Nicci French - Blue Monday

‘I’ll wait for him, I think. See him home.’

‘Thank you. Come back after.’

‘I don’t work for you, you know.’

‘Would you please come back after?’ But he spoilt it by adding, ‘Is that better for you?’

‘Not much. But I’ll come back because I would like to help.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Karlsson said bitterly. ‘Well, if nothing else works, you can hear about their dreams.’

When Frieda offered to take Alan home, he didn’t reply. He just stared at her.

‘Alan? Have you called Carrie?’

‘No.’

‘You can call her on the way.’

‘I’m not going until I’ve seen him.’

‘You mean Dean.’

‘My brother. My twin. My other self. I have to see him.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘I won’t go until I’ve seen him.’

‘The police are interviewing him at the moment.’

‘I spent the first forty years of my life not knowing anything about my family, not even having a name, and now I find out that I’ve got a mother who’s still alive, and a twin brother and he’s a few feet from me. How do you think that feels? You’re supposed to be good at knowing things like that. Tell me!’

Frieda sat down and leaned towards him. ‘What do you want from it?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t just go away, knowing I’ve been so close.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Frieda said. ‘It’s not possible. Not now.’

‘All right.’ Alan stood up and started pushing his arms into his duffel coat. ‘Then we’ll go to her.’

‘Her?’

‘My mother. The one who kept my brother but dumped me.’

‘Is that why you want to see him? To find out why she chose him over you?’

‘There must have been something, mustn’t there?’

‘You were just two babies. And she won’t remember you.’

‘I’ve got to see her.’

‘It’s late.’

‘I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night. Do you want to tell me where she is or do I have to find out for myself? Somehow. Maybe your detective friend would tell me.’

Frieda smiled and stood up too. ‘I’ll tell you,’ she said. ‘If this is how you want it. But ring Carrie and tell her when you’ll be home, tell her you’re OK. The taxi’s on me.’

‘Are you coming?’

‘If you want me to.’

Karlsson sat in front of Dean Reeve. Every question he asked came back short and fast – a ball thrown at a dead bat, over and over again, with the same sickening little smile on his face. He was watching Karlsson. He knew that Karlsson was angry and he knew that he was feeling increasingly helpless.

He was the same with Yvette Long – except with her his eyes would slide from her face to her body, and to her rage she found herself blushing.

‘He’s playing with us!’ she fumed to her boss.

‘Don’t let him get to you. If you do that, you’re letting him win.’

‘He’s already won.’

‘Are you sure you’re ready for this?’ Frieda asked.

Alan stood beside her. He looked frightened and there were already tears in his eyes. ‘Will you come in with me?’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘Yes. Please. I can’t -’ He gulped.

‘OK, then.’

Frieda took him by the hand, as if he were a small child. She led him down the corridor towards the little room where his mother sat. His feet dragged and his fingers were cold in hers. She smiled reassuringly at him, then knocked at the door and opened it. Alan walked in. She could hear his laboured breathing. For a moment he stood quite still, staring at the old woman sitting stooped in her chair. Then he stumbled across to her and sank to his knees beside her.

‘Mother? Mum?’

Frieda had to turn away from the expression of horror and abject supplication on his face.

‘Have you been a naughty boy again?’

‘It’s not him. It’s me. The other one.’

‘You were always naughty.’

‘You gave me away.’

‘I never . I never gave you away. Cut my tongue out before I give you away. Who’s been saying that to you?’

‘You left me. Why did you leave me?’

‘Our little secret, eh?’

Frieda, sitting on the bed, watched Mrs Reeve intently. Surely she was talking about what she and her son had done, all those years ago.

‘Why me?’

‘You’re a naughty boy. What’s to be done with you, eh?’

‘I’m Alan. I’m not Dean. I’m your other son. Your lost son.’

‘Have you got a doughnut for me?’

‘You have to tell me why you did it. I have to know. Then I’ll leave you in peace.’

‘I like my doughnuts.’

‘You wrapped me in a thin towel and left me out in the street. I could have died. Didn’t you care?’

‘I want to go home now.’

‘What was wrong with me?’

Mrs Reeve patted his head gently. ‘Naughty naughty, Dean. Never mind.’

‘What kind of mother are you?’

‘I’m your mother, dearie.’

‘He’s in trouble, you know, your precious Dean. He’s done something very bad. Wicked.’

‘I don’t know anything.’

‘He’s with the police.’

‘I don’t know anything.’

‘Look at me – at me . I’m not him.’

‘I don’t know anything.’ She started to rock back and forward on her chair, her eyes fixed on Frieda, crooning the words as if they were a lullaby. ‘I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything.’

‘Mum,’ said Alan. He took her hand cautiously, screwing up his face, and tried out the word: ‘Mummy?’

‘Naughty. Very naughty.’

‘You never even cared, did you? You never gave me a thought. What kind of person are you?’

Frieda stood and took Alan’s arm. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘This is enough. You need to go home, where you belong.’

‘Yes,’ he said. She saw his face was streaked with tears. ‘You’re right. She’s just a nasty old woman. She’s not my mother. I don’t even hate her. She’s nothing to me, nothing at all.’

They sat in the cab in silence. Alan gazed at his hands and Frieda gazed out at the night. Snow was falling once again, this time settling on the pavements and the roofs and the branches of the plane trees. It would be a white Christmas, she thought, the first in many years. She remembered as a child tobogganing down the hill near her grandmother’s house with her brother. Stinging cheeks and snowflakes in her eyelashes and her open, shouting mouth, the world a white and rushing blur. How long since she had been tobogganing, or built a snowman or hurled a snowball? How long, for that matter, since she had seen her brother or sister? Her parents? Her whole childhood world had disappeared, and in its place she had constructed a world of adult responsibilities, of other people’s pain and need, of order and compartments, well-guarded boundaries.

‘It’s here, on the left,’ Alan was saying to the driver, who brought his cab to a stop. He got out. He didn’t close the door but Frieda didn’t follow.

‘Won’t you come in?’ he said. ‘I don’t know how to say this to her.’

‘To Carrie?’

‘I want you to help her understand.’

‘But, Alan…’

‘You don’t understand what it feels like, what I’ve found out today, what’s been happening to me. It won’t come out right. She’s going to be shocked.’

‘Why do you think that me being there will help?’

‘You’ll make it – I don’t know – professional or something. You can tell her what you told me and it’ll feel more, you know, safe or something.’

‘Are you coming or going?’ the driver asked.

Frieda hesitated. She looked at Alan’s anxious face, the flakes falling through the lamplight on the street and settling in his grey hair; she thought of Karlsson waiting at the station, snarling with frustration. ‘You don’t need me. You need her. Tell her what you know and tell her what you feel. Give her the chance to understand. Then come and see me tomorrow, at eleven o’clock. We’ll talk about it then.’ She turned to the cab driver. ‘Could you take me back to the station, please?’