Waiting for Wednesday (47 page)

‘Doherty,’ said Fearby.

‘You think he’s connected with Lila’s disappearance?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Fearby, then glanced at Frieda.

‘There’s some kind of link,’ said Frieda. ‘But he can’t be responsible for both. Doherty was in prison when Sharon Gibbs disappeared. I can’t make it out. Jim’s been looking at some girls who’ve gone missing and Sharon Gibbs fits with that pattern. But the case of your daughter seems different. Yet she seems connected to them through Doherty. Somehow he’s the hinge to all of this, but I don’t know why.’

‘Why is she different?’ asked Dawes.

Frieda stood up. ‘I’ll take the tea things in and wash up and Jim can tell you what he’s been up to. Maybe something will ring a bell with you. Otherwise, we’ve got through one brick wall only to run up against another.’

Dawes started to protest but Frieda ignored him. She picked up the patterned plastic tray that he had leaned against the leg of the table and put the mugs, the milk jug and the sugar bowl on to it. Then she walked into the house and turned right into the little kitchen. The window above the sink looked out on to the garden and Frieda watched the two men as she did the washing-up. She could see them talking
but couldn’t hear anything that was being said. Dawes was probably the sort of man who was more comfortable saying things to another man. They got up from the table and walked down the garden away from the house. She saw Dawes gesturing towards various plants and at the end of the garden where the little river flowed. The Wandle, shallow and clear, trickling its way towards the Thames.

There were four other mugs in the sink and some dirty plates and glasses on the Formica worktop. Frieda washed those as well, then rinsed and stacked them on the draining-board. She looked around the kitchen, wondering if men reacted to absence differently from women. The contrast with Fearby’s house was sharp. Here, it was tidy, clean and well organized where Fearby’s house was dirty and neglected. But there was something they had in common. Frieda thought that a woman would perhaps have turned the home into some sort of shrine to the missing person but Fearby and Dawes were the opposite. Their very different spaces were both like highly organized ways of keeping all those terrible thoughts and feelings of loss at bay. Fearby had filled his house with other missing faces. And this house? It seemed like a house where a man lived alone and had always lived alone. Even doing the washing-up, she felt like a female intruder.

She wiped her hands on a tea-towel, neatly hanging on its own hook, then stepped outside to join the men. They turned at the same moment and gave a smile of recognition, as though in the few minutes she had been away, they had bonded.

‘We’ve been comparing notes,’ said Fearby.

‘It feels like we’ve been doing the same sort of godforsaken work,’ said Dawes.

‘But you were a salesman, not a journalist,’ said Frieda.

Dawes smiled. ‘Still too much time on the road.’

‘I suppose you got out just in time?’ said Fearby.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do offices have photocopiers any more?’

‘They certainly do,’ said Dawes.

‘I thought they’d gone paperless.’

‘That’s a myth. They use more than ever. No, Copycon are going strong. At least, my pension still arrives every month.’ He smiled but then seemed to correct himself. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Tell me something, do you think my daughter is alive?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Frieda, softly.

‘It’s the not knowing that’s hard,’ said Dawes.

‘I’m sorry. I keep coming around and stirring up old feelings and it’s not as if I’ve got much to report.’

‘No,’ said Dawes. ‘I’m grateful anyone’s trying to do anything for my daughter. You’re welcome here whenever you want to come.’

After a few more exchanges, Frieda and Fearby were back out on the street.

‘Poor man,’ said Frieda.

‘You came back out just in time, though. Dawes was just explaining in unnecessary detail how he and his neighbour were building a new wall.’

Frieda smiled. ‘Speak of the devil,’ she said, pointing. And there was Gerry, walking down the road, clasping two enormous bags of compost that almost obscured him. Frieda saw that one bag was leaking, leaving a thick brown trail in his wake.

‘Hello, Gerry.’

