Friday on My Mind

Текст добавлен: 17 сентября 2016, 20:54

Текст книги "Friday on My Mind"

Автор книги: Nicci French

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Tanya Hopkins arrived to pick Frieda up from her house in a taxi. For several minutes after the taxi had set off again, she didn’t speak. Frieda didn’t mind long silences. She was used to them. Sometimes a patient would sit facing her for a whole session without speaking. Usually therapy was about talk but it could also be an escape from the press of words and that could be good too.

But although Tanya Hopkins wasn’t speaking, it didn’t feel like silence. She was staring out of the window, away from Frieda, yet it was clear that she was thinking hard. Frieda could even see her lips moving, as if she were silently talking to herself. Finally she turned to Frieda. ‘I suppose you know where we’re going.’

‘To see the police.’

‘To see the police,’ said Hopkins, like an echo. ‘They haven’t told me what it’s about, but it’s not hard to guess. They will be informing us whether they are planning to proceed with any charges.’ She paused, but Frieda showed no sign of speaking. ‘Perverting the course of justice is an obvious possibility.’

Frieda looked round. ‘Did I pervert it?’

Hopkins shook her head. ‘I don’t know. You perverted something. I’m not exactly sure what.’ She looked at Frieda with a resigned expression. ‘At this point, I would usually tell my client to leave the talking to me, but I don’t suppose it would do any good.’

‘I’m sorry I put you in a bad position,’ said Frieda.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Hopkins.

Frieda thought for a moment. ‘I’m not exactly sorry. If the same thing happened, I’d do it all again.’

‘Which means you’re not sorry at all.’

‘But what I’m really sorry about is that, as a by-product of what I did, you had to go through all that trouble.’

‘That is the most pathetic apology I’ve ever heard in my life.’

‘It’s not an apology. It’s a description of my state of mind.’

‘I don’t even know how to respond to that.’

‘You didn’t have to keep me on as a client.’

Hopkins managed something of a smile at that. ‘I wouldn’t foist you on anyone else,’ she said. ‘But there are consequences, you know.’

‘Consequences? If I’d followed your advice, I would have pleaded guilty to a crime I didn’t do.’

‘It wasn’t advice. It was an option. But I wasn’t just talking about consequences for you. What about your friend DCI Karlsson?’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s been suspended.’

Frieda felt that someone had punched her very hard in the solar plexus. She gave a small moan. ‘Oh, the idiot.’

‘It wasn’t just yourself you were risking. You must have known that.’

Frieda looked out of the window of the taxi, looked without seeing. She felt overcome by rage and nausea and shame. Suddenly, through all of that inner fog, she saw that the taxi was driving up Pentonville Road. ‘This isn’t the way to the police station,’ she said.

‘I got a call this morning changing the location.’

The taxi pulled into the kerb and the driver turned round.

‘The road’s blocked off to traffic,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to walk from here.’

The two of them got out and walked along Chapel Market, past the stalls. There was a smell of cooking meat that made Frieda feel queasy. Hopkins checked the piece of paper in her hand.

‘This can’t be right,’ she said.

They were standing beside a doorway between a bookie’s and an optician’s. She pressed the bell. A scratchy, unintelligible voice came from a little speaker next to the door. Hopkins leaned in close and gave her name and Frieda’s. There was a buzzing sound and she pressed the door but it didn’t open. She pressed the bell again. They heard a sound inside and then the door was opened by a young, spiky-haired woman wearing a blue T-shirt and dark jeans.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Hopkins. ‘I think we must have the wrong address.’

‘Tanya Hopkins and Frieda Klein?’ said the woman, cheerfully. ‘Come on in.’

They followed her up a set of dingy stairs and through a door into what looked like an abandoned office. It was a large space with only a desk and several unmatching chairs.

‘You’re to wait here,’ the woman said to Hopkins. ‘I’m to take Dr Klein upstairs.’

‘That’s not possible,’ said Hopkins. ‘If there’s any meeting with DCI Hussein, then I have to be there throughout.’

‘DCI Hussein won’t be coming,’ said a voice, and Hopkins and Frieda looked round. A man had come through a door at the far side of the office.

Hopkins started to say something, then stopped. ‘I know you,’ she said.

‘But you can’t remember where from,’ said the man.

‘At the police station,’ said Frieda. ‘The meeting before …’

‘Before you absconded. Yes, that one. My name’s Walter Levin.’

‘What’s this about?’ said Hopkins, suspiciously.

‘I need five minutes with Dr Klein.’

‘That’s not possible. We have an important meeting with the police.’

‘Please,’ said Levin.

Hopkins looked at Frieda. ‘I don’t like this. Not one bit.’

‘All right,’ said Frieda. ‘Five minutes.’

‘This way,’ he said.

She followed him up a set of stairs, then another. There was a metal door in front of him.

‘These premises don’t have much to recommend them. But they do have this.’ With that, he pushed open the door and Frieda stepped through and found herself out on a roof terrace.

‘Come and look,’ he said.

He led her to a set of railings at the front façade of the building. They looked down at the market. He pointed across at the cranes at the back of King’s Cross and St Pancras.

