Waiting for Wednesday

explain – but he owes me. Anyway.’ She
remembered the note he’d pushed through her door. ‘He’s a
friend.’
    Fearby still sounded unsure. ‘Where do
you want to meet?’
    ‘At the station.’ She looked at
her radio clock. ‘In about forty-five minutes. Three o’clock. Is that
good?’
    ‘I’ll get there as soon as I
can.’
    She gave him the address and ended the call.
Her tiredness had lifted. She felt glitteringly awake and alert. Only her eyes throbbed,
as if the migraines she had had as a teenager had reappeared. Lawrence Dawes. She had
sat in his lovely, well-tended garden. She had drunk tea with him. Shaken his hand and
looked into his weathered face. Heard the pain in his voice. How had she not known? She
put her head into her hands, feeling the relief of darkness.
    Then she swiftly pulled on baggy linen
trousers and a soft cotton shirt, dropped her keys into her bag and left.
    Fearby was waiting for her. Approaching
him, Frieda was struck by how odd he looked, with his long white hair and those eyes
that glared from his creviced face. He was more crumpled than ever, as if he’d
been sleeping rough. He seemed to be talking to himself and when he saw her he simply
continued with the sentence.
    ‘… so I have a few of the folders
in my car but of course we can collect everything else later, and there are still some
notes I haven’t typed up –’
    ‘Let’s go in,’ said
Frieda. She put her arm under his sharp elbow and pulled him through the revolving
door.
    Karlsson was in a meeting, but when he
heard that Dr Frieda Klein was downstairs he left it and bounded into Receptionto meet her. She was standing very upright in the centre of the hall
and her face was set in an expression of determination that he recognized from the old
days. Beside her was a man who resembled a moth-eaten bird of prey. He was carrying
several plastic bags bulging with folders and holding a tape recorder. Karlsson
didn’t connect him to Frieda. He looked like one of the obsessive people who
wandered into the station to disclose lunatic conspiracies to the indifferent duty
officer behind the desk.
    ‘Come into my office,’ he
said.
    ‘This is Jim Fearby. He’s a
journalist. Jim, this is DCI Malcolm Karlsson.’
    Karlsson put out a hand but Fearby had none
to spare. He simply nodded twice and stared fiercely into Karlsson’s face.
    ‘We need to speak to you,’
Frieda said to Karlsson.
    ‘Is this about Hal
Bradshaw?’
    ‘That’s not important right
now.’
    ‘Actually, it is quite
important.’
    Karlsson ushered them into his room and
pulled up two chairs for them. Frieda sat but Fearby put his bags on the chair, then
stood behind it.
    ‘Hal Bradshaw has made it quite clear
that –’
    ‘No,’ Fearby said harshly, the
first word Karlsson had heard from him. ‘Listen to her.’
    ‘Mr Fearby –’
    ‘You’ll understand in a
minute,’ said Frieda. ‘At least, I hope you will.’
    ‘Go on, then.’
    ‘We believe that a man called Lawrence
Dawes, who lives down near Croydon, has abducted and murdered at least six young women,
including his own daughter.’
    There was silence. Karlsson didn’t
move. His face was expressionless.
    ‘Karlsson? Did you hear?’
    When he finally responded it was in a tone
of deep dismay. ‘Frieda. What have you been doing?’
    ‘I’ve been trying to trace a
missing girl,’ said Frieda, steadily.
    ‘Why don’t I know about this? Is
there an ongoing murder inquiry that I’ve somehow missed?’
    ‘I told you they wouldn’t
believe you,’ said Fearby.
    ‘You have to listen to me.’
Frieda fixed Karlsson with her bright gaze. ‘There’s no inquiry because no
one has made the connection. Except Jim Fearby.’
    ‘But how did you get
involved?’
    ‘It was something that that fake
patient of Hal Bradshaw’s told me.’
    ‘The one who shafted you?’
    ‘That’s irrelevant. I
don’t care about it any more. There was a detail that stood out and I
couldn’t get it out of my mind. It haunted me. I had to find out what it
meant.’
    Karlsson looked at Frieda and the
dishevelled character with her. He felt a lurch of pity.
    ‘I know it sounds irrational,’
she continued. ‘At first I thought I was going crazy and it was just a projection
of my own feelings. But I traced where the story came from. I went from the man
who’d been sent to me by Hal to the other three researchers. I met Rajit, who had
got the story from his girlfriend. I found her and she