He stopped, put the bags down, wiped a grimy hand across his forehead. His moustache was still uneven. ‘I’m getting
too old for this,’ he said. ‘Not to seem unfriendly, but why are you here again?’

‘We came to ask Lawrence a couple of questions.’

‘I hope you had good reason.’

‘I thought so, but –’

‘You mean well, I can see that. But he’s had enough pain. You leave him be now.’ He bent to lift up his bags again and stumbled away, his trail of soil behind him.

‘He’s right,’ said Frieda, soberly.

Fearby unlocked his car. ‘Can I drop you home?’

‘There’s a station round the corner. I can walk and take the train back. It’s easier for both of us.’

‘Tired of me already?’

‘I’m thinking of your trip back. Look, Jim, I’m sorry for dragging you all the way down here. It didn’t amount to much.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve driven across the country for way less than this. And been glad to get it.’ He got into his car. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

‘Aren’t you baffled by the way these girls can just disappear?’

‘Not baffled,’ he said. ‘Tormented.’

He closed the door but opened it again.

‘What?’ asked Frieda.

‘How will I get in touch? I don’t have your phone number, your email, your address.’

They swapped numbers and he nodded to her. ‘We’ll speak soon.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not over.’

FIFTY

Frieda walked to the station slowly. The day was grey but hot, almost oppressive, and she felt grimy in the clothes she’d worn yesterday. She allowed herself to think of her bath – Josef’s gift to her – waiting in her clean, shaded house, empty at last of all people.

She turned on her mobile and at once messages pinged on to the screen: missed calls, voicemail, texts. Reuben had called six times, Josef even more. Jack had written her a very long text full of abbreviations she couldn’t understand. Sasha had left two texts. Judith Lennox had phoned. There were also several missed calls from Karlsson. When she rang voicemail she heard his voice, grave and anxious, asking her to get in touch as soon as she got his message. She stared down at her phone, almost hearing a clamour of voices insisting she get in touch, scolding her and pleading with her and, worst of all, being in a state of distress about her. She didn’t have the time for any of that now, or the energy or the will. Later.

When she eventually reached her house, letters lay on the doormat and, as she stooped to pick them up, she saw that a couple had been pushed through the letterbox rather than posted.

One was from Reuben; she recognized his writing at once. ‘Where the fuck are you, Frieda?’ he wrote. ‘Ring me NOW.’ He didn’t bother to sign it. The other was from Karlsson, and was more formal: ‘Dear Frieda, I couldn’t get you on
your phone so came round on the off-chance. I really would like to see you – as your friend and as someone who is worried about you.’

Frieda grimaced and pushed both notes into her bag. She walked into her house. It felt cool and sheltered, almost like she was walking into a church. It had been so long since she had spent time there alone, gathering her thoughts, sitting in her study-garret, looking out over the lights of London, at the centre of the city but not trapped in its feverish rush, its mess and cruelty. She went from room to room, trying to feel at home again, waiting for a sense of calm to return to her. She felt that she had passed through a storm and her mind was still full of the faces she had dreamed about last night, or lain awake thinking of. All those lost girls.

The flap rattled and the tortoiseshell cat padded across to her and rubbed its body against her leg, purring. She scratched its chin and put some more food into its bowl, though Josef had obviously come in to feed it. She went upstairs, into her gleaming new bathroom, put in the plug and turned on the taps. She saw her reflection briefly in the mirror: hair damp on her forehead, face pale and tense. Sometimes she was a stranger to herself. She turned the taps off and pulled out the plug. She wouldn’t use the bath today. She stepped under the shower instead, washed her hair, scrubbed her body, clipped her nails, but it was no use. A thought hissed in her head. Abruptly, she stepped out of the shower, wrapped herself in a towel, and went into her bedroom. The window was slightly open and the thin curtains flapped in the breeze. She could hear voices outside, and the hum of traffic.

Her mobile buzzed in her pocket and she fished it out, meaning to turn it off at once because she wasn’t ready to deal with the world yet. But it was Karlsson, so she answered.

