Friday on My Mind (20 page)

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.’

Frieda didn’t reply.

‘I know that you’re going to say that anyone could do it. But he didn’t.’ Bridget paused, then began again in an angry tone: ‘Anyway, why am I defending myself to you? I just need to pick up the phone and the police will be here in two minutes and they’ll lock you up. Or are you going to stop me somehow?’

‘I’m not going to stop you,’ said Frieda. ‘If you want to call them, I’ll just sit here.’

Bridget glared at her. ‘Before I call them, is there anything you want to tell me or ask me?’

‘The police searched my house. They found Sandy’s wallet hidden in a drawer. Somebody must have put it
there. Someone with a key to my house. Not many people have a key to my house. But you do.’

‘Do I? I didn’t know that.’

‘Do you want me to show you?’

‘You probably know more about what’s in my house than I do. I suppose you mean the keys I got from Sandy.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you want me to explain why I’ve got them.’

‘Yes.’

Suddenly Bridget laughed. ‘Let me get this straight. At the time you were wandering around South London with our tiny children while the police were hunting for you, you thought that Al, or maybe even Al and I together, like some kind of Bonnie and Clyde, murdered Sandy because of an argument in the office. And then, having killed him and disposed of the body, we decided to plant evidence in the house of his ex-lover, someone we’d never met and knew almost nothing about. Is that right?’

‘That was one possibility.’

Bridget looked around the garden as if she were only noticing it for the first time. ‘About three months ago, it was around one o’clock in the morning and I was sitting here. I was wearing a sweater, a thick jacket and woolly hat. And Sandy was sitting where you’re sitting now.’

‘At one in the morning?’

‘We talked here for a bit and then we started to feel cold. We felt we needed to move around. So we walked out of the house and down to Clapham Road and then we walked around the Common for an hour, I think, maybe more.’

‘Were you having an affair?’

Bridget flinched. ‘That’s the sort of moment when someone would slap you round the face. I was going to
say “Carla”. It’s hard to shed an old habit. Frieda Klein. Frieda fucking Klein.’

‘Were you?’

‘He knocked on the door after midnight and woke me up. Al is a heavy sleeper. He was apologizing. He knew about the children and how little sleep we were getting. He said he was thinking of doing something stupid and he needed to talk to someone and I was the only person he could think of.’

‘You mean …’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes. He was contemplating suicide.’

‘So we talked. He said a lot and I said a bit. Mainly I listened. Then he went home. But he gave me a set of keys, just in case. The ones you found.’

‘What did he tell you?’

‘Mainly it was that he’d come back from the States for a relationship that had fallen apart and he didn’t think he was managing his life properly and he couldn’t see a way forward.’ She gave Frieda a look that had a flash of anger in it. ‘But I suppose you’re used to people lying on your couch and saying things like that to you.’

‘I don’t have a couch. What did you reply?’

‘Nothing clever. I said that it was hard to believe but it would pass. He just had to wait and trust in his friends.’

Frieda felt a pang. She should have been the one telling Sandy that. It was good advice and, in the end, that was what a lot of therapy for troubled people came down to. Just wait: gradually the pain will change and become more bearable. But she had been the cause of the pain.

‘Was it just once?’

‘It was only that extreme just the once. But we talked
from time to time. Sometimes he would phone late at night.’

‘After all that, after all you did for him, wasn’t it a bit strange that he damaged Al’s career?’

‘Are you serious?’ said Bridget, in a tone of contempt that made Frieda wince. ‘You think we’re like that: I help you out when you’re in distress and, in return, you do my husband some kind of favour at work.’

‘He may have been trying to prove something.’

‘Like what?’

‘It can be difficult to be helped, to feel that someone has rescued you.’

‘You sound like you’ve got quite a low opinion of humanity.’

Frieda stood up. ‘You never know how people will react,’ she said. ‘Are you going to call the police now?’

‘Al didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.’ There was a long pause. ‘And I don’t think you did it.’

‘But someone did,’ said Frieda.

‘I know.’

‘And I need to find out who.’

‘
We
need to,’ said Bridget. ‘He was my friend. I won’t call the police.’

‘Have you told Al about me?’

‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Not yet. I don’t think he’d be very understanding, though.’

She hadn’t told her husband about Sandy’s despair either, thought Frieda. There was a silence. Frieda looked at Bridget, her broad, sculpted face and her strong arms, and Bridget looked straight ahead, her hands clasped together. She seemed to be waiting.

