Blue Monday

Chapter Twenty-seven

Alan’s meeting with Heidi had happened near Victoria Park. The address that Jack had got was for Brewery Road in Poplar, several miles further east. Frieda took the overland train there. She stared out from the platform at the river Lea, grubby and grey, as it twisted its way in the last few curves before it spilled itself into the Thames. She turned away from it and walked past the bus station and under the huge road junction. She could feel the rumble of lorries over her. The underpass led in one direction to a superstore. She looked down at her map and turned to the right, into the residential area on the other side. This had been in the heart of the old East End, which had been flattened during the Blitz by bombs intended for the docks. Every couple of hundred yards, a few surviving houses stood defiantly among the flats and tower blocks that had been built on top of the bomb sites. These new estates were already stained and faded and crumbling. Some had bikes and flowerpots on their narrow balconies, and curtains at their windows. Others were boarded up. In one courtyard, a gang of teenagers huddled round a bonfire made of broken-up furniture.

Frieda walked slowly, trying to get a feel for the area, which had never been more than a name to her. It was a part of the city that had been forgotten and betrayed. Even the way it had been built on felt like a kind of rejection. She passed a defunct petrol station, with pits in the forecourt where pumps had once stood, and the remains of a redbrick building standing jaggedly behind. Then a row of shops, only two of which were still open – a barber’s and a shop selling fishing tackle. A wasteland where nettles grew on the cracked concrete. She passed a series of roads that had been named after western counties – Devon, Somerset, Cornwall – and another after poets: Milton, Cowper, Wordsworth.

At last she reached a stretch of buildings that had escaped the bombs. Frieda looked through the railings of a primary school. In the playground boys were kicking a football. To one side, a group of little girls in headscarves were giggling. She passed a factory that was closed down. A sign on the front announced redevelopment as office spaces and apartments. Then there was a pub with grimy windows and a row of houses. Every single door and window was blocked up with sheet metal, bolted to the walls. Frieda looked at her map again. She crossed the street and turned right into Brewery Road. It curved to the right so that she couldn’t see where it led, but a sign at the turning had marked it as a cul-de-sac. At the corner there were some more shops, all closed down and abandoned. Frieda read the old signs. There had been a cab firm, an electronics shop, a newsagent. There were multiple estate agent boards on the front. Leases for sale. Then there were the houses. Many were abandoned, others divided up into flats, but one of them had scaffolding on the façade. Someone had taken the plunge. After all, it was only a few minutes from the Isle of Dogs. In ten years, they would all have been renovated and there would be a restaurant and a gastropub in the road.

He pushed his face against the glass. Skeletons of snow fell in the lost world. Her hair was black and he couldn’t see her face. He knew she wasn’t real. There weren’t people like that any more. Small and clean like a dancer on a music box who turns and turns if you wind the key. Once there was a woman with long red hair who called him honey-bunch. When he had been Matthew, before he lost her hand.

If she looked up, would she see his face? But it wasn’t his face any more. It was Simon’s face and Simon belonged to someone else.

The dancer disappeared. He heard the bell ringing.

She reached number seventeen, the address on her piece of paper. It had, in its own way, been done up. The front door was painted a dark glossy green. A Georgian-style architrave had been built over it. The window frames on the front of the house were all gleaming new aluminium. The little garden wall had fragments of broken glass cemented along the top, like a warning. What was she going to say? What, really, was she trying to find out? Frieda felt that if she started to think about it, she would just stop and leave. So she didn’t think. She pressed the doorbell and heard the chime inside. She waited and pressed the bell and listened.

Nothing, she said to herself, but immediately it was clear that there was something. She heard a sound inside, which turned into footsteps. The door swung inwards. A woman was standing there, blocking the entrance. She was large and pale and fat, and her fatness was emphasized by the black T-shirt that was too small for her and by the black leggings that reached only halfway down her calves. She had a tattoo, like a purple braid, around her upper left arm and another – a bird, a canary perhaps, Frieda thought – on her forearm. Her blonde hair had dark roots and she had blue makeup around her pouchy eyes, lipstick that was so purple it was almost black, like a bruise. She was smoking a cigarette and she tapped the ash on the doorstep, so that Frieda had to step to one side to avoid it. It made Frieda think of being a girl and going to the fair, the dangerous rickety fair that she remembered from when she was very little and that probably wouldn’t be allowed nowadays. The eight-year-old Frieda had handed her fifty pence to women like her, sitting in glass booths at the entrance to the haunted house or the dodgems.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ she said. ‘Does Dean Reeve live here?’

