Текст книги "Friday on My Mind"

Автор книги: Nicci French

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‘That’s not a serious question,’ said Hopkins.

‘All right. I’m interested in how you seem to be surrounded by a network of violence and trauma. We’ve already talked about your previous history –’

‘Stop,’ said Hopkins. ‘If you have specific questions relating to the crime, Dr Klein can answer them.’

‘Can you tell me something about Miles Thornton?’

Frieda Klein frowned and leaned forward slightly. ‘Miles? Has he been found?’

‘No.’ Bryant spoke for the first time. ‘But you reported him missing, and I understand that he was also behaving violently towards you.’

Tanya Hopkins started to speak but Frieda turned towards her. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I know that you want to protect me from myself, but I want to answer these questions. Yes, I reported Miles missing. Yes, he could be violent and chaotic in his behaviour and was sometimes psychotic.’

‘So,’ said Hussein, ‘now we have not one but two violent men turning on you in the past few weeks. One of whom has gone missing and one of whom has been killed.’

‘That’s enough.’ Tanya Hopkins rose and looked down at Frieda, expecting her to do the same.

‘It probably is nearly enough,’ she agreed, staying put. ‘But I want to say that Miles is an unstable young man who might be a danger to others, but above all to himself. That’s why I reported him missing. I’m sorry he hasn’t been found or returned.’ For the first time, she seemed to relax, speaking without her cool formality. ‘As a matter of fact, it was him I was expecting to find in the morgue.’

‘Miles Thornton?’ Hussein remembered the quiver that had passed over Frieda Klein’s face.

‘Yes. Not Sandy.’

‘I see.’

‘He felt I had betrayed him when I was involved in having him sectioned some months ago. In a way, of course, I had. And, of course, in a way I had betrayed Sandy as well. He must have thought me heartlessly cruel. Sometimes I think that of myself.’

Tanya Hopkins sat down heavily again. ‘I don’t think we need to continue this particular line.’

‘Dr Klein, would you give us permission to search your house?’

‘My house?’ A look of distress momentarily tightened her face. ‘What for?’ Hussein waited impassively. ‘No, I don’t think so. If you want to go through all my private possessions, I think you should get a search warrant.’

‘Very well.’

‘Now we really are going.’ Tanya Hopkins rose for a second time and Frieda Klein also stood. She gazed first at Hussein and then at Bryant.

‘You’re looking in the wrong direction,’ she said. ‘And all the time you’re doing that, the man who actually killed Sandy is allowed to get away with it.’

‘You mean Dean Reeve.’

‘Yes. I mean Dean Reeve. You seem to be a woman who wouldn’t accept other people’s versions of the truth. Follow up what I’ve said.’

‘Dr Klein –’

‘I know that patient tone of voice. Please don’t Dr Klein me. You’ve already decided that I’m deluded.’

‘You’re worse than deluded. You’re obstructive.’

‘You mean about the search warrant? All right.’ She shrugged wearily. ‘Search my house. Where do I sign?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Tanya Hopkins, taking her by the elbow and pulling her towards the door, ‘a client can be their own worst enemy. We are now leaving.’

‘Dr Klein?’

Frieda, Hussein and Tanya Hopkins all looked round. It was the man leaning against the wall.

‘Yes?’ said Frieda.

‘Can I ask a question?’ he said.

‘Who are you?’ Frieda asked. ‘I have no idea why you’re here.’

The man blinked again. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t introduce myself. My name’s Levin. Walter Levin.’

‘I mean, who are you?’

‘I’m nothing to do with the investigation. I’m on secondment from the Home Office. It’s a bit difficult to explain.’

‘Any questions need to go through me,’ said Tanya Hopkins.

‘It’s not about this case.’ Levin straightened himself. ‘I’ve been reading your file.’ He beamed. ‘Fascinating stuff. Absolutely fascinating. Gosh. About the case of that girl you helped find. In the house in Croydon.’

‘Please.’ Hussein was exasperated. ‘We’re in the middle of an investigation.’