‘You forget that you’re up on a hill here,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Frieda. ‘I’m not really in the mood for small-talk. What’s this about?’

‘What were you expecting it to be about?’

‘About whether I’m going to jail or not.’

‘Yes, well, Commissioner Crawford is rather keen on your going to jail.’

‘What about DCI Hussein?’

‘She’s more agnostic on the matter.’

‘So why am I talking to you?’

‘There’s a big fat file on you. About your brief career as a Metropolitan Police consultant.’

‘That didn’t work out too well.’

Levin smiled. ‘That’s a matter of interpretation.’

‘Well, it almost got me killed and the commissioner wants me in prison, so you’ll excuse me if I have a slightly glass-half-empty view of the situation.’

‘What about working for me?’

Frieda had been looking down at the market stalls but now she turned to Levin. There was a casualness about his demeanour, as if he were never quite serious. But there was a coldness about his grey eyes that made him difficult to read. ‘Who exactly are you?’

‘What did I say when we met before?’

‘You said you’d been seconded from the Home Office.’

‘That sounds about right.’

‘I’ve no idea what it means.’

‘What it means is that I can put a stop to any possibility of your being prosecuted.’

‘In exchange for what?’

‘In exchange for your availability.’

‘Availability for what?’

‘To do the sort of thing you do.’

‘Can you be more specific?’

‘Not as yet.’

In the street a cyclist was wobbling precariously between the stalls, with shopping bags hanging from the handlebars.

‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘I can’t do anything like that. Sorry.’

Levin took off his glasses and polished them on his rather shabby striped tie. ‘There’s one other thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Your friend Karlsson.’

‘What about him?’

‘He interfered with a criminal inquiry. He’s facing jail time as well. And his case is more serious than yours. He’s a police detective. It’s the sort of case where judges talk about the foundations on which justice depends.’

Frieda looked round sharply. ‘If you can help Karlsson out of this, then …’ She thought for a moment. Then what? ‘Then I owe you a favour.’

‘A favour,’ said Levin. He put his glasses back on. ‘Jolly good. I like that.’ He beamed at her and his eyes remained sharp. ‘Of course you know that a favour’s a dangerous thing.’

He held out his hand and she took it but then let it go.

‘How do I know you’re a good person?’ she asked.

‘I’m keeping you out of prison. I’m keeping DCI Karlsson out of prison and returning him to the Met. Doesn’t that make me a good person?’

‘Some people wouldn’t think so.’

Karlsson saw Frieda before she saw him. That was unusual. Normally she was alert to her surroundings, wary of being looked at, or being caught. But for the second time in just a few days, she was unaware of his approach. She was leaning on the railing, looking out at the river. Behind him the lorries and buses were rushing along Chelsea Embankment. The noise and the stench of the fumes seemed to be trapped by the summer heat, and he could feel the rumble of the vehicles in his feet.

‘This is a strange place to choose,’ he said, and Frieda, turning, gave him a nod of recognition. He leaned on the railing beside her. A tourist boat was passing. They could hear the tinny sound of the guide’s commentary. A voice on a Tannoy said that the River Thames was a pageant of history. It was from here that Francis Drake set off to circle the globe. And it was here that he returned with a ship full of treasure and became Sir Francis Drake.

‘I hate the Embankment,’ Frieda said.

‘That’s a strong word.’

‘There used to be huts here on the shore. Boatyards and wharves and jetties. Then they destroyed them and replaced them with this highway. It was like London was turning its back on the river, pretending it didn’t exist.’

‘It was quite a long time ago.’

‘One day they’ll demolish the Embankment, all the way from Chelsea to Blackfriars, and we’ll have a riverbank again.’

‘Which doesn’t explain why you arranged to meet here.’

‘I wanted to be by the river. But I didn’t want to be in the middle of a market or a riverside pub.’

‘A riverside pub,’ said Karlsson. ‘Now that sounds tempting.’

‘Some other time.’

‘This is about Sandy?’

‘You know, we’ll probably never know where he entered the water.’

‘Has Frank said anything?’

‘From what I’ve heard, he’s made no statement at all.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Legally? Probably not. But it matters to Sasha. It matters to his sister.’

‘And to you?’

‘Nothing Frank could say could make it any better, or make it less awful. The thought of his body floating in the river during those days and nights is a horrible one. But what’s really painful is what he went through when he was alive.’

‘And yet you came down here.’

‘Yes. To say a sort of goodbye, another goodbye. Strange, isn’t it?’

‘Then what am I doing here?’

‘I wanted to say a sort of goodbye to Sandy and a sort of sorry to you.’

‘You don’t need to say sorry.’

Karlsson saw Frieda come closer to laughing than he had seen for a very long time.

‘Really?’ she said. ‘I got you suspended and almost fired. And also I’m sorry about Bella and Mikey’s room.’

‘I don’t think I’m ever going to tell them why it has been redecorated. I guess I owe you a debt of thanks for my reinstatement.’

‘You don’t look especially happy about it.’