‘Why?’

‘I just wanted to have a quick word.’

‘He’s not here,’ said the woman, not moving.

‘But he lives here?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘I just want a word with him,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s to do with a friend of a friend. It’s not a big deal.’

‘Is this about a job?’ said the woman. ‘Has something gone wrong?’

‘Not at all,’ said Frieda, trying to sound reassuring. ‘I just want a quick word. It’ll only take a minute. Do you know when he’ll be back?’

‘He just popped out,’ said the woman.

‘Could I wait for him?’

‘I don’t let strangers in my house.’

‘Just a couple of minutes, please,’ said Frieda, firmly, and stepped up to the woman, almost touching her. She was more than ever aware of her bulk and her hostility. Behind her, the house was dark and smelt with an odd sweetness she couldn’t quite identify.

‘What do you want with Dean?’ The woman sounded angry and also frightened. Her voice rose slightly.

‘I’m a doctor,’ said Frieda, and with that she was into the warmth of the narrow hallway. It was painted a dark red, so that it felt even narrower than it was.

‘What sort of doctor?’

‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Frieda, crisply. ‘Just routine. It won’t take a moment.’ She tried to make herself sound more confident than she felt. The woman pushed the front door and it shut with a click.

She looked around and gave a start. On a small ledge above a doorway to the left, there was a small stuffed bird, some sort of hawk, with its wings outstretched.

‘Dean got it from a shop round the corner. Got it cheap. You can’t give them away now. Gives me the creeps.’

Frieda stepped through the door into the front room. It was dominated by a large-screen television, amplifiers and speakers, joined with a complicated array of wires. DVDs were piled on the floor. The front curtains were closed. The only furniture was a sofa facing the room and, on the far wall, an enormous chest of miniature drawers.

‘That’s unusual,’ said Frieda.

The woman stubbed out her cigarette on the mantelpiece and lit another one. Her nails were painted but Frieda could see the yellow around the tips. Her finger had swollen around the large gold wedding ring on her fourth finger.

‘He got it from the reclamation place. It’s from one of those old clothes shops. Those drawers were for little things, like socks or balls of wool. Dean uses it for his tools and bits and pieces, you know, fuses, screws, rulers. Stuff for his models.’

Frieda smiled. The woman seemed happy enough to have someone to talk to, although there were beads of sweat on her large forehead and her eyes were darting around nervously, as though she expected someone to step into the room at any minute.

‘What does he make?’

‘He makes these boats. Real proper miniatures. He takes them over to the ponds and gives them a runaround.’

Frieda looked about as if she were searching for something. She had an odd feeling she couldn’t quite place. As if she had been here before, like a dream that receded the more she tried to capture it. A thin tortoiseshell cat stepped delicately into the room and wound itself around her ankles, and as she bent down to stroke it, another one entered. It was large and a matted grey with giant fur balls hanging off its coat. She stepped back. She didn’t want to touch it. She saw two more cats entwined in the corner of the sofa. That was the smell: cat litter and cat shit and air freshener.

‘How many cats have you got?’

The woman shrugged.

‘They come and go.’

He lay on the floor with his ear to the wood and listened to the voices. The one he knew, and the other one. Soft, clear, a stream running through him. It would take away the dirt. He was a dirty boy. Wash his mouth out. He had no idea. Didn’t deserve. Should be ashamed. Filthy.

‘My name’s Frieda.’ She spoke slowly, feeling as though she had stepped into a looking-glass world. ‘Frieda Klein.’ Then, when the woman didn’t answer, she said, ‘Who are you?’

