Tuesday's Gone

Thirty-nine

Frieda had seen three patients, one after another. She was aware that her mind was partly elsewhere and she made a steely effort to concentrate, to be professional, precise. Or was she just playing the part of the attentive, sympathetic therapist? Maybe it was all a performance, once you got down to it. After the final session she wrote her brief notes, walked outside, flagged down a taxi, and twenty minutes later she was outside the house in Balham.

Karlsson and Jake Newton were standing on the doorstep. Karlsson was talking on his mobile. He nodded at her but continued talking. Newton smiled. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How are you doing?’

Frieda found the greeting strangely difficult to respond to. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘OK.’

‘Cheers. Karlsson put his phone into his pocket. He looked at Frieda. ‘Afternoon.’

‘You didn’t have to come yourself,’ said Frieda. ‘I just wanted someone to let me in.’

‘I was curious. I wanted to know what you were up to.’

‘And I want to see what a consultant does,’ said Newton.

‘I thought you were a consultant,’ said Frieda.

‘Pretend I’m not here.’

‘By the way,’ said Karlsson, ‘there’s something else.’ And there, outside Janet Ferris’s home, he told Frieda about Beth Kersey and her involvement with Robert Poole. Frieda frowned as he spoke.

‘That must account for Poole’s missing days,’ she said.

‘It may,’ said Karlsson.

‘You’ve got to find this woman.’

‘Well, yes. That was our plan.’

‘And you need to find out about her medical history.’

‘We’d thought of that as well.’

‘If you get the name of the psychiatrist who treated her, I might be able to talk to him unofficially.’

‘We’ll see about that.’

‘I thought criminal investigations were about eliminating suspects,’ said Frieda. ‘In this case, new ones keep popping up.’

‘In this case,’ said Karlsson, ‘it’s difficult to tell the suspects from the victims. But at least it stops you thinking about Dean Reeve.’

Frieda turned on him an expression that was almost fierce. ‘I think about Dean Reeve every day. And when I go to sleep, I dream about him.’

‘What can I say?’ said Karlsson. ‘I’m sorry. But now, why are we here? What’s this about?’

‘I wanted to see Poole’s flat as well,’ said Frieda.

‘Let’s see it, then.’ Karlsson took out a bunch of keys and examined the paper labels attached to them. Nobody spoke as they made their way into the house and then up to the flat. As they stepped inside, Frieda recognized the musty smell of a house nobody lives in, of a place where nothing is moved, no window opened, no air breathed. They stood in the main room. Frieda felt constrained: she’d wanted to be alone for this. ‘Did you bring the photographs?’ she asked.

Karlsson took out a file from his bag. ‘These were taken when Janet Ferris’s body was found.’

‘That’s no good,’ said Frieda. ‘What about before, when you first came here?’

‘We don’t have photographs of that.’

‘Why? Wasn’t it a crime scene?’

‘No. It wasn’t. Not that we knew of. And we had the room. We didn’t need to photograph it.’

‘Fine,’ said Frieda.

She stood in the middle of the room and looked around, slowly, trying to examine everything.

‘What are you looking for?’ said Newton.

‘Shut up,’ said Frieda. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Please, just give me a moment.’

There was a long silence. The two men looked at each other awkwardly, like people who had arrived too early at a party and were stuck with each other. Finally, she turned to Karlsson. ‘If you closed your eyes, would you be able to describe everything in this room?’

‘I don’t know. Most of it.’

Frieda shook her head. ‘Years ago, I didn’t take many notes after my sessions. I thought that if it was important I’d remember it. My remembering it would be a sign it was important. But I changed my mind. Now, if it’s important, I write it down.’ She pulled a face, signalling frustration. ‘I don’t know. There’s something, but I can’t quite grasp it.’

‘What is it?’ said Karlsson.

‘If I knew …’ she began. Then she frowned. ‘Can we go downstairs? Do you have the key to her flat?’

Karlsson pulled out the bunch of keys. ‘Somewhere here,’ he said. ‘I feel like a gaoler in an old movie.’