‘It’s all right.’ Frieda looked at him properly for the first time, taking in his smiling face and his sharp eyes. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘I was curious,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t clear from the case file what aroused your suspicion in the first place.’

Frieda thought for a moment. It all felt so long ago, as if it had happened to someone else.

‘A patient came to see me. He turned out to be a fake. It was part of a newspaper story. But he told me a story about cutting his father’s hair as a child. That sounded strange and there was something real about it. I wanted to discover where that story came from. That’s all.’

‘Golly,’ said Levin, vaguely.

‘Is that what you came to ask?’ said Hussein. ‘About a two-year-old investigation?’

‘No. I wanted to see Dr Klein in person,’ said Levin. ‘So fascinating, you know.’

‘What for?’ said Hussein. ‘What are you doing here, aside from being fascinated?’

Levin didn’t answer. He just looked at Frieda with an expression of puzzlement. ‘I’m awfully sorry about all this,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry too,’ said Frieda.

8

Hussein had been involved in many searches and she had become familiar with the different ways that suspects behaved. Sometimes they were angry, sometimes upset, even traumatized. Rummaging through drawers in front of them could feel like a constant, insistent, repeated violation. Sometimes the suspect accompanied her around the property, telling her about it, as if she were a prospective buyer.

Frieda Klein was different. As the officers moved around her house, through to the kitchen, upstairs, opening cupboards and drawers, she just sat in her living room, playing through a chess game on the little table with an air of deep concentration that surely must have been fake. Hussein looked at her. Was she in shock, or angry, or in denial, or stubborn, or sulking? Once Klein looked up and caught her eye and Hussein felt that she was looking right through her.

There was a thumping sound, someone coming down the stairs two at a time. Bryant came into the room and placed something on the table. Hussein saw that it was a leather wallet.

‘We found that upstairs,’ said Bryant. ‘It was in a clothes drawer. At the bottom, wrapped in a T-shirt. I’ll give you one guess who it belonged to.’

Hussein looked at Klein. She couldn’t see any hint of shock or surprise or concern. ‘Is it yours?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know whose is it?’

‘No.’

Then why do you have it? And why do you keep it hidden?’

‘I’ve never seen it before.’

‘How did it get there?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Shall we look inside?’ continued Hussein. She thought that she should be feeling triumph.

Frieda looked at her with her dark eyes burning and didn’t say anything.

Hussein snapped on her rubber gloves and Bryant handed her the wallet. He was grinning broadly. She opened it up.

‘No money,’ she said. ‘No credit cards. But several membership cards.’ She pulled one out and held it up so that Frieda could see. ‘The British Library,’ she said. ‘Dr Alexander Holland, expiry date March 2015.’ And another. ‘The Tate, expires November 2014. This is not an old wallet.’ She looked at Frieda. ‘You don’t seem very surprised. How did it get here, Dr Klein?’

‘I don’t know. But I can guess.’

‘Guess then.’

‘It was planted, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘By Dean Reeve.’

Glen Bryant gave a loud snort. Hussein laid the wallet on the table.

‘I think you’ll need to talk to your lawyer again.’

Tanya Hopkins looked puzzled when Frieda arrived for their Thursday morning meeting with a middle-aged man in a suit and dismayed when she introduced him as Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm Karlsson.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Hopkins.

‘I’m here as a friend,’ said Karlsson. ‘To give advice.’

‘I thought that was my job.’

‘It’s not a competition.’

Hopkins was clearly dubious. ‘If DCI Hussein knew that a colleague was attending a meeting with a suspect and her lawyer …’

‘This is my day off. I’m simply meeting a friend.’

Hopkins turned to Frieda, who had walked over to the window and was staring out. Hopkins’s office overlooked the canal basin in Islington. Children in bright yellow life jackets were paddling in two canoes.

‘Are you involved in the investigation in any way?’ Hopkins asked.

‘No.’

‘Have you had any privileged access?’

‘No.’

‘I’m Frieda’s lawyer, not yours. If I were yours, I’d drag you out of this room by the scruff of your neck.’

