A nurse said that the child psychiatrist was on her way but she’d phoned to say she was stuck in traffic. Frieda heard DC Munster trying to explain that they’d got their son back but other parents were still missing their daughter and Mr Faraday said something angry in response and Mrs Faraday was crying harder than ever.
Frieda pressed her fingers to her temples. She tried to shut out the noise so she could think. Matthew had been snatched from his parents, hidden away, punished, starved, told that his mother was no longer his mother and his father no longer his father, told that he wasn’t himself but someone else – a boy called Simon – and then shut away, left to die, naked and alone. Now he lay blinking in an over-lit room, with strange faces looming at him out of his waking nightmare, shouting words he didn’t understand. He was a little boy, hardly more than a toddler still. But he had survived. When nobody could save him he had saved himself. What stories had he told himself as he lay in the dark?
She moved to the other side of the bed, across from Mrs Faraday.
‘May I?’ Frieda said.
Mrs Faraday looked at her numbly but she didn’t resist. Frieda moved her face close to Matthew’s, so she could talk in a whisper. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You’re home. You’ve been rescued.’ She saw a slight flicker of his eyes. ‘You’re safe. You’ve escaped from the witch’s house.’
He made a sound but she couldn’t decipher it.
‘Who was there with you?’ she said. ‘Who was with you in the witch’s house?’
Matthew’s eyes suddenly clicked open, like a doll’s.
‘Busybody,’ he said. ‘Poky-nose.’
Frieda felt as if Dean was in the room, as if Matthew was a ventriloquist’s dummy and he was speaking.
‘Where is she?’ she asked. ‘Where did they put her? The busybody?’
‘Took away,’ he said, in his husk of a voice. ‘In the dark.’
Then he started sobbing, twisting his body back and forward. Mrs Faraday gathered up her son and held him, twitching and retching, against her breast.
‘That’s all right,’ said Frieda.
‘What’s that mean?’ asked Munster.
‘It doesn’t sound good. Not at all.’
Frieda walked out through the waiting room into a corridor. She looked around. An orderly was pushing an old woman in a wheelchair. ‘Is there anywhere I can get some water?’ Frieda asked.
‘There’s a McDonald’s down by the main entrance,’ the orderly said.
She had only just started walking down the long corridor when there was a shout from behind her. It was Munster. He ran towards her. ‘I just got a call,’ he said. ‘The boss wants to see you.’
‘What for?’
‘They found the woman.’
‘Kathy?’ Relief tore through her, making her feel dizzy.
‘No. The wife,’ said Munster. ‘Terry Reeve. There’s a car for you downstairs.’
Chapter Forty-three
Yvette Long looked at Karlsson and frowned.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Your tie,’ she said. ‘It’s not straight.’ She leaned forward and adjusted it.
‘You need to look your best for the cameras,’ she said. ‘You’re a hero. And Commissioner Crawford’s going to be there. His assistant just phoned. He’s very pleased with you. The press conference is going to be a big one. They’ve got an overflow hall.’
His mobile vibrated on the table. His ex-wife had left several messages asking him when the hell he was going to collect his children, each one angrier than the one before.
‘We’ve got the little boy back,’ said Karlsson. ‘That’s all they really care about. Where’s Terry Reeve?’
‘She’s just arrived. They’ve put her downstairs.’
‘Has she said anything about Kathy Ripon?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I want two officers with her every second.’
He picked up his phone and wrote a text message:
Sorry. Call soon
pressed ‘Send’. Perhaps she would hear the news and understand, but he knew it didn’t work like that: there were other people’s children, and then there were your own. An officer put her head round the door and said that Dr Klein had arrived. Karlsson told the officer to send her straight in. When Frieda came in, he was startled by the fierce gleam in her eyes and recognized in it his own elated weariness, which made the idea of sleep impossible.
‘How is he?’ he said.
‘He’s alive,’ said Frieda. ‘He’s with his parents.’
‘I mean, will he recover?’
‘How do I know?’ said Frieda. ‘Young children are surprisingly resilient. That’s what the textbooks say.’
‘And you did it. You found him.’
‘I found one, and I gave one away,’ said Frieda. ‘Forgive me if I don’t dance with joy. You’ve got Terry Reeve.’
‘She’s downstairs.’
‘I passed the mob on the way in,’ said Frieda. ‘I half expected them to be carrying pitchforks and flaming torches.’
‘It’s understandable,’ said Karlsson.
‘They should be back looking after their own children,’ said Frieda. ‘Where did you find her?’
‘At her home.’
‘Her home?’ said Frieda.
‘We were watching it, of course,’ said Karlsson. ‘And she came home and we arrested her. Simple as that, no brilliant detective work involved.’ He gave a grimace.
‘Why would she go home?’ Frieda was asking herself rather than Karlsson. ‘I thought they’d have a plan.’
‘They did have a plan,’ said Karlsson. ‘You stymied it when you saw her at the cemetery. She called him. We know that. We’ve got her phone. She phoned him. He got away.’
‘So why didn’t she?’ said Frieda. ‘And why did she go to the cemetery?’
‘You can ask her yourself,’ said Karlsson. ‘I want you to come in with me.’
‘I feel I ought to know already,’ said Frieda. ‘What is it that lawyers say? You should never ask a question if you don’t already know the answer.’
‘We need to ask a question that we don’t know the answer to,’ said Karlsson. ‘Where’s Kathy Ripon?’
Frieda sat on the corner of Karlsson’s desk. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about that,’ she said.
‘You had a bad feeling about Matthew,’ said Karlsson.
‘This is different. They wanted a son. They saw him as a child. Even when they got rid of him, they didn’t kill him. They hid him away, like a child being left in the woods in a fairy story.’
‘They didn’t leave him in the woods. They buried him alive.’
‘Kathy Ripon is different. She wasn’t part of the plan. She was just an obstacle. But why did Terry go to the cemetery? And then why did she go home?’
‘Maybe she wanted to see if he was dead,’ said Karlsson. ‘Or finish him off. And maybe she wanted to collect something from home before escaping. She may have been checking ahead for her husband. To see if the coast was clear.’ Karlsson saw that Frieda’s hands were trembling. ‘Can I get you something?’
‘Just some water,’ said Frieda.
Karlsson sat and watched while Frieda drank a polystyrene cup of water and then they both drank cups of black coffee. They didn’t speak.
‘Are you ready?’ he said finally.
Terry Reeve was sitting in the interview room staring in front of her. Karlsson sat opposite her. Frieda stood behind him, leaning against the wall next to the door. It felt surprisingly cool against her back.
‘Where’s Katherine Ripon?’ said Karlsson.
‘I haven’t seen her,’ said Terry.
Karlsson slowly unstrapped his wristwatch and laid it on the table between them. ‘I want to make the situation clear to you,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you have some idea in your head that you’re going to face some little charge like reckless endangerment and get a nice little sentence, out in a couple of years for good behaviour. I’m afraid it’s not going to be like that. This is a soundproofed room, but if we took you out into the corridor, you’d be able to hear a crowd of people shouting and they’re shouting about you. There’s one thing we don’t like in Britain, and that’s people who harm children or animals. And there’s another thing, and Dr Klein here would probably consider it sexist, but they particularly hate women who do it. You will get a life sentence and if you think it’ll be all pottery classes and readers’ groups, then think again. Prison’s not like that for people who’ve done things to children.’