‘Can you help me?’ Frieda said at last, softly.

Bridget looked round then, eyebrows raised. Her anger seemed to have evaporated. She was sad instead; sad and weary. ‘I’ve got young children. I can’t do the sort of things you do.’

‘There only needs to be one of me,’ said Frieda.

‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. Next time I’m going to insist on proper references.’

Josef was very hot. He was up in the loft of the Belsize Park house, inserting insulation foam between the wall cavities. Although there were skylights in the roof, through which the sun poured, there was also an extra-bright Anglepoise light rigged up to shine into the corners. Josef felt that he was trapped between its heat and the sun’s. There was grit in his eyes, a sheen of sweat and dust on his skin. His hair was damp and his feet itched.

Near him, another man was hammering the wall partitions back into place. He struck each nail with a loud, precise first blow, then followed it with a series of brisk taps that reminded Josef of a woodpecker. The man was solid, with muscles that rippled in his arms, and a shaven head that every so often he would wipe with a large cloth.

For the most part, they worked in silence, except to grunt a few words to each other – about the heat, the dust, the wealth of the owners who were ripping apart a perfectly good house in order to erect another inside its shell. Yesterday the man – his name was Marty – had had a radio with him but today he was empty-handed. They could hear the sounds of other builders beneath them: music, curses, the ugly shriek of a saw on metal.

At eleven Marty laid down his hammer. ‘I’m going for a smoke. Coming?’

Josef nodded and gratefully straightened up. They went down the several flights of stairs, through rooms, most of
which were like their own mini building sites, and out into the garden. It was long for a London garden and sloped upwards towards the back wall between high trellises, and it, too, was evidently a work in progress. The two men sat on a step beside what would one day be the paved barbecue area but which was now piled with bricks and lengths of pipe. Josef pulled out his packet of cigarettes and offered one to Marty, but he shook his head and proceeded to roll his own, his stubby fingers deft.

Josef smoked his cigarette slowly, between swigs from his water bottle, and half closed his eyes against the bright shafts of sunlight. He was thinking about what he would cook tonight – perhaps something Ukrainian. And thinking about his homeland made him think of his two sons, whom he hadn’t seen for so long now, although his wife – ex-wife – had sent him photographs recently. Taller, more solid, their hair darker and cut shorter, they looked strange to him although not like strangers, familiar yet far off. And thinking of his sons and the pain in his chest that their absence caused him made him think of Frieda, for only Frieda knew something of what he felt about this – and it was at this moment that the back door swung open and two people, a man and a woman, walked into the garden.

At first Josef thought they must be surveyors or architects. The man, who looked like a rugby player, was wearing a light grey suit, and the woman, who was small and moved with a purposeful air, a biscuit-coloured skirt with a white blouse and flat shoes. He narrowed his eyes, then let out a groan.

‘What?’ asked Marty.

‘I know that woman. She is police.’

‘Police?’

‘They come for me, I know.’

‘You? What have you done wrong, mate?’

‘I? Nothing. They do wrong.’ But he was uneasy. He remembered the state Frieda’s temporary neighbour and robber had been in when they had left him. But how could the police know anything? He told himself it was impossible.

Hussein and Bryant picked their way through the debris in the garden.

‘Mr Morozov,’ said Hussein. ‘DCI Hussein.’

She held out her identification but Josef, still sitting on the step, waved it away. ‘I know. We met. You are hunting Frieda.’

‘Looking for her. We’d like a word with you.’

‘All right.’

‘In private.’

‘You want me to go?’ said Marty. He stood and moved to the end of the garden, his back to them, where he started to roll another cigarette.

‘Do you know why we’re here?’ asked Hussein.

Josef shrugged.

‘I think you know where Frieda is.’

‘I know nothing.’

‘You know we have a camera rigged up at her house.’

‘I notice it, of course.’

‘So we know you go to her house every day.’

‘It is not a crime.’

‘You stay there quite a long time.’

Josef flushed. ‘So?’ he said.

‘What do you do?’

‘Feed cat. Water plants. Make sure things are nice.’ He scowled at the two officers. ‘For when she can come home again.’

‘Sometimes you stay there an hour.’

‘Not a crime,’ Josef said again. He wasn’t going to tell them that he wandered round the house, sat in Frieda’s chair, stood in her study, feeling her presence.

