Thursday's Children (18 page)

And there were Vanessa and Ewan Shaw, both of them strained in formal clothes that were slightly too small for them. Each had an arm round a loudly sobbing daughter.

Frieda had hoped that she could slip away through a side door, but this church didn’t seem to have one. She joined the last of the group, who were queuing to get outside. As she emerged from the church she saw that the queue led past Becky’s father and then, a few rigid inches from him, Maddie Capel and an old woman, who was clearly Maddie’s mother. There was no escaping it. When Frieda found herself opposite Maddie, she gave a helpless shrug and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

Maddie’s eyes narrowed slightly into what was almost a smile. She leaned towards Frieda, as if they were in a noisy, crowded room and there was a risk of not being heard. ‘How dare you?’ she hissed. ‘How dare you?’

‘I had to come.’

‘You’re not welcome here. You should never have come.’

‘You brought me.’

‘It’s OK, Maddie.’

Frieda recognized the soft voice before she turned and saw Greg Hollesley. ‘I’m just going,’ she said.

‘That’s best, under the circumstances.’ Greg stepped forward, took Maddie in his arms, and she pressed her face against his lovely jacket. He stroked her hair and murmured something into her ear. She lifted her head and he pushed her hair back and smiled at her. Smiled at her the way a lover does, thought Frieda, feeling suddenly queasy.

Frieda didn’t follow the other mourners. There was a reception in the church hall, but she couldn’t possibly go there. Instead she turned into the graveyard that surrounded the old church. She felt she needed to calm herself after her encounter with Maddie. She wandered along a row of small graves that she remembered from her childhood. This section was devoted to sailors who had been stationed on the nearby coast. Most of them were from just three or four ships that had been sunk in 1941 or 1942. Once, the sailors had been a few years older than her; now they were twenty years younger. She was looking at their ages, twenty, twenty-two, nineteen, eighteen, when she heard a voice behind her.

‘Frieda,’ it said. ‘Frieda Klein.’

She turned and was confronted by a tall man of about her own age. He had curly grey-blond hair, heavy-framed glasses, and wore a dark suit that almost smelt of understated money.

‘Hello, Chas.’

‘Someone told me you’d come back, but I didn’t believe it. And now here you are.’

‘Here I am.’

‘People are wondering why. Which means that we should talk.’

They drove to Chas’s house in Chas’s car, which purred expensively along the Suffolk lanes and smelt of leather and money. She thought of Josef’s old van with its rattling windows and wheezing engine and, for a moment, let the old homesickness for her London life fill her. Then she pushed it aside and glanced across at Chas, who looked like his car.

His house was on the seafront. It was a grand, red-brick, symmetrical Georgian building, with windows reaching almost to the floor, and an imposing porch. He led Frieda through the echoing hall and into the huge kitchen. Through the double doors, she could see a garden whose wrought-iron gate at the far end led on to the shingle beach. It was covered with yards of decking and copper bowls full of shrubs, and to one side was a built-in barbecue, an elaborate affair that could have fed thirty guests. Frieda took a seat. On the other side of the window was an abstract bronze sculpture that looked, she thought, like a vagina: was that its point? Beyond the wall and the gate lay the sea, which today was flat and grey, fading into the flat grey sky

‘The house was a wreck when we bought it. Stuck in the fifties. We gutted it and started from scratch.’

He waited for Frieda to say how beautiful it now was. She said nothing. He offered her wine but she asked for a glass of water. He put it in front of her, then took off his suit
jacket and hung it on his chair, carefully smoothing out creases. His shirt was pale blue and beautifully ironed.

‘I’m sorry you can’t meet my wife. She works part-time for an events company down the coast. Keeping her hand in.’ He spoke of it with amusement, as if it were her hobby. ‘And, of course, my kids are at school.’

‘How many do you have?’

‘Three. And you?’

‘None.’

‘Are you married?’

‘No.’

He raised his eyebrows so they appeared above the thick frames of his glasses. His eyes were still that strange pale blue, with tiny pupils. Then he said, ‘So, you’re back.’

She was getting tired of people saying that to her. ‘For the time being.’

There was a shimmer of hostility in the air. She was sure that Chas could feel it too. It had always been there and time hadn’t changed it. Chas liked power over people. As she sat in his spectacular kitchen, she found herself wondering yet again why, as a teenager, she had spent so much of her time with a group of people very few of whom she had actually liked. Chas she had disliked and had resisted. However hard he had tried to win her over through flattery, complicity, exclusion, derision, she had been unmoving, and he had never forgiven her for that.

‘Why are you here?’

‘Various reasons. My mother’s dying.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, in his uninflected voice, with no hint of sincerity in it. ‘What are the other various reasons?’

