Friday on My Mind (12 page)

She looked at the dates, then added some more.

–
April–May: Miles Thornton sectioned; own responsibility for this.

–
27 May: Miles Thornton out of hospital and comes to WH, violent and upset. Loudly angry; felt betrayed by me. Returned several times.

–
3 June: Miles Thornton did not turn up for session.

–
3 June onwards: Miles Thornton not answering calls, emails, etc.

–
Monday, 9 June (right date?): reported Miles missing.

–
27 June (approx?): Miles Thornton returns, badly injured.

Frieda stared for a moment at what she had written. There was one more thing to complete the picture:

–
Wednesday, 25 June: June Reeve dies. She knew that from the funeral notice.

–
Monday, 30 June: June Reeve’s funeral.

She had been wrong all along, terribly wrong. Dean Reeve had abducted Miles, taken him a long distance to somewhere by the sea, and tortured him, of that she was quite certain. And she knew, too, that Miles had been missing since the beginning of June, when Sandy had still been alive. Dean had held him captive until two or three days ago, repeatedly abused him in her name, as a punishment that she was intended to know about: he had sent Miles back with a message. She guessed that Dean had stopped when he had because he had heard that his mother had died and he needed to come back, if not for
the funeral, then at least to pay his respects. He had loved his mother, in his own perverse manner.

However hard she tried to make a different story from the dates in front of her, she could not. Dean Reeve had tortured Miles Thornton. But he couldn’t have killed Sandy.

Frieda sat in her depressing room with a tumbler of whisky, watching the sky turn from blue to pale grey, pale grey to darker grey, then to a bright darkness, scattered with stars. She had bought flowers from the market stall down the road, but their fresh colours only emphasized the dingy aspects of her surroundings, the stained, damp walls and threadbare carpets.

She thought about what she had: nothing.

She had left her home, left her friends, left her job, left her safety and her known world; she had run from the police, ruined her reputation, destroyed her future, lost everything she had built up over the years. For what? For nothing.

She had done all of this because she had believed that Dean had killed Sandy, the man she had once loved more than she had ever loved anyone, and who had been murdered. She had been so sure that she had never even considered the possibility she might be wrong.

She had been wrong, and now she did not know what she should do. Perhaps the only thing left was to give herself up. She let herself imagine it: Hussein’s calm and steely face, Commissioner Crawford’s triumph, Karlsson’s distress. At the thought of her friend, she pressed her glass to her forehead and held it there, closing her eyes. She would be charged, she would be found guilty – especially after going on the run. She would go
to jail. For a moment, the thought of being in prison was almost restful.

Then she thought of Sandy. She remembered him as she had first known him, buoyant with love and happiness, and she remembered him as he had been in the last eighteen months, soured and jangled by his wretchedness and anger. Someone had killed him and that person was still out there. If she gave herself up, that person would always be out there. She was not going to let that happen. She set down her whisky and, going over to the window, she stared out at the night sky. She waited there, feeling her resolution harden.

She retrieved her notebook from her bag. She had to start with Sandy. What did she know about him? Who were his friends, his colleagues, his drinking buddies, his affairs and his one-night stands? Who had loved him, hated him, been treated badly by him, felt jealous of or rivalrous with him? She wrote his name at the top of the paper and drew little leaves and flowers curling out of the block letters, as if she were bringing him back to life once more. Then she jotted down every solid fact she could remember, every friend she knew or he had mentioned.

She started with his work. She wrote down the names of people she knew or knew of: Calvin Lock, the professor of neuroscience, who had worked closely with Sandy before he’d gone to America; Lucy Hall, his assistant at that time; Aidan Dunston and his wife Siri, whom they had had dinner with a few times. Who else? She searched through her memories. There was that geneticist in New York, Clara someone-or-other. Surely she wasn’t relevant here. And what was the name of his assistant at King
George’s, whom she hadn’t met but had spoken to on the phone? Terry Keaton.