‘So I’ve been warned.’

The three of them sat down on chairs around a low glass coffee table. Hopkins opened a pad of paper. She took out a pen and removed the cap. ‘We have been instructed to report to Altham police station tomorrow at ten. It’s all but certain that they’ll charge you with Alexander Holland’s murder.’

She looked around as if she were expecting a response but there was none. Karlsson was staring at the floor. Frieda seemed to be thinking hard but she didn’t speak.

‘You’ll be granted bail,’ said Hopkins. ‘But you’ll have to surrender your passport. There’ll be certain conditions attached, but they shouldn’t be a problem. So, now we need to think of our strategy.’

‘Our strategy?’ said Frieda.

‘I’ve got a barrister in mind. Jennifer Sidney would be a perfect fit.’

‘She did the Somersham trial,’ said Karlsson, with a grim smile.

‘Is there something funny?’ asked Frieda.

‘Not exactly funny. But if she can get Andrew Somersham off, she can get anyone off.’

‘It was the right verdict,’ said Hopkins. ‘On the evidence.’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘Well, we want the right verdict as well.’

‘Why have a lawyer at all?’ said Frieda.

‘What?’

‘If I’m charged …’

‘You’re going to be charged.’

‘All right, when I’m charged, I would just like to go into court and tell my story, truthfully, and then they choose to believe me or not believe me.’

Hopkins laid her pen down softly. Karlsson saw that she had gone quite pale. ‘Frieda,’ she said quietly. ‘This isn’t a time for grandstanding or giving a philosophy lecture. This is an adversarial system. The Crown has to make a case against you. All you have to do is to rebut the specific accusations they make. You don’t have to prove that you’re innocent, you don’t have to win a prize for virtue. You have to not be definitely guilty. That’s the way the system works.’

Frieda started to speak but Hopkins held up her hand. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘So far, I’ve had to stand by while you’ve sabotaged your own case. If you want to carry on doing that, you can get yourself another lawyer or no lawyer at all. But, first, hear me out.’

Frieda nodded her acquiescence and Hopkins continued: ‘The basic strategy is obvious. It all comes down to the wallet. There’s a whole lot of other prejudicial evidence – or so-called evidence – but they can’t use it. Just so long as you stay disciplined.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You mustn’t mention your Dean Reeve theory.’

‘Why?’

‘If you even mention his name, they can bring up everything. Your involvement in the death of Beth Kersey, the death of Ewan Shaw, the arson attack on Hal Bradshaw’s house, your various arrests for assault.’

‘And?’

‘And?’ said Hopkins. ‘It’s my belief that if those incidents are put before a jury you are overwhelmingly likely to be convicted and you will spend the next fifteen to twenty years in prison. But, as I said, there is no reason for them to be introduced. No, it all comes down to the wallet. Now, isn’t it possible that the last time you met Mr Holland, he left his wallet by mistake?’

‘No,’ said Frieda.

There was a pause.

‘Frieda,’ said Karlsson. ‘I’m not sure if you quite appreciate how serious this is.’

‘They found the wallet hidden in a drawer,’ said Frieda. ‘If Sandy could have left it there – with his cash and credit cards removed – I would have said.’

‘I was never happy about that search. Did they warn you of your rights before asking you about the wallet?’

‘No.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Sandy didn’t leave it there,’ said Frieda. ‘He hasn’t been there for a year. A year and a half. All the cards in it were current.’

There was another silence. A longer one. Karlsson and Hopkins exchanged glances. When Karlsson spoke, he sounded tentative, almost scared.

‘There’s an obvious question, Frieda. But I’m not sure I want to ask it.’

‘Careful,’ said Hopkins.

‘As I said, I don’t know how it got there.’ Frieda turned her eyes on the two of them. ‘Though I can guess.’

‘Please,’ said Tanya Hopkins, sharply. ‘Let’s concentrate on what we know rather than follow your theories. That last time you met Sandy. That row at the clinic. He drops the wallet, you pick it up. You take it home, meaning to give it back to him.’

