Waiting for Wednesday (56 page)

At last she rose and went upstairs. She put the plug into the bath – Josef’s bath – and turned the taps, poured in bath lotion until the water foamed. She peeled off her dirty clothes and cleaned her teeth, avoiding looking at herself in the little mirror over the basin. Her limbs felt heavy and her skin stung; she was all used up. At last she climbed into the fragrant, scorching water and let herself sink beneath the surface. Perhaps she could lie here until day, her hair floating on the surface and her blood pounding in her ears.

At last she got out. It was still dark but there was a faint band of light on the horizon. A new day was starting. She dressed and went downstairs. There were things she needed to do.

First, she made a phone call, one she should have made days ago. He didn’t reply at once and when he did his voice was thick with sleep.

‘Sandy?’

‘Frieda? What? Are you all right?’

‘I don’t think so. I’m sorry.’

‘Hang on.’ There was a pause. She imagined him sitting up, turning on the light. ‘Why are you sorry?’

‘I’m just sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have told you.’

‘Told me what?’

‘Can you come over?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘I mean, now.’

‘Yes.’

That was one of the things she loved about him – that he would make a decision like that, without hesitation or a flurry of anxious questions that she wouldn’t be able to answer, knowing she would only ask out of extreme need. He would get up at once, book a flight, make arrangements with his colleagues, be with her before the day was out because she had turned to him at last.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

She made herself a bitterly strong cup of coffee and fed the cat, watered the plants in her backyard, breathing in the intense fragrance of hyacinths and herbs. Then she put on her jacket and left the house. It was a fresh, damp dawn; later it would be warm and bright. The sweetness of spring. The shops were all still shut, but she could smell bread baking in the little bakery on the corner. Lights were coming on in flats and houses; metal shutters rattled up in newsagents and corner shops; a bus lurched by with a single passenger staring out of the window. A postman pulling his red cart passed her. The great life of London starting up again.

Frieda reached Muswell Hill and consulted her
A-Z
, then turned off into a wide residential street full of handsome detached houses. Number twenty-seven. From the outside, the damage wasn’t immediately obvious – just darkened
bricks, some charred woodwork, a broken window on the first floor and, as she drew closer, the acrid smell that caught in the back of her throat. She hesitated, then stepped into the front garden with its gravelled pathway and its tub of red tulips that had survived the blaze. From here she could see through the large bay window into the front room, where the devastation was obvious. She pictured the fire raging through the orderly spaces, gobbling tables, chairs, pictures, doors; licking ashy blackness up the walls. Dean had done this – casually pushed a petrol-soaked rag through the letterbox, dropped a match after it.
We couldn’t let him get away with it.
In a way, Bradshaw was right: this was her fault.

There was a side door to the left of the house, and when she pushed at it, it opened on to the garden at the back. She stepped through into a green space, and now she was looking in at what had once been a conservatory and kitchen but was now a ruin. She was about to turn away when she saw something that stopped her.

Hal Bradshaw was in there, stooped over the scorched remains. He squatted, pulled out what had obviously once been a book, held it up to examine, then dropped it again. He was wearing a crumpled suit and wellington boots and stepped softly through the silt of ashes that stirred as he walked, lifted in dark petals around him. Frieda saw his face, which was tired and defeated.

He seemed to sense her presence because he straightened up. Their eyes met and his expression tightened. He pulled himself back into the Hal Bradshaw she knew: controlled, knowing, defended.

‘Well,’ he said, coming towards her. ‘Quite a sight, isn’t it? Come to assess the damage?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I needed to see it. What were you looking for?’

‘Oh.’ He smiled mirthlessly, lifted his sooty hands, then let them drop. ‘My life, I suppose. You spend years collecting things and then – poof, they’re gone. I wonder now what they all meant.’

Frieda stepped into the ruin and picked up the remains of a book that crumbled at her touch. She watched words dissolve into ash and dust.

‘I’m very sorry,’ she said.

‘Is that an admission?’

‘A regret.’

