Nicci French - Tuesday's Gone

‘I’m a bit worried about what Frieda might mean by all about me,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve brought my sister, Tessa, as well. Is that OK?’

‘Great.’ Sasha stepped back. ‘Come in out of the cold. Dump your coats and then join us.’

They went up the stairs together to a small bedroom, where the bed was already piled with coats and jackets. Harry picked up a photograph that was on the little table: Sasha and another young woman standing arm in arm in front of a tent, wearing shorts and hiking boots. ‘Do you think she’s gay?’ he asked.

Tessa snatched the picture out of his hands and put it back on the table. ‘Do you fancy her as well?’ she said.

‘I was thinking of you,’ he said, and she responded with a playful slap. They headed back down to the music and hubbub of the party. Tessa watched Harry as he entered the main room. He looked at ease, handsome and full of an amiable curiosity. Of course Frieda liked him.

And there was Frieda, in a corner of the room holding a glass of what looked like mineral water, wearing a dress the colour of moss that shimmered slightly when she moved. Tessa noticed how shapely her legs were, how slim her figure and how upright she stood. She was talking to an older man with grey hair and a thin, unshaven face. He was wearing a tatty pair of jeans, a gorgeous patterned shirt, and had a bright cotton scarf wrapped round his neck. A pretentious abstract artist or another psychotherapist, she thought, as she and Harry approached. It looked as if they were having a serious conversation, almost an argument.

‘Am I interrupting something?’ Harry said.

‘Frieda has problems with her friends helping her,’ said the man.

‘What Frieda has problems with,’ said Frieda, ‘is that her friends might get arrested while trying to help her.’

‘Arrested?’ said Harry.

‘Don’t ask,’ said Frieda.

Harry kissed her, first on one cheek, then, lingeringly, on the other. She didn’t draw back, but put a hand on his arm, holding him by her side. She smiled at Tessa, apparently unsurprised to see her, then introduced them.

‘Reuben McGill, this is Harry and Tessa Welles.’

‘Brother and sister,’ said Harry.

‘Well, any fool can see that,’ said Reuben.

‘Really?’

‘Cheekbones,’ said Reuben. ‘And the ears as well. Dead giveaway.’

‘Reuben’s a colleague of mine,’ said Frieda. She lifted a hand in greeting and an olive-skinned woman, with dark hair tied in a dramatic bandanna and wearing turquoise eye shadow, came towards them, swaying slightly. ‘And here’s another colleague. Paz, Harry and Tessa.’

‘I am already drunk,’ said Paz, solemnly, forming her words with care. ‘I should have paced myself. But I am a very bad pacer. My mother used to make me drink a glass of milk before going out to line my stomach. I hate milk. Sasha says I have to dance.’ She tucked her hand through Reuben’s arm. ‘Will you dance with me, Reuben? Two people with broken hearts?’

‘Do I have a broken heart?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re probably right. Just a bit broken in many places. Multiple hairline fractures. Is your heart broken as well?’

‘Mine?’ said Tessa, startled.

‘You don’t look like someone with a broken heart. I can usually tell.’

‘How?’

‘Something in the eyes.’

‘Ignore him,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s his chat-up line.’

‘You look beautiful, Frieda,’ said Harry, softly, as though there was no one else in the room but them. Reuben’s eyebrows went up and Paz giggled. Frieda ignored them. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘I have a drink.’ She raised her glass of water.

‘A proper drink.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘I’ll get myself one, then. Tessa?’

‘A glass of wine, please.’

‘I’ll be right back.’

They both watched him as he edged his way through the crowd. Sasha came up behind them and put her arms round Frieda, kissing her on the crown of her head. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘What for?’

‘I don’t know. It’s my birthday and I wanted to say thank you.’

Tessa saw the two women exchange an elusive smile and felt a shiver of – what was it? Was it envy of their intimacy? Sasha drifted away, pulled into another group of people. Frieda turned as a young man in an orange shirt that clashed with his hair claimed her attention. He seemed a bit stoned and his hair stood up in peaks. He waved his hands around and leaned towards her with burning eyes, but she stood quite still as she listened. There was a quality of deep reserve about her, thought Tessa. She was in the room and yet somehow standing back from it. She gave you her full attention and yet at the same time you felt she had a core of isolation, of separateness. It made her a kind of magnet.

The party continued. A small, scruffy band arrived and set up in a corner. The rain stopped and a half-moon sailed between the clouds that were breaking up. In the little garden at the back of the house, smokers gathered in small clusters. At one point, Tessa saw Harry standing there with Frieda, talking to her. He was much taller than she was, and was gazing down at her with an expression that Tessa – who knew her brother very well – found hard to read.

‘You watch your brother?’

She turned to face a large man with big brown eyes and a scar on his cheek. He smelt of tobacco and something else that she found hard to place, wood or resin. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Some vodka.’ He held up the bottle in his hand. His lips and eyes gleamed. ‘And then we will dance.’

‘I’m not a great one for dancing.’

‘That’s why the vodka first.’

‘You are Frieda’s friend.’

‘Of course.’ He reached for a small tumbler, poured a couple of fat fingers of vodka and gave it to her. She sipped it warily while he gazed at her.

And he pulled her into the centre of the room. The band was playing some plaintive kind of music, not suitable for dancing at all, but he didn’t seem to mind. He danced entirely without self-consciousness. Even with her chest stinging from the vodka, Tessa felt awkward. The music speeded up and so did the man. He was like an acrobat, agile on a tiny spot of carpet. Music seemed to ripple through him and people were cheering him on. Soon Tessa stopped and watched him too.

‘Who is he?’ Harry was beside her.

‘A friend of Frieda’s.’

‘For a recluse, she seems to know a lot of people.’

A young girl had joined the man now, her bright yellow plaits swinging wildly.

‘Where’s she got to?’

‘She was talking to Sasha and a man wearing high-heeled boots and a tiara so I came to see how you were doing. She’ll be back.’

‘Everything all right?’

‘Very all right.’

‘Harry,’ she said, with a note of warning.

‘I’m just having some fun.’

Frieda tried to escape from the party without anyone noticing her, as she always did. She hated the ritual of farewells, hovering at the door. After she had collected her coat, Josef accosted her clumsily on the stairs.

‘Frieda,’ he began, then stopped. ‘I forget … no, yes, I finish with Mary Orton and she give me something …’

‘I’m going to have a talk with you,’ said Frieda, ‘when you’re sober. What if you’d been arrested for punching that photographer?’

‘But I think it might be important.’

‘What if he’d had a journalist with him? Then Karlsson wouldn’t have been able to pull strings and you’d have been back in Ukraine.’

Josef looked crestfallen. ‘Frieda …’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to rush.’

It was only half past nine. She took the Underground from Clapham North all the way to Archway. She walked up Highgate Hill, past the stone cat, safe behind its grille. She was glad she had only drunk water. She wanted a clear head. As she reached Waterlow Park she stood and looked through the locked gates. The clouds had gone and the moon was bright on the grass, which glistened slightly, still wet from the earlier rain. Suddenly she looked round. Had she heard something? A step? A cough? Or did she feel someone looking at her? There was a group of teenagers on the other side of the road. A couple, arm in arm, walked past her.