‘Terry,’ said the woman. She ground her cigarette into an overflowing ashtray, and then took another, holding out the packet to Frieda as well. Frieda had given up smoking years earlier. Ever since, she had felt allergic to it. She hated the smell of it in the air, in people’s clothes. But it would give her an excuse to stay. There was always something companionable about smoking together. She remembered it from teenage parties: it gave you something to do with your hands, something to fiddle with when you couldn’t think of what to say. You still saw it, people standing in doorways on the street. Soon that would be banned as well. Where would they go then? She nodded, took the cigarette and leaned forward as Terry flicked the cheap plastic lighter. Frieda had a drag and felt the now unfamiliar rush. She exhaled and almost felt dizzy with it.

‘Does Dean live here all the time?’

‘Course.’ In the painted, swollen flesh of her face, Terry’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘And he works here?’

‘He goes out.’

‘What does he do?’

The woman looked at her. She chewed her lower lip and tapped the ash into the ashtray. ‘Are you checking up on him?’

Frieda made herself smile. ‘I’m just a doctor.’ She looked around. ‘I guess he’s some kind of builder. Is that right?’

‘He does a bit of that,’ said Terry. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I just met someone who knows him.’ She heard how feeble her words sounded. ‘I wanted to ask him a question. Get some information. I’ll go in a minute, if he’s not back.’

‘I’ve got things to do,’ said the woman. ‘I think you’d better go now.’

‘I’ll go in a minute.’ Frieda gestured with the cigarette. ‘When I’ve finished this. Do you work?’

‘Get out of my house.’

And then she heard the sound of the front door. She heard a voice from outside the room.

‘In here,’ called Terry.

A shape appeared in the door. Frieda saw a flash of leather jacket, jeans, work boots and then, as he stepped into the light, it was unmistakable. The clothes were different, except for the brightly checked shirt, but there was absolutely no doubt.

‘Alan,’ she said. ‘Alan. What’s going on?’

‘What?’

‘It’s me …’ said Frieda, and then she stopped. She realized how very, very stupid she had been. Her mind became a fog. She didn’t know what to say. She made a desperate effort to pull herself together. ‘You’re Dean Reeve.’

The man looked between the two women.

‘Who are you?’ His voice was quiet, uninflected. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I think there’s been a mix-up,’ said Frieda. ‘I met someone who knows you.’

She thought of the woman in the orange jacket and thought of Terry. Dean’s wife. She looked at his expressionless face, his dark brown eyes. She tried another smile but the man’s expression changed.

‘How did you get in here? What are you up to?’

‘I let her in,’ said Terry. ‘She said she wanted to talk to you.’

The man stepped towards Frieda and raised his hand towards her, not as if he was going to hit her but as if he was going to touch her to see if she was really there. She took a step back.

‘I’m sorry. I think there’s been a mistake. Mistaken identity.’ She paused. ‘Has that happened to you before?’

The man looked at her as though he could see inside her. It felt as if he were touching her, as if she could feel his hands on her skin.

He knew he had to warn her. They would catch her and turn her into something else as well. She wouldn’t be a dancer any more. They would tie her feet up. They would block her mouth.

He tried to shout but only made his humming that was trapped inside his mouth and at the back of his throat. He stood up, swaying and with the nasty taste in his mouth that never went away, and jumped up and down, up and down, until there was red in his eyes and his head swam and the walls leaned in towards him and he fell on the floor again. He banged his head against the wood. She would hear him. She must.

‘Who are you?’

The voice was the same as well. A bit more sure of itself, but the same.

‘Sorry,’ said Frieda. ‘My mistake.’ She held up the cigarette. ‘Thanks for this. I’ll let myself out, shall I? Sorry to mess you around.’ She turned and, as casually as she could, walked out of the room and tried to open the front door. At first she couldn’t work out which handle to pull but then she found the right one, opened the door and stepped outside. She tossed the cigarette down and walked slowly at first and then, when she turned the corner, broke into a run and ran all the way to the station, even though her chest was hurting and she could hardly breathe and the bile was rising in her throat. She felt as though she was running through a thick mist that obscured all the familiar signposts and made the world uncanny, unreal.

He saw her go. Slow, then faster, then she danced. She had escaped and she would never come back because he had saved her.

The door behind him opened.

‘You’ve been a very naughty little boy, haven’t you?’

When she was safely on the train, she wished, for the first time in her life, that she had a mobile phone. She looked around. There was a young woman a few seats down who looked harmless enough so she stood up and walked over to her.

