‘Frank was here.’ Her voice was a wail.

‘Now?’

‘No. When Frieda came.’

‘What?’

‘Ethan’s just told me. He saw Frank from the window, outside the house. When Frieda left here, Frank followed her.’

He called Hussein and told her. His voice seemed to come from far off; he heard his words as if they were a stranger’s and he heard her answer.

‘All right,’ said Hussein. ‘Where would Frieda have gone, given that she clearly hasn’t gone to the police?’

‘Perhaps she would go to her own house. In fact, that’s the first place to try.’

‘We’re sending officers there now.’

‘Or even her consulting rooms.’

‘Good. Yes. Right. Anywhere else?’

‘I don’t know. You could try Reuben and Josef. Olivia, perhaps. Jack, though that’s not so likely.’

‘Right.’

‘She might want to go to people who knew Sandy best – his sister, or his friends.’

‘OK,’ said Hussein, doubtfully.

‘Otherwise – I don’t know. She walks,’ he added uselessly.

‘Walks?’

‘When things are on her mind, when she’s troubled and needs to think, she walks and walks. Through the night.’

‘Where does she walk?’

‘All over.’

‘That’s not much good.’

31

Karlsson tried to think it through clearly, but it was like he was in a storm. Where would she go? She knew now, so the sensible thing would be just to call the police. Wouldn’t it? But she didn’t have a phone. All right. Get in a cab. Straight to the police. But, first, Frieda never seemed to do the sensible thing and then Hussein had said she hadn’t. And was this really the sensible thing? Did she actually have evidence that would convince the police? Did she realize the danger she was in? He knew that if he did nothing, or didn’t think of the right thing, something would happen. Something that he would hear about on the news.

He took out his phone and stared at it helplessly. It felt like that terrible phase where you had lost something and you were looking in the places you had already looked in. He dialled Reuben’s number. He answered immediately as if he had been waiting for the call.

‘I know, I know,’ Reuben said. ‘The police called me.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing much. A couple of names. Obviously I mentioned that she was most likely to go home or to her consulting room.’

‘I’ve been through that with them. They’re already on to it. I thought maybe she’d turn to you. You’re her old friend, her therapist.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘She’s known you longer than anyone. I thought she might turn to you.’

‘I don’t mean that,’ said Reuben. ‘I mean, I’m not her therapist. Not any more. That was long ago, when she was training. In the last couple of years, she was seeing someone else, someone she really rated.’

‘What’s their name?’

‘It was …’ There was a long pause. Karlsson wanted to shout at Reuben to fucking remember. ‘Thelma something.’

‘Do you think she might go to her at a time like this?’

‘It’s not likely but I suppose it’s possible.’

‘Then I need a name. A proper name. And a number.’

‘Wait. I think I know where I can find it. I’ll call you back.’

Karlsson felt so agitated that he couldn’t stay still. He was shifting from foot to foot. He could hear a rushing sound in his ears. He stared at his phone, willing it to ring. He started to count. He promised himself that it would ring before he got to ten. It rang at fourteen.

‘Thelma Scott,’ said Reuben.

Karlsson got her number and dialled it instantly, praying that she wasn’t with a client or abroad or asleep. He was almost taken aback when a woman’s voice answered.

‘Dr Thelma Scott?’

‘Yes.’

‘My name’s Malcolm Karlsson. I’m a police detective and I’m a friend of Frieda Klein and this is very urgent. Have you seen her?’

There was a pause. He tried to imagine how he himself would react to a call like this. Did it sound trustworthy?

‘Not for a while,’ said Scott. ‘I know that she’s been in some sort of trouble.’

‘She’s in trouble now. I mean, not trouble, but danger. I need to find her urgently.’

‘I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen or spoken to her for several weeks.’

‘I need to find her. This moment.’ He made himself stop and think. ‘If things were really urgent, where would she turn? The police are trying all her friends, but I thought she might contact you.’

‘I haven’t heard from her. I’m truly sorry.’

‘All right,’ said Karlsson, in a dull voice. None of this was working. He was about to say goodbye when Scott spoke again.

‘Did you say you were called Karlsson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you the detective?’

‘I’m a detective.’

‘She mentioned you. Have you considered that she might turn to you?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

‘But …’ he was bewildered ‘… she doesn’t know where I am.’

‘Doesn’t she know where you live?’

Karlsson stared at his phone. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ he said.

He looked up and down the road. Taxi after taxi passed him, coming up from the City, but they were all taken. He called Hussein on his phone.

‘I’m at Manning’s flat,’ she said.

‘And?’

‘It’s clean.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘No, really clean. It smells of bleach, like a laboratory. This place has been scoured.’

‘He’s a lawyer. He knows about evidence. So you’ve got nothing.’

‘I didn’t say that. Even lawyers can’t clean in the cracks between floorboards. We’ve got hair from the pipe under his sink. There are stains behind the radiator in the living room. Something happened here. I’m sure of it.’

‘Have you got him?’

‘Once we’ve got this back to the lab.’

‘No, I mean got him. Arrested him.’

‘There’s no sign of him or of Frieda.’

‘I think she might be at my place. You’re nearer than me, only a few minutes away.’

He managed to flag down a taxi and gave the address. He settled down in the back.

‘Stupid stupid stupid,’ he muttered to himself.

Frieda rang the bell. There was no answer. She knocked at the door. No answer. But she knew where Karlsson kept a spare key. Next to the door there was a pot with a plant that didn’t look very well.

‘People will look under the pot,’ Karlsson had told her, ‘because that’s where people keep keys. And they won’t find one. And they’ll give up. So they won’t notice that there’s a loose brick next to the path and that there’s a key hidden under that.’

Frieda had suspected that quite a lot of people hid their keys under loose bricks, but she hadn’t said anything. Fortunately, because she lifted up the brick and there was the key. She let herself into the house. Inside she could smell something, like food that had been left out. She could make herself coffee, but what she should probably do first was clear up. And she would start with throwing away whatever it was that she could smell. But before that, she would phone Karlsson. As she looked around for the phone, there was a gentle knock on the front door.

Frieda felt a moment of relief. But at the very moment she pulled the door open, she suddenly wondered why Karlsson would knock at his own front door and she knew that, of course, he wouldn’t, and then the door was pushed hard against her and Frank was inside and the door was slammed shut. She turned and ran towards the back of the house. He was nearly on her – she could hear him breathing and feel the heat of his body. She felt him behind her, hands on her shoulders, and she was slammed forward into the wall, and everything went sparkly yellow, then slammed again in another direction, through a door. She saw other colours, a clown mobile hanging from the ceiling, a poster of a football. Something from deep inside her mind told her she was in a child’s bedroom. Karlsson’s children’s bedroom. She pushed back but it was hopeless. Frank towered above her. She felt a blow on the side of her head and staggered back against the wall.