She turned to his family, but Sandy had almost no one. His parents were dead and she couldn’t remember him mentioning aunts or uncles or cousins. There was his sister, Lizzie, and his brother-in-law, Tom; their son, Oliver. What was the name of their nanny? She couldn’t remember and, anyway, perhaps she’d left by now. After all, she and Sandy had separated eighteen months ago – a lot could happen in eighteen months.

There was Sandy’s ex-wife, Maria, who lived in New Zealand. Sandy had spoken of her occasionally. As far as she knew, they had had no contact with each other for years. Since Maria, and before Frieda, there had been a violinist called Gina, whose last name she didn’t know, and an Italian economist, Luisa. Sandy had not talked about either of them much.

Friends: there was Dan Lieberman from primary school, with whom he played squash regularly. There was Josh Tebbit. Janie Frank and her partner, Angela. The Foremans. Who else?

She stared at the list, her brow wrinkling. It didn’t seem much for someone she had known intimately for many years, and inevitably there had been nothing after they had parted: she had no idea of the shape of his life since then. Sandy had often resented the way that Frieda guarded her independence so fiercely. It had taken months before she had allowed him to stay the night at her house. She had been wary about introducing him to her friends, and had kept aspects of her life secret from him. She had told him of her father’s suicide years after they first met, and only confided that she had been raped as a teenager when that
episode in her past came back to haunt her present: it was the revelation that had brought Sandy home from America, giving up his job there. But now she saw that she knew very little about him. She knew his tastes; knew what he loved to cook, to eat, what wines he liked. She knew what books he’d read, what his politics were, what his views were on the NHS or organized religion or the placebo effect and anti-depressants. She recognized his expressions, understood what made him angry, jealous, glad or wretched. She could
read
him, yet at the same time she knew almost nothing of the ordinary daily details of his life.

Another fact came into her mind, so obvious she had almost let it become invisible: whoever had killed Sandy had known about her. They had let themselves into her house – how? – and planted his wallet there. They had set out to frame her.

She stood up once more and stared into the patch of night sky the little smeared window gave her. Another name came into her mind and settled there. Dr Ellison. The woman who, Hussein had said, had reported Sandy missing. Who was she? It was at least something to go on, a way to begin, and she pulled on her new unfavourite jacket and went out.

There were several other people at the internet café, all bowed over their computer screens. The room was silent, save for the occasional bleep and hum of the machines, and the light was a sour dim yellow, which made Frieda’s head ache slightly.

First of all she Googled ‘Dr Ellison’. Even when she was only looking for women, there were lots of them, all
over the world. She added ‘UK’ and the names dwindled, but there were still too many to be helpful. She pondered, then went to the King George’s website; there was no way to do a search on a Dr Ellison so she started scrolling through the names of staff in each separate department, beginning with the sciences. Nothing in Neuroscience or Neurobiology, Biomedicine, Genetics, Physics or Molecular Biophysics, Chemistry, Environmental Science, Engineering … But suddenly, amid the blur of names, she saw a Dr Veronica Ellison who was a fellow in the Psychology department. She clicked on her name and a face came onto the screen, a woman who was probably about Frieda’s age, blonde, smiling, eyebrows slightly raised as if in surprised enquiry. There was an email address but Frieda didn’t want to email her, so she wrote down the number of the department in her notebook. She would call tomorrow. Although it was the summer vacation, someone would be there to answer calls and would at least pass a message on to Veronica Ellison.

On her way back to her rooms, she met the woman she had seen before smoking on the stairs. She raised her head. She had a bruise under her left eye and a split lip. She nodded at Frieda.

Frieda stopped. ‘I saw you before.’

The woman smiled – a smile that was knowing and rueful and oddly jaunty. ‘Who are you anyway?’ she asked.

Frieda sat beside her on the steps. ‘I’m Carla.’

‘What are you doing in a shithole like this?’

‘Passing through.’

‘That’s what we like to think.’

‘Your face looks sore.’

The woman touched it lightly with the tips of her fingers. ‘That’s nothing. But I could do with a drink.’

‘I have some whisky in my room.’

‘That’ll do.’

Frieda stood up and the woman held out her hand, like a child, to be helped up, then didn’t let go of Frieda’s at once.