Frieda shook her head. ‘I’m not going to tell you something that simply isn’t true.’

Hopkins frowned. She looked discontented. ‘It’s not possible that there was a later meeting between you that you haven’t told us about?’

‘No.’

‘You meant you did meet him or you didn’t?’

‘I didn’t. The last time I saw him was on that Tuesday, outside the Warehouse.’

‘What I haven’t enjoyed about this case is that I keep discovering things you haven’t told me and they’re always bad things.’

‘You talked about strategies,’ said Frieda. ‘What other ones are there?’

‘If you’re reluctant to mount a defence, I suspect we could offer to plead guilty to manslaughter. I’ve got some psychologists who could come and testify on your behalf.’

Karlsson glanced nervously at Frieda. For the first time she looked genuinely startled. ‘What would they say?’ she asked.

Hopkins picked up her pen and tapped it thoughtfully on the table top.

‘You’re a victim of rape,’ she said. ‘You were the object of an attack that almost killed you. And there are witnesses that Holland made violent threats against you.’

‘They weren’t threats …’

‘I think I can virtually guarantee that you would receive a suspended sentence.’

‘So all I have to do is to confess to murdering Sandy,’ said Frieda. ‘And I get away with it.’

‘It’s not getting away with it,’ said Hopkins. ‘You’ll be on licence for the rest of your life. You’ll have a serious criminal conviction. But it may be better than the alternative.’

‘You make it sound tempting,’ said Frieda.

‘I’m just trying to lay out your options.’

Frieda looked at Karlsson, who was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. ‘What do you think?’

‘I’ve asked around,’ he said. ‘Hussein’s good. She’s clever and she’s thorough. She’s built a strong case. I want to warn you, I’ve seen this strategy from the other side. You challenge this bit of evidence, that bit of procedure, bit by bit, you get it all thrown out.’ He turned towards Hopkins. ‘You’ve probably thought of claiming that the police planted the wallet.’

‘I’ve thought about it,’ said Hopkins.

‘Careful,’ said Karlsson. ‘It’s the nuclear option. You don’t know whose case it’ll blow up.’

‘They didn’t plant it,’ said Frieda.

‘Were you there when they found it?’ said Hopkins.

‘Not in the exact room.’

‘Really? That might work. If the worst comes to the worst.’

‘The good thing about all these options is that they work just the same whether I did it or I didn’t.’

Hopkins was in the middle of a complicated doodle of cubes and cones; she paused and lifted her head. ‘If I weren’t so sweet-tempered, I might give you a lecture about the importance of a system that gives the accused the benefit of the doubt and doesn’t compel her to give evidence against herself or to reveal irrelevant personal information.’ She gave a smile. ‘But I am. So I won’t.’ She stood up. ‘We’ll meet at nine thirty tomorrow. There’s a café on the canal, just a few hundred yards from the station – it’s called the Waterhole. Come there. Then we’ll go into the station together and you will not say anything at all, apart from what you have agreed, in advance, with me.’

She held out her hand and Frieda shook it.

‘I know this has been difficult,’ said Hopkins. ‘But I’m confident that we can achieve a resolution that we’ll all be satisfied with.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Frieda.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t think I’ve been a good client. But I want to thank you for what you’ve done.’

‘Let’s not be premature.’

‘That’s my point,’ said Frieda. ‘I want to be clear that, whatever happens, I’m grateful.’

Karlsson and Frieda walked down the stairs. Outside on the pavement they looked at each other warily.

‘So what just happened in there?’ said Karlsson.

Frieda stepped forward and gave him a brief hug, then stepped back.

‘What was that?’ he said, with a nervous smile.

‘There was only one thing in there that really meant anything,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘That you were there.’

‘But I didn’t do anything.’

‘Yes, you did. You came. You broke the rules in a flagrant and unprofessional manner.’

‘Yes, I thought you’d appreciate that.’

‘Seriously. If it got out, I don’t know what would happen to you. It was an act of kindness and friendship and I’ll never forget it.’

