Nicci French - Tuesday's Gone

‘Yes, and then you took her belt and tied it around your leg. The doctors say that if you hadn’t done that you would have bled out in a couple of minutes.’

Frieda gestured to the drink of water. Karlsson brought it to her lips. It hurt to swallow it.

‘Sleep now,’ he said. ‘It’ll all be fine.’

‘All right,’ Frieda said. Speaking seemed the hardest thing in the world just now. ‘But one thing.’

He leaned close to her. ‘What?’

‘I didn’t do it.’

‘I’ve told you,’ Karlsson said. ‘You won’t be in trouble. It was pure self-defence.’

‘No,’ said Frieda. ‘I didn’t. I couldn’t have. Besides …’ Frieda made herself think of the moments before she had passed out. She tried to separate it from all that had followed, the oblivion, the nightmares, the fragments of waiting. ‘I heard something. But I know anyway. It was him.’

Karlsson looked puzzled and then alarmed.

‘What do you mean “him”?’

‘You know who I mean.’

‘Don’t say that,’ hissed Karlsson. ‘Don’t even think it.’

Sandy parked the car near the western gate of Waterlow Park. On the steep drive up Swains Lane, Frieda had felt as if they were taking off and leaving London behind them.

‘I think the park’s open this time,’ Sandy said, with a smile that was full of pain.

Frieda winced as she got out of the car. She still felt sore, especially when she’d been sitting down.

‘Are you up for this?’ said Sandy.

Frieda had hated the pain, the treatment, the medication, the continuing hospital visits, but even worse was the sympathy, the attention, the concern, the look that came into people’s eyes when they saw her, the way they worried about the right thing to say. She walked slowly and stiffly through the gate. A yellow dazzle of daffodils swaying in the wind.

‘It really looks like spring now,’ said Sandy. ‘For the first time.’

Frieda took his arm to support herself. ‘If you don’t talk about spring and how it represents revival and new life, I won’t say it’s the cruellest month.’

‘Isn’t April the cruellest month?’

‘March is pretty cruel as well.’

‘All right,’ said Sandy. ‘I’ll keep quiet about what a beautiful day this is and how the daffodils are out and how Waterlow Park has this wonderful position overlooking London. We could go next door to the cemetery, if that suits your mood more.’

‘You know me,’ said Frieda. ‘I like cemeteries. But this is good for today. I love this park. I don’t know how Sir Thomas Waterlow earned his money. He probably stole it from someone or inherited it undeservedly. But he gave this park to London and I’m grateful to him for it. And I’m grateful to you.’

‘Well, gratitude isn’t exactly –’

‘Sssh. I know what you’ve gone through, Sandy, and what you can’t say to me. You’re too much of a gentleman, aren’t you? You came back here and we met again and it was good. No, it was lovely. This should have been the time for us to think about our lives, make decisions, take pleasure in each other. Instead – well, you get to sit beside a hospital bed day after day, watching me sip thin chicken soup out of a straw or pee into a bowl.’

‘Thinking you might die.’

‘That, too.’

‘When I thought you were going to die –’

‘I know.’

They made their way towards the pond. The park was busy and families were scattered along the path. Children were feeding ducks and pigeons and squirrels with nuts and stale bread.

‘Look at that,’ said Sandy.

A small boy was throwing peanuts to a large rat that had emerged on to the grass from beneath a rhododendron bush.

‘If you’re going to feed pigeons,’ said Frieda. ‘You might as well feed rats too.’

‘Shall we walk up higher?’ said Sandy. ‘There’s a better view.’

‘In a minute,’ said Frieda.

‘I wanted to come here for symbolic reasons. I didn’t expect you to turn up at the wedding. I thought you’d cut me out of your life. I was very, very happy when I saw you.’

‘Yes,’ said Frieda. ‘Yes, I was happy too.’ It felt such a very long time ago.

A duck walked along, followed by a line of extremely small ducklings.

‘Normally, I would say that was very sweet,’ said Sandy. ‘But I won’t.’ He turned and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Frieda, I don’t know how to put this but I know it’s been appalling beyond words for you and if you ever want to talk …’

Frieda wrinkled her nose. ‘Do you want me to say that I’m traumatized?’

‘Anyone would be.’

‘I don’t know. We’ll see. Right now, what I mainly feel is sad about Mary Orton. When I close my eyes, I can clearly see her looking up at me. She was looking at me in the last moments of her life and I suppose she was thinking, But you said you were going to protect me. You said it would be all right. I can’t think what else I could have done. I told the police. I dialled the emergency services. I went to her house.’

‘You did all you could.’

‘She had two sons who abandoned her. She was cheated and she turned to me for help and then she was murdered. Anyway, her two sons have got her money now so at least someone’s happy.’

‘This isn’t you talking, Frieda. This isn’t what you’d say to one of your patients.’

‘If I said to my patients what I say to myself, most of them would go off and kill themselves.’

‘It isn’t what you say to Josef, when he blames himself for Mary Orton’s death.’

‘No.’ Her face softened. ‘I tell Josef he did what he could and I should have listened.’

‘So it’s one rule for everyone else and a different one for you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Anyone would be affected by what you’ve been through. But it’s not the being stabbed, the nearly dying, is it? When you talk about what happened to you, which isn’t often, it’s Mary Orton you dwell on, and Janet Ferris, even Beth Kersey, who would have killed you – indeed she almost did. And then there’s Alan Dekker and Kathy Ripon. All the people who are gone. And it occurs to me that you feel – how can I put this? – too much about it, or too personally.’ Sandy stopped and looked at Frieda’s fiercely glowing eyes. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘Wait,’ she said. She turned away from him, looking out over the park.

When she turned back her face was paler than ever, her eyes even brighter.

‘I have something to tell you.’

‘Go on.’

‘I have never said this to anyone.’ She took a deep breath. ‘When I was fifteen years old, my father killed himself.’ She held up a hand to stop Sandy saying anything, or coming closer. ‘He hanged himself in the attic of our house.’

‘I’m so sorry, Frieda.’

‘I found him. I cut him down but, of course, he was already dead. He had been very depressed but I thought I could rescue him. I thought I could make him better. I still have a dream where I get to him in time. Over and over again.’ Her large eyes stared at him. ‘I didn’t get to him in time, though,’ she said. ‘Or to Mary Orton. Or Janet Ferris. Or Kathy Ripon. Or poor Alan. People who trusted me and I let them down.’

‘No, my darling.’

‘I feel I carry a curse. You shouldn’t come too close to me.’

‘You can’t keep me away.’

‘Oh,’ said Frieda. For one moment, Sandy thought she would cry. She stepped forward and put one hand against his cheek, staring at him. ‘What are we going to do, Sandy?’

‘We’re going to give ourselves time.’

‘Are we?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’ll still go back to the States and I’ll still be here?’