‘I’ve been thinking about the past.’

‘That’s what I heard.’

‘Who from?’

‘You forget how quickly word gets around in Braxton.’

‘This isn’t Braxton.’

‘It isn’t London.’

‘Why did you stay here?’

‘Not everyone needs to run away.’

His voice was so neutral that it took Frieda a few seconds to understand he was insulting her. She was oddly cheered by his rudeness: it made her job much easier.

‘We were never really friends, were we, Chas?’

‘Perhaps we’re too alike.’

‘I don’t think I’m like you at all.’

‘I remember you vividly. When you disappeared, you left a hole. A Frieda-shaped hole.’

‘We were an odd group. I even can’t work out why we
were
a group.’

‘Is that why you’re back?’ His eyebrows went up again, over the top of those glasses. ‘To work out why we all hung out together when we were kids?’

‘When I look back on it, I think you wanted to control us.’

‘Golly, Frieda.’ He made the babyish word sound obscene. ‘You’re the same as you were twenty-three years ago. Really, it amazes me how little people actually change. But that’s your line of work, isn’t it? Helping people to change?’

‘Ewan idolized you. Vanessa looked up to you. Eva was scared of you. Sarah fancied you. I’ve only just learned that she died.’

‘She killed herself. It was very sad. For those of us who were still her friends.’

‘Yes. Then Jeremy – well, you didn’t have that much to do with him, did you?’

‘Your posh boyfriend? Not so much.’

‘And Lewis …’

‘Lewis was a druggy loser.’

‘He was a young man who took drugs.’

‘Look at him now.’

‘He’s not rich and successful, with an enormous house on the beach. But he didn’t let you push him around, did he?’

‘You’re assuming I agree with the notion that I pushed anyone around.’ Chas folded his arms. ‘Let’s face it, Frieda. Some people are leaders and some people are followers. It’s true in the playground and it’s true in the workplace. The followers want their leader. They like being told what to do. They need it.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Why do you think I’ve done well?’

‘Because you’re a leader?’

‘Right.’ He took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt, then laid them on the table between them. ‘But you still haven’t explained why you’re back. Thinking about the past is a very vague notion.’

‘Something happened before I went.’

‘Something
happened
?’

‘There was an incident, at our house one night.’ She sounded like a police officer:
an incident
. ‘Someone broke in, or tried to break in.’

‘I remember that. I was interviewed.’

‘You all were.’

‘A prank?’

‘That’s one way of describing it.’

‘So you’ve come back because twenty-three years ago someone tried to break into your house and you want to know who it was.’ He stared at her with his pale blue eyes.

‘Do you remember that concert?’ asked Frieda. ‘Thursday’s Children.’

‘Do I remember! It was the biggest thing ever to happen to Braxton. They’re still talking about it.’

‘Did you go?’

‘Of course I went. I was right at the front. Don’t you remember?’

‘I wasn’t there.’

‘Weren’t you?’

‘No.’

‘I remember.’ A smile broke over his face. ‘You had the mother of all rows with Lewis, didn’t you? It was almost as loud as the concert.’

‘I went home.’

‘So you missed the event of the decade.’

‘I did. Who did you go with?’

‘Who? You’re asking me who I went to a concert with twenty-three years ago?’

‘It was the event of the decade, after all.’

He pinched the top of his nose and closed his eyes. ‘I can definitely remember Sarah being there, and some other girl, dancing away and wiggling their bums.’ He suddenly sounded sixteen again, lewd and sniggery. ‘And Vanessa and Ewan, of course, because that was the historic moment when they officially got together, never again to part.
Snogging away to “Bring Me Luck”.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t remember anyone else.’

‘Jeremy? Lewis?’

‘I remember thinking it was odd that Lewis wasn’t there, since he was such a fan. Jeremy was probably with the kids from his school. Though, come to think of it, we had a kind of scuffle with them, I seem to remember, or at least Ewan did. He was always hopeless when he was pissed. And Jeremy definitely wasn’t involved in that. But, of course, there were hundreds of people. He could have been anywhere.’

‘Lewis says he was at the concert.’

‘Memory plays tricks, doesn’t it?’ He smiled. ‘At our age.’

‘Nothing else about the concert you remember?’

‘Not a thing.’

‘What time did you leave?’

‘I have no idea. How would I remember that, after so many years?’

Frieda looked at the sea. The tide was going out and the wet pebbles glistened on the shore. ‘Did you know Becky?’ she asked.

‘I was at the funeral an hour ago. Remember?’

‘How did you know her? Through Maddie?’

‘Why are you asking all these questions, Frieda?’

‘I was just wondering.’

‘I’m just wondering why you’re suddenly so interested in all of us, after so many years.’

