Friday on My Mind (8 page)

Tanya Hopkins ordered herself a cappuccino and a pastry. She checked her phone for messages but there was nothing important. She drank the coffee and tore off pieces of pastry. She opened her notebook and put it in front of her on the table. She looked at her phone once more. It was twenty minutes to ten. She pressed Frieda’s
number and listened to the ringtone. The call went to voicemail and she left a curt message.

She wrote the date on the top of the page of her notebook and underlined it, finished her cappuccino and thought about ordering another. But, no, she would wait until Frieda arrived. She shaded the letters, then cross-hatched them, and then she crossed them out in impatient black lines.

When she looked at her phone again, it was past a quarter to ten. In fifteen minutes, they were meant to be at the police station. She called Frieda’s number once again but this time left no message. Her irritation had turned to a heavy anger that sat like a stone in her stomach.

At five to ten, she paid and went outside, looking up and down the towpath for her client. She walked up the steps and gazed around. She phoned one last time, without expectation. She waited until three minutes past ten and then she went into to the station and announced herself. She was shown into DCI Hussein’s room.

‘Something must have happened to hold Frieda up,’ she said, in a pleasant voice. ‘We’re going to have to rearrange her appointment.’

Hussein looked at her across her desk. She was very still and her face was grim. ‘So,’ she said at last. ‘You’re not serious?’

Commissioner Crawford pointed a quivering finger at the chair and Karlsson sat down.

‘Do you know why you’re here?’

‘I can guess.’

‘Oh, spare me your playacting. Of course you know. Your Frieda Klein has absconded. Disappeared. Buggered off. Gone.’

Karlsson didn’t move. Not a muscle of his face changed. He stared across the large desk into the commissioner’s face, which was so red it was practically steaming. He could see the tidemarks of anger in his neck, above his shirt collar. ‘Did you know? I said,
did you know
?’

‘I knew that she had gone.’

‘No.’ He banged his fist on his desk so his empty cup shifted and the pens rolled. ‘I mean, did you know she was planning to go?’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘I know that she has talked to you.’

‘As a friend.’

‘A friend.’ The sneer in Crawford’s voice made Karlsson stiffen; his mouth tightened. ‘We all know about you and Dr Klein.’

‘I talked to her as a friend.’

‘With her solicitor. You were there with her fucking solicitor. Jesus. You are in such shit here, Mal. Up to your neck.’

‘Frieda Klein is a colleague, as well as a friend. We’re supposed to look after our own.’

‘Ex-colleague.’

‘I know you’ve had your differences –’

‘Stop it, Mal. This friend, this colleague, has murdered a man and now she’s run off before we can charge her.’

‘I’m sure there’s an explanation.’ The dull ache behind Karlsson’s eyes had spread and now occupied his entire skull. He thought of Frieda the previous day, how she had hugged him, although they had never touched each other except for a hand on the shoulder, and how she had thanked him. He realized now that she had been saying goodbye, and he heard his words to Crawford through the thud of pain. ‘I trust her,’ he said.

‘Get out of here. If I ever find out that you’ve helped her, in any way, I’ll have your head.’

On his way out he met a grey-haired man, with tortoiseshell glasses, holding a file. ‘It’s Malcolm Karlsson, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Can I help you?’

The man looked thoughtful, as if he were genuinely trying to think of a way in which Karlsson might be able to help him.

‘No, no. Not at the moment.’

‘I’m sorry, who are you?’

‘Oh, don’t mind me. Just visiting.’

Hussein looked across the table at Reuben. Reuben wasn’t looking back at her. They were sitting in the conference room at the Warehouse. One whole wall was glass and it had a view that took newcomers by surprise, looking southward right across the city. On a
clear day – and today was a very clear day – you could see the Surrey hills, twenty miles away. After a full minute, Reuben turned to face the detective. ‘I’ve got a patient in a few minutes,’ he said. ‘So if you’ve got any questions to ask, you’d better ask them.’

‘Do you know about the offence of perverting the course of justice?’

‘I know it’s something you’re not meant to do.’

‘It carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.’

‘So I’m convinced that it’s serious.’

‘Did you know that a warrant has now been issued for Frieda Klein’s arrest?’

‘No.’

Hussein paused. She looked at Reuben’s face carefully. She wanted to see his reaction to what she was about to say. ‘Do you know that she has absconded?’

‘Absconded? What do you mean?’

‘She was due to report to the police station this morning, along with her lawyer. She didn’t appear.’

‘There’s probably been a mistake. Or an accident.’

‘She went to her bank this morning and withdrew just over seven thousand pounds in cash.’

