Frieda Klein 2 - Tuesday's Gone (27 page)

Jasmine covered her face with her hands. Her
voice was raw with emotion. ‘I let you into my house and talk to you openly and
all the time you’re spying.’

‘Do you want to tell me about
it?’

She raised her face. Her mascara had
smudged. She looked older and at the same time more child-like. ‘You’re
right. Everything you said. I did something terrible.’

‘What?’

‘I assaulted someone in a shop, a shop
assistant, a young woman. Isn’t that awful? And pathetic? I was drunk and she was
being a bitch. At least, that was what I thought at the time.’ She stopped. She
seemed to have difficulty in getting the words out. ‘I was …’ Her face
was flushed with shame. ‘I was sectioned for a while. For my own safety. And then
I booked into a clinic and dried out. I haven’t touched a drop since.’

‘That’s good.’

‘I was so ashamed of
myself.’

‘Jasmine, why is it so very
terrible?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You had an addiction. You overcame
it. Why are you so scared that people will find out?’

‘For a start it would be the end of my
career. What’s left of it.’

‘Really? Aren’t there lots of
people who make a living out of their stories of disgrace and redemption?’

‘That’s different.’

‘Why?’

‘I was a cosy,
flirty, wholesome presenter trying to make people’s lives a little bit better. If
people knew I was actually an old soak who’d ended up in the bin, screaming and
attacking people, how do you think they’d react?’

‘I don’t know. But I can see
it’s become an area of dread for you. The dread doesn’t shrink, but gets
bigger and darker. Maybe it’s the secrecy that’s the problem.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. I
can’t risk it.’

‘Is that what Robert Poole said? That
you shouldn’t risk it?’

‘How do you
know
these
things?’

‘Because you talked to him the way you
talk to me,’ said Frieda. ‘So Poole understood you had a secret?’

‘He said that nobody must find out.
That I could be ruined. He was very sympathetic. He said I could always talk to him
about it, though.’ Jasmine stopped and looked at Frieda. ‘But you think he
was wrong?’

‘I think giving advice is always
complicated. But perhaps you should consider the power this part of your life has over
you.’

‘You’re a therapist,’ said
Jasmine. ‘Don’t you believe that a problem shared is a problem
halved?’

‘Maybe. And maybe if you share a
problem with one person, you’re giving that person control over you.’

Back at home, Frieda found an email from
Tessa Welles. She couldn’t schedule a meeting for the next couple of weeks, but
she was going to the theatre in Islington the following evening and could call in to see
Olivia beforehand, around six o’clock. Would that be possible? Frieda rang Olivia,
who said it wasn’t just possible, it was essential, the sooner the better, or
she’d be going round to David’s house with a knife. She sent a reply to
Tessa, copying it to Olivia, and gave Tessa Olivia’s landline and mobile
numbers.

There was also a message on her phone from
Karlsson,
asking her to ring. When she got through to him, he said
simply, ‘There’s nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Your favour, remember?’

‘Oh. You mean about Alan
Dekker.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re with someone and
can’t talk.’

‘Yes.’

‘Because you’ve stuck your neck
out for me.’

‘Right.’

‘I’m grateful. So he really has
disappeared, like Carrie says.’

‘It seems so.’

‘Don’t you find that
odd?’

‘This is as far as I’m going,
Frieda.’

She put the phone down and went up to her
study in the garret where, from the skylight, she could see the lights of London
flickering in the February dark. She sat at her desk and made doodles on her sketchpad
with her soft-leaded pencil. She was thinking about Robert Poole, and the light touch
with which he had picked people’s secrets from their souls. She was also thinking
about what she had said to Jasmine about the insidious power of secrets. You hypocrite,
she told herself, hatching in her drawing.

When she finally went downstairs again she
found another email on her computer, from Sandy. She sat for a long while and then
clicked it open.

I was with someone for a while and now
I’m not, because she wasn’t you. Please, Frieda, talk to me.

‘Think of it as a day out.’

Yvette was driving and Karlsson was sitting
beside her. They had left London early that morning, just as it got light, but had got
snarled up on the North Circular and were only now on the M1, heading north. It was cold
and blustery, and the lowering sky threatened rain.

