Waiting for Wednesday

told me it had come from her old
friend, Lila. And then I discovered that Lila had gone missing.’
    Karlsson held up his hand. ‘Why
didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you come to me, Frieda?’
    ‘I knew what everyone says: people go
missing all the time and they don’t want to be found. But this felt different to
me. I met Lila’s friend and then this man Lila had spent time withjust before she disappeared. Nasty character. Dodgy, violent, creepy.
That was where I met Jim.’
    ‘Who was also looking for Lila?’
asked Karlsson.
    ‘I was looking for Sharon.’
    ‘Sharon?’
    ‘Another missing girl.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘And all the others, of course. But it
was Sharon who led me there.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘And that was where I met
Frieda.’
    Karlsson looked at Fearby. He reminded him
of the drunks who sometimes slept the night in the police cells. He smelt a bit like
them too: the thick reek of whisky and stale tobacco. Frieda saw his expression.
    ‘You should have heard of Jim
Fearby,’ she said. ‘He was the journalist who got George Conley’s
murder conviction overturned.’
    Karlsson turned to Fearby with new interest.
‘That was you?’
    ‘So you can see why I’ve mixed
feelings about the police.’
    ‘Why are you here now?’
    ‘Frieda told me to come. She said
you’d help.’
    ‘I said you’d listen,’
said Frieda.
    ‘We think Lila’s father is
responsible.’ Fearby walked round the desk and stood beside Karlsson, who could
hear him breathing heavily. ‘For his daughter and Sharon and the
others.’
    ‘Lawrence Dawes,’ said
Frieda.
    ‘This is the man in
Croydon?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You’re asking me to believe
that the two of you have discovered that a man is responsible for several murders that
the police didn’t even know had been committed?’
    ‘Yes.’ Fearby glared at
Karlsson.
    ‘The girls went missing,’ Frieda
said. She was trying to speak as clearly and logically as she could. ‘And because
they lived in different places and no bodies were found, there was no connection made
between them.’
    Karlsson sighed. ‘Why do you think
this Lawrence Dawes is the killer?’
    Fearby went back to the other side of the
desk and started rummaging in the bags for something. ‘The real maps are in my
house, but I did this for you. So you’d see.’
    He brandished a sheet of paper on which
he’d drawn, very messily, a map of the route between London and Manchester, with
asterisks where the various missing women had disappeared.
    ‘It’s all right, Mr
Fearby.’
    ‘You don’t believe us.’
Frieda spoke quietly.
    ‘Look. Try to see it from my point of
view. Or the commissioner’s.’
    ‘No. It doesn’t matter. You
don’t believe us but I still want you to help me.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘I want you to go and interview
Lawrence Dawes. And search his house, every room. And the cellar. I think there’s
a cellar. And his garden, too. You’ll find something.’
    ‘I can’t just send a team of
police officers to take a house apart on your suspicions.’
    Frieda had been watching him attentively as
he spoke. Now her expression closed; her face became a blank. ‘You owe me,’
she said.
    ‘Sorry.’
    ‘You owe me.’ She heard her
voice, cool and hard. It wasn’t how she was feeling. ‘I nearly died because
of you. So you owe me. I’m calling in a favour.’
    ‘I see.’
    Karlsson stood up. He was trying to hide his
angry distress and turned his back on Frieda and Fearby as he put on his jacket and slid
his mobile into his pocket.
    ‘You’ll do it?’ Frieda
asked.
    ‘I do owe you, Frieda. And, also,
you’re my friend. So I trust you as well, in spite of the apparent wildness of
this. But you understand this might backfire?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘On me, I mean.’
    Frieda met his gaze. She could have wept at
his expression. ‘Yes, I understand.’
    ‘All right.’
    ‘I can’t come with –’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Will you let me know?’
    He let his eyes meet hers. ‘Yes,
Frieda. I’ll let you know.’
    As they left his room, a familiar figure
approached them.
    ‘Oh, shit,’ Karlsson hissed.
    ‘Malcolm,’ said the
commissioner. His face was red with anger. ‘A word.’
    ‘Yes? I’m on my way to see Mr
Lennox. Can this wait?’
    ‘No, it cannot wait. There was a
report.’ He pointed a quivering finger. ‘Her contract was terminated.
There’s this scandal with Hal. You know what I think. What the flaming hell is she
doing here?’
    ‘She’s been an