Frieda stood up. ‘You never know how people will react,’ she said. ‘Are you going to call the police now?’

‘Al didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.’ There was a long pause. ‘And I don’t think you did it.’

‘But someone did,’ said Frieda.

‘I know.’

‘And I need to find out who.’

‘We need to,’ said Bridget. ‘He was my friend. I won’t call the police.’

‘Have you told Al about me?’

‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘Not yet. I don’t think he’d be very understanding, though.’

She hadn’t told her husband about Sandy’s despair either, thought Frieda. There was a silence. Frieda looked at Bridget, her broad, sculpted face and her strong arms, and Bridget looked straight ahead, her hands clasped together. She seemed to be waiting.

‘Can you help me?’ Frieda said at last, softly.

Bridget looked round then, eyebrows raised. Her anger seemed to have evaporated. She was sad instead; sad and weary. ‘I’ve got young children. I can’t do the sort of things you do.’

‘There only needs to be one of me,’ said Frieda.

‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. Next time I’m going to insist on proper references.’

21

Josef was very hot. He was up in the loft of the Belsize Park house, inserting insulation foam between the wall cavities. Although there were skylights in the roof, through which the sun poured, there was also an extra-bright Anglepoise light rigged up to shine into the corners. Josef felt that he was trapped between its heat and the sun’s. There was grit in his eyes, a sheen of sweat and dust on his skin. His hair was damp and his feet itched.

Near him, another man was hammering the wall partitions back into place. He struck each nail with a loud, precise first blow, then followed it with a series of brisk taps that reminded Josef of a woodpecker. The man was solid, with muscles that rippled in his arms, and a shaven head that every so often he would wipe with a large cloth.

For the most part, they worked in silence, except to grunt a few words to each other – about the heat, the dust, the wealth of the owners who were ripping apart a perfectly good house in order to erect another inside its shell. Yesterday the man – his name was Marty – had had a radio with him but today he was empty-handed. They could hear the sounds of other builders beneath them: music, curses, the ugly shriek of a saw on metal.

At eleven Marty laid down his hammer. ‘I’m going for a smoke. Coming?’

Josef nodded and gratefully straightened up. They went down the several flights of stairs, through rooms, most of which were like their own mini building sites, and out into the garden. It was long for a London garden and sloped upwards towards the back wall between high trellises, and it, too, was evidently a work in progress. The two men sat on a step beside what would one day be the paved barbecue area but which was now piled with bricks and lengths of pipe. Josef pulled out his packet of cigarettes and offered one to Marty, but he shook his head and proceeded to roll his own, his stubby fingers deft.

Josef smoked his cigarette slowly, between swigs from his water bottle, and half closed his eyes against the bright shafts of sunlight. He was thinking about what he would cook tonight – perhaps something Ukrainian. And thinking about his homeland made him think of his two sons, whom he hadn’t seen for so long now, although his wife – ex-wife – had sent him photographs recently. Taller, more solid, their hair darker and cut shorter, they looked strange to him although not like strangers, familiar yet far off. And thinking of his sons and the pain in his chest that their absence caused him made him think of Frieda, for only Frieda knew something of what he felt about this – and it was at this moment that the back door swung open and two people, a man and a woman, walked into the garden.

At first Josef thought they must be surveyors or architects. The man, who looked like a rugby player, was wearing a light grey suit, and the woman, who was small and moved with a purposeful air, a biscuit-coloured skirt with a white blouse and flat shoes. He narrowed his eyes, then let out a groan.

‘What?’ asked Marty.

‘I know that woman. She is police.’

‘Police?’

‘They come for me, I know.’

‘You? What have you done wrong, mate?’

‘I? Nothing. They do wrong.’ But he was uneasy. He remembered the state Frieda’s temporary neighbour and robber had been in when they had left him. But how could the police know anything? He told himself it was impossible.

Hussein and Bryant picked their way through the debris in the garden.

‘Mr Morozov,’ said Hussein. ‘DCI Hussein.’

She held out her identification but Josef, still sitting on the step, waved it away. ‘I know. We met. You are hunting Frieda.’

‘Looking for her. We’d like a word with you.’

‘All right.’

‘In private.’

‘You want me to go?’ said Marty. He stood and moved to the end of the garden, his back to them, where he started to roll another cigarette.

‘Do you know why we’re here?’ asked Hussein.

Josef shrugged.

‘I think you know where Frieda is.’

‘I know nothing.’

‘You know we have a camera rigged up at her house.’

‘I notice it, of course.’

‘So we know you go to her house every day.’

‘It is not a crime.’

‘You stay there quite a long time.’

Josef flushed. ‘So?’ he said.

‘What do you do?’

‘Feed cat. Water plants. Make sure things are nice.’ He scowled at the two officers. ‘For when she can come home again.’

‘Sometimes you stay there an hour.’

‘Not a crime,’ Josef said again. He wasn’t going to tell them that he wandered round the house, sat in Frieda’s chair, stood in her study, feeling her presence.

‘When did you last have contact with her?’

He waved his hand in the air. ‘When she left.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Josef gave his shrug.

‘You understand that we could have you deported,’ said Bryant, suddenly.

‘You know nothing,’ said Josef. ‘So you try to scare me. But I am not scared.’

‘Did you know she was there?’

‘What?’ Josef squinted at her. ‘Frieda?’

‘Yes.’

‘In her house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah,’ he said. It was like a sigh.

‘Did you know?’

‘No.’

‘Did you leave anything for her?’

‘No.’

‘Why was she there?’

‘Is her home.’ He stood up and took a swig from his water bottle. ‘Perhaps homesick. I left everything clean and good for her.’

‘You think she went simply because she was homesick?’

‘Do you know the homesick feeling?’

Hussein made an impatient gesture. ‘She is in serious trouble. If you are a true friend, you will tell us how to find her before things get any worse.’

‘I am a true friend,’ said Josef. ‘I will say nothing. Except you will see.’

‘What will we see, Josef?’

‘My name is Mr Morozov.’

‘Yes, Mr Morozov. We are not your enemy.’

‘Frieda’s enemy is my enemy.’

‘We are not Frieda’s enemy. But we need to find her. And we think you can help us.’

‘No.’

‘Perverting the course of justice is a serious crime.’

Josef didn’t reply. He took his cigarettes out of his back pocket, tapped one out and lit it.

‘You have our card,’ said Hussein. ‘If you think of anything.’

They left, and Josef sat down on the step once more. Marty joined him.

‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t help catching a bit of that. You’re a friend of that woman who’s on the run?’