‘When did you last have contact with her?’

He waved his hand in the air. ‘When she left.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Josef gave his shrug.

‘You understand that we could have you deported,’ said Bryant, suddenly.

‘You know nothing,’ said Josef. ‘So you try to scare me. But I am not scared.’

‘Did you know she was there?’

‘What?’ Josef squinted at her. ‘Frieda?’

‘Yes.’

‘In her house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah,’ he said. It was like a sigh.

‘Did you know?’

‘No.’

‘Did you leave anything for her?’

‘No.’

‘Why was she there?’

‘Is her home.’ He stood up and took a swig from his water bottle. ‘Perhaps homesick. I left everything clean and good for her.’

‘You think she went simply because she was homesick?’

‘Do you know the homesick feeling?’

Hussein made an impatient gesture. ‘She is in serious trouble. If you are a true friend, you will tell us how to find her before things get any worse.’

‘I am a true friend,’ said Josef. ‘I will say nothing. Except you will see.’

‘What will we see, Josef?’

‘My name is Mr Morozov.’

‘Yes, Mr Morozov. We are not your enemy.’

‘Frieda’s enemy is my enemy.’

‘We are not Frieda’s enemy. But we need to find her. And we think you can help us.’

‘No.’

‘Perverting the course of justice is a serious crime.’

Josef didn’t reply. He took his cigarettes out of his back pocket, tapped one out and lit it.

‘You have our card,’ said Hussein. ‘If you think of anything.’

They left, and Josef sat down on the step once more. Marty joined him.

‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help catching a bit of that. You’re a friend of that woman who’s on the run?’

Josef nodded. ‘She is my friend.’

‘And you know where she is?’ Marty sounded admiring.

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘Will they find her, do you reckon?’

‘No.’

‘But she can’t stay hidden for ever.’

‘Is true.’ The expression on Josef’s face became sombre. He ground his cigarette into the brickwork and stood up. ‘We should work.’

‘I want another biscuit.’

‘No. Three is enough.’

‘I want one.’ Tam’s voice rose higher. Her face became redder. ‘I want a biscuit.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll scream.’

‘That won’t help.’

Tam opened her mouth very wide, so it seemed to take up most of her face, and emitted a piercing shriek. Frieda picked up Rudi, who was trying to haul himself up on her legs, and put him on her lap. His weight felt comforting and his hair was clean and smelt of shampoo. The screaming went on, with little hiccups in between.

Bridget appeared in the doorway carrying two mugs of tea. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Did she fall over?’

‘No.’

‘I want another biscuit,’ roared Tam. ‘Carla said no.’

‘Oh, is that all?’

‘It’s not fair.’

‘Fair?’ Bridget’s eyebrows went up and she looked down at her daughter sceptically. ‘Here’s your tea.’ She handed a mug with a picture of a puffin on it across to Frieda. ‘I’ve found a nanny, by the way,’ she said, almost casually.

‘That’s probably for the best.’

‘Yes.’

They sat and drank their tea. At last Tam was winding down. She put her thumb in her mouth and within a few seconds had fallen asleep, her legs stretched out in front of her.

‘Welcome to the world of motherhood,’ said Bridget. ‘Nappies and tantrums and grazed knees and stained clothes and broken nights. Time’s never your own.’ She smiled at Frieda. ‘As you might have gathered, I’m not a particularly patient person.’

‘Going to work must make it easier.’

‘I’d go mad if I was with them all the time.’

‘Perhaps because you love them so much,’ said Frieda. ‘Perhaps that’s what makes it so overpowering.’

Bridget shot her a glance. ‘You’re being Frieda Klein now, aren’t you, not Carla? The Frieda Klein Sandy loved.’

Frieda rested her chin on Rudi’s head. He, too, was beginning to fall asleep. She could feel the rise and fall of his breath through his body. ‘It’s not enough,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘What? Love?’

‘I mean, it still doesn’t make sense that Sandy should become so desperate because I had left him and his life had gone awry.’

‘You don’t think losing someone can make you desperate?’

‘I’m a psychotherapist, remember? It’s what the loss uncovers in you that brings on despair, not the loss itself. Sandy was a deep-feeling man but he was also strong and quite good at protecting himself.’

‘You think?’

‘I do. Don’t you?’

‘He didn’t protect himself from you.’

