‘This is a resumption of the interview,’ said Karlsson, sounding slightly self-conscious. ‘We’ve now been joined by Dr Frieda Klein. Mr Wyatt, I’d like to remind you that you’re still under caution.’
He nodded at Frieda, then stepped back behind her, out of her sight. Frieda hadn’t really thought about what she was going to say. She looked across at Wyatt. His eyes flickered. He was angry and defensive. Both his hands were resting on the table, but Frieda could see that they were trembling.
‘What did you think of Robert Poole?’ she said.
He gave a sort of laugh. ‘Is that the best you can come up with? What do you think?’
‘Do you want me to answer that?’ asked Frieda. ‘Do you want me to tell you what I think?’
The lawyer leaned across. ‘I’m sorry. Mr Wyatt is here as a courtesy. He has made it clear that he is eager to co-operate but, please, if you have relevant questions, then ask them.’
‘I’ve just asked a question,’ said Frieda. ‘And then Mr Wyatt asked me one. Now, he can answer mine or I can answer his.’
Joll looked at Karlsson as if appealing to his authority to a put a stop to all this. Frieda didn’t turn round.
‘What I’m meant to say,’ said Frieda, ‘is that you found out that Robert Poole had slept with your wife and that he’d stolen your money. He’d cheated you and made a fool of you. You had to get back at him.’
There was a pause.
‘Yes?’ said Joll. ‘Is there some question at the end of this?’
Frieda continued to gaze at Wyatt. He leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. ‘Is that what you wanted me to say?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘And I don’t care, really.’
‘What I want to know is why, when you started to see what was going on, you didn’t confront your wife. Why didn’t you talk to her instead of hiding your feelings away and brooding over them?’
Now Wyatt leaned forward, his head in his hands. He mumbled something.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Frieda. ‘I couldn’t make that out.’
He looked up at her. ‘I said, it was complicated.’
‘You found out, but you couldn’t talk to your wife about it. So what did you do?’
Wyatt looked uneasily around, over Frieda’s shoulder at Karlsson, at Joll. She felt he was avoiding her gaze.
Suddenly Karlsson spoke. ‘You confronted him, didn’t you?’
Wyatt didn’t reply.
‘Well?’ Karlsson’s tone hardened.
Wyatt looked at the floor. ‘I talked to him,’ he said, in a low voice.
‘Stop this,’ Joll said. ‘I need a moment alone with my client.’
Karlsson gave a thin smile. ‘Of course.’
Outside, Karlsson broke into a grin. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘If his lawyer’s got any sense, he’s telling him to confess.’ He glanced at Frieda and frowned. ‘You should be enjoying this. You know, the thrill of the chase.’
‘It doesn’t feel like a chase to me,’ she said.
After a few minutes, they had resumed their positions. For Frieda it felt artificial now, as if they were all actors, resuming a rehearsal after a break for tea.
‘Mr Wyatt would like to explain,’ said Joll.
Wyatt coughed nervously. ‘I talked to Poole about the money.’
‘I bet you did,’ said Karlsson.
‘When I asked him about it, it was more complicated than I expected.’ Wyatt was speaking in a low, miserable tone. ‘You’ve heard about him. When he talked about the money, it sounded convincing, or sort of convincing. He talked about his business plans. We ended up having a drink. It almost felt like I was the one in the wrong.’
‘Where was this?’ asked Karlsson.
‘At our house. My wife was out. She didn’t know – didn’t know I knew.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us about the meeting before?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Wyatt. ‘It was difficult to explain.’
‘That’s true,’ said Karlsson. ‘And you haven’t managed to explain it. Frieda? Is there anything you want to say?’
‘I want to go back to my original question,’ she said. ‘What do you think of Robert Poole now?’
‘I don’t know that I can answer that,’ he said. ‘And, anyway, what does it matter what I think?’
‘It does matter,’ said Frieda. ‘Some people would say that you couldn’t do anything worse to a man than what he did to you.’
‘Thank you for that,’ said Wyatt. ‘Is that what they pay you for?’
‘What interests me,’ said Frieda, ‘is that you really don’t seem all that angry with him.’
Now Wyatt became wary, uneasy, as if Frieda were laying a trap for him to walk into. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’
‘What did you mean when you said that talking to Poole was complicated?’
‘I meant just what I said.’
Frieda left a silence before speaking and looked at Wyatt closely. ‘I never met Poole,’ she said. ‘I’ve only heard about him. But it sounds to me as if when people met him they thought he recognized them, that he knew them. And that can be uncomfortable.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I wonder,’ said Frieda, ‘whether you really feel that in some strange way you almost deserve what he did to your wife. I was going to say did to you, but that’s not what you feel, is it?’ She left another silence. ‘What I’m wondering is whether you feel that Robert Poole was looking after your wife in a way that you hadn’t been doing for a while.’
Wyatt swallowed nervously. He flushed. ‘That sounds a bit pathetic.’
‘I don’t think it’s pathetic at all,’ said Frieda. ‘Do you think it’s possible that when you learned about what Robert Poole had done, even when you learned he’d been sleeping with your wife, you didn’t feel all that angry? A man is supposed to feel angry with the man who has slept with his wife, but it wasn’t quite like that, was it? Or not only like that.’ Now Wyatt was staring at her blankly. ‘I believe that you were confused. You were humiliated, of course. Maybe you had some fantasy of revenge. But I believe you’re a thoughtful man, and mainly you thought about your marriage, about your children. Perhaps you wondered how could you have let things get that bad.’
When Wyatt spoke it was in little more than a whisper. ‘What’s your point?’
‘You’d gone to sleep in your marriage,’ said Frieda. ‘Robert Poole showed you something. Maybe he even woke you up.’
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ said Wyatt, slowly. ‘Everything was a lie, everything I’d believed in.’
‘Have you talked to your wife about that feeling?’
Wyatt shrugged. ‘A bit. It doesn’t make much sense to me, so it’s hard to talk about it to someone else.’
‘You should try.’
Joll coughed. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’m not clear about the relevance of this.’
‘No,’ said Karlsson. ‘I agree. I think we can stop for the day.’
As they left the interview room, he gestured at Frieda to follow him.
‘What was that?’ he said. ‘We had him. We were on the verge of getting him to plead. What was all that? Where was the old Frieda?’
Frieda looked at him with a curious expression. ‘Wouldn’t you like to have met him?’
‘Who?’
‘Robert Poole.’
Karlsson seemed to be having trouble speaking. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. And nor should you, Frieda – because he’s dead and beyond your attempts to understand him or rescue him or change what happened.’
Chloë was waiting. Frieda noticed that she had washed her hair and put on a clean white shirt over her miniature stretchy black skirt. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and looked vulnerable and childlike. There wasn’t any sign of Olivia.