‘How do you decide when to give up?’ said Newton, as they were walking downstairs.

‘Is this for your report?’ said Karlsson.

‘I’m just curious.’

‘There’s never a moment. But the urgency goes, people are reassigned.’

Karlsson unlocked the door and they walked into Janet Ferris’s flat. Frieda found this abandoned space sadder. There was a mug on the table, a book next to it. She could imagine Janet Ferris walking in, picking it up and carrying on. She tried not to think of that. It was a distraction. She looked around the room. She felt she was searching for something – and suddenly she found it. She turned to Karlsson. ‘Do you see that picture? Of the fish.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you like it?’

He smiled. ‘I think it’s lovely. But you’ll have to leave it here. Nowadays we’re not really allowed to help ourselves.’

‘When I first saw Poole’s flat, this painting was there. Not here.’

‘Really?’

‘You read the newspaper article. Janet Ferris said that Poole used to lend her things. Among other things, he gave – or lent – her a painting, and she lent him one of hers. She said she returned it and took hers back.’

Karlsson’s brow furrowed. ‘Interfering with a crime scene,’ he said, then caught Frieda’s eye. ‘Or a semi-crime scene. Well, no harm done.’

‘We should go upstairs again,’ said Frieda.

Back in Poole’s flat, Frieda stood once more in the centre of the room. She looked at the pictures on Poole’s wall. There were five: the Eiffel Tower, a Madonna and Child, a sun in a seascape, a poppy field and a pine tree with the moon behind it. Frieda took a pair of transparent plastic gloves from her pocket and put them on. ‘I bought these from the chemist,’ she said. She glanced at Newton. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to charge them to the taxpayer.’

She walked to the picture of the Madonna, lifted it from the wall and stepped back. She placed the picture on the desk. She turned to Karlsson. ‘What do you see?’

‘A rather crappy picture,’ said Karlsson. ‘I don’t think that’s worth stealing. I prefer the one of the fish.’

‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘Look at the wall where the picture was.’ Frieda picked up the picture and held it next to the mark. ‘It’s not the same size.’

‘But …’ Karlsson began, and stopped.

‘Maybe it’s the same size as the fish painting that was hanging here until the woman took it back,’ said Newton.

‘But that was only here for a few weeks,’ said Frieda. ‘Those marks take years.’

‘I don’t know what this is about,’ said Karlsson. ‘Poole might just have got tired of his pictures and moved them around.’

‘You’re right. That’s possible. Let’s see.’ Frieda lifted the pine-tree painting off the wall.

‘Different shape,’ said Karlsson. ‘See?’

Then in turn Frieda took down the other three paintings. In each case the mark was smaller than the painting.

‘There we are,’ said Karlsson. ‘Poole did some rehanging before he disappeared. I’m not sure this was worth coming all the way down to Balham to see.’

Frieda didn’t reply. She just looked at Karlsson, then at Newton. A smile slowly appeared on his face.

‘They shouldn’t all be smaller.’

‘What do you mean?’ said Karlsson.

‘Shall we rearrange them?’ said Frieda.

‘What do you mean?’

She picked up the Madonna and Child and held it against one of the patches on the wall. ‘What do you think?’

Newton shook his head. ‘The picture’s too big.’ She moved it along the wall. ‘That’s right,’ he said.

She did the same with the other pictures, holding them one by one against the shapes on the wall while Karlsson and Newton nodded or shook their heads. They were left with two pictures and two spaces. The pine tree was slightly smaller than one space and much larger than the smallest. The seascape was larger than both spaces.

‘They don’t fit,’ said Karlsson.

‘That’s right.’

‘Now there are two pictures,’ continued Karlsson, ‘and two spaces, which neither of them fits. It’s doing my head in and I don’t even know why I should be caring about it.’

‘But it’s interesting, isn’t it?’ said Frieda.

‘He could have got rid of a painting,’ said Newton, ‘and bought two new ones.’

‘They came with the flat. He wouldn’t have got rid of them. Except this one.’ Frieda touched the picture of the pine tree. ‘It’s cheap and nasty but it’s new, don’t you think?’