There was a pause. ‘When I got the news,’ he said finally, ‘it was like being woken out of a sleep and getting up and feeling your muscles ache and wondering whether you can really face the day.’

‘It sounds like I owe you another apology.’

‘No,’ said Karlsson. ‘We have to face the day in the end. We can’t sleep all the time. But I tried to check up on your Mr Levin.’

‘What did you find?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m not sure. Did anybody ever warn you about owing favours to someone you don’t know?’

‘Probably.’

They both looked at the river in silence.

‘I’d like to live by a river,’ Karlsson said.

‘I’m not sure that I would.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Frieda. ‘I like walking by rivers, following them where they lead. But to live beside one would be like living next to a dark abyss. You’d always wonder what lay beneath the surface. And it’s worse than an abyss. It’s moving, always trying to pull you down and away.’

Karlsson shook his head, laughing. ‘Frieda. It’s just a river.’

Several miles away, Josef and Marty were sitting in a pub not far from the house in Belsize Park on which they had been working for so many months but which was now finished.

‘It was a good job,’ said Josef, drinking his second pint of beer. Surreptitiously he drew his vodka bottle out of his pocket and took a swig before offering it to Marty. ‘Big.’

‘Yeah,’ Marty agreed. He put the bottle to his mouth and tipped it back. A tattoo rippled along the muscles of his forearm. ‘Took care of the summer at any rate.’

‘Summer is not over,’ said Josef. ‘In Ukraine now is hot, very hot, with storms.’

‘Ukraine. That’s where you come from?’

‘Is my home. Kiev.’

‘It’s a long way off,’ said Marty, vaguely.

‘Much trouble there. Fighting and death. But is very beautiful. Many forests.’

They were both silent for a while, drinking.

‘I have sons there,’ said Josef, eventually. ‘Two sons who grow tall without me.’

‘That’s tough.’

‘Do you have sons?’

‘A boy called Matt. Little red-headed kid. But I don’t see him now.’

‘No? Is hard.’

‘Yeah. But it’s better to be free.’

‘You think? Free is to be alone.’

‘I don’t mind that. I can do what I want. Go where I want. Just pack up my bag and leave.’

‘Where do you go now?’

‘I dunno. I’ll leave London. I’ve done what I wanted here.’

‘Soon?’

‘Maybe even tonight.’

‘Just like that, you leave?’

‘Just like that.’ Marty snapped his fingers.

Josef nodded. ‘No homesickness?’

‘How can you feel homesick if you don’t have a home?’

‘I don’t know.’ Josef frowned: he knew it was possible but didn’t have the words. He finished his beer and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then looked at the clock on the wall. ‘I must go,’ he said. ‘I am meeting my friend Frieda.’

‘Ah, that Frieda. Is she OK now?’

‘Yes, all OK. But like a soldier after battle.’

Marty gave a slow smile. ‘I read about it. It was in all the papers and on the telly.’

Josef hesitated, then said: ‘Do you want to come along?’

‘To meet your Frieda? No, mate, I should be getting on. I’ve things to do before I go. But thanks for the offer.’ He stood up and held out his hand. ‘Bye then, Joe,’ he said. ‘You take care.’

Josef stood as well and the two men shook hands slightly awkwardly.

‘You helped me out,’ said Josef.

‘It was nothing.’

Marty slapped Josef on the back and left the pub. Light rain was speckling the dusty pavements and the air was thick, promising a downpour. He took two buses and then walked up Seven Sisters Road, whistling under his breath, his tool bag slung over his shoulder. At the Taj Mahal Hotel – on the sign the ‘J’ had slipped, which had always annoyed him – he pushed open the frosted-glass door and leaned on the bell until a very small and whiskery woman appeared from the back, wiping her hands on a stained apron.

‘What?’ she said suspiciously.

‘I’m Marty, from three B. I’m leaving tonight.’

‘Leaving?’

‘Yeah. I’m paid till the end of the week.’

‘No refunds.’

‘That’s OK.’

He went up the stairs two at a time and unlocked the door to his room. It was small and barely furnished, but there was a microwave and a kettle and a small fridge and he didn’t need much. He poured the last of the milk down the sink and unplugged the kettle. His bags were already packed. Just a few more things to put in.

He took the newspaper clippings off the wall. The ones about Frieda Klein absconding, most of which carried the same photo of her, a photograph that had been used in previous stories. The ones about the have-a-go heroine charging at the group of youths with her buggy in order to rescue the homeless man. It made him smile: he’d known at once it was her. The ones about the arrest of Frank Manning on suspicion of murder. The article in which Malcolm Karlsson’s picture appeared. He slid them all into the top of his case and zipped it shut. There were two keys on the bedside table, a Chubb and a Yale, and he put them in the inner pocket of his jacket. He’d managed to go through Josef’s bag one day and filch the set of keys Josef had for her house – just for an hour so, enough time to go to the locksmith and get copies made.

He looked round the room to make sure there was nothing he had missed, then slung his tool bag over one shoulder, his duffel bag over the other and picked up his case.

Then Dean Reeve left, shutting the door behind him, whistling as he went.