She touched the keyboard and the screen lit up, no password required. There were dozens of files and documents on his desktop, professional-looking, counterparts of what she had seen in the files. She clicked on his browser and looked at his history. It was a mixture of news, buying a book, weather, the London Zoo website, Twitter, a long article on a university website, a blog article and that was just today. She didn’t have time to make any kind of thorough search.

She clicked on his email. The inbox contained 16,732 messages, but this was easier. She typed in Sandy’s name and the screen filled with messages from him. She clicked on one of them and suddenly it was as if a window had been opened, bringing a familiar smell and a memory of long ago. Sandy was in the room with her. The message was nothing special, just a line saying they should get together before some departmental meeting or other and grab a coffee. The sheer casualness of it, the spelling mistakes: Frieda could almost see him sitting there typing it. It was like she was looking over his shoulder. She had to pause a moment, gather herself, stop thinking about the wrong things.

She clicked on message after message and she quickly became frustrated. Sandy had never been one for treating emails like old-fashioned letters. They were for saying ‘Yes’ or ‘Maybe’ or ‘Make it 11.30’ or, on occasion, ‘We need to talk’. He’d never even been very comfortable talking on the phone. He’d told her that if there was anything important to say, you needed to say it to someone’s face, so you could see their eyes, their expression. Otherwise it wasn’t real communication. She clicked on the last message he had sent:

If you really want to talk about this (again), I’m in my office tomorrow.

S

Frieda thought for a moment. That seemed like something. She looked at the previous message from him. It was from a week earlier, a routine message telling Al about a change of room for a seminar. She read the last message again. Talk about what? She clicked on Al’s ‘sent’ messages and scrolled down to the most recent, just an hour earlier than Sandy’s message:

Dear Sandy,

I’ve taken the weekend and you’re wrong, I’m still angry. If you think I’m just going to roll over about this, then you don’t understand me.

Yours, Alan

The previous message to this was from a week earlier and enclosed the CV of a Ph.D. student; the one before and the one before that contained nothing significant.

And then Frieda heard a sound from downstairs. Or thought she did – just a faint scraping. She stood quite still and listened but all she could hear was the thump of her heart and in the far distance a radio playing, a door slamming. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face. She should quickly finish what she was doing and leave. She turned back to her task, but then she heard another sound, definite this time, louder. It was the front door opening and then closing. She took a step back from the computer and tried to breathe steadily.

Frieda tried to remember something she might have been told. Did they have a cleaner? Was someone coming to stay? Perhaps that was why the alarm hadn’t been turned on. She thought of staying where she was in the hope that the person would leave – but what if they didn’t leave? Or if they came upstairs? If they came into this room and found her standing there? She waited, scarcely daring to breathe, and could hear nothing from downstairs. Whoever it was who had come in must be standing in the hall, not moving – unless they were moving silently, on their toes, coming up the stairs towards her. She turned her head towards the door, half expecting to see someone standing there, but who?

Then she did hear footsteps. Not fast but purposeful. Perhaps they would go towards the kitchen and she could dash into the hall and through the front door. But the footsteps paused at the foot of the stairs and then there was no doubt: they were coming towards her. She took a deep breath. There was no choice, really. She restored Al’s computer to the way it had been and walked down the stairs, which curled round themselves, so that as she approached the main flight she had a clear view: Bridget was standing a few steps up the stairs, hand on the banisters and face gazing at her with an expression of fierce contempt. For a moment the two women stared at each other, neither of them moving, and it seemed to Frieda that everything she said now would be a charade. Nevertheless she adopted a light tone as she walked down towards Bridget.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I came over because I thought I’d left my watch here. I took it off when I was playing with the children.’

The words sounded so lame as she spoke them that Frieda could anticipate Bridget’s questions: why couldn’t you just collect the watch later? Why were you looking for it upstairs? Frieda was composing plausible answers in her head but Bridget simply said: ‘And did you?’

In answer Frieda held up her left hand, showing her watch on her wrist.

Bridget barely glanced at it, but kept her gaze fixed on Frieda’s face. Her eyes glowed. She had a very faint smile on her face now, not a happy one.

‘I thought you were at the zoo,’ Frieda said. She could feel the pulse in her neck and she put out a hand to touch the wall’s reassuring solidity.

‘Yes. I know you did.’

‘Is something wrong?’

Bridget looked at Frieda as if she were assessing her and then seemed to make up her mind.

‘Follow me,’ she said. ‘Carla.’

The two women walked through to the kitchen. Bridget pulled open a drawer in the kitchen table.

‘I’ve got my watch,’ said Frieda, her voice sounding tinny in her ears. ‘I can leave now and come back for the children later.’

‘Oh, stop it, for goodness’ sake. Just stop.’ Bridget’s voice rang out clear and sharp, and Frieda felt a tingle of shame spreading through her.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll stop.’

Bridget took out a newspaper and threw it down on the table. Frieda barely needed to look. She saw the headline: ‘Police Psych Goes on Run’. And there was a picture of her, one that had been used before. It had been taken of her without her knowledge.

‘It looks like you’ve made some attempt to disguise yourself. It wasn’t enough.’

‘Obviously not.’

‘Well? Well?’ Bridget slammed her fist on the table so hard that the mugs on it jumped. ‘Is that all you have to say? Sitting there so cool and proper. My nanny. Fuck. The woman who screwed up Sandy’s life, finding your way into my house, looking after my children, snooping through my possessions.’

‘Have you called the police?’

As Frieda asked the question, she was making calculations in her head, asking herself questions. What was Bridget planning? Was Al really with the children or was he in the house as well? Or perhaps he would be waiting outside. She pictured the network of roads and tried to think of which way she would run.

‘Ha! Not yet.’ She slid her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out a mobile, held it up. ‘But my fingers are itching.’

‘Where’s Al?’

‘Out. With the children. Where you can’t get at them. How could you?’ Bridget’s voice was suddenly loud. ‘This isn’t some kind of game. Those are our fucking children. Clearly you don’t mind what happens to yourself, but what about them? You’re a fugitive, you’re wanted for murder, you probably are a murderer. A murderer of my dear friend.’

‘I looked after them well,’ said Frieda. She glanced at the back door. The key was in the lock. She could feel her muscles tensing in readiness.

Bridget raised her hands and Frieda stepped back. She let her hands fall.

‘I’ve never hit anybody in my life. But I could punch you and grab you and kick you.’