Waiting for Wednesday

with a limp that she tried to disguise but couldn’t, and thought:
This is my fault
. For a moment, she let herself remember Frieda lying in
Mary Orton’s house, unmoving, the sight of the blood. Then she saw young Judith
Lennox flying around the schoolroom, like a broken moth, shouting at her to get out, to
leave. Perhaps the simple truth is that I’m a hopeless detective, she thought. She
hadn’t even been able to get an alibi from Zach Greene.
    Frieda gestured to the chair opposite and
Yvette sat down. So this was where Frieda’s patients sat. She imagined closing her
eyes and saying:
Please help me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Please tell me what’s wrong with me …
    ‘Thank you for agreeing to see
me,’ she said.
    ‘I owe you a favour.’ Frieda was
smiling at her.
    ‘Oh, no! It’s
me …’
    ‘You made the complaint against me go
away.’
    ‘That was nothing. Idiots.’
    ‘Still, I’m grateful.’
    ‘I didn’t want to meet at the
station. I thought this would be better. I don’t know if you’ve heard. Zach
Greene was murdered. He was Judith Lennox’s boyfriend.’
    Frieda seemed to become even more still. She
shook her head slightly. ‘No. I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry,’ she
said softly, as though to herself.
    ‘She’s in a dreadful state,’
Yvette continued. ‘I’ve just left her. The school counsellor was there and
the head. I’m worried for her.’
    ‘Why are you telling me
this?’
    ‘You’ve met her. I know about
your behind-the-scenes dealings with the Lennox family.’ She held up a hand.
‘That sounded wrong. I didn’t mean it grumpily.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘I wondered if you could go and see
her. Call on her. Just to see how she is.’
    ‘She’s not my
patient.’
    ‘I understand that.’
    ‘I hardly know her. Her brother is a
friend of my niece. That’s the only connection. I’ve met the poor girl a few
times.’
    ‘I didn’t know how to deal with
her. There are things they don’t teach you. I could call up one of our people, I
suppose.’ She wrinkled her nose dubiously at the thought. ‘Hal fucking
Bradshaw would be only too pleased to tell her what she was feeling and why. But I –
well, I guess I thought you could help.’
    ‘For old times’ sake?’
Frieda asked ironically.
    ‘You mean you won’t?’
    ‘I didn’t say that.’
OK. I won’t fly over and hammer
at your door and I will trust you. But you make it very hard, Frieda. Sandy



FORTY-FOUR
    In the morning Jim Fearby called on the
family of Philippa Lewis. They lived on a new estate in a village a few miles south of
Oxford. A middle-aged woman – she must have been Philippa’s mother, Sue – slammed
the door as soon as he identified himself. He had read about the case in the local
paper, the usual story of walking home after staying late at school and not arriving; he
had seen the blurry photo. She had seemed a plausible candidate. He put a tick after her
name, followed by a question mark.
    Up towards Warwick, Cathy Birkin’s
mother made him tea and cake, and before the first mouthful he knew that this was a name
he’d be crossing off the list. She’d run away twice before. The cake was
quite nice, though. Ginger. Slightly spicy. Fearby had started to notice another sort of
pattern. The mothers of the runaway girls were the ones who would invite him in and give
him tea and cake. He could almost remember the houses and the girls by the cake
he’d been served. The one up near Crewe, Claire Boyle, had been carrot cake. High
Wycombe, Maria Horsley: chocolate. Was it as if they were still trying to prove that
they had done their best, that they weren’t bad parents? The ginger cake was
slightly dry and stuck to the roof of his mouth. He had to wash it down with his cooling
tea. As he chewed, he felt his own pang of conscience. He’d been putting it off
and putting it off. It was on the way and would only be a small diversion.
    He almost hoped that George Conley would be
out, but he wasn’t. The small block where he had moved to was neatenough. When Conley opened the door, he gave only the smallest
flicker of recognition, but Fearby was used to that. When Conley had talked to him over
the years, he had never seemed comfortable looking at him directly. Even when he talked,
it was as if he was addressing someone slightly to the side of Fearby and behind him. As
soon as Fearby stepped inside he was hit by the warmth and the smell, which seemed part
of each other. It wasn’t