Friday on My Mind Read Online Free

Hussein in the car and guided her through some of the printouts as they drove along by St James’s Park. Hussein felt like one of those people you saw going into an exam still desperately trying to do the revision they should have done earlier. She’d never been one of those people. It made her uncomfortable. She liked being prepared.
    She was expected. A uniformed officer escorted her through security and into a lift, then up to a floor that needed a card to access it. There, she was introduced to a receptionist who took her through into the commissioner’s office; her first impression was of a blaze of light and that she hadn’t realized how high up she was. She felt a childish urge to run to the window and enjoy the view over the park.
    Looking at Crawford, she was struck by several impressions at the same time. His smiling florid face. His uniform. The size of his desk. And its emptiness, except for a single file. Didn’t he have papers to sign? Or was he too important even for that?
    ‘Detective Chief Inspector Hussein,’ said Crawford, as if he were savouring each word individually. ‘It’s taken too long for us to meet.’
    ‘Well …’ Hussein began, then couldn’t think of anything to add.
    ‘We’re proud to have a senior officer from your community.’
    ‘Thank you, sir.’
    ‘Where do you come from, Sarah? Originally.’
    ‘Birmingham, sir.’
    There was a pause. Hussein looked out of the window. The sun was shining. She suddenly felt how nice it would be to be out there, walking in the park on a summer evening, rather than here.
    ‘This case,’ said Crawford. ‘Alexander Holland. Tell me about it.’ He waved her into a chair in front of his desk.
    She told him about the discovery of the body and its state, and about his flat.
    ‘And you met Frieda Klein?’
    ‘Briefly.’
    ‘What do you think about her?’
    ‘She was the one who identified the body. Holland had her hospital identification tag on his wrist.’
    ‘That sounds a bit odd.’
    ‘They’d been a couple.’
    ‘I mean, I’ve heard of wearing someone’s ring but …’
    ‘I’d planned to talk to her again.’
    ‘What do you actually know about her?’
    ‘Just what one of my DCs told me on the way over. The name rang a bell but I couldn’t place it. I gather she was the therapist who was involved in getting that Faraday boy back a few years ago and with that murder down in Deptford. There was that other one. The tabloids called it “The Croydon House of Horrors”. That was her too.’
    ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers.’
    ‘I’m just going by what was in the police files. Wasn’t she involved?’
    Crawford gave a sort of snort. ‘There’s involved and involved,’ he said.
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘You know how it is,’ he said. ‘When we get a result suddenly everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon. And the papers love it, the idea of a bloody therapist coming in here and telling us how to do our job.’
    ‘The only thing I read about her in the papers, she was being blamed for something. I can’t remember what it was.’
    ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ said Crawford, darkly.
    There was another pause.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hussein, who was feeling irritated now. ‘I’m probably being slow, but I’m not clear what you’re telling me.’
    Crawford leaned forward and, with the tips of the fingers of his right hand, pushed the file across the desk. ‘That’s the other file on Frieda Klein,’ he said. ‘That’s
my
file. You can take it away with you.’ He stood up and walked to the window. ‘But I’ll give you the short version.’ He looked around, and when Hussein saw his face, it was as if someone had turned a dial to make him angrier. ‘I’ll tell you, Sarah … Is it all right if I call you Sarah?’
    ‘Of course, sir.’
    ‘When someone called me and said that a body had been found and that Frieda Klein was involved, I told myself that this time I