‘That sounds a bit final.’

‘Well, you know, you should treat every moment as if it’s your last.’

Karlsson’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘You’re all right?’

‘I’m going to walk home, alone, along the canal. How could I not be all right?’

Karlsson stood and watched her go, straight-backed, hands in pockets, and he shivered, as if the weather had suddenly changed.

9

Frieda Klein had a single session that afternoon, with Joe Franklin whom she had been seeing for years. She had only to see the set of his face as he entered through the door, the shape of his shoulders, the heaviness of his footfall, to know his mood. Today he was quiet and sad, but not despairing. He talked in a soft, slow voice about the things he had lost to his depression. He told her about the dog he had had when he was a child, a brindled mongrel with beseeching eyes.

Before he left, Frieda said, ‘I may not be able to see you for some time.’

‘Not see me? For how long?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But –’

‘I know that it will be painful for you, and if I could avoid it I would. But I’m going to give you a name. She’s someone I know, and I trust her. I want you to call her tomorrow. I’ll speak to her in advance. And I want you to see her instead of me until I return.’

‘When? When will you return? Why are you going?’

‘Something’s happened.’ She looked at him steadily. ‘I can’t explain now, Joe. But you will be in good hands. We’ve done well together, you and I. You’ve made progress. You are going to be all right.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. Remember to call that number. And take care.’

She held out her hand. Normally she never made physical contact with her patients, and Joe took it in a kind of bafflement and held it for a moment. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said.

Frieda spent the rest of that afternoon phoning patients, cancelling them and arranging for cover. To each, she said the same thing: that her absence would be indefinite. To each she recommended alternative therapists, and she called these colleagues to entrust her patients to their care, until she returned.

Only when she was satisfied that she had left no one uncovered did she go home, walking through the back-streets. She stopped outside the café owned by her friends. She went to it almost every day, but today it was closed and forlorn-looking. A couple of minutes later she was back in the little cobbled mews where her narrow house stood squeezed between the lock-ups on its left, the council flats on its right. She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, stepping into the cool hallway with the same relief she always felt. But now she saw her house – the living room with its chess table and the fire she lit each day in winter, the bathroom with the magnificent bath her friend Josef had installed without her permission and with a large amount of chaos, the small study under the roof where she sat and thought and made pencil and charcoal drawings – with fresh eyes. She didn’t know when she would see it again.

She made herself a pot of tea and sat with it, the tortoiseshell cat she had unwillingly inherited on her lap, thinking, making a list in her head. There was so much she had to do. For a start, someone would have to feed the cat and look after her plants. That was simple. She picked up the phone and punched in the number.

‘Frieda, is me. All good?’ He was from Ukraine, and although he had lived in London several years now, his accent was still thick.

‘There’s something I need to ask you.’

‘Ask anything.’ She could picture him laying his large hand over his heart as he spoke.

‘Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with the police. They are going to charge me with Sandy’s murder.’

There was a silence, then a loud bellow of protest. She couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but certainly threats of violence and pledges of protection were in there.

‘No, Josef, that’s not –’

‘I come now. This moment. With Reuben. And with Stefan too, yes?’ Stefan was his Russian friend, who was large and strong and of dubious occupation. ‘We sort it out.’

‘No, Josef. I do need your help, but not like that.’

‘Then tell.’

‘I need someone to look after the cat and –’

‘The cat! Frieda. You joke.’

‘No. And water the plants. And,’ she continued, over his yelps, ‘there is one more thing I want to ask you.’

She went through her list: first of all, she wrote a long, careful email to her niece Chloë, whom she had kept a close eye on over the years since Chloë’s father – Frieda’s estranged brother David – had left Olivia. Chloë had been a troubled child, a reckless and needy teenager, but was now twenty and had dropped out of studying medicine and was planning instead to be a carpenter and joiner. She then wrote a much shorter but equally careful email to Olivia, whom she didn’t want to talk to: Olivia would become hysterical, then probably drunk and would want to rush round and weep. She was about to call Reuben but he beat her to it, having been told by Josef what was going on. To her surprise Reuben was calm. He offered to come to the police station with her the next morning but she told him her solicitor wanted to meet her beforehand. He said he would come round at once, to be with her, but she said that she needed to be alone that evening and he didn’t press her. He was steady, consoling, and she was reminded of what a good supervisor he had been to her, all those years ago.

