Free Frieda Klein 2 - Tuesday's Gone by Nicci French

Frieda didn’t contradict
     her. ‘I’m not sure we have actual teddies, though. There’s a very
     popular doll that cries when you sit it up.’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    Frieda pulled out a green velvet frog with
     protuberant eyes, then a rag doll, with long, spindly legs, and a small, shabby-looking
     snake. Near the bottom of the basket was a squashy dog, with soft floppy ears and button
     eyes. ‘This will do.’
    She ran up the stairs to
     the ward and stopped at the desk.
    ‘Do you think you can give this to
     Michelle Doyce in bed six?’
    ‘Don’t you want to give it her
     yourself?’
    ‘No.’
    The nurse shrugged. ‘All
     right.’
    Frieda turned to go, but at the double doors
     she stopped. Out of sight, she saw the nurse hand the dog to Michelle. Frieda watched
     intently: Michelle sat the dog beside her on the pillow and nodded at it respectfully.
     Then she put out one finger and touched its nose, smiling shyly; she picked up her glass
     of water and held it under its snout. Her face wore an expression of tender
     solicitousness and anxious happiness; it had taken that little. Frieda pushed the doors
     and slipped through them.
    Some days she slept. It was wrong, she
     knew, but torpor would settle on her and she would curl herself up into a ball of body
     and thick clothes and damp hair and close her sticky eyes and let herself go, drifting
     down through murky dreams, green weeds and silky, shifting mud. She was half aware that
     she was asleep: her dreams would get tangled up with what was going on around her. The
     footsteps on the towpath, the rise and fall of voices, shouted instructions coming from
     the rowing boats that passed her boat.
    When she woke, she would feel thick and
     stale with sleep. And guilty. If he could see her, he would be angry. No, not angry. He
     would be disappointed. Let down. She hated that. She remembered her mother’s
     slumped shoulders, the brave smile that wavered and disappeared. Anything was better
     than disappointing people.
    On this day she had let herself sleep, and
     when she jerked awake, she couldn’t remember where she was – saliva on herchin, her hair itchy and her cheek sore from the rough fabric of the
     seat where she lay. She couldn’t remember who she was. She was nobody, just a
     lumpy shape without a name, without a self. She waited. She let herself know herself
     again. She pressed her forehead against the narrow window and stared outside at the
     shifting river. Two grand swans sailed past. Vicious, vicious stares.

Nine
    ‘This case.’ Commissioner
     Crawford spoke with barely concealed irritation. ‘Are you winding it
     up?’
    ‘Well,’ began Karlsson,
     ‘there are several –’
    ‘I looked at the preliminary report.
     It seems pretty straightforward. The woman’s not all there.’ The
     commissioner tapped the side of his forehead with a finger. ‘So the outcome
     doesn’t matter much. The victim was killed in a frenzy. She’s already in a
     psychiatric hospital anyway, out of harm’s way.’
    ‘We don’t even know who the
     victim is yet.’
    ‘Drug-dealer?’
    ‘There’s no evidence for
     that.’
    ‘You’ve done a search through
     missing people?’
    ‘Nothing there. I’m about to
     interview the other residents of the house to see if they can move us
     forward.’
    ‘I’m not convinced this is a
     good use of your time.’
    ‘He was still murdered.’
    ‘This isn’t like your missing
     children, Mal.’
    ‘You mean people don’t
     care?’
    ‘It’s all about
     priorities,’ said Crawford, frowning. ‘Take Jake Newton with you, at least.
     Show him the crap we have to deal with.’
    Karlsson started to speak but Crawford
     interrupted him. ‘For God’s sake, wrap this one up for me.’
    Today Jake’s trousers were
     thin-striped corduroys and his shoes were a pale tan, highly polished with yellow laces.
     Heput up an umbrella as he got out of the car – for it was now pouring
     with a rain