she called herself.’

Mira took a huge mouthful of rice covered with a red gloop of sauce, then said thickly, ‘Everyone asking about this person.’

‘What do you mean? Sarah Hussein?’

‘Her. The man with her. The two who came before. But then this other one too.’

‘Someone else came here?’

‘Look.’ Ileana rolled up her sleeve and Karlsson saw a red weal across the lower arm, deepening into a bruise. ‘He do this.’

‘Who did?’

‘Man.’

‘You’re saying someone came here who wasn’t a police officer, asking after Frieda, and he hurt you?’

‘First all nice and charming. Then he hurt and threaten. Always the same threats that people give, that we be thrown out.’

‘I’m sorry. But you don’t know who he was?’

‘Just man,’ Ileana repeated, as if all men were one and the same to her.

‘What did he look like?’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

Mira leaned across the table and said: ‘She mean ordinary.’

‘I mean, nothing.’ Ileana glared at Mira.

‘Not tall and not short,’ said Mira. ‘Not fat and not thin. Not ugly and not handsome. Ordinary.’

‘White?’

‘Not not-white.’

‘I see,’ said Karlsson, although he didn’t. ‘What about the colour of his hair, the clothes he was wearing?’

‘Nice jacket,’ said Mira, wistfully.

‘What was his voice like?’

‘Just normal.’

‘Did he have an accent?’

Mira looked at him pityingly. ‘Everyone has an accent, just not the same one.’

Karlsson put the bottle of vodka on the table. Josef filled two shot glasses to the brim. Both men lifted them and tipped the contents down their throats. Josef filled them again.

This time Karlsson only sipped at the vodka. ‘I met Mira and Ileana.’

Josef drained his glass and set it back on the table with a little click. ‘So?’

‘I know that she was there and now she’s gone.’

Josef said nothing. He regarded Karlsson with his soft brown eyes.

‘I need to speak to her, Josef,’ said Karlsson. ‘I think she’s in trouble. Someone’s after her.’

‘Everyone is after her.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

Josef poured a third glass for himself and picked it up, turning it in his calloused hands. ‘No,’ he said eventually.

‘Really?’

‘This is the truth.’ He placed his free hand on his chest. ‘I do not know.’

‘All right. If you find her, or if she finds you, tell her I must speak to her. As her friend.’

Josef looked troubled. He nodded at Karlsson.

‘Thanks. Well, I should be going – is Reuben not here?’

‘He’s at the Warehouse still. Clearing all up.’

‘Clearing what up?’

‘Trouble. Someone broke in. I have mended the window and he stay there late to make sure all safe again.’

‘I’m sorry to hear this. Has he called the police?’

‘No.’

Karlsson didn’t go straight home but drove to the Warehouse instead. He rang at the front door and Paz opened it. Her sleeves were rolled up and she wore her hair tied back from her face. Karlsson thought she looked jangled.

‘I heard you had a break-in.’

‘It was nothing.’

‘Who is it?’ a voice called. Then Reuben came into view. ‘Karlsson. What’s up?’

‘Josef said someone had broken into the Warehouse.’

‘Someone threw a brick through the window. You know, kids today.’

‘Have you called the police?’

He waved his hand airily.

Then Jack Dargan appeared, skidding along the corridor with a cloth in one hand and some cleaning spray in the other. There was a brief silence as he pulled up alongside Reuben and Paz.

‘You might as well tell me,’ said Karlsson.

An almost identical expression of exaggerated bafflement appeared on all three faces.

‘What?’ asked Reuben.

‘It was Frieda, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It was Frieda.’

‘That’s insane. I don’t know what you’re on about.’

Jack pushed his hands through his hair in the familiar gesture, so that it stood up in peaks. ‘Nor do I.’ And he gave a small, wild laugh.

‘This is me,’ Karlsson said.

Reuben raised his eyebrows. ‘I know. DCI Karlsson of the Met.’

‘A friend.’

Reuben gave a soundless whistle. ‘What would your boss make of it?’

Karlsson shrugged. ‘I’m hoping he never has to know.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Paz, crossly. ‘This is stupid. Yes, it was Frieda. Do you want to see?’

‘See?’

‘Come with me.’

She gestured him to the reception desk and clicked on the computer. And there she suddenly was, grainy but unmistakable: Frieda, striding along the corridor towards them. Her head was held up and she seemed quite composed. It was as if she were looking straight at him, through him.

‘Her hair’s very short,’ he said.

‘A disguise, I guess,’ said Reuben. ‘Of sorts.’

‘So why was she here?’

‘See that bag she’s carrying?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re pretty sure that’s what Sandy flung at her when he came round to the Warehouse,’ said Jack. ‘You know about that. He was angry. I’d never seen him like it.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘I looked inside.’ Paz sounded defensive. ‘After she disappeared and the police were everywhere and there was the media attention, I went through her room to make sure there was nothing –’ She broke off and gave an elaborate shrug, rolling her eyes. ‘You know.’

‘That could incriminate her?’

‘Yes. But it was just odds and ends, things that she had left at Sandy’s. A few clothes, books. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘Do you know where she is now?’

All three shook their heads.

‘She’s getting reckless, though,’ said Jack.

Karlsson nodded. ‘Perhaps she knows that time is running out.’

And – maybe because he had spoken those words out loud, confirming his fears to himself – he still didn’t go home, although he’d been up since six and hadn’t eaten anything since a stale croissant in the canteen. Instead, he drove through the fading light to Sasha’s house in Stoke Newington.