‘I know how painful this is. We’re doing everything we can. In the meantime …’
‘They won’t know anything about him. He’s allergic to nuts. What if they give him nuts?’
DC Long tried to keep her face calm and put a hand on Andrea’s arm. ‘Try to think of anything that might help.’
‘He’s just a baby, really. He’ll be crying out for me and I can’t come to him. Do you understand what that feels like? I missed the bus and I was late.’
Jack had taken Frieda’s advice. Today he was wearing black trousers, a pale blue shirt, only the top button undone, and a grey woollen jacket whose pockets, Frieda saw, were still sewn up. His shoes were cheap-looking, shiny black brogues; they probably still had the price sticker on the soles. He had even brushed his hair away from his face and shaved, though he’d missed a patch under his jaw. He no longer looked like a dishevelled student but a trainee accountant, or maybe a new recruit to a religious cult. Jack referred to his notebook and talked about his cases. It was a desultory process. Frieda was finding it hard to concentrate. She looked at her watch. They were done. She nodded at Jack, and then she asked: ‘Imagine that a patient confesses to a crime. What do you do?’
Jack sat up a bit straighter. He looked suspicious. Was Frieda trying to catch him out in some way? ‘What sort of crime? Speeding? Shoplifting?’
‘Something really serious. Like murder.’
‘Nothing goes beyond the room,’ Jack said doubtfully. ‘Isn’t that what we promise?’
‘You’re not a priest in a confessional,’ said Frieda, with a laugh. ‘You’re a citizen. If someone confesses to a murder, you call the police.’
Jack’s face turned red. He’d failed the test.
‘But now then: what if you suspect a patient of committing a crime?’
Jack hesitated. He chewed the tip of his thumb.
‘I’m not looking for wrong or right answers.’
‘How do you suspect them?’ he said at last. ‘I mean, do you just have a gut feeling? You can’t just go to the police on a gut feeling, can you? Gut feelings are often completely wrong.’
‘I don’t know.’ Frieda was talking to herself rather than to him. ‘I don’t really know what that means.’
‘The thing is,’ said Jack, ‘if I let myself, I could suspect lots of people of being criminals. I saw a man yesterday who said things that were completely gross. I felt poisoned just listening to him. I kept thinking of what you said to me once about the difference between imagining and doing.’
Frieda nodded at him. ‘That’s right.’
‘And you’re always telling us that our job is not to deal with the mess in the outside world but the mess in the person’s head.’ He paused. ‘This is one of your patients, isn’t it?’
‘Not exactly. Or maybe.’
‘The easiest thing would be just to ask him.’
Frieda looked at him and smiled. ‘Is that what you’d do?’
‘Me? No. I’d come to you and do what you told me.’
Frieda walked to the Barbican after her patient left, so she didn’t get there until half past eight. It was raining, at first just a slight drizzle but by the time she arrived it had turned into a downpour, so that puddles formed on the pavement and cars driving past sent up shining arcs of water from their wheels.
‘Let me get you a towel,’ Sandy said, when he saw her. ‘And one of my shirts.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Why didn’t you take a cab?’
‘I needed to walk.’
He found her a soft white shirt, pulled off her shoes and tights and dried her feet, towelled her hair. She curled up on the sofa and he handed her a glass of wine. Inside the flat it was warm and bright; outside, the night was wild and wet, and the lights of London glimmered and dissolved.
‘This is nice,’ she said. ‘What can I smell?’
‘Garlic prawns with rice and a green salad. Is that all right?’
‘Better than all right. I’m not really a cook myself.’
‘I can live with that.’
‘That’s good to know.’
They ate sitting at the small table. Sandy lit a candle. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and jeans. He looked at her with an intensity that unnerved her. She was used to her students and her patients being curious about her but this was different.
‘Why don’t I know anything about your past?’
‘Is this the serious talk?’
‘Not exactly. But you withhold.’
‘Do I?’
‘I feel you know far more about me than I know about you.’
‘It takes time.’
‘I know it does. And we have time, don’t we?’
She held his gaze. ‘I think so, yes.’
‘This has taken me by surprise,’ he said.
‘That’s the way of love.’ The word slipped out before she could check herself; it must have been the wine.
Sandy put his hand over hers. He looked suddenly serious. ‘There is something I’ve got to say.’
‘You’re not going to tell me you’re married?’
He smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not that. I’ve been offered a new job.’
‘Oh.’ Relief flooded though her. ‘I thought you were about to say something terrible. But that’s good, isn’t it? What job?’
‘A full professorship.’
‘Sandy, that’s fantastic.’
‘At Cornell.’
Frieda put her knife and fork neatly together and pushed her plate away from her. She put her elbows on the table. ‘Which is in New York.’
‘Yes,’ said Sandy. ‘That one.’
‘So you’re moving to the States.’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘Oh.’ She suddenly felt cold, and very sober. ‘When did you say yes?’
‘A few weeks ago.’
‘So you’ve known all along.’
He turned his face away from her. He looked both embarrassed and irritated at being embarrassed. ‘When I got the job, I hadn’t even met you.’
Frieda picked up her glass and took a sip of wine. It tasted sour. It was as if the light had changed and everything looked different.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
‘Like a good woman should.’
‘You’ve got contacts. You can work there just as well as here. We could both begin again, together.’
‘I don’t want to begin again.’
‘I know I should have told you.’
‘I let my guard down,’ said Frieda. ‘I let you into my house, into my life. I told you things I haven’t told anyone else. You were planning this all the time.’
‘With you.’
‘You can’t make plans for me. You knew something about us that I didn’t know.’
‘I didn’t want to lose you.’
‘When are you going?’
‘New Year. In a few weeks. I’ve sold the flat. I’ve found somewhere in Ithaca.’
‘You have been busy.’ She heard her voice, cool, bitter and controlled. She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of it. Really she was feeling hot and weak with distress.
‘I didn’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘Please, my beloved Frieda, come with me. Join me.’
‘You’re asking me to give everything up here and start again in America?’
‘Yes.’
‘How about if I ask you to give up your professorship there and stay with me here?’
He got up and walked to the window, his back to her. He looked out for a few seconds, then turned round. ‘I wouldn’t,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’
‘So?’ said Frieda.
‘Marry me.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘I’m proposing to you, not insulting you.’
‘I should just go.’
‘You haven’t given me an answer.’
‘Are you serious?’ said Frieda. She felt as if the alcohol had hit her hard.
‘Yes.’
‘I have to think about it on my own.’
‘You mean, you might say yes?’
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow.’
Chapter Sixteen
When Tanner opened his front door he looked surprised. Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm Karlsson introduced himself.
‘My assistant talked to you,’ said Karlsson.
Tanner nodded and led him through into a dingy front room. It was cold. Tanner got on his knees and fiddled with an electric bar heater that had been placed in the hearth. As he fussed around making tea and serving it, Karlsson looked around the room and remembered going out with his grandparents when he was a child to see their friends, or vaguely distant relations. Even thirty years later the memory gave off a smell of dullness and duty.