After she had put the phone down she sat for several minutes, deep in thought. No one – not her solicitor, not Karlsson, not Reuben or Josef – had asked her if she had killed Sandy. Did they believe that she had, believe that she hadn’t, not wanted to know or not dared to ask? Or perhaps it was irrelevant: they were standing by her whatever she had or hadn’t done, unconditionally. She stared blindly into the empty fireplace, as if she could find an answer there.

There was one more person she had to tell, and a phone call or email wouldn’t do. Her heart felt heavy.

Ethan’s nanny, Christine, answered the door. Frieda had met her several times before but only briefly. She was tall and vigorous, with strong arms. Her hair was always tied back, then held in place by multiple grips; she seemed very businesslike and strode around the house with an air of purpose. Frieda got the impression that Sasha was intimidated by her and she wondered what Ethan made of her.

‘Yes?’ said Christine, as if she’d never set eyes on Frieda before. ‘Sasha’s not back yet.’

‘I must be a bit early, then.’

‘No. She’s late. Again.’

‘I’m sure she’ll be here soon. You can leave if you want and I’ll look after Ethan.’

‘That would be good.’

‘It must be harder for Sasha now that it’s just her,’ Frieda said.

‘Tell me about it.’

She opened the door wider and Frieda followed her into the kitchen. Ethan was strapped into his chair. He had bright spots on his cheeks and a mutinous look about him that Frieda recognized.

‘Hello, Ethan. It’s you and me now.’

‘Frieda,’ he said. He had an oddly husky voice for a toddler.

Christine stared from him to the mess on the floor, where his bowl and beaker lay upturned. ‘You’re a bad boy,’ she said, in her cool voice, not angry but implacable.

‘I can take it from here,’ said Frieda. ‘And you should be careful about calling someone bad.’

‘You’re not the one who has to clear up the mess.’

‘I am now. You go home.’

Christine left, then Frieda went across to Ethan and kissed him on his sweaty brow, untied him and lifted him onto the floor. He put his sticky hand into hers. He had Frank’s dark eyes and hair, Sasha’s pale skin and her slenderness; Frank’s determination and Sasha’s sweetness. Frieda had met him when he was less than a day old, a crumpled, scrawny little thing with a face like an anxious old man’s, changed his nappy (something she’d never done for anyone else’s baby), looked after him when Sasha was too sick and sad to do so, taken him for walks and read to him. He was still a mystery to her.

‘What are we going to do before Sasha gets home?’

Before Ethan had time to say anything, she heard the door bang open.‘I’m so sorry,’ Sasha called. ‘The bus was late.’

Frieda went to the door. Her friend’s hair was dishevelled and her face flushed. ‘Hello, Sasha.’

‘Oh, God, Frieda. I got here as quickly as I could.’

‘It’s fine. You’re just a few minutes late.’

Sasha bent down and lifted Ethan into her arms, but he squirmed impatiently and she put him down. He dropped to his hands and knees and disappeared under the table, which was his favourite place to be. He would stay there for hours, if left to himself, with the tablecloth hanging down to make a kind of enclosure and his miniature wooden animals that he moved around and talked to in a low, urgent whisper.

‘Where’s Christine?’

‘I sent her home.’

‘Was she all right?’

‘Fine,’ said Frieda. ‘Rather brusque.’

‘I’m a bit scared of her when she’s cross.’

‘That doesn’t sound like a very healthy working relationship.’

‘No,’ said Sasha, forlornly. ‘Since Frank left, I always seem to be half an hour late for everything. No wonder she gets impatient.’

‘Let’s have some tea. There’s something I need to tell you.’