‘I’ve taken up enough of your time. I should be going.’

‘You’ll be wanting a lift.’

‘No. I’ll walk.’

‘It’s miles!’

‘I’ll walk to the main road and get a bus.’

‘It’s no trouble to drive you.’

‘I’d prefer to walk. Thank you.’

‘Very well.’ He stood up and picked up his jacket. ‘So, I’ll see you at the reunion.’

‘You probably will.’

Frieda walked along the seafront. The cold, strong wind felt good in her face, scouring her skin, clearing her mind, whipping away the sense of unease she had felt sitting in Chas’s house. She thought of what he had said. She thought of Jeremy and of Lewis. Chas had said that he had seen neither of them at the concert, but of course that didn’t mean they hadn’t been there. Just that she could no longer be sure they had. Jeremy, her ex-boyfriend; Lewis, who had been her boyfriend at the time. Surely,
surely
, if either of them had broken into her house and crept into her room to do violence, she would have known. However dark, she would have been able to tell from the smell of the skin, the feel of the body, the breath against her, the way they whispered those words. She shuddered and walked faster. There was rain in the wind now, stinging and salty, making her eyes water. The light was fading and the sea growing darker. Birds flapped slowly across its waters. She made herself remember again, in detail. The knowledge that there was someone in the room, his hand on her mouth, his fingers pressing and pulling, insistent, persistent, monstrous. His body on top of hers, obliterating her. The pain. No.

She turned away from the sea and made her way towards the main road. Surely she would have known, and yet, even as she said this to herself, she couldn’t be certain that the
man in her room hadn’t been Jeremy. Or Lewis. Or anybody. How old had he been? How do you tell a rapist’s age in the silent darkness? She had simply thought of him as a man. How tall had he been and how heavy? She had no idea. She had always thought of him as huge and vastly heavy because he had overpowered her, but she saw now that he needn’t have been either.

Now she was walking along the road. There was no pavement here, only a churned-up grass verge. Cars drove past and she was splashed with water from the puddles. She thought about Lewis. Why would the person she was going out with – having sex with – rape her? She knew the answer before she asked herself the question. It was about power. Domination. She had just had a violent argument with him, wounding and humiliating him. But Lewis had never been aggressive, only troubled. Jeremy was a different matter – and he had had a reason to be angry with her. She had left him.

Her suspicions were like a stain spreading across her mind. Once you started thinking about people in this way, there was no reason to trust anyone. Chas: he could be lying. Ewan: he could be pretending. Greg Hollesley: she thought of his smile, the girls who had idolized him and the use he’d made of that. What else had he done?

A bus – the one she was meant to be catching further up the road – passed her in a dirty arc of water. Her mobile rang in her pocket and she scooped it out.

‘Yes?’ she snapped.

‘And hello to you too.’

‘Karlsson.’

‘The same.’

‘I’m cold and wet and walking along a road in the dark and I’ve missed my bus and I’ve had a horrible day.’

‘Where are you exactly?’

‘Why?’

‘I could come and get you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s about two hours away.’

‘I’m in Braxton.’

‘What?’

‘I left work early and thought, Why not visit the countryside? So tell me where you are.’

‘I think this is the first time we’ve ever had a meal together,’ said Karlsson.

They were sitting in a small brasserie on the high street. Frieda ordered sea bream with a green salad and Karlsson had quiche. He wouldn’t drink any wine: he was going to drive back to London later, ready for an early-morning start.

‘The first? Can that be true?’

‘We’ve had plenty of whisky and a fair amount of coffee. You gave me a roll with honey once, and maybe some toast. But I can’t remember a proper meal.’

‘It’s an odd place to start – Braxton high street.’

‘How are things?’

‘God, Karlsson, it’s very nice to see you, though you look rather out of place here. In my mind, you belong to London. I don’t know how things are. I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I’m starting to think that everyone has a guilty secret.’

‘Which, of course, they do.’

‘Of course.’ She smiled.

‘But you still feel sure you’re doing the right thing?’

‘I just know I have to do something.’

‘Have you made any progress?’

‘It’s like staring into a pond, trying to see past my own reflection to what lies beneath. I think all I’ve done is to stir up old memories, muddying the waters even further.’

‘I’ve got something for you.’

‘What?’

‘Not much. Those names you gave me of the two men that the police interviewed.’

‘Dennis Freeman and Michael Carrey.’

‘That’s it. You were right – they were both men who’d previously been in trouble with the police. Freeman you know about. He’d done time and he was later convicted of sexual abuse in another case and died in prison. Carrey was just a pathetic flasher in the park, frightening the kids.’

‘And?’

Karlsson shook his head. ‘Carrey was never really in the running. He was in a hostel at the time, had lots of witnesses who saw him being very drunk and ill that evening. You can rule him out.’

