‘Fuck this, I know Frieda was here. Whatever name she was using. And I know Josef was also here.’

Neither said anything, but he saw the startled look they exchanged. ‘I sent Josef here with a letter for Frieda. I wanted to warn her.’

‘You?’

‘Yes. Please, can I come in for a few minutes?’

‘Mira?’ said the dark one. Mira gave a minute nod. They stood aside and he passed into the flat.

They sat at the kitchen table on rickety mismatched chairs and the two women took lids off their steaming cartons of food. Karlsson saw the vodka on the side and recognized it as Josef’s brand.

‘Hungry?’ asked Ileana.

No, thank you,’ said Karlsson, although he suddenly was, his mouth watering at the smell billowing from the cartons. ‘I don’t want to get you into any trouble and I understand that you don’t trust me. You’re right to be cautious. I don’t expect you to tell me if Frieda was here. But do you know where she is now? Do you know if she’s all right?’

‘We know no Frieda.’

‘Whatever she called herself.’

Mira took a huge mouthful of rice covered with a red gloop of sauce, then said thickly, ‘Everyone asking about this person.’

‘What do you mean? Sarah Hussein?’

‘Her. The man with her. The two who came before. But then this other one too.’

‘Someone else came here?’

‘Look.’ Ileana rolled up her sleeve and Karlsson saw a red weal across the lower arm, deepening into a bruise. ‘He do this.’

‘Who did?’

‘Man.’

‘You’re saying someone came here who wasn’t a police officer, asking after Frieda, and he hurt you?’

‘First all nice and charming. Then he hurt and threaten. Always the same threats that people give, that we be thrown out.’

‘I’m sorry. But you don’t know who he was?’

‘Just man,’ Ileana repeated, as if all men were one and the same to her.

‘What did he look like?’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

Mira leaned across the table and said: ‘She mean ordinary.’

‘I mean, nothing.’ Ileana glared at Mira.

‘Not tall and not short,’ said Mira. ‘Not fat and not thin. Not ugly and not handsome. Ordinary.’

‘White?’

‘Not not-white.’

‘I see,’ said Karlsson, although he didn’t. ‘What about the colour of his hair, the clothes he was wearing?’

‘Nice jacket,’ said Mira, wistfully.

‘What was his voice like?’

‘Just normal.’

‘Did he have an accent?’

Mira looked at him pityingly. ‘Everyone has an accent, just not the same one.’

Karlsson put the bottle of vodka on the table. Josef filled two shot glasses to the brim. Both men lifted them and tipped the contents down their throats. Josef filled them again.

This time Karlsson only sipped at the vodka. ‘I met Mira and Ileana.’

Josef drained his glass and set it back on the table with a little click. ‘So?’

‘I know that she was there and now she’s gone.’

Josef said nothing. He regarded Karlsson with his soft brown eyes.

‘I need to speak to her, Josef,’ said Karlsson. ‘I think she’s in trouble. Someone’s after her.’

‘Everyone is after her.’

‘Do you know where she is?’

Josef poured a third glass for himself and picked it up, turning it in his calloused hands. ‘No,’ he said eventually.

‘Really?’

‘This is the truth.’ He placed his free hand on his chest. ‘I do not know.’

‘All right. If you find her, or if she finds you, tell her I must speak to her. As her friend.’

Josef looked troubled. He nodded at Karlsson.

‘Thanks. Well, I should be going – is Reuben not here?’

‘He’s at the Warehouse still. Clearing all up.’

‘Clearing what up?’

‘Trouble. Someone broke in. I have mended the window and he stay there late to make sure all safe again.’

‘I’m sorry to hear this. Has he called the police?’

‘No.’

Karlsson didn’t go straight home but drove to the Warehouse instead. He rang at the front door and Paz opened it. Her sleeves were rolled up and she wore her hair tied back from her face. Karlsson thought she looked jangled.

‘I heard you had a break-in.’

‘It was nothing.’

‘Who is it?’ a voice called. Then Reuben came into view. ‘Karlsson. What’s up?’

‘Josef said someone had broken into the Warehouse.’

‘Someone threw a brick through the window. You know, kids today.’

‘Have you called the police?’

He waved his hand airily.

Then Jack Dargan appeared, skidding along the corridor with a cloth in one hand and some cleaning spray in the other. There was a brief silence as he pulled up alongside Reuben and Paz.

‘You might as well tell me,’ said Karlsson.

An almost identical expression of exaggerated bafflement appeared on all three faces.

‘What?’ asked Reuben.

‘It was Frieda, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It was Frieda.’

‘That’s insane. I don’t know what you’re on about.’

Jack pushed his hands through his hair in the familiar gesture, so that it stood up in peaks. ‘Nor do I.’ And he gave a small, wild laugh.

‘This is me,’ Karlsson said.

Reuben raised his eyebrows. ‘I know. DCI Karlsson of the Met.’

‘A friend.’

Reuben gave a soundless whistle. ‘What would your boss make of it?’

Karlsson shrugged. ‘I’m hoping he never has to know.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Paz, crossly. ‘This is stupid. Yes, it was Frieda. Do you want to see?’

‘See?’

‘Come with me.’

She gestured him to the reception desk and clicked on the computer. And there she suddenly was, grainy but unmistakable: Frieda, striding along the corridor towards them. Her head was held up and she seemed quite composed. It was as if she were looking straight at him, through him.

‘Her hair’s very short,’ he said.

‘A disguise, I guess,’ said Reuben. ‘Of sorts.’

‘So why was she here?’

‘See that bag she’s carrying?’

‘Yes.’

‘We’re pretty sure that’s what Sandy flung at her when he came round to the Warehouse,’ said Jack. ‘You know about that. He was angry. I’d never seen him like it.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘I looked inside.’ Paz sounded defensive. ‘After she disappeared and the police were everywhere and there was the media attention, I went through her room to make sure there was nothing –’ She broke off and gave an elaborate shrug, rolling her eyes. ‘You know.’

‘That could incriminate her?’

‘Yes. But it was just odds and ends, things that she had left at Sandy’s. A few clothes, books. Nothing out of the ordinary.’

‘Do you know where she is now?’

All three shook their heads.

‘She’s getting reckless, though,’ said Jack.

Karlsson nodded. ‘Perhaps she knows that time is running out.’

And – maybe because he had spoken those words out loud, confirming his fears to himself – he still didn’t go home, although he’d been up since six and hadn’t eaten anything since a stale croissant in the canteen. Instead, he drove through the fading light to Sasha’s house in Stoke Newington.

27

She was pale, her hair lank, her eyes large in her thin face. He saw that she kept twisting her hands together, that her nails were bitten, that she had a cold sore on the corner of her mouth. He knew that Frieda always worried about Sasha and remembered that after Ethan had been born she’d gone through an episode of post-natal depression that had never entirely passed.

‘I just want her to be all right,’ she said now, wiping the back of her hand against her cheeks.