‘It doesn’t feel like that to her,’ said Frieda. ‘She’d found a kind of safety. I was the one who pushed her out into the big bad world.’
‘She says you wanted to be famous,’ said Reuben.
‘Anything else?’ said Frieda. More uneasy looks. ‘Just tell me. If you don’t tell me, I’ll hear it from people who aren’t my friends.’
When Jack spoke, his mouth sounded dry. ‘They mention the victim, Kathy Ripon. They give the impression, you know …’ He couldn’t say any more.
‘It’s completely unfair,’ said Reuben. ‘Everyone knows that. I mean everyone involved. Everyone who matters.’
Frieda thought of Kathy Ripon’s family, of everyone at the funeral. She swallowed hard. ‘I haven’t been murdered,’ she said. ‘It’s just my reputation.’ She pointed a finger at Reuben. ‘Don’t go quoting Shakespeare,’ she said sharply.
He looked startled. ‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘I’ll have a croissant,’ she said, although she didn’t think she could swallow a mouthful of it.
Josef ripped the photograph of Frieda out of the paper and showed it to her. It was an old picture that had been taken for an appearance at a conference a couple of years earlier. They must have got it online somewhere. She saw one word of the caption: ‘reckless’. She spread jam on the croissant and cut it up but she didn’t eat any. She heard a buzz of voices around her and heard herself responding from time to time and trying to manage a smile. She looked at the little group and thought of them contacting each other early on a Sunday morning and agreeing to come over, and she was touched by that. But when they started to leave, she felt relieved. Then she thought of something. She touched Jack’s sleeve. ‘Could you hang on?’ she said. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’
‘What? Is something wrong?’
He looked apprehensive and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in a peak. Frieda tried not to smile – he was in his twenties, qualified as a doctor and training as a therapist, yet here he was, in his horrible orange quilted jacket and his muddy trainers, looking just like a small boy who’d been caught out in a misdemeanour.
‘No. I’ve a proposal for you.’ Jack’s expression changed from anxious to eager. He bobbed from foot to foot until she pointed to a chair. ‘Do you want more coffee?’
‘I’m OK. What is it?’
‘I’d like you to see Carrie Dekker.’
‘Carrie Dekker? Alan’s wife? Why? What’s happened now?’
‘As her therapist.’
‘Her therapist?’
‘You keep repeating what I’ve just said.’
‘Me?’
‘Jack, you’re a therapist. You have patients. That is your job. I’m asking if you would consider seeing Carrie. She needs help and I think you could be good for her.’
‘You’re not just saying this to be nice?’
Frieda frowned at him. ‘Do you really think I’d recommend you to a woman in distress just to cheer you up? Anyway, she might decide you’re not right for her.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And you might decide, after the initial consultation, that it wouldn’t work.’
‘Right.’
‘She’s in a state of shock. When she thought Alan had left her, that was catastrophic enough, but now after what Dean did to her …’
‘That’s too much for me,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t know how to deal with it.’
‘Yes, you do. And you can always talk to me about it. I’ll see what she has to say.’
Jack stood up, zipping his jacket, pulling a yellow and purple beanie over his disordered hair. ‘By the way,’ he said suddenly. ‘Saul Klein.’
Frieda stood quite still. She felt as though someone had hit her hard in the stomach. ‘What?’ Her voice sounded calm enough.
‘Dr Saul Klein. The Saul Klein. The one the hospital wing is named after. He’s your grandfather.’
‘And?’
‘But that’s just fantastic. He’s a legend, a pioneer. Why didn’t you say?’
‘Why would I?’
‘Did you know him?’
‘No.’
‘It must be special, though.’
‘Must it?’ Frieda felt very cold, as if she was standing in an icy shadow.
‘So it runs in your family?’
Jack was clearly uneasy now. This wasn’t going the way he had expected.
‘What does?’ she asked sharply, and he looked disconcerted.
‘Being a doctor.’
‘My father wasn’t a doctor.’
‘What was he?’
‘You’ll be late, Jack.’
‘What for? I’m not expected anywhere.’
‘Then I’ll be late.’
‘Oh. Right. I’ll be on my way, then.’ He hovered at the open door, his scarf flapping and his face turning blotchy in the raw air.
‘Goodbye.’
After he had gone, Frieda returned to her chair by the fire and sat for several minutes, staring blindly into its leaping flames. Then she picked up the newspaper and word by word, page by page, read the story. Then she crumpled it into small balls and fed it into the fire.
‘How often do you see your sister?’ Frieda asked.
She had met Rose Teale first a year and a bit ago, when Rose still didn’t know if she even had a sister any more. Then, she had been an anxious and guilty young woman, still haunted by the little girl she had lost sight of on the way home from school and never seen again. She had felt responsible, not just for the tiny Joanna, disappearing into thin air, but also for her parents and their agony. Her mother had remarried and had two more children, but her father had started drinking, sitting in his poky, grimy flat, surrounded by pictures of his lost daughter, addled with whisky and sorrow.
She had seen her a few times since her sister had been returned, and if anything Rose Teale was more tormented now than she had been before. Joanna, who had been a tiny, knock-kneed, vulnerable, gap-toothed child when she was taken, had come back unrecognizable. Their reunion had been a failure, and Joanna had a robust, jeering contempt for Rose, for her parents, for the world they represented.
‘Not very often,’ said Rose. ‘She’s not keen to see me. I can understand that,’ she added hastily, ‘given everything she’s been through.’
‘Do you want to see her?’
Rose looked at her, biting her lower lip. ‘Honestly? Not really. I dread it. But I feel I should.’
‘Because she’s your sister?’
‘Because she’s my sister. Because of everything she’s gone through. Because …’ She stopped.
‘You still think it was your fault?’
‘Yes, although I know everything you’re going to say.’
‘Then I won’t say it. Have you read her book?’
Rose shook her head. ‘I will, some time,’ she said. ‘I feel I should know what she has to say.’
‘Do you have a copy?’
‘They sent me an early copy. There was a note with it saying she wanted me to see it.’
‘Can I have a look?’
Rose appeared nervous. ‘I know from the paper that she’s not very nice about you. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Frieda. ‘That’s not why I want to see it.’
The cover of An Innocent in Hell showed a silhouette of a tiny girl with her arms raised in appeal. In the background, there was a lurid red pattern, suspiciously like flames. Frieda opened it. Under the dedication (‘To all of you who have suffered, without hope of rescue’) was a scrawled message: ‘To my sister Rose: with forgiveness and understanding, from your little sister Jo-Jo.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Frieda.
‘It’s all right,’ said Rose. ‘She means well.’
‘You think so?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can I borrow it?’