As she made her way towards the Underground, Frieda turned on her mobile and looked at all the messages. So many, from people she knew and people she didn’t. She was walking towards uproar, questions and comments, the dazzle of attention that she dreaded, but for now she was alone. Nobody knew where she was.

But there was someone she did have to call.

‘Karlsson. It’s me.’

‘Thank God. Where are you?’

‘I’m on my way to Tooting, to the hospital.’

I’ll meet you there. But are you all right?’

‘I don’t know. Are you?’

He met her in the lobby, striding towards her as he came in through the revolving door, putting one hand briefly on her shoulder as he stared into her face, looking for something there.

‘Listen –’ he began.

‘Can I say something first?’

‘Typical.’ He tried to smile, his mouth twisting. He looked exhausted and stricken.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re sorry!’

‘Yes.’

‘But you were right. Frieda, you were horribly right.’

‘But I did wrong, too. To you. And I apologize.’

‘Oh, Jesus, you don’t need to –’

‘I do.’

‘OK.’

‘Have you been there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have they found the missing girls?’

‘It’ll take more than one night. But yes.’

‘How many?’

‘It’s too early to say.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Several.’

‘And have you found …’

‘Of course we have. Gerald Collier isn’t saying anything. Nothing at all. But we don’t need him to. They were in his cellar.’

‘Poor Fearby,’ said Frieda, softly. ‘It was him, you know, not me. I would have given up, but he never did.’

‘An old drunk hack.’ Karlsson’s voice was bitter. ‘And a traumatized therapist. And you solved a crime we didn’t even know existed. We’ll be tremendously efficient now, of course. Now that it’s too late. We’ll identify the remains and we’ll inform the poor bloody relatives and we’ll go back over their lives and we’ll find out everything there is to be discovered about those two fucking bastards who got away with it for so many years. We’ll update computers and conduct an inquiry as to how this could have happened. We’ll learn from our mistakes, or that’s what we’ll tell the press.’

‘His own daughter,’ said Frieda. ‘She was the one I was looking for.’

‘Well, you found her.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll need to answer a lot of questions, I’m afraid.’

‘I know. I’ll come to the station later. Is that all right? But first I’m going to see Josef. Have you seen him?’

‘Josef?’ A tiny smile broke through Karlsson’s wintry expression. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve seen him.’

Josef had a room to himself. He was sitting up in bed, wearing oversized pyjamas, with a bandage round his head and his arm encased in plaster. A nurse stood by his side with a clipboard. He was whispering something to her and she was laughing.

‘Frieda!’ he cried. ‘My friend Frieda.’

‘Josef, how are you?’

‘My arm is broken,’ he said. ‘Bad break, they say. But clean snap so good recovery. Later you write on arm. Or draw one of your pictures maybe.’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘Drugs take away pain. I have eaten toast already. This is Rosalie and she is from Senegal. This is my good friend Frieda.’

‘Your good friend who nearly got you killed.’

‘Is nothing,’ he said. ‘A day’s work.’

There was a knock at the door and Reuben came in, followed by Sasha, who was bearing a bunch of flowers.

‘I’m afraid you aren’t allowed flowers,’ said Rosalie.

‘He’s a hero,’ said Reuben, decisively. ‘He has to have flowers.’

Sasha kissed Josef on his bristly cheek, then put her arm around Frieda, gazing at her with beseeching concern.

‘Not now,’ said Frieda.

‘I’ve brought you some water.’ Reuben drew a little bottle out of his pocket and gave Josef a meaningful look.

Josef took a gulp, flinched and offered it to Frieda. She shook her head, withdrew to the chair by the window, which looked out on to another wall and a narrow strip of pale blue sky. She could see the vapour trail of a plane, but it was too soon for it to be Sandy’s. She was aware of Sasha’s eyes on her, heard Reuben’s voice and Josef’s boisterous replies. A junior doctor came in and then left. A different nurse entered, wheeling a trolley; the creak of shoes on lino. Doors opening, doors closing. A pigeon perched on the narrow sill and stared in at her with a beady eye. Sasha said something to her and she replied. Reuben asked her a question. She said yes, no, that she would tell them everything later. Not now.

