‘She’s a scientist. She wanted to talk to you for some kind of research project and now she’s disappeared.’
‘What did she want to talk to me about?’
‘Have you seen her?’
‘No.’
‘We’re talking to your wife as well.’
‘She can say no as well as I can.’
‘And our warrant to search your house is still active.’
‘You’ve already searched it.’
‘We’re searching it again.’
Reeve gave a faint smile. ‘I know that feeling. It’s a nasty one, isn’t it? When you’ve lost something and you get so desperate you start looking in the places you’ve already looked.’
‘And we will be going through all the CCTV footage. If she was in your area, we will find out.’
‘Good for you,’ said Reeve.
‘So if there is anything you need to tell us, best to do it now.’
‘I’ve got nothing to tell you.’
‘If you tell us where he is,’ said Karlsson, ‘we can come to an agreement. We can make it all go away. And if he’s dead, you can at least put an end to this, put the parents out of their misery.’
Reeve took a tissue from his pocket and loudly blew his nose. ‘Have you got a bin?’ he said.
‘Not in here,’ said Karlsson.
Reeve placed the scrunched-up tissue on the table.
‘We know that you impersonated your twin brother,’ said Karlsson. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Did I? I just sent some flowers.’ That faint smile crossed his face again. ‘She probably doesn’t get enough flowers. Women like them.’
‘I can keep you here,’ said Karlsson.
Reeve looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose I could get angry now. I could say that I wanted a lawyer.’
‘If you want a lawyer, we can arrange one for you.’
‘You know what I really want?’
‘What?’
‘I’d like a cup of tea. With milk and two sugars. And maybe a biscuit. I’m not fussy. I like all of them: custard creams, ginger nuts, garibaldis.’
‘This isn’t a cafe.’
‘But if you keep me here, you need to feed me. The fact is, you’ve searched my house and found nothing. You’ve brought me in here and asked me if I’ve seen this child and that woman and I’ve said no and that’s all there is to it. But if you want me to sit here then I’ll sit here. And if you want me to sit here all tonight and all tomorrow, I’ll do that as well and I’ll still be saying no. It doesn’t bother me. I’m a patient man. I go fishing. Do you go fishing?’
‘No.’
‘I go up the reservoirs. I put a mealworm on the hook, throw it in and just sit there. Sometimes I’ll sit there for the whole day and the float won’t have moved and it’s still a good day. So I’m happy to sit here and drink your tea and eat your biscuits, if that’s what you want, but it’s not going to help you find that boy.’
Karlsson looked over Reeve’s head at the clock on the wall. He watched the second hand moving around the face. Suddenly he felt nauseous and had to swallow hard.
‘I’ll get you your coffee,’ he said.
‘Tea,’ said Reeve.
Karlsson left the room and a uniformed officer stepped past him to take his place in the interview room. He walked quickly, almost at a trot, out into the yard at the back. It had been a car park but they were doing building work, adding an extension. He sucked in the cold dark air in gulps as if he was drinking it. He looked at his watch: it was six o’clock. He felt as if the time was scratching at him. A face was watching him from a lighted window and for a moment he thought it was the face of the man he had just been interviewing, then realized it was that of his twin brother, Alan. His head spun uselessly. He went back inside and told an officer to fetch the tea for Reeve, then went down to the basement interview room where Terry had been taken. When he entered, she was in the middle of an altercation with the female police officer. The officer turned round. ‘She wants to smoke.’
‘Sorry,’ said Karlsson. ‘It’s health and safety.’
‘Can I go out and have one?’ she said.
‘In a minute. When we’ve had a chat.’
He sat down and looked across at her. She was dressed in jeans and a shiny electric green bomber jacket. Between the bottom of her jacket and the top of her jeans there was a roll of white skin. Karlsson glimpsed the edge of a tattoo. Something Oriental. He forced himself to give an affable smile. ‘How long have you two been together?’ he asked.
‘What’s this about?’ she said.
‘Background information.’
She was squeezing her hands together, massaging her fingers. She really was desperate for a cigarette. ‘Always, if you’re so interested. Just ask what you’ve got to ask.’
Karlsson showed her the photograph and she looked at it as though it was some meaningless squiggle. He showed her the photograph of Joanna Vine and she barely bothered to glance at it. He told her about the disappearance of Katherine Ripon, but she just shook her head.
‘I haven’t seen any of them,’ she said.
He asked her about her movements on 13 November and she shook her head.
‘I dunno.’ There was something sluggish and impenetrable about her. Karlsson felt his chest tighten with an angry impatience. He wanted to shake her into a reaction.
‘Why were you painting your upstairs room when we came to your house?’
‘It needed painting.’
‘Every minute that passes,’ he said, ‘this gets more serious. But it’s not too late. If you start co-operating, I’ll do everything I can for you. I can help you and I can help Dean, but you’ve got to give me something.’
‘I haven’t seen them.’
‘If it was your husband and you want to protect him, the best way of doing that is to come clean.’
‘I haven’t seen them.’
He couldn’t get her to say anything else.
Karlsson found Frieda sitting in the cafeteria. At first he thought she was writing something, but when he got closer he saw she was drawing. She had made a sketch on the paper napkin of the half-full tumbler of water on the table in front of her.
‘That’s good.’
She glanced up and he saw how tired she was, and how pale, almost translucent, her flesh was. He looked away, feeling full of a sense of defeat.
‘Do you see your children at Christmas?’ she asked.
‘Christmas Eve for an hour or so and then Boxing Day.’
‘That must be hard.’
He shrugged, not trusting himself to speak.
‘I don’t have children,’ Frieda continued, as if she were talking to herself. ‘Perhaps that’s because I don’t want to be vulnerable to all that pain. I can bear it in patients, but in one’s own children, I don’t know.’
‘I shouldn’t have been angry. It wasn’t really your fault.’
‘No, you were right. I should never have given him those addresses.’ She waited a beat. ‘No progress with the Reeves, then?’
‘DC Long is in with Dean Reeve now, going over the same ground. She’s usually good at getting people to talk. But I’m not hopeful.’
He picked up the tumbler that Frieda had been drawing and drank from it, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. ‘There are some people,’ he continued, ‘who can stand the pressure. As soon as I walked into the interview room and sat down opposite him, I felt it. He’s just not bothered.’
