Free Saturday Requiem by Nicci French Page B

them seconded,’ said Levin.
    ‘You can do that?’
    ‘This is just for a limited time. It can’t be open-ended.’
    ‘A few days,’ said Frieda. ‘A week or two at the most. If I haven’t found anything by then, I’ll walk away.’
    ‘You talked about places you wanted to see,’ said Keegan. ‘What places?’
    ‘The Oakley Road house, for a start,’ said Frieda. ‘Where the murders happened.’
    ‘There are people living there. They probably won’t be happy about you blundering around.’
    ‘That’s why I need someone with a badge.’

At group therapy, they sit in a semicircle and Tisha talks and talks about her little daughter and how she was taken away from her and how she still dreams about her, eight years later and five years into her sentence. But how can you dream about someone if you don’t know what they look like? Shay leans across to her neighbour. ‘Dory went for Hannah,’ she whispers. ‘Hannah got her with her own knife. Thirty stitches.’
    ‘Shay?’
    Shay doesn’t notice Dr Styles is talking to her.
    ‘Shay? Could I ask you to pay us some attention?’
    Shay looks round at the doctor, who is sitting opposite the group.
    ‘Is there something you’d like to share with us?’ says Dr Styles.
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Come on, Shay. We can say anything here, as long as it’s nothing wilfully cruel or hurtful. Was it cruel or hurtful?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Then share it with us.’
    ‘It was about Dory. How she’s been stabbed by Hannah Docherty.’
    ‘It’s not clear who was responsible.’
    ‘No, Dr Styles.’
    ‘But it’s important to talk about it. We must talk about our feelings and what we can learn from this. Has anyone got anything to offer?’
    There is a silence. The members of the group look down at the floor or up at the ceiling, anything so that they don’t meet Dr Styles’s gaze.
    ‘You, Kelly,’ says Dr Styles. ‘Why don’t you start us off?’
    ‘How?’
    ‘For example,’ says Dr Styles, slowly and patiently, ‘what can we learn from something like this?’
    ‘That we shouldn’t fight,’ says Kelly. She speaks the words as if they are part of a lesson she has learned with difficulty. ‘And that it’s better to talk about things than … you know, than to fight.’
    ‘That’s right. That’s a good start. But you look doubtful, Kelly. Is there some part of this that you don’t understand?’
    ‘But what if someone comes at you?’ says Kelly.
    ‘You tell me,’ says Dr Styles. ‘We’re here to talk about things like that.’
    ‘I just mean, if they come at you, you can’t just talk.’
    Shay leans across to her neighbour again, and speaks in a whisper. ‘We’ll see what Mary says about that.’
    ‘Mary’s in solitary. She won’t know yet.’
    ‘Mary’ll know. Mary always knows. Mary’ll see to Hannah. She’ll show her who’s boss in here.’



NINE
    ‘I’m worried about identifying with her.’ Frieda was once more sitting opposite Thelma Scott. ‘She’s an intelligent, energetic, self-sufficient woman. I get the impression her husband’s always been dependent on her, as have her children, her friends as well. The word she uses for herself is “competent”. She’s having panic attacks. She feels unsafe in her world, which has come to seem like a hostile and even vindictive place.’
    ‘You’re describing a kind of paranoia.’
    ‘For years she’s controlled her feelings of vulnerability and fear. Now
they
’re controlling
her
.’
    ‘Why would you identify with that?’
    ‘I lie in bed at night, awake, full of dread. You’re going to ask, dread of what?’
    Thelma smiled. ‘Let me ask the questions before you answer them.’
    ‘Even if you aren’t going to ask, I’ll tell you. Dread that something is coming, that things are gathering to a head. Dread that there are enemies waiting in the shadows.’ She remembered a word that Maria Dreyfus had used on her first visit. ‘Dread of a reckoning,’ she said.
    Thelma