‘Excuse me.’ She tried to sound matter-of-fact, as if this was an ordinary request. ‘Could I please borrow your mobile?’

The woman pulled her earplugs out of her ears.

‘What?’

‘Could I borrow your mobile, please?’

‘No, you fucking can’t.’

Frieda pulled her wallet out of her bag. ‘I’ll pay you,’ she said. ‘A fiver?’

‘Ten.’

‘OK. Ten.’

She handed it over and took the woman’s mobile, which was very small and thin. It took her several minutes to grasp how to make a single call. Her hands were still shaking.

‘Hello. Hello. Please put me through to Detective Inspector Karlsson.’

‘Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Dr Klein. Frieda.’

‘Will you hold on a moment?’

Frieda waited. She gazed out of the window at the scarred buildings flowing past.

‘Dr Klein?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m afraid he’s busy at the moment.’

Frieda remembered their last meeting; his anger with her. ‘It’s urgent,’ she said. ‘There’s something he needs to know.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I mean, now. I need to talk to him now.’

‘Do you want to talk to someone else?’

‘No!’

‘Can I take a message for you?’

‘Yes. Tell him to ring me at once. I’m on a mobile. Oh, but I don’t know the number.’

‘It’s on my display,’ said the voice at the other end.

‘I’ll be waiting.’

She sat with the phone in her hand, waiting for it to ring. The train stopped and a group of scruffy, spotty teenagers crowded into the carriage, all boys with jeans pulled down below their concave buttocks, except for one scrawny girl who, under her clumsy makeup, looked about thirteen. As Frieda watched, one of the boys held a can of white cider to her lips and tried to make her drink it. She shook her head, but he persisted, and after a few seconds, she opened her mouth and let him pour some in. The liquid dribbled down her small chin. She was wearing an unzipped fur-lined parka and under that, Frieda saw, just a halter-neck top over her flat breasts and sharp collarbone. She must be freezing, the poor pinched-looking brat. For a moment, Frieda considered going over and hitting the sniggering youths with her umbrella, then thought better of it. She’d done enough for one day.

The train juddered to a halt outside the next station. Snow was falling again, improbably large occasional flakes spinning past her window. Frieda squinted: was that a heron on the bank, tall and still and elegant among the brambles? She stared at the mobile, willing it to ring, and when it didn’t she phoned again, heard the same voice at the other end, once more asked for Karlsson, and was once more told – in a voice stiff with politeness – that he was still not available to take her call.

‘Who was she?’

His voice was calm, but still she shrank away from him.

‘I don’t know. She just rang on the doorbell.’

Dean took her chin gently in his hand and tipped her face so that she was gazing straight into his eyes. ‘What did she want?’

‘I just answered the door. She pushed in. I didn’t know how to stop her. She said she was a doctor.’

‘Did she tell you her name?’

‘No. Yes. Something a bit different.’ She licked her purple lips. ‘Frieda and then a short name. I dunno …’

‘You’d better tell me.’

‘Klein. That’s it. Frieda Klein.’

He let go of her chin. ‘Dr Frieda Klein. And she called me Alan …’ He smiled at his wife and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Wait for me. Don’t go anywhere.’

The train made a sudden lurch forward, then stopped again with a hissing of brakes. Frieda watched the girl drink more cider. One of the boys put his hand up her skirt and she giggled. Her eyes were glassy. The train jerked into motion. Frieda got her little address book out of her bag and flicked through the pages until she came to the name she wanted. She thought about asking the young woman for her mobile again, but decided against it. At last the train creaked into a station, through the slow-falling snow. Frieda got out and went at once to the phone box at the entrance. It didn’t take coins. She had to push in her credit card before dialling.

‘Dick?’ she said. ‘It’s me, Frieda. Frieda Klein.’

‘Dick’ was Richard Carey, a professor of neurology at Birmingham University. She had been on a panel with him at a conference four years before. He’d asked her out and she’d made an excuse but they’d stayed in touch in a vague kind of way. He was just the kind of person she needed. Well connected, knew everyone.

‘Frieda?’ he said. ‘Where have you been hiding?’

‘I need a name,’ Frieda said.