‘I see. Thanks, anyway.’

‘There’s something else.’

‘What?’

‘I spoke to Crawford about Dean Reeve.’

‘Ah.’

‘It did not go well.’

‘He doesn’t want to reopen the case.’

Karlsson didn’t reply.

‘So that’s the end of it.’

‘I wouldn’t say so.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If you’re right, then he’s still out there. Doing whatever it is he’s doing.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘thanks for coming all the way here to see me.’

‘As I said, I had a spare few hours.’

‘No. Thank you.’

‘It’s a pleasure.’

‘Now tell me how you are.’

‘I’m all right.’

‘I need more than that.’

‘It’s all I can say, Frieda. I’m all right. Nothing more than that. My kids are still in Madrid. Mikey’s grown about three inches and Bella doesn’t lisp any more. They speak Spanish and have friends I’ve never met. They’re starting to be polite to me.’

‘Isn’t that a good thing?’

‘No, it’s terrible. I get so nervous when I’m about to see them that I think I behave unnaturally as well. I over-plan everything so they won’t get bored. And we make conversation. I even think in advance about things to tell them.’

‘It’s bound to be hard. When they come back, it’ll return to normal soon enough.’

‘Maybe.’

‘So is that why you’re just “all right”?’

‘Part of it. Everything just feels a bit grey, I guess. I work too hard, I see my kids when I can, occasionally I meet friends.’

‘I think,’ said Frieda, ‘that sometimes life can seem like a straight road that stretches ahead with no change in sight.’

‘Yes, that’s it.’

‘And you’re just trudging along.’

‘Yes. Don’t tell me I need to find a hobby.’

‘I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t going to tell you anything. I was just going to say that it’s hard and I’m sorry about it. Perhaps you need to make a change.’

‘It feels impossible.’

‘We’re always freer than we know.’

‘That’s too deep for me.’

‘Do you sleep properly?’

‘I’m not going to talk to
you
about sleeping.’

‘Fair enough.’

After Karlsson had left, Frieda had a coffee, then went to collect her coat and scarf from the coat stand in the lobby. Her coat was there but her scarf – the one she had had for more than fifteen years, that was exactly the right shade of red – had vanished. It mattered to her more than it should. She hated to lose things, and that scarf felt almost part of her, wrapped brightly around her neck on all her night walks through London over the years. She gave her mobile number to one of the waiters and said that if he found it he should contact her.

She walked back to Eva’s in the icy drizzle. The path through the garden was muddy and her shed was cold and smelt slightly damp. She pulled down the blinds (she didn’t want Eva staring in at her from the kitchen, hoping she would go over and pay her a visit) and turned on the electric radiator, then put water in the kettle. While she was waiting for it to boil, she checked her emails. There was one from Chloë that read simply – ‘Frieda, everything’s going wrong! Help!’ There was also one from Tom Helmsley:

I’ve tracked down Stuart Faulkner. He took early retirement and he’s living near Clacton. His address is 48 Chesselhurst Road, Thornbury. I hope this is of some use, Tom.

 

PS I get the impression his early retirement may not have been strictly voluntary.

Frieda looked up Thornbury on her phone and saw that it was about fifteen miles from Clacton, down a B-road. It had no station. She frowned, considering her options – and then, as if he had sensed that she was thinking of him, her mobile rang.

‘Josef?’ she said.

‘Is me. Hello, Frieda.’

‘Hello. How are you?’

‘Fine. All fine.’

Frieda waited but he didn’t add anything. ‘Is everything OK with Reuben?’

‘All fine,’ he repeated.

‘Good.’ She waited again. ‘Are you ringing for any reason, Josef, or just to say hello?’

‘Just hello.’

‘Well, in that –’

‘And how you are. I wonder. I think of you.’

‘That’s nice.’ And it was, she found. She pictured Josef, his large hand wrapped around the phone, his sad brown eyes. ‘As a matter of fact, I was thinking of you as well.’

‘You were?’

‘Yes.’

‘Frieda. I help you.’

‘Of course you do.’

‘I mean at this moment. Tell me what to do.’

‘Are you busy?’

‘Now?’

‘Tomorrow. I need another lift, I’m afraid. I could easily get a cab, in fact it would be much more sensible, but –’

‘No cab, Frieda. I come.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I come early. Seven?’

‘Definitely not. That would mean leaving at five.’

‘Is good. Is fine.’

And she couldn’t persuade him otherwise. She ended the call and spent an hour drawing shapes that turned into faces, faces that turned, without her wanting it, into the face of Dean Reeve. She tore out the pages from her sketchbook and crumpled them into little balls before throwing them into the bin.