‘A long day,’ said Yvette, but
she didn’t really mind. She was glad to be spending all these hours alone with
Karlsson, and also slightly self-conscious and nervous. ‘Manchester and then
Cardiff. Eight hours’ driving, if we’re lucky with the traffic.’

‘We’ll get a pub lunch,’
said Karlsson. ‘I thought it was better to see the Orton brothers on the same day.
Get a sense of them.’

‘What do you know already?’

‘Let’s see. The older one,
Jeremy – he’s in his mid-fifties – is a company accountant for a large
pharmaceutical firm. Must be wealthy. Married, with two daughters. He lives in Didsbury
and he doesn’t see much of his mother. Once or twice a year, for a day or so.
Frieda took against him.’

‘But she takes against lots of
people.’

Karlsson glanced at her. ‘She’s
got an instinct,’ he said. ‘We’ve enough people following
procedure.’

Yvette just stared at the road; rain was
starting to fall. ‘People like me, boring and awkward and plodding,’ she
wanted to say, but didn’t. ‘What about the younger brother?’ she asked
instead.

‘Robin. He’s
had a more chequered career and personal life. He ran a small company. Garden
landscaping, it says here.’

‘Ponds?’

‘I guess so. That went belly-up in the
nineties, and since then he’s done all sorts. Now he’s a business
consultant, whatever that means. He’s got a son by his first marriage, and another
much younger son by his second. Lives near the bay in Cardiff.’

‘And did Frieda take against him as
well?’ asked Yvette.

‘He doesn’t see much of his old
mother either. But Frieda thought he was the weaker of the two. Not such a
bully.’

When they reached the M6 they stopped for
coffee and petrol, and by eleven o’clock the satnav was directing them through the
more prosperous suburbs of Manchester. Jeremy and Virginia Orton lived in a large
detached house in Didsbury, set back from the tree-lined road, with a gravel driveway
and two cars parked on it, a BMW and a Golf. There was smoke coming from the chimney
and, sure enough, when Virginia opened the door and led them to the living room, a fire
was burning in the grate.

To Karlsson, the dark furniture, the silver
tray on which coffee was served and the silver-framed photographs of the children in
their uniforms that were displayed on top of the baby grand seemed like something from
another age.

Virginia Orton was a tiny woman, with a
brittle manner and a head of tight burnished curls. But Jeremy was large: not fat, but
tall and solid like a rugby player, a centre, with broad shoulders, a large, balding
head, big hands and feet. He was wearing a lilac shirt under his jacket and a shiny
watch. His grey, slightly protuberant eyes watched them suspiciously.

‘I expected you half an hour
ago,’ he said.

‘Traffic,’ said Karlsson.
‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’

‘Thanks.’ Jeremy nodded to his
wife in dismissal, and she
left the room with the click of heels over
bare boards. ‘What’s this about?’

‘As you know, I’m leading the
murder investigation.’

‘Yes, yes. But why are you here? I
don’t see what
I
’
ve
got to do with any of it. Apart from
being fleeced by him, of course.’

‘We’ll take as little of your
time as we can. But I thought it was your mother who had been fleeced by Mr Poole, not
you.’

‘Terrible. An old woman cheated like
that.’

‘But you never met him?’

‘Of course not. I’d have seen
through him if I had.’

‘Or even heard of him?’

‘No.’

‘Did she tell you she was having work
done on the house?’

‘If she had, I’d have told her
to get quotes. I know about these cowboys. What about the other men he was working with?
Can’t you get hold of them?’

‘We’ve tried, of course.
There’s absolutely no record of them. We’ve no names, no contact numbers,
nothing.’

‘They were probably Poles.’

‘Did you know her roof was
leaking?’ asked Yvette.

‘I don’t know, I can’t
remember. What’s the point of all of this? He conned her, he’s dead,
she’s had a lucky escape.’

‘So,’ said Karlsson, ‘you
had no idea she was having her house repaired?’

‘Well, she wasn’t, was she? It
was a way of getting at our money.’

‘Her money.’

‘Our money, her money. We’re a
family.’

‘You didn’t know about the
repairs, and you never met Mr Poole, correct?’