Sasha filled the kettle and dropped tea bags into the teapot. Frieda, watching her, was struck by how very beautiful her friend was and how fragile she seemed. They had first met after Sasha had come to see her as a client, in the wake of a disastrous affair with her previous therapist, but later Sasha had helped her professionally, and they had gradually become friends. When Sasha had met Frank, she had been luminously happy for a while, but after Ethan had been born she had suffered from catastrophic post-natal depression and hadn’t quite returned to an even keel since.

‘Frank’s coming in half an hour or so. Thursday’s his evening with Ethan.’

‘I don’t know if I’ll still be here.’

‘You’ll probably want to keep out of his way, after last time.’

Frank was Ethan’s father, Sasha’s ex, and had for a while been Frieda’s friend. But that was before his relationship with Sasha had started to go wrong. For a while, Frieda had stood on the sidelines and watched as her friend had become increasingly dejected and defeated – reminding her of how she had been when they had first met: Sasha had come to her as a vulnerable client. At last, she had told Sasha that she did not have to stay with someone who made her feel worthless; that although it might not feel like it at the moment, she always had a choice. She could choose to stay or choose to leave.

‘I don’t mind meeting him,’ said Frieda. ‘But there mustn’t be any kind of scene in front of Ethan.’

‘Of course not.’ Sasha put a mug of tea in front of Frieda and sat down opposite her. ‘What was it you needed to tell me?’

As Frieda told her, she didn’t seem to understand the words. Her thin face was distraught. Her eyes seemed enormous.

‘How can they think such a thing?’

‘I can see why,’ said Frieda. ‘His wallet hidden in my drawer, for instance.’

‘How did that happen?’

Frieda shrugged. ‘Let’s not go through all of that again,’ she said. ‘The point is, I’m to go to the police station tomorrow morning and I am assured by my solicitor, who seems to know what she’s talking about, that I will be charged.’

‘Then what will happen?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘You don’t have to say anything.’

‘I do.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘You’re my friend, my dearest friend, and you’ve stood by me through thick and thin.’

‘We’ve stood by each other.’

‘You’ve stood by me,’ repeated Sasha, ‘from the moment we met, when you punched my creep of a therapist in the face and ended up in a police cell, to now, when you’ve helped me though my break-up with Frank. I don’t know how I would have coped with all of that, and being a single mother, without you.’

‘You would have coped.’

‘I don’t think so. I can’t just let this happen. Tell me what I can do now. Tell me how I can help you.’

‘You can be all right, you and Ethan.’

‘Frieda, you make everything sound so solemn.’

Frieda smiled. ‘It is quite solemn,’ she said. ‘I’m about to be charged with the murder of a man I once loved.’

‘But you won’t go to court – you won’t be found guilty! They’ll let you go.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Your lawyer –’

‘My lawyer seems very competent. But there’s only so much she can do.’

‘I can’t believe this is happening.’

‘It is rather strange. Like a dream,’ said Frieda. ‘Like the kind of story that happens to other people.’

‘How can you be so calm?’

‘Am I calm? I suppose I am.’

‘I’ll do anything, anything at all. Just say the word.’

‘There is no word. I wish there was. I’m rather tired.’

Sasha took the chair beside her, grasped her hand and held it. ‘At any rate, tell me,’ she said at last.

Frieda looked at her curiously. ‘What?’

‘You know.’

‘You mean, did I kill Sandy?’

Sasha nodded. ‘I would understand if you had. It wouldn’t make me feel differently towards you. But I’d like to think you could tell me.’

‘I could tell you,’ said Frieda. There was a pause. Ethan shuffled under the table; they heard the small clicks of objects being laid down on the tiles.

‘Go on,’ said Sasha.

‘There’s not much I want to say, except for a long time now, I have felt that Sandy should never have met me. His life would have been much happier without me in it. I was to blame for his unhappiness and I hold myself responsible for his death.’

‘Well, we should talk about all of that,’ said Sasha. ‘But you haven’t given me an answer, you know.’