Reuben didn’t reply. He rubbed his face with his hands, as if he was waking himself up.

‘You seem to be taking this very calmly,’ said Hussein.

‘I was thinking, that’s all.’

‘I’ll tell you what you need to think about. If you’ve helped Dr Klein in any way, if you discussed this with her, then you have perverted the course of justice and you have committed a criminal offence. If you’ve done anything, if you suspect anything, then you need to tell me now.’

Reuben touched the surface of the table very softly with his fingertips.

‘Do you really think she killed Sandy?’ he asked.

‘It doesn’t matter what I think. We built a compelling case and the CPS elected to prosecute.’ She leaned forward across the table. ‘This won’t work, you know. This isn’t the nineteenth century. It’s not even the 1990s. Someone like Frieda Klein can’t just disappear. What she has done is not just against the law, it’s insane. When she’s caught – and she will be – it’s going to be very bad for her and it’s also going to be bad for anyone connected with her. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Good. Do you know where she is?’

‘No.’

‘Or might be?’

‘No.’

‘Did you know she was planning to abscond?’

‘No.’

‘Who else would Dr Klein turn to?’

‘I don’t know. She’s a very independent woman.’

‘When I met her, there was a man with her, a foreigner.’

‘You mean Josef?’

‘Yes, that was his name. Who is he?’

‘A friend of Frieda’s. A builder. He’s from Ukraine.’

‘Why would someone like that be a friend of Frieda Klein?’

‘Is that an insult to Ukrainians or to builders?’

‘How can I reach him?’

Reuben thought for a moment, then took out his phone, checked it and wrote the number on a piece of paper. He pushed the piece of paper across the table.

‘Who else might help her?’

‘Am I meant to name names, so that you can go around and threaten them?’

‘You’re meant to obey the law. Does she have any close relatives?’

Reuben shook his head. ‘One brother lives abroad, another out of London, near Cambridge. She wouldn’t turn to him and he wouldn’t help her if she did.’ Reuben checked his phone again. He reached back for the piece of paper and wrote a name and number. ‘She’s got a sister-in-law she sees quite a bit of. Olivia Klein. You can waste some time talking to her.’

Hussein took the piece of paper and stood up. ‘You were her therapist,’ she said. ‘I thought people told their therapists everything.’

Reuben gave a short laugh. ‘I was her therapist years ago and even then she only told me what she wanted to tell me.’

‘I know you don’t care what I think,’ said Hussein. ‘But a man has been murdered and your Frieda Klein has gone off on some self-indulgent meltdown. She’s wrecking a murder inquiry, breaking the law, and for what?’

Reuben stood up. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what you think.’

Olivia Klein also lived in Islington, further east but still less than a mile from Sandy’s flat. When she opened the door and Hussein identified herself, her eyes filled with tears. When Hussein mentioned Sandy’s name she started to sob and Hussein had to lead her into the living room, propping her up and then settling her down on the sofa.
She went through to the kitchen and found a box of tissues. Olivia pulled them out in handfuls, wiping her face and blowing her nose.

‘I can’t tell you what Frieda’s done for me over the years. She’s saved me. Completely saved me. When David left, I was just completely … I mean totally …’

Her words turned back into sobs. ‘And then my daughter, Chloë, went through a terrible time, she was a complete bloody tearaway, and Frieda helped her with her schoolwork and talked to her. She even put her up for a while, which deserves some kind of a damehood.’

‘I suppose she needed a father.’

‘She needed a fucking mother as well. I wasn’t any good to her. With Sandy, I really thought she’d finally found someone and then it went wrong and then this. It’s so …’

Her face disappeared into her tissues once more.

‘Mrs Klein …’

‘I don’t know anything. I didn’t really know Sandy well and I haven’t seen him for a year. Two years. A long time anyway.’

‘It’s not that.’

‘Then what is it?’

Hussein was almost reluctant to begin because she knew what was going to happen. But it didn’t. When she described Frieda’s disappearance, Olivia just seemed so shocked that Hussein didn’t know if she was taking it in. She looked like a child, with a blotchy pale face, who had cried and cried so much that there were no tears left.

‘Why?’ said Olivia, in a small voice that was hardly more than a whisper. ‘Why would she do that?’

‘I was hoping you could tell me.’

‘How could I know? I’ve never known why Frieda does things, even after she’s done them.’

‘She’s done this’ – Hussein said each word slowly and clearly so that there was no mistake – ‘because she knew she was about to be charged with a very serious crime.’

‘But you can’t think that she did it. It’s not possible.’

‘We need to be very clear,’ said Hussein. ‘If you know anything about this, if you’ve helped Frieda in any way, then you need to tell me. That’s very important.’

