‘Handsome?’
‘Not obviously. But he grew on you.’
She looked away and Frieda studied her: a clever, kind and lonely woman who’d been a bit in love with Robert Poole. And Robert Poole had drawn her out, cheered her up, listened to her, made her feel – what was her expression? – attended to.
‘Do you know where he was before he lived here?’
‘I’ve no idea. You’ve made me realize how little I knew about him. I was selfish.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Do you know what?’ She stopped, flushing again.
‘What?’
‘You remind me of him. The way I can say things to you.’
‘Is that what he was like?’
‘Yes. And now he’s gone.’
Once Janet Ferris had left for work, Frieda had twenty minutes or so before she needed to leave herself, to be in time for her first patient of the week. And so she went upstairs to Robert Poole’s first-floor flat. The tape had been removed from the door and there was no sign that any police officers had been there at all. But Yvette Long had told her, very sternly and as if Frieda had already disobeyed her, not to touch or disturb anything so she simply walked very slowly and quietly from room to room. In the small hall, one coat and one thick jacket hung from a hook and there was a furled black umbrella in the corner. In the living room, there was a green corduroy sofa and matching armchair, a low coffee-table, a beige rug, a medium-sized television, a small chest of drawers, in which, Frieda knew from reading the report, the notebook had been found, and an empty newspaper rack. There were no photographs, no knick-knacks or mess. There were a few pictures on the walls. They looked to Frieda like pictures the landlord had bought as a job lot – a photo of the Eiffel Tower at night, a bland and murky Madonna and Child, a pink sun rising or setting over the sea, and Monet’s poppy fields. Only one painting, of two bright and almost abstract orange fish, looked as though it might have been Robert Poole’s individual choice, not just a tired cliché occupying a bit of wall space. The books on the set of shelves, which were ranged in order of size, not subject, were a bit more revealing: three large illustrated volumes on town gardens, a thick paperback that looked like a builder’s manual, North and South by Mrs Gaskell, Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, several books about getting fit, a guide to forensic medicine. Frieda stood for several minutes in front of them, frowning.
Then she moved to the kitchen. There was a teapot and a cafetière on the work surface; four identical brown mugs hanging from hooks; six matching tumblers and six matching glasses on the shelf; six white plates, six white bowls, oven gloves and a tea towel by the side of the hob. She took the tea-towel and used it to open the store-cupboard. One bag of flour, one of sugar, a packet of muesli and another of cornflakes, a box of mince pies, a jar of instant coffee, English breakfast tea, quick-boil rice. There was nothing in the fridge. It must have been cleared out once the police had finished their search and taken away anything they considered evidence.
In the bedroom, there was a small double bed, neatly made up with a blue duvet and pillowcase, and a single chair near the window. There were cloth slippers under the chair, a striped dressing-gown hanging from the door, an open ironing board with the iron, its cord coiled around it, on top. A lamp stood on the bedside table, plus a packet of paracetamol and a book with a garish cover that turned out to be short stories about the Wild West. When Frieda, using her sleeve to cover her hand, pulled open the wardrobe, the long mirror inside it swung past her and she was momentarily startled by her own reflection. There were rows of ironed shirts, plain and patterned, tailored and loose, several pairs of trousers, two jackets, one in sober tweed, the other a macho leather one with studs. On the wardrobe floor were sturdy leather boots, trainers, brogues. Frieda pursed her lips, then lifted the piles of T-shirts and jerseys that were stacked on the wardrobe’s interior shelves.
‘Who are you?’ she said out loud, shutting the door and going into the bathroom, which was as clean and bare as if it were in a moteclass="underline" a bath, a washbasin, a toilet, a grey towel, a small round mirror, shaving foam, a razor blade, dental floss, a flannel, nail clippers …
Frieda returned to the living room and sat in the armchair. She thought about her own little house on the cobblestoned mews. She was a private person: there were no photographs on display, letters left out or postcards pinned to a notice board, yet every room was filled with objects that bore witness to her life. The chess table at which she used to sit with her father, long ago in a different world. The cobalt blue bowl from Venice. The painting above the mantelpiece of a tree in spring. Her grandmother’s old silk dressing-gown, which Frieda never wore but hung in her wardrobe, its faded greens and reds shimmering. The mugs in her kitchen, each one different and picked up on her wanderings round London. The mobile of paper cranes Chloë had made for her. The piece of driftwood, the old maps of London, the battered pans, the necklace Sandy had given her when they were still together in the glory days it still hurt her to remember, the books of photographs … And then, of course, in her little study in the garret, all the drawings she had done, in soft pencil on thick paper, doodles and more finished pieces that were like a hidden diary of her days. But here, in Robert Poole’s flat, there was almost nothing. It wasn’t just that there were no clues: apart from the few books, it was a blank, a void, a space that was expressionless and lifeless. Perhaps it was because the man who used to live here was dead so the flat, too, had lost its animating spirit – but Frieda didn’t think so. She felt depressed and disturbed just sitting in the room.
Who was Robert Poole? Rob, Robbie, Bob, Bertie: everyone called him by a different name. His clothes were in different styles – a leather jacket, a tweed one; brogues and boots; a gentleman’s fitted shirts and casual sweatshirts. Whenever anyone talked of him, they were talking of themselves – the selves he had recognized in them and drawn out of them. He was a listener, an attender, a Good Samaritan. He had taken old Mary Orton’s money but he had listened to her stories; to Janet Ferris he had shown neighbourly kindness, to Jasmine Shreeve respectful attention. People liked him yet he seemed to have no friends; people described him as charming and handsome, yet he seemed to have no relationships. And after he had been murdered and left in a grotty alley, he had been collected by Michelle Doyce and sat in her bedsit in Deptford for days, a naked disintegrating corpse, and no one had noticed he was missing.
Frieda looked at her watch. It was time to go. In forty-five minutes’ time she would be sitting in her red chair, listening to Joe Franklin, watching him intently, attending to him, drawing him out. She felt a small shiver go through her. It was as if the people on Robert Poole’s lists had been his patients, needing his help.
She had lights behind her eyes and a claw in her stomach, sharp and dragging weals of pain through her. Her head was thundering. It wasn’t exactly pain: it was more like a painful sound, a boom of dread that rose and fell, came nearer and then receded but only to gather strength again. She needed to think clearly, but how could she do that when her skull was thick with this loud, savage gale? She used to take pills when she felt like this. One large orange capsule with a tumbler of water to wash it down. Her mother had put it in front of her in the morning and stood there until she was sure she had swallowed it. But she didn’t have pills any more; it had been a long time, she couldn’t remember how long. All of that was in the fog of the past she had left behind her. He had shown her that drugs were just another way of keeping her tame and docile, muffling her anger, which was righteous and alive. ‘You need purpose, not pills.’ And he had laid a hand on her forehead, like a kind doctor or a father soothing his sick child. ‘And you have me now,’ he had said. ‘Always remember that.’