‘Correct.’ Jeremy Orton looked
at his watch.

‘Because you
hadn’t been to visit your mother since the summer?’ put in Yvette. Karlsson
looked at her warningly.

‘That
therapist
’
–
he said the word with distaste – ‘has already been on about that to
me and Robin. I know what she was trying to say. We’re busy people. We do what we
can.’

‘So you had no idea that she wanted to
change her will?’

‘She didn’t want to. She was
under this man’s influence and in a confused state.’

‘A will that would have given a third
of her estate to him.’

‘No. I didn’t know. I’ve
had words with Ma. She won’t be so stupid again.’

‘We’re going to need you to
inform us of your movements during the last week of January,’ said Yvette.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Just for the record. Can you please
let us know where you were during the last ten days of January?’

Jeremy Orton stared at her and then at
Karlsson, his face turning crimson. ‘Are you serious?’

‘And any witnesses who can corroborate
what you say would be useful, so that we can check them.’

‘You can’t seriously suspect me
of having anything to do with this.’

‘We’re just establishing the
limits of our inquiry, that’s all.’

Jeremy Orton rose from his chair.
‘Virginia!’ he barked. ‘Bring me my diary, will you?’

Four and a half hours later, Karlsson and
Yvette were in Cardiff. Robin Orton’s house had a view of the sea, but it was more
modest than Jeremy’s. His car was parked on the road outside. His wife was at
work. Tea came in mugs, not cups. There was no grand piano, although there were
photographs of his children on the wall.

Robin Orton was smaller than his brother.
Karlsson thought
he looked like a man who had lost a large amount of
weight in a short time: the skin was slack on his face, and his trousers were loose,
held up by a black leather belt.

They went through the same questions, and he
gave the same answers, more or less. No, he had never met Robert Poole. No, he had not
known about the repairs to the house. No, he had been unaware about the change in the
will – but if you were to ask his opinion, it was a complete disgrace that people like
this man Poole could go about worming their way into old women’s houses. No, he
hadn’t seen his mother very recently. What business was that of theirs? It
wasn’t as if Mary Orton made much effort to come to Cardiff to see him and,
anyway, she’d always been more interested in Jeremy than in him – and if they
really wanted to know what he thought, then he thought that some of that money
she’d handed over so casually to whatever rogue came knocking at the door could
much more usefully have been given to him to help him with his new business. Old people
should be more generous – it wasn’t as if his mother really needed anything for
herself. As for that last week of January, as a matter of fact he had been in bed for
most of it with a particularly nasty bout of flu. They could ask his wife – though she
might call it a cold, but that was women for you. And they could see themselves out and
remember to shut the door firmly.

‘Horrible, horrible, horrible
men,’ said Yvette.

‘Yes, but what do you really
think?’

They were heading back to London, along the
M4, and the rain was now falling steadily from a sodden sky.

‘I wish they’d killed him
together,’ she said, ‘and could be put away for a long time. Their poor
bloody mother.’

‘Does that mean you think they
didn’t?’

‘We have to check what they were doing
that week, of
course, and go back to Mary Orton to confirm they
haven’t visited her. But unfortunately I’d bet they hadn’t been to see
her since the summer. Because they were so
busy
.’

‘So,’ Karlsson said, ‘they
have a motive, but it’s a motive that comes too late.’

‘I need a shower.’

‘I need a drink.’ He hesitated.
‘Do you want one too?’

‘Yes!’ she said, then tried to
mute her enthusiasm. ‘I guess.’

‘On one condition.’

‘What’s that?’

‘That you don’t slag off
Frieda.’ She started to protest but Karlsson interrupted her. ‘You two need
to work together.’

She couldn’t remember. She
couldn’t remember what spring felt like, or summer, or even bright golden autumn,
which had always been her favourite season. She could only remember winter, because that
was what she was in – frozen into an unchanging coldness. The trees all bare, the ground
churned into icy ripples of mud, the grass beaten down, the river brown and slow and
sad, the drip-drip-drip of water from the ceiling, the waxiness of her fingers when she
woke in the morning, and the spider webs of frost on the little windows that she had to
scrape away with her fingernails, which were breaking. One of her teeth was coming
loose, as if her gums had softened.