Sandy had returned, turning them over in her fingers. The phone rang.
‘Hello,’ came Olivia’s small voice.
‘Hi.’ Frieda waited.
‘I’m not coping very well.’
Frieda took a sip of wine and rolled its coolness in her mouth. She thought of her bath, her book, the fire that was laid, the thinking she needed to do. Outside, it was winter and an ill wind blew through the dark streets. ‘Do you want me to come round?’ she said. ‘Because that would be fine.’
Chapter Twenty-three
The following afternoon, Karlsson called a press conference at which the Faradays faced a bank of photographers and journalists to make an appeal for the return of their son that would reawaken public interest.
Karlsson had spent the morning looking through the statements his team had gathered from hundreds of so- called witnesses and the dwindling reports of possible sightings. He stood to one side. He watched the couple as the lights flashed in their faces – faces that had undergone such a change since Matthew had disappeared. Day by day, he’d seen grief carving new lines, stretching the skin, dulling the light in their eyes. Alec Faraday’s face was still puffy and bruised from his attack, and he moved stiffly because of his broken rib. They both looked thin and strained, and her voice cracked as she talked of their darling boy, but they managed to get through it all right. They said the usual heart-breaking things. They begged the world at large to help in the search and the person in particular to give them back their beloved boy.
It was useless, of course. These shows were largely designed to put pressure on the parents, to see if they were the guilty ones. But they all knew the Faradays couldn’t have done it. Even the papers that had accused him had done a brazen U-turn, turning him into a suffering saint instead. He’d been with a client in the accountant’s office where he worked and had dozens of witnesses. She’d been rushing from her job as a medical receptionist to get to the school on time to collect him. And the notion that whoever it was who had grabbed Matthew would suddenly have a change of heart when he heard them speak and saw their ravaged faces was absurd, not least because the child was almost certainly dead and had been for some time. So it was left to the world to respond – and respond it would, and the deluge of misinformation and false hope that had been mercifully drying up would flood them again.
That evening, he stayed late at work. He stared at the photos of the boy, of the place he had disappeared, at the large map in the investigation room, dotted with pins and flags. He read through statements. His brain throbbed and his chest ached.
He stared and the other boy stared back. It was Simon. He put up a hand towards Simon, to see if he was friendly, and Simon put up his hand too, at the same time, but he didn’t smile. He was very thin and very white and his bones stuck out on his shoulders and his hips, and his willy looked like a little pink snail. When he took a step towards Simon, Simon took a step towards him. A jerky little step, like a puppet moves, and then like a puppet Simon folded to the floor and Matthew folded to the floor and they were staring at each other. Matthew put one finger to the boy’s tiny face, goblin face, hollows for cheeks and holes for eyes and a bandaged mouth, and touched the cold, speckled mirror and watched the tears stain the skin where he pressed.
He felt hands behind him, he felt himself being held. Soft words, breath on him.
‘You’re going to be our little boy,’ the voice said. ‘But don’t be our bad little boy. We don’t like bad little boys.’
When Frieda opened the door to Karlsson, he stood at the threshold as though she was expecting him, and in a way she was. She had known that this was not the end of the case of Matthew Faraday.
‘Come in,’ she said.
They went into the front room, where a fire was burning and a stack of academic journals lay on the arm of her chair.
‘Am I disturbing you?’
‘Not really. Have a seat.’ He was carrying a leather bag, slung over his shoulder. He laid it on the floor and took his coat off. He sat down. She hesitated, and then said, ‘Do you want something to drink? Coffee?’
‘Perhaps something a bit stronger.’
‘Wine? Whisky?’
‘Whisky, I think. It’s that kind of night.’
Frieda poured them both a small tumbler of whisky, adding a splash of water, then sat down opposite him. ‘How can I help?’
Her manner was softer than usual. It almost brought tears to his eyes.
‘It’s all I think of. I get up and I think about him and I go to bed and I dream about him. I go to the pub with the guys and we talk about stuff and I hear the words coming out of my mouth. It’s amazing how you can go around pretending everything’s normal when it’s not. I talk to my kids on the phone and ask them about their day and tell them silly, cheerful stuff about mine, and all the time I’m just seeing him. He’s dead, you know. Or, at least, I hope he is because if he isn’t… What’s the best that can happen? That we find his body and catch the bastard who did it. That’s the best.’
‘Is it really as hopeless as that?’
‘In ten years’ time, in twenty, I’ll still be the copper who didn’t rescue Matthew Faraday. When I’m retired – like the old detective I visited who was in charge of the Joanna Vine case – I’ll sit in my house and think about Matthew and wonder what happened, where he’s buried, who did it and where they are now.’
He swirled his whisky round in his tumbler, then took a gulp. ‘You probably spend half your time with people who are burdened by guilt, but in my experience, people don’t feel nearly enough guilt. They feel shame when they’re caught, all right, but no guilt if they’re not. All over the world there are people who have done terrible things and they’re living perfectly contented lives, with their families and friends.’
He swilled back his whisky and Frieda poured more into his tumbler without asking him. She hadn’t touched hers.
‘If I feel like this,’ he said, ‘think of the parents.’ He pulled his tie loose impatiently. ‘Am I going to be haunted all my life?’
‘Have you never had a case like this before?’
‘I’ve had my share of murders and suicides and domestic abuse. It’s hard to keep your faith in human nature; maybe that’s why I’m divorced and pouring my heart out to a woman I’ve met just a few times, rather than to my wife. He’s only five, the age of my youngest.’
‘There’s no answer to what you’re feeling,’ said Frieda. A strange mood enveloped the room where they sat, dreamy and sad.
‘I know. I just needed to say it to someone. Sorry.’
‘Don’t say sorry.’
She didn’t say anything else. She looked into her glass and Karlsson looked at her, seeing a new side to her. After a while, he said, ‘Tell me about your work.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘I don’t know. Are you a doctor?’
‘Yes. Though you don’t have to be. I specialized in psychiatry before training. It’s a long process and a strict discipline. I’ve got lots of letters after my name.’
‘OK. And are your patients mostly private? How many do you see a day? What are they like? Why are you doing it? Does it work? That kind of thing.’
Frieda gave a small laugh, then started counting off his questions on her fingers. ‘One, I’m a mixture of private and NHS. I get referrals from the Warehouse Clinic, where I trained and worked for years, and from GPs and hospitals, and I also take people who come to me off their own bat, usually because someone they know has recommended me to them. It’s important to me not just to take on people who are rich enough to be able to afford therapy; otherwise it would be like treating the disease of the rich. Privately, therapy is quite expensive.’
