‘Are you serious?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you need someone to look after Ethan, someone you can trust.’ Frieda forced herself to smile reassuringly. ‘People don’t really look at a woman with a child and that’s what I want.’

‘Tell me about it.’ Sasha’s tone was rueful.

‘So we would be helping each other out, until you find a replacement.’

‘I can’t tell you how wonderful that would be.’

‘Wait,’ said Frieda, with a sterner expression. ‘You need to think about this. By not reporting me, you’re committing a crime.’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘It might.’

Sasha shook her head decisively. ‘Nobody will know.’

‘Except Ethan.’

‘Ethan won’t tell anyone. He’s not old enough – he doesn’t make connections. If something’s not there it doesn’t exist any longer.’

Frieda thought of Ethan standing with his hands covering his eyes, thinking he had made himself invisible. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how it goes.’

‘I don’t know what I would have done without you, Frieda. Seeing you this morning was like a kind of dream – well, it still is. I half expected Christine to be standing at the door with her jacket on, looking disapproving. She was an awful woman, wasn’t she?’

‘She was.’

‘I don’t know why I put up with her.’

‘She’s a bully.’

‘Perhaps I attract bullies.’

‘Perhaps you do,’ Frieda said. ‘You should think about that.’

‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘What’s going to happen to you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Where are you living?’ Frieda didn’t answer. ‘You can’t be in hiding for ever.’

‘I don’t intend to be. I just need to ask some questions. And answer them as well.’

‘It’s like a nightmare.’

‘It seems real enough to me.’

‘Do they really think you did it?’

‘Yes. With some reason,’ she added. ‘The evidence does point to me. I thought I knew who killed him, I was certain, but I don’t.’

‘You have no idea?’

‘No.’

‘And if you don’t find out, then what will happen to you?’

‘I’m thinking about you, just now,’ said Frieda. ‘What if the police come in a few days and ask about things?’

‘I’ll deny everything.’

‘What if they ask about your childcare arrangements?’

‘Why would they?’

‘But what if they do?’

Sasha thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know what I could say.’

‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘But I do.’

The gathering for Sandy was at seven, near Tower Bridge. Frieda went back to her rooms first. She needed to wash – though washing wasn’t very satisfactory when the shower was feeble and the water cold – and to change into something less brightly loud.

When she approached her door, she stopped in her tracks. She had seen something, a shape. Then the shape moved, and Frieda saw it was a figure sitting hunched up, matted dark hair, a baggy shirt, bare feet.

‘Hana,’ she said, going forward and bending down to the woman.

Hana lifted her head. Her face was barely recognizable: the left cheek was mashed and swollen and the left eye closed. The nose looked broken.

‘Come with me,’ said Frieda, taking the woman and heaving her to her feet. She smelt of tobacco and fried onions and old sweat; there were damp patches under her arms and a dark V down her back. There was blood on her collar and down the front of her skirt and splashes of it on her bare, grubby feet.

‘Carla.’ Her voice was thick. ‘I was going to –’

‘Don’t talk yet. Here.’

She led her inside and sat her on the stained sofa, then ran water into a bowl and carefully washed Hana’s face; the water turned red and cloudy. The woman made small moaning noises.

‘I think you need stitches. You should go to the hospital.’

Hana shook her head wildly. ‘He’d kill me.’

‘He’s already nearly killed you.’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Who is he?’

Again Hana shook her head, although the movement obviously hurt her.

‘Is he your husband? Your partner?’

‘Do you still have whisky?’

‘Yes.’ Frieda rose and poured some into the tumbler. Hana drank it as if she were thirsty, though much of it dribbled down her chin. Frieda could see blood in her mouth. ‘Have you thought of going to the police?’

‘No!’

‘Or a women’s refuge.’

‘I have no money. Not a penny. He has everything. My papers, all of it.’

‘You can still leave him. You have a choice.’

‘You don’t understand,’ the woman said again. ‘It’s different for people like you. I have nothing. Nothing,’ she repeated. ‘He has even taken my shoes away. I said I was leaving, I was going to stay at my cousin’s, and he cut my shoes up and did this.’ She touched her mangled face very gently with the tips of her fingers. ‘This is my life,’ she said. ‘I was stupid to think it could be different.’

Frieda looked at the woman’s softly hunched shoulders, her battered face, her dirty feet and her bloodstained, tatty shirt. ‘I can help you,’ she said.

‘How? You’re here as well, aren’t you? What can you do?’

‘Wait.’

Frieda stood up and went to the bedroom. She pulled her holdall from under the bed. Tucked inside her walking boots was the cash she had withdrawn from her bank, on the day she had left her life behind. She counted it out: she had six thousand, two hundred pounds left. She counted out three thousand, one hundred pounds and pushed the other half back into her boot.

‘Here,’ she said, holding the money out to Hana as she returned to the living room. ‘Take this.’

Hana’s eyes widened and she shrank back as if she were scared. ‘Why?’

‘So that you can leave.’

‘No. Why?’

Frieda looked at the money in her outstretched hand. ‘That’s not important,’ she said. ‘It’s for you.’

Hana took it and stared at it dazedly. She licked her dry lips and gave a huge sigh that turned into a kind of snort. ‘Is this a trick?’

‘No.’

‘You’re a strange woman.’

‘Maybe. Who isn’t? Take my flip-flops as well,’ said Frieda.

‘What?’

‘You have no shoes. I don’t need these. I have others. They’ll fit well enough.’

She slid off the flip-flops and passed them over. Hana stared at them as if they might blow up.

‘I’ve got to go out in a minute,’ said Frieda. ‘I just need to wash and change.’

‘Can I have some more whisky?’

Frieda slid the bottle along the table and left Hana on the sofa. She went back into her bedroom and looked through the clothes she had bought, none of which she liked or felt comfortable in. She selected the dark grey trousers she had got for the funeral, and then a blue T-shirt to go over the top. It had a large green star on the chest. Her top half looked like a cheerleader’s; her bottom half like a frump’s. Carla Morris would probably wear some make-up but Frieda Klein was tired of Carla Morris and left her face bare, though she put on her fake glasses.

‘I need to go now,’ she said to Hana.

‘Yeah.’ Hana’s eyes had a glazed look. She knocked against her chest as if she were a door she could open. ‘Me too. My new life’s waiting.’

‘You can do this.’

‘You think so?’

16

Frieda thought at first she must be in the wrong area. She was on a busy road just south of Tower Bridge. Buses and lorries were thundering past warehouses and housing estates, but she turned onto a side street and found herself in a Georgian terrace. Each house was painted a different colour – light blue, yellow, pink – and there were blue tubs of flowers in the front gardens.