‘Carla, you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Hana.’ She smiled crookedly again. ‘Just passing through.’

The next morning, just before nine, Frieda walked into the deserted courtyard and called the number for the Psychology department at King George’s and when a woman finally answered, sounding harassed, explained that she needed to contact Dr Veronica Ellison.

‘She’s just come in to pick up some books.’

Frieda was momentarily taken aback. ‘Could I speak to her, then?’

‘One moment.’

Frieda waited several minutes, then a husky, slightly breathless voice said: ‘Hello? This is Dr Ellison. How can I help you?’

‘My name is Carla,’ said Frieda, trying to think of a convincing second name. She looked around and saw the name of the building over the gate. ‘Carla Morris. I am – I was – a friend of Sandy’s. I was hoping I could talk to you.’

‘About Sandy?’

‘I lost touch with him and then I heard about his death. I wanted to talk to someone who knew him.’

‘Why me?’

‘A friend mentioned you,’ said Frieda. ‘He said you’d been worried about him.’

‘Well, yes. I was.’ The woman sounded uncertain.

‘I thought perhaps you could tell me what happened.’

‘Were you and Sandy …?’ Her voice trailed off.

‘He was just a friend, many years ago. But for a while we were close. Now I need to understand what happened.’

‘I don’t know. I’m going on holiday tomorrow morning.’

‘Just fifteen minutes of your time, and I could come to wherever was convenient for you.’

‘All right.’ Now that she had made up her mind, her voice was brisker. ‘Come at midday to the garden centre just off Balls Pond Road. It’s called Three Corners. I’ve no idea why. I have to pick up some plants before I go.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Carla, you say?’

‘Carla Morris.’

‘I’ll be with the climbing roses.’

Frieda had nearly three hours. And the garden centre was about ten minutes’ walk from Sasha’s house. She was anxious about Sasha, and about Ethan. The last sight she had had of him, being pulled along by his implacable nanny, his mouth open in a howl and his dark eyes wet with tears, kept returning to her.

Thirty-five minutes later she was standing in the same position near Sasha’s house as she had been two days before. She knew that Sasha often left for work late, and she thought perhaps she would see her. But there was no sign of her leaving and there was no sign of Christine or of Ethan either. Probably she had arrived too late and no one was there.

Even as she was thinking this, the front door flew open and Sasha emerged, in a sleeveless blue work dress. But she was holding Ethan by the hand and talking into her mobile phone. Frieda could see she was dishevelled and, even from this distance, there was an air of agitation about her. She watched as Ethan skipped and twisted at his mother’s side. Sasha put her phone into her pocket and stopped walking. She put a hand to her throat in a gesture of distress that was familiar to Frieda, then took out the phone once more and made another call. Ethan tugged at her hand.

Frieda put her dark glasses on, buttoned up her bright jacket and walked down the street after them. Now she could hear Sasha talking. ‘No,’ she was saying, and, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know who else to ask.’

‘Sasha,’ said Frieda.

Sasha swung round. She stared, her eyes huge in her pale thin face. Frieda took off her dark glasses.

‘Your hair’s all gone,’ said Ethan.

‘Frieda! Oh, God. What are you doing here? I thought – the police came, you know.’

‘I wanted to make sure you were all right.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Where’s Christine?’

‘She sent me a text this morning saying she doesn’t want to be a nanny for a single mother. She says it’s more trouble than it’s worth.’

‘Good.’

‘Good? I’m going to lose my job, Frieda, and then what will I do?’

‘Go to work right now. I’ll take care of Ethan. If that’s OK with you, Ethan.’

Ethan nodded and slid his hand into hers.

‘I don’t understand anything,’ said Sasha. ‘And your clothes are weird. Why have you cut off all your lovely hair?’

‘Give me your key and go to work before they miss you. We can talk later. Tell no one.’

‘But, Frieda …’

‘No one. Now go.’

‘Can we play animals?’ said Ethan, once they were alone together.

‘Later. First we’re going to a garden centre, to see the roses.’

He didn’t seem impressed.