Saturday Requiem Read Free

and now it stood far off, on the rim of her consciousness.
    She picked up her coat and slung her bag over her shoulder. She was going to get wet, but she didn’t mind that. As she pushed open the door into her anteroom, the first things that she saw were the shoes: brown brogues, old. Then the legs, stretched out in their brown corduroy trousers, ending in blue socks. She opened the door fully.
    Walter Levin sat up straighter in the armchair and pushed his spectacles back up his nose. He beamed at her.
    ‘What are you doing here?’
    Levin stood up. He was wearing a tweed jacket with large buttons that reminded Frieda of men’s clubs, open fires, wood-panelled rooms, whisky and pipes. When she shook the hand he held out, it was warm and strong.
    ‘I thought we could have a chat.’
    ‘No, I mean, literally what are you doing here? How did you get in from the street?’
    ‘A nice woman was coming out as I was coming in.’
    ‘I don’t believe you.’
    ‘Does it matter?’
    ‘Why couldn’t you have rung to make an appointment, like a normal person?’
    ‘I tried that and it didn’t work.’ He raised his eyebrows at her. Frieda didn’t reply. ‘Can I carry your bag for you?’
    ‘No, thank you.’
    He took his coat from the back of the armchair and buttoned himself into it, then wound a checked scarf round his neck. ‘I have an umbrella,’ he said genially.
    ‘I’m probably going in a different direction from you.’
    ‘I’m here to ask you to dinner.’
    ‘Dinner?’
    ‘Not just any dinner.’ He patted his pockets vaguely, one after the other, then bent down to look in the leather briefcase at his feet. ‘Here we are,’ he said, pulling out a cream envelope and handing it over to Frieda.
    She slid out a thick card. In gold-embossed letters she was cordially invited to a gala dinner at a hall near Westminster on the coming Thursday. An auction of promises to raise money for the families of soldiers fallen in the line of duty. Black tie. Carriages at ten.
    ‘What is this?’
    ‘A gathering of the great and the good.’
    ‘Is this the favour?’
    ‘It’s an introduction to the favour.’ He took off his glasses and rubbed them against the hem of his scarf. His eyes were cool, like pale brown pebbles.
    ‘Can’t you just tell me?’
    ‘It isn’t necessary. Shall I send a car for you?’
    ‘I can make my own way.’
    Frieda waited until he was gone before leaving herself, walking out into the wild February day with a sense of relief. Water was running down the sides of the streets and collecting in puddles on the pavements. The shapes of buildings dissolved. All over the country there were floods, a deluge. She walked fast, feeling drops of rain slide down her neck, and soon was at Number Nine, enveloped in its warmth, the smell of coffee and fresh bread. She pushed the thought of Thursday evening away from her.

After Dory is sewn up, they put her into bed with a drip in a private ward, full lockdown. They don’t want her talking to other patients. Or prisoners. Patients. Prisoners. Even the guards get confused with the distinction and drift between one word and the other. It doesn’t change the reality, whichever word they use. She is at the far end of wing D, by a window. Two owls hoot at each other the whole night. Dory can’t separate the sound from the sounds in her head, from the sounds in her dreams, from the memories of her own screams as Hannah pushed Dory’s own knife into her, their faces so close they were like lovers.
    But she knows that Mary needs to be told. Mary will know what to do. Hannah will be dealt with.



THREE
    The party was at a gentlemen’s club in St James’s. Women were excluded, except on special occasions. When Frieda entered the hall, she was dazzled by the chandeliers, the glint of jewellery, the gleam of light off the wine glasses. She heard the noise, a bray of voices, little screams of laughter. She smelt perfume, leather, money.
    ‘Splendid,’ said a