Karlsson examined the shiny frame. ‘It does look new.’

‘It must be around here somewhere,’ said Frieda.

‘What?’ said Karlsson.

‘One of the pictures.’

‘Where?’

‘It’ll be somewhere. Down the side of something, somewhere out of the way.’

Newton found it under Poole’s bed, where it was stowed with an old mattress. He carried it through with an air of pride. It was a picture of a windmill and a horse. There was something synthetic about the colours so it seemed to shimmer.

‘No wonder he kept it under the bed,’ said Karlsson.

He took the painting and held it in front of the larger patch. It was the right size. ‘All right. Now we’ve still got a painting too many.’

‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘We’ve got two paintings too many.’

She walked across to the pine dresser that stood by the wall furthest from the window and knelt down beside it. ‘Look,’ she said.

Karlsson and Newton peered down. Frieda pointed at two small depressions in the carpet.

‘It’s been moved,’ she said. ‘Just a couple of feet. But …’ She paused for a moment. ‘Let’s move it back.’

The three of them took hold of the dresser and moved it back.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Newton.

Where the dresser had been, there was another patch on the wall. They could see at a glance that it was the same size as the seascape but Karlsson held it up to confirm it.

Karlsson turned to Frieda. ‘So, what the fuck does it mean?’

‘It means that someone’s been here,’ said Frieda. ‘With all the risks it entailed, someone had to come here.’

Back outside the house, Karlsson asked Jake Newton if he could give them a moment. He and Frieda walked a few paces along the road. When Karlsson spoke, it was without looking at her. ‘I talked to your friend Reuben,’ he said.

‘What about?’

‘About the encounter they had with the photographer outside your house. I wanted to be clear about what had happened. Obviously, if the two of them had made an unprovoked attack on the man, it could potentially be treated as a serious case of assault.’ Now Karlsson stopped. His hands were in his pockets against the cold. ‘Reuben – Dr McGill – told me that the photographer had obstructed your other friend, Josef, and then struck him. While Reuben was trying to separate them, he inadvertently struck the photographer in the face.’

‘Inadvertently?’

‘Yes. Since there were no other witnesses …’

‘I was a witness,’ said Frieda.

‘Apparently you only arrived when the incident was almost over. Even if the photographer disputes their version, I’m clear that no action will be taken.’

‘Are you sure you didn’t coach Reuben about the best way of getting out of this?’

‘For God’s sake, Frieda, just let it go.’

‘What do you think of people who just let things go because it’s convenient?’

Karlsson took time to speak, breathing deeply. ‘What I think, first, is that if there had been a conspiracy to pervert a police inquiry between me and Reuben, then I would be dismissed and he would be struck off. And what I think, second, is, don’t be so fucking pompous.’

This is how it begins, Frieda thought. Then she looked harder at Karlsson. ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘Really?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Of course, things are a bit, you know …’

‘Like, what things?’

‘Well, for example, family stuff. My children are going to live in Spain with their mother.’

It took Frieda a few seconds to register what he had just said. ‘That’s tough for you.’

‘Yes.’

‘How long for?’

‘Two years.’

‘Two years is a long time when they’re so young.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Why is she taking them away?’

‘Her new partner has been offered a promotion there.’

‘Did you try to make her change her mind?’

‘I’m not going to stop her but she knows how I feel.’

‘How do you feel?’

Now he turned away, as if he was embarrassed. ‘I work. I come back to an empty flat. I live for the days my kids come – and now they won’t. Oh, I’ll go and see them, of course, and they’ll come for holidays but he’ll be the real father.’

Fathers and their children, thought Frieda, remembering Josef’s brown eyes but seeing Karlsson’s drawn face.

Jake Newton was talking on his mobile.

‘That arsehole Newton,’ Karlsson said now, ‘wants to be taken on a tour of the custody suites.’

‘I can walk from here,’ she said.

She touched him on the cheek with two fingers, very lightly.

‘I haven’t told anyone.’

‘I’m glad you told me.’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Well, thank you. And I’m sorry to add to your troubles.’ And she was gone.