Nicci French - Tuesday's Gone

‘Michelle,’ said the quiet voice in the darkness. ‘Michelle Doyce.’

There were two shapes in the black night. Two dark shapes, dark against the darkness, moving around her bed.

‘Michelle,’ said another voice, right by her ear. A hiss, a whisper, but lighter. That had been a man. This was a woman.

‘Is it her?’

Michelle Doyce didn’t know if her eyes were open or closed but she saw a tiny light, a firefly, floating in the dark, at the foot of the bed. It showed up the ghost of a face, a man’s face. She felt something out there in the darkness, pain or anger or fear.

‘Yes, it is,’ said a voice. The woman’s again.

Michelle Doyce opened her mouth. She wanted to say something but it came out as a groan and then the groan stopped. Something was stopping it. The blackness had become blacker. She wasn’t making a sound. She couldn’t make a sound. There was a weight on her, heavy and black, and she felt she was sinking down under it, down into a dream that was itself becoming dark so that she was sinking out of the dream and fading and sinking.

Everything changed. There were lights, lights so harsh that they were like jangling sounds so that she couldn’t see anything and couldn’t hear anything. There were lights and there was shouting and she could cry out and breathe. She had been deep, deep under water, and now she been pulled out and was lying on the shore. Michelle Doyce breathed and breathed. She couldn’t. It was like she couldn’t pull the air inside her. Her breathing didn’t work. She couldn’t get the air in. She started to panic and flap and cry and shout. She flapped like a fish on the land, drowning in the air.

Then she felt a hand, cool on the side of her face, and a voice speaking to her out of the blinding light. She felt a breath on her face, a sweet and cool breath.

‘Michelle,’ said the voice, soft and close. ‘Michelle. It’s all right. It’s all right. You’re all right.’

The voice spoke like it was telling her a story, soothing her to sleep. She felt the cool breath on her face. She felt she could breathe again, as if she was breathing in that cool breath, as if it was going straight inside her.

‘Michelle, Michelle,’ said the voice.

Michelle Doyce opened her eyes. The light dazzled her so much that she could see nothing except blue and yellow dots popping her eyes. Slowly a face took shape. She heard the words and felt the voice’s fingers, cool and slow on the side of her face. She knew the face. The woman with the dark eyes and clear voice.

‘You,’ said Michelle Doyce.

‘Yes,’ said the woman, close, so she could feel her clean breath. ‘It’s me.’

Karlsson took Frieda by the crook of her arm, in an unfamiliarly protective gesture.

‘They’ve had their rights read to them and they both have legal representation with them now. As you can imagine Tessa Welles is aware of her legal situation.’

‘Have you been in with them already?’

‘I was waiting for you.’

‘I came as soon as I could. I didn’t want to leave Michelle alone.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘For a woman in Hell, she’s all right. I called Jack. She knows and likes him. He’s not threatening. She finds the colour of his hair soothing. I said I’d go back later. And I’m going to call Andrew Berryman, a doctor who knows about Michelle. We’ve got to help her. She’s a suffering human being, not a medical curiosity. We can’t just leave her here in wretchedness and confusion and fear. We owe her that much at least.’

Karlsson looked at her with concern. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I used her as bait,’ said Frieda. ‘That seems to be what I do with people I’m supposed to be caring for. She was like a worm with a hook pushed through her and I did it to her.’

‘You got the fish, didn’t you?’

‘First, do no harm,’ said Frieda.

‘What?’

‘It’s the oath that doctors are meant to swear.’

Tessa was sitting in the interview room, her hands folded on the table in front of her, looking composed, although Frieda noticed that there were shadows under her eyes and every so often she licked her lips. The man who sat beside her was in his late fifties; he had a thin, clever face; his eyes were bright and watchful.

Yvette and Karlsson sat opposite Tessa; Frieda took a seat to one side. Tessa swung her head round and stared at her; there was a very faint smile on her lips, as if she knew something that Frieda didn’t.

‘Miss Welles,’ said Karlsson, courteously. ‘You understand your rights and that everything you say is being recorded.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve been arrested on suspicion of the attempted murder of Michelle Doyce last night. We shall also be questioning you in respect of the murders of Robert Poole and Janet Ferris. Is that clear?’

‘Yes,’ said Tessa, in a detached tone.

‘Your brother is next door. We’ll be talking to him as well. We just wanted to hear your side of the story first.’

Tessa looked at him and said nothing.

‘All right. Perhaps you should hear our version of your story.’ Karlsson picked up a folder and leafed through it, allowing the silence to settle around them. The muscle in Tessa’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t move.

‘Robert Poole,’ said Karlsson, at last. ‘You met him in November of 2009, when he came to your office with Mary Orton, who wanted you to make a new will in his favour. You chose not to proceed. You mistrusted his motives.’

Tessa stared straight ahead, not meeting Karlsson’s gaze.

‘You were quick to recognize that,’ said Frieda. ‘It was impressive.’

‘But then you saw him again,’ continued Karlsson. ‘What happened?’

‘I’ve nothing to say,’ said Tessa.

‘It won’t matter.’ Karlsson turned to Frieda. ‘What do you think happened?’

‘We’re not here to listen to speculation,’ said the solicitor. ‘If you have questions to put to Miss Welles, then go ahead.’

‘I’m inviting Dr Klein to put a scenario to your client. That’s a kind of question. She can then confirm or deny it.’ He looked at Frieda, who had been thinking hard.

She pulled a chair over from the wall and sat beside Karlsson, facing Tessa. Now Tessa stared at Frieda. For a moment she thought of the children’s game where you had to stare at each other and try not to laugh.

‘I never met Robert Poole,’ Frieda said. ‘I’ve never even seen a photograph of him. At least, not when he was alive. But I’ve met so many people he got involved with that I almost feel I knew him. When you refused to execute the will, most people would have felt humiliated or exposed but he would have been intrigued by you. He was used to having power over people, but you’d escaped him. You were a challenge. So he got back in touch. What did he say? Perhaps he wanted to explain the situation to you, show you it wasn’t the way you thought.

‘You were intrigued as well, and a bit amused. There was something charming about the way he just wouldn’t give up. So you began an affair with him out of a certain curiosity, just to see how he worked.’

A contemptuous smile formed on Tessa’s face. ‘That pornographic fantasy says more about you than it does about me,’ she said.

‘And then he fell for you. He saw you as a kindred spirit. You encouraged him, and he told you about Mary Orton, Jasmine Shreeve, Aisling and Frank Wyatt.’

‘And Janet Ferris,’ said Yvette harshly.

‘Leave that for a moment,’ said Frieda. When she resumed, it was almost as if she were talking to herself, puzzling something out. ‘There was something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Jasmine Shreeve, Mary Orton, the Wyatts, his victims. They were obviously hiding things, in their different ways, and they felt guilty and ashamed and upset. They contradicted themselves. That’s what people do. They’re not coherent. Things don’t add up. But you weren’t like that. Your relationship with Poole was completely uncomplicated. You were the only person he never got to. It was just about the money.’