‘I don’t want your help,’ said Hussein. ‘I want you to do your duty as a citizen.’

Now Frieda looked at Hussein with a sharpness in her dark eyes that was new. Her face was paler, her jaw clenched slightly. ‘All right,’ said Frieda, in a softer voice, so that Hussein had to lean forward to hear it. ‘This might not be the help you’re wanting, but I believe I know who murdered Sandy.’

‘And who is that?’

‘A man called Dean Reeve.’ Frieda paused for a moment, as if waiting for a response. ‘I’m not a detective, but when someone identifies a suspect in a murder case, I at least expect you to get out a notebook and write the name down. Otherwise it might not appear on the record and I want this on the record.’

‘I don’t need to write it down. I’ve read your file.’

‘I’m surprised I’ve got a file. It’s not as if I’ve been convicted of anything.’

‘Well, if you take information from here and there and print it out and gather it together, it becomes a file. And one of the things that emerge in this file is your repeated accusations against Dean Reeve for various murders and attacks. The problem being that Dean Reeve died five years ago.’

‘If you’ve read the file, you’ll also know that I don’t accept he’s dead.’

‘I saw that.’

‘Dean Reeve is still alive and he is a very dangerous man. He has some warped notion of looking after me, or perhaps of controlling me. If he believed that Sandy was pestering me, he could easily have killed him. He would do it with pleasure.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and gazed at Hussein, waiting for her response.

‘I have heard what you say,’ said Hussein, eventually.

‘All I ask,’ said Frieda, ‘is that you look at this file of mine with your own eyes, not Crawford’s or Bradshaw’s.’

Hussein stood up. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I will. But I expect you to be straight with me as well.’

‘Straight with you? Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I told you. I’ve read your file.’

7

The couple who lived in the flat under Alexander Holland’s hadn’t known him very well but he’d been a pleasant, friendly, unobtrusive neighbour. He’d had visitors but they were never loud; several women had come to see him but they weren’t aware of any particular one. They often saw him early in the morning when he went for a run. His assistant at the university, Terry Keaton, a round-faced youngish woman with blonde hair cut in a fringe, hadn’t seen him since the summer holidays began. She had liked him a lot and was obviously distraught. She didn’t know of any tensions either at work or in his personal life – but he kept himself to himself, although he was always friendly and respectful. She hadn’t come across Frieda Klein. His oldest friend, Daniel Lieberman, whom he had been at primary school with, said that he had last seen him on Sunday, June the eighth, twelve days before his body had been found. They had played squash and then gone for a couple of drinks; he had been fine. Yes, Lieberman had met Frieda Klein a few times. He confirmed that his friend had been upset at the separation – and added that he had returned from the States to be with her, which had made it doubly traumatic when they broke up. When Sophie Byrne asked him what he had made of Dr Klein, Lieberman had pulled a face. ‘You wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of her. But Sandy adored her.’

His colleagues were shocked and mystified. His sister was full of grief and a pent-up rage against Frieda Klein for whom he’d given up his prestigious job in America and who had shortly after ended their relationship. His doctor confirmed he had been in good health as far as he knew. He had money in the bank.

One woman came forward when she heard about his death, saying she had met him in a bar at the end of May, on Friday the thirtieth. She had gone back with him and they had had several more drinks before they spent the night together. She hadn’t seen him again; he obviously hadn’t been interested in anything beyond a one-night stand.

On 11 June, nine days before his body was found, he had taken two hundred pounds from a cash machine. He had bought groceries at the Turkish shop on Caledonian Road. He had sent two texts to Frieda Klein and rung her once that same day – and also talked to his sister and to a friend in the States late in the evening. The pub at the end of his road thought he might have gone in there for a drink around then. The mail hadn’t been opened since then. It was likely, therefore, that he had been murdered on 12 or 13 June.

‘Is that what we’ve got?’ asked Hussein.

It wasn’t quite. That afternoon, a woman called Diane Foxton had walked into Altham police station, saying she needed to speak to an officer about Alexander Holland. Hussein went to talk to her. The woman was obviously having chemotherapy: she had lost her hair and had mauve patches under her eyes; she was painfully thin.

‘I didn’t know whether I should come – I thought it was probably nothing – but my husband persuaded me. So here I am.’ She made a gesture with her skeletal hands.

‘It’s about Alexander Holland?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘Oh, not at all. But when I saw his face on the TV, I recognized him.’

‘Where from?’

‘I only saw him the once, but I wasn’t going to forget it. I was walking home and he was suddenly there.’

‘There?’

‘Yes. He came tumbling onto the pavement, so he almost sent me flying. He was shouting. Properly shouting. His face was so angry it made me scared. I thought he was going to do something violent. He had a half-filled bin bag in his hand and he flung it at her. A few things fell out onto the pavement, a T-shirt and a book, and he bent down and picked them up and threw them at her as well. He looked half mad.’

‘Her, you say? He was shouting at a woman?’

‘Yes.’

‘And it was her he threw the bag at?’

‘Yes. I assumed he was returning things to her or something.’

‘Was she with him on the pavement?’

‘Not with him but at the door, which is a few yards from the road, and –’

‘Hold on, Mrs Foxton. Can you tell me exactly where it was? What door?’

‘I thought I said. That medical place in Primrose Hill.’

‘Do you mean the Warehouse?’

‘I don’t know the name. It’s on Wareham Gardens.’

‘That’s the one. And the date?’

‘It was a week ago last Tuesday – I was on my way home from the doctor’s. Around three thirty.’

Hussein made a mental calculation: 10 June. Ten days before Alexander Holland had been discovered floating in the Thames with his throat cut; at the most, three days before he died. And the same day that Frieda admitted to having ‘glimpsed’ him.

‘What did the woman look like?’

‘I didn’t really look at her. Pale-skinned. Dark hair, I think. Not blonde, anyway.’

‘Any idea of her age?’

‘Not really. Not very young but not old either. Mid-thirties or forty, perhaps.’

‘Was she responding?’

‘No. I don’t think she said much, if anything. Someone else came and joined her. A man. He looked as though he might get involved but she stopped him.’

‘How?’

‘Just put a hand on his arm or something. I’m not sure. I was more concerned with the man on the pavement. He was that far away from me.’ She held her hands apart to show Hussein. ‘I couldn’t get past him.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘The man kicked at a rubbish bin and strode away and she picked up the bin bag, put the book and T-shirt back into it, and tied it up. She seemed quite calm. Calmer than I would have been. Then she went back inside. That was it. So nothing actually happened. I just thought – well, I thought it might be helpful. Maybe I’m wasting your time.’