‘Yes?’

‘Frieda. Thank God. Where are you?’

‘At home. I’ve just come in.’

‘You’ve got to get over here now.’

‘Is it the Lennox case?’

‘No.’ His voice was grim. ‘I’ll tell you when you come.’

‘But –’

‘For once in your life, don’t ask questions.’

Karlsson met her outside. He was pacing up and down the pavement, openly smoking a cigarette. Not a good sign.

‘What is it?’

‘I wanted to get to you before bloody Crawford.’

The commissioner? What on earth –’

‘Is there anything you need to tell me?’

‘What?’

‘Where were you last night?’

‘I was in Birmingham. Why?’

‘Do you have witnesses to that?’

‘Yes. But I don’t understand –’

‘What about your friend, Dr McGill?’

‘Reuben? I have no idea. What’s going on?’

‘I’ll tell you what’s going on.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. ‘Hal Bradshaw’s house burned down last night. Someone set it on fire.’

‘
What?
I don’t know what to say. Was anyone inside?’

‘He was at some conference. His wife and daughter were there, but they got out.’

‘I didn’t know he had a family.’

‘Or you wouldn’t have done it?’ said Karlsson, with a faint smile.

‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’

‘It surprised me as well. I mean that someone would marry him, not that someone would burn his house down.’

‘Don’t say that. Not even as a bad joke. But why have you made me come here to tell me this?’

‘He’s in a bad way, saying wild things. That it was you – or one of your friends.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘He claims that threats have been made against him.’

‘By me?’

‘By people close to you.’

Frieda remembered Reuben and Josef at that dreadful meal, Reuben’s revenge fantasies and the look of hatred on his face, and her heart sank. ‘They wouldn’t,’ she said firmly.

‘It gets worse, Frieda. He’s spoken to the press. He hasn’t gone as far as naming names but it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.’

‘I see.’

‘They’re inside, waiting for you.’ Briefly, he laid a hand on her arm. ‘But I’ll be there as well. You’re not on your own.’

The commissioner – a stocky man with beetling brows and a pink scalp showing through his thinning hair – was a deep shade of red. His uniform looked far too hot for the day. Bradshaw was in jeans and a T-shirt and hadn’t shaved. When Frieda entered the room, he stared at her, then slowly shook his head from side to side, as if he was too full of pity and anger to trust himself to speak.

‘I’m very sorry indeed about what happened,’ said Frieda.

‘Sit down,’ said the commissioner, pointing to a small chair.

‘I’d prefer to stand.’

‘Suit yourself. I’ve been hearing your story from Dr Bradshaw. I’m bewildered, absolutely bewildered, as to why we ever had professional dealings with you.’ Here he turned towards Karlsson. ‘I must say I’m disappointed in you, Mal,
turning a blind eye to your friend letting a possible psychopath loose.’

‘But he wasn’t a psychopath,’ said Karlsson, mildly. ‘It was a set-up.’

The commissioner ignored him.

‘Punching a colleague. Attacking a young woman she’d never met before and forcing her to the floor, just because she stood up for her boyfriend. Stalking poor Hal here. Not to mention killing this schizophrenic young woman, of course.’

‘In justified self-defence,’ said Karlsson. ‘Be careful what you say.’

Crawford looked at Frieda. ‘What have you got to say in your defence?’

‘What am I defending myself against? Arson?’

‘Frieda, Frieda,’ murmured Bradshaw. ‘I think you need some professional help. I really do.’

‘I had nothing to do with it.’

‘My wife was in that house,’ said Bradshaw. ‘And my daughter.’

‘Which makes it even worse,’ said Frieda.

‘Where were you?’ said Crawford.

‘I was in Birmingham. And I can put you in touch with someone who can confirm that.’

‘What about your friends?’ asked Bradshaw.

‘What about them?’

‘They’ve taken your side against me.’

‘It is true that I have several friends who think you acted unprofessionally and unethically –’