‘But that’s not why he should have felt on the edge. You say that he wasn’t managing his life properly.’

‘That’s right.’

‘What did he mean by that?’

Bridget hesitated; she was still clearly reluctant to betray his confidences. ‘He felt guilty.’

‘Guilty about relationships with women?’

‘Mostly, I think.’

‘Can you say anything more about that?’

‘Do you think this has anything to do with his death?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘He had a series of flings,’ said Bridget. ‘And he didn’t always end them very well.’

‘I met Veronica Ellison,’ said Frieda, thinking of the words Veronica had used to describe how Sandy had been with her at the end – cruel and indifferent, because he himself was wretched.

‘Yes.’ Bridget smiled. ‘Carla was very resourceful, wasn’t she?’

‘Do you know who the other women were?’

‘I know a few. There was a research assistant at the university – Bella. Bella Fisk. She was smitten, I think.’

‘But he wasn’t?’

‘No.’

‘And then there was someone called Kim. Or Kimberley. I can’t remember her last name.’

Frieda frowned. A memory wormed through her. ‘Was she a nanny?’

‘Another?’ said Bridget. ‘She might have been.’

‘His sister had a nanny called Kimberley.’

‘That’s the kind of thing he was doing.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘There were other women but I’ve no idea who. They were the ones he talked about to me.’

‘Is there anything else you can think of?’

‘Well.’ Bridget looked out of the window for a moment. ‘He was scared.’

‘Scared?’ This was what Veronica Ellison had also believed.

‘But you knew that, didn’t you?’

‘Why would I know that? We hadn’t really spoken for a long time.’ Frieda remembered her last sight of Sandy,
outside the Warehouse, flinging a black bin bag of possessions at her, his face contorted.

‘He said he was trying to call you about it. He thought you’d be the one who would know what to do. Didn’t he talk to you about it?’

She looked into Bridget’s face. ‘I deleted all his messages.’

‘And you didn’t listen to them first?’

‘No.’

They sat in silence for a while, Rudi on Frieda’s lap, like a squashy warm parcel, and Tam between them, husky whimpers coming from between her parted lips.

‘You have no idea why he was scared?’ Frieda asked at last.

‘No. But he was right to be, wasn’t he?’

Frieda walked back to Elephant and Castle. It took her almost an hour. The day had turned to early evening, softly bright, and the streets were full of people in their summer clothes. Teenagers on skateboards rattled past. Couples, their arms entwined. The pavements outside pubs overflowed with drinkers.

She walked under the railway bridge and along the side of Thaxted House. She thought of her own little house, which in the summer was cool and clean and dim, as if it were under water. The longing she felt for it was so sharp it made her breath shallow. She unlocked the front door and stepped inside. She heard voices from the kitchen, talking, laughing. She went on to her own room and pushed open her door.

‘Frieda,’ said a voice, as she closed it.

She spun round.

‘Josef! What are you doing here?’

‘Nice woman let me in.’

Josef made shapes in front of his chest.

‘Ileana,’ said Frieda. ‘And you shouldn’t do that. You should say, “the brown-haired woman”. And you should go.’

‘I must help.’

‘No! You must not help. Go away.’

‘Frieda, I cannot bear.’

Frieda stepped forward and touched him on the shoulder, looking into his sad brown eyes. She could smell the vodka on his breath. ‘It’s all right. Who else knows I’m here?’

‘Nobody. I tell nobody. I ask Lev and he show me the place. I dodge and duck so nobody can follow. Not the police.’ He sniffed contemptuously. ‘Not anyone. I keep your secret.’ He laid his large hand over his heart. ‘I help you.’

‘Josef, listen. You more than anyone have too much to lose. They could deport you.’

‘Threat.’ He waved his hand dismissively. Then he bent down and took a bottle of vodka out of his canvas bag. ‘This is horrible place. Shall we have a drink?’

Frieda looked at the bottle in his outstretched hand, then around her at the dismal little room, the low sun glinting in through the smeary windows, the thin orange curtains hanging limply. She smiled suddenly. ‘Why not?’

Josef’s face brightened. He bent down once more and took out two shot glasses. ‘Always prepared,’ he said.

‘To homecomings,’ said Frieda.

They clinked glasses and drank.

About five seconds after Josef had left, there was a knock at Frieda’s door.

‘What?’

The door opened and Mira’s grinning face appeared in the gap.

‘He’s gone?’ she said.