Friday on My Mind Read Online Free Page B

don’t know anything about it and I wouldn’t like to speculate. All I’ll say is that Mal Karlsson lost his sense of perspective. But you’ll want to talk to him yourself. Be warned in advance, though, that he’s not entirely reliable where Frieda Klein is concerned.’
    Hussein looked down at the file. ‘It’s possible that Frieda Klein doesn’t have anything to do with this.’
    Crawford walked round the desk and helped Hussein out of the chair. ‘And it’s possible,’ he said, ‘that you can get into a shark pool and that the shark won’t eat you. But it’s better to be in a cage.’
    Hussein smiled at the extravagance of the image. ‘She’s just a witness,’ she said.
    ‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ said Crawford. ‘And if she gives you any trouble, remember, I’m right behind you.’



5
     
    ‘What have we got?’ Hussein looked at the men and women grouped around her in the incident room.
    What have we got?
The words she always used during the first hours or days of a case, when they were assembling the corners and straight lines of the investigation, before starting on the jumble of pieces that built up the picture.
    ‘Shall I begin?’ Bryant said. ‘Our victim is Alexander Holland. He’s a –’ he glanced down at the printed sheet in front of him ‘– a professor of cognitive science at King George’s College, London.’
    ‘What’s that mean?’ asked Chris Fortune. He was new on the team; she noticed that he jiggled one knee continually and chewed gum with vigour. Probably trying to give up smoking.
    ‘That he’s cleverer than we are. Or
was
cleverer. The university term ended on June the sixth for the long summer vacation, which explains why no one there was concerned about his absence. Although the records show that a woman …’ he glanced down at his notebook ‘… a Dr Ellison apparently rang the police to say he seemed to have disappeared. It’s unclear why she was worried. It had only been a few days and what she meant was that he hadn’t been in touch with her.’
    ‘Dr Ellison?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘He’s fairly new to the job. It was created specially for him. He came back from the States, where he had been working for a couple of years, eighteen months ago.’
    ‘Why?’ asked Hussein.
    ‘Why what?’
    ‘Why did he come back?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘He was forty-two. Previously married to a Maria Lockhart but divorced eight years ago.’
    ‘Where’s she now?’
    ‘She lives in New Zealand with her new husband. And, no, she hasn’t paid a visit to London recently to kill her ex. He doesn’t have any children. Parents both dead. He has one sister. We’ve talked to her.’
    Hussein thought of the distraught woman in her blue dress, wringing her hands together, shaking her head from side to side in bewilderment. ‘Is he in a relationship?’
    ‘Not that we know of.’
    ‘Sophie.’ Hussein nodded at the young woman, who sat up straighter, looking nervous. ‘Tell us what’s been found in his flat.’
    She listened intently as Sophie talked. Alexander Holland had not been in his flat long, but something of the man emerged from where he had lived: he had liked cooking – the pots and pans were expensive and obviously used, and there were lots of ingredients neatly stored in the cupboards, as well as recipe books. He had also, it seemed, liked drinking. There was a large number of empty wine bottles in the recycling bin under thestairs and a healthy supply of full ones in the kitchen, as well as a couple of bottles of whisky. He had been sporty, judging from the tennis and squash rackets and the running clothes, and the several pairs of trainers. He was a bit of a dandy: expensive shirts and jackets hung in the wardrobe. He had liked art – or, at least, there were paintings on the walls, and also two drawings in his bedroom. He was sexually active. There were condoms in the drawer by the bed.
    ‘
Probably
sexually active,’