‘What, me?’ said Olivia, suddenly speaking loudly. ‘I don’t even know how to work the DVD player now that Chloë’s at college. Every time I want to watch something, I have to phone Chloë up and she talks me through it and I still don’t remember. You think Frieda would turn to me to arrange an escape? I’m a drowning woman. When you look at me, you’re looking at a woman who’s literally drowning. Sometimes Frieda has rescued me and pulled me to the shore and then I’ve fallen in again. But I can tell you that, if Frieda had turned to me, then I would have done anything for her that I could.’

‘It would actually have been a crime.’

‘I don’t care. But she wouldn’t turn to me because she’s got too much bloody sense.’

The house in Belsize Park looked like it was being demolished from the inside. There were four skips lined up along the road. Old planks and plasterboard and cables were being carried out of the front door. Meanwhile scaffolding was being unloaded from a van and assembled around the façade. Hussein had to be issued with a hard hat, and Josef summoned from somewhere
deep inside. Hussein had become used to the strange reactions of people when they had to deal with the police, but when Josef appeared in the doorway and noticed her he just gave a slow smile of recognition, as if he had been expecting her. She followed him into the house and he led her right through and into the large, long back garden.

‘It seems like a big job,’ she said.

He looked up at the rear façade of the house as if he were seeing it for the first time. ‘Is big.’

‘Looks like they’re taking it apart.’

‘Gutting. Yes.’

‘Expensive.’

Josef shrugged. ‘You spend fifteen, twenty million on house, then two or three more is little.’

‘Not for me.’

‘Me also.’

‘We’re looking for Frieda. Do you know where she is?’

‘No.’

She waited for him to elaborate, to protest, but he simply stopped as if he had said all that needed to be said.

‘When I met you with Dr Klein, I felt like you were there as some kind of back-up.’

‘Friend. Only friend.’

‘I read the police file on Dr Klein. Your name appears in it.’

Josef seemed to smile at the memory. ‘Yes. Funny thing.’

‘You were badly hurt.’

‘No, no. It was small thing.’ He made a gesture on his arm and a puffing sound.

‘You know that Dr Klein is now a fugitive?’

‘Fugitive?’

‘On the run. We want to arrest her.’

‘Arrest?’ He looked startled. ‘Is bad.’

‘It’s bad. It’s very serious.’

‘I must work now.’

‘You’re Ukrainian?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you know anything at all about Frieda Klein’s whereabouts, or if you’ve helped her in any way, you’ve committed a crime. If so, you will be convicted and you will be deported. Understand? Sent back to Ukraine.’

‘This is …’ He searched for the word. ‘Threat?’

‘It’s a fact.’

‘I’m sorry. I must work.’

Hussein took a card and handed it to Josef. He looked at it with apparent interest.

‘If you hear anything, anything at all,’ she said.

When Hussein was gone, Josef stood in the garden for several minutes. When he went back inside, he found Gavin, the site manager. Then he walked out of the front door, along the avenue and turned right on Haverstock Hill. He walked down the hill until he reached the hardware store. The large, shaven-headed man behind the counter nodded at him. Since the job had started, he’d been in there every day. The delivery was ready. Josef took out his phone and checked the time.

‘Back in half-hour,’ he said.

He came out of the shop and crossed the road into Chalk Farm station. He took a train south, just one stop to Camden Town. He exited the train just as the doors were closing. He looked around. There was almost nobody on
the platform, except for a party of teenagers, probably heading for the market. He came out of the station and walked north up Kentish Town Road. He reached the steps off to the left and walked down to the canal. He could see the market ahead of him but he turned left away from it, under the bridge. As he walked along, he saw the occasional runner. A cyclist rang a bell behind him and he stepped aside. Ahead, he saw a canal boat chugging towards him, an old, grey-bearded man steering it from the stern. Josef stood and waited for the boat to pass him. The brightly coloured curlicued decorations made him smile. The man waved at him and he waved back. Ahead of him, he saw a familiar silhouette, standing under a bridge.

As he approached, Frieda turned round. Josef took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. She unfolded it. ‘Is he a friend?’

Josef nodded.

Frieda put the paper into her pocket. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘I come with you to see him.’

‘No. You won’t know where I am. You won’t know how to get hold of me.’

‘But, Frieda –’

‘You must have nothing to hide and nothing to lie about.’ She looked into his woebegone face and relented. ‘If I need you, I promise I will find you. But you must not try to find me. Do you hear?’

‘I hear. Not like, but hear.’

‘And you give me your word.’

He placed his hand over his heart and made his small bow. ‘I give my word,’ he said.