Sandy took her in his arms and held her against him. She could feel the steady beat of his heart and his breath in her hair. Warm, solid, strong. Then he drew away and looked at her. It was only when she saw the expression on his face that she began to understand what she had come through. It took a great effort not to turn away from his pity and horror.

‘What have you done, Frieda?’

‘That’s the question.’ She tried to laugh but it came out wrong. ‘What
have
I done?’

SIXTY-TWO

Frieda had the strange feeling that she was on stage but that she was playing the wrong part. Thelma Scott was sitting in what should have been Frieda’s chair and Frieda was pretending to be a patient. They were facing each other and Thelma was looking straight at her with a kind, sympathetic expression, an expression that said there was no pressure: anything could be said, anything was allowed. Frieda knew the expression because it was one she used herself. She felt almost embarrassed that Thelma was trying it out on her. Did she think she would be so easily fooled?

Frieda kept her own consulting room deliberately austere, with neutral colours, a few pictures deliberately chosen not to send out any precise signals. Thelma Scott’s room was quite different. She had busy, patterned wallpaper, blue and green tendrils intertwined, here and there a bird perched on them. The surfaces were crowded with little objects, knick-knacks. There were miniature glass bottles, porcelain figurines, a glass vase with pink and yellow roses, pill boxes, china mugs, a set of plates decorated with wildflowers. But there was nothing personal, nothing that told you about Thelma Scott’s life or personality, except that she liked little objects. Frieda hated little objects. They felt like clutter. She would have liked to sweep them all into a bin bag and put them out on the pavement for the binmen to take away.

Still Thelma looked at her with her kind, accepting expression. Frieda knew what it was to sit there, to wait for the first step that would mark the beginning of the journey.
Sometimes Frieda had sat for the entire fifty minutes with a patient failing to say a single word. Sometimes they would just cry.

Why was she here? What, really, was there to talk about? She’d already gone through it all, all the choices, all the permutations, the roads she had taken and the roads she hadn’t taken, while lying awake at two, three, four in the morning. Because of her intervention, Russell Lennox’s attempt to protect his son had failed and Ted was now in custody. The thought of him in prison and all he might be going through was terrible, but he had committed a terrible act of violence, and against his own mother. His only hope was to acknowledge what he had done and take the consequences. The legal system might be merciful. With the right defence, he might escape a murder conviction.

Some people might think that Ted would have stood a better chance if he had remained free. Human beings have an ability to survive by burying the past, making themselves forget. Ted might have found his own way of atoning. But Frieda couldn’t make herself believe that. You had to face the truth, however painful, and move on from there. Burying it didn’t make it die, and in the end it would claw its way out of the earth and come for you. But was that just an opinion and was Ted paying the price for it?

And were Dora and Judith paying the price as well? As she thought of them, the image came into her mind of the funeral that she had attended just two days ago. There had been music and poems and hundreds of people, but what she had seen from her position at the back had been the two girls, one on either side of their grimly virtuous aunt. Both had had their hair cut for the occasion: Dora now had a severe fringe and Judith’s wild curls had been shorn. They seemed limp and defeated, utterly wretched. Judith had seen
Frieda; her remarkable eyes had blazed briefly and then she had turned away.

The truth: Jim Fearby had lived for it and sacrificed everything for it, his family, his career and his life. In those last moments, when Lawrence Dawes and Gerry Collier had killed him, did he briefly realize he had found the truth? Did he feel justified? And was it her fault? She had tried to help Fearby and he had died. She had travelled with him, talked with him, planned with him. She had abused her friendship with Karlsson to get him involved but she had failed Fearby. Fearby had made the connection with Dawes but should Frieda herself have realized that he couldn’t have acted alone? He had gone ahead of her into that underworld and she hadn’t been able to save him.