Frieda Klein 2 - Tuesday's Gone by Nicci French Page B

on one hand.
    They sat at a table with a view across the
     water. Frieda looked out. ‘You can understand why all those old sea captains came
     back here when they retired. It was the nearest they could get to being at
     sea.’
    ‘I noticed all those names in
     Deptford.’ Jack took his seat opposite her. He picked up a menu and looked at it
     intently, concealing his nervousness. What was he going to eat? It depended on Frieda.
     Did she expect them to have a full meal, like beef pie or salmon
en
     croûte
, or should he have a bar snack?
    ‘What names?’
    ‘The street names. They reminded me of
     studying the Spanish Armada at school. Fisher Road, Drake Road or whatever.
     There’s probably a Nelson Road somewhere, or is that too late?’
    ‘Say that again.’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘The names.’
    Jack repeated them. A young woman put a
     basket of bread rolls on the table and he tore a large piece off one and stuffed it into
     his mouth, realizing how hungry he was.
    ‘Are you ready to order?’ asked
     a waitress.
    Frieda paused. Jack waited for her to go
     first.
    ‘No,’ said
     Frieda, slowly. ‘We’ve got to go.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Frieda stood up and pulled a crisp
     five-pound note from her wallet, which she laid on the table under the basket of bread
     rolls.
    ‘Come on.’
    ‘That was quick,’ he said, but
     she was already on her way out. He had to run to keep up with her.

Twelve
    ‘You remember Jack Dargan?’
     said Frieda to Karlsson, after he’d got out of the car. ‘A colleague of
     mine.’
    Karlsson nodded at Jack. ‘Funny to
     meet in Deptford. What are you even doing over here?’
    ‘Jack and I had things to
     discuss,’ said Frieda. ‘I thought it would be a good place for a walk.
     It’s an interesting area.’
    ‘So I’ve heard.’ Karlsson
     looked through some railings at the remains of a warehouse. ‘But mainly it’s
     a dump.’ He pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. ‘Before you say
     anything, I’d like to point out the reality of the situation. What is probably
     going to happen is that the CPS will read the file and decide that Michelle Doyce is
     unfit to plead, which I’m sure you agree with. At that point, the British taxpayer
     will be saved the cost of a trial as well as any further police investigation. Michelle
     Doyce will finally get the medical attention she should have received in the first place
     and you can get back to your patients.’ He paused. ‘We’ll probably
     never know exactly what happened.’
    ‘I think I know what Michelle Doyce
     was saying,’ said Frieda.
    ‘I hope it was a confession,’
     said Karlsson. He looked at her, then at Jack, whose face showed the faint trace of a
     smile that quickly vanished. ‘Well? What was it?’
    ‘Follow me.’ Frieda set off
     along the street towards the house, the two men walking quickly to keep up. ‘I was
     talking to Jack about the history of this area. Did you know that it was somewhere along
     here that Queen Elizabeth knighted Francis Drake?’
    ‘No, I
     didn’t,’ said Karlsson. ‘I visited the
Cutty Sark
when I was
     at school.’
    ‘It’s all a fake,
     apparently,’ said Frieda.
    Now they had turned into Howard Street and
     Frieda stopped. They looked at the house. Number three.
    ‘In a way,’ she said,
     ‘what I like about this area is that there’s nothing left. Four, five
     hundred years ago there were orchards here and shipyards and it’s where Francis
     Drake came and moored his boat after he had sailed round the world, and it’s all
     gone. They just built warehouses on top of it and then it all got bombed in the war and
     then they built the housing estates.’
    ‘Frieda,’ said Karlsson, with a
     slight edge to his voice, ‘I’m really hoping that this is leading somewhere
     –’
    ‘It was Jack,’ Frieda cut
     in.
    Karlsson looked across at Jack, who turned
     red and seemed both pleased and baffled.
    ‘He reminded me that the names