Waiting for Wednesday

times,
before bringing it down and wrapping it round his ankles as well, until he was
trussed.
    She pulled her phone out of her pocket with
fingers that were not trembling, and dialled the emergency services. Shesaid she needed the police, lots of them, and ambulances and gave the
address, repeating it to make sure they had it. She gave her name, and heard it as if it
belonged to someone else. She told them they should be quick. Then she put her phone
back into her pocket. She could hear Josef’s laboured breathing beside her and,
turning, saw the pain on his drawn face. She took the spanner out of his hand and
touched him lightly on the shoulder.
    ‘Wait there for one more
minute,’ she said, and kissed him on his clammy forehead.
    She ran down the cellar stairs. At the
bottom, she stopped briefly to put two thumbs on Fearby’s lids, closing them. She
smoothed his hair off his face, then went to where Sharon Gibbs was still on her knees,
her head cradled on her arms. She was making guttural little cries, like those of an
animal in pain. She was wearing a bra that barely covered her shallow breasts and some
filthy drawstring trousers; her feet were bare and torn. Frieda could see in the dim
light that she was covered with bruises and what looked like cigarette burns.
    She squatted beside her and put a hand under
her elbow. ‘Can you get up?’ she asked. ‘Let me help. Here.’ She
took off her jacket andwrapped it around the girl’s emaciated
frame. Her ribs stood out starkly, and her collarbone. She smelt of rot and decay.
‘Come with me, Sharon,’ Frieda said gently. ‘It’s over, and
you’re safe. Come out of here.’
    She half led and half carried the girl, past
Fearby and up out of the cellar that had been her torture chamber, into the light that
was fading now. Sharon gave a little cry of pain at the dazzle and bent over, almost
falling, coughing up dribbles of vomit. Frieda got her to the doorway, out of the
accursed house and into the clean air, and sat her on the steps.
    Josef shambled over. Frieda took off her
cotton scarf and wrapped it around his neck, where blood was running thickly. He made to
sit on the step, but Sharon shrank from him.
    ‘It’s OK,’ Frieda said.
‘This man is good. He rescued you, Sharon. We both owe him our life.’
    ‘I was coming to find Lila,’
Sharon whimpered. ‘I wanted to see Lila.’
    ‘It’s all right now. Don’t
talk yet.’
    ‘Is she dead?’
    ‘Yes. I’m certain she is. She
must have found out about her father so he killed her. But you are alive, Sharon, and
you’re safe now.’
    She stood beside the two of them. There was
the smell of honeysuckle wafting over to them from the neighbouring garden, and three
doors down Frieda could see the old woman watering her tiny front garden with a hose. It
was a beautiful late-spring evening. She fixed her eyes on the road – looking not just
for the flashing blue lights of the police and the ambulances, but also for the figure
of Gerry Collier. It was only minutes since she and Josef had watched him leave, but it
seemed like hours, days – another world. Behind them, the door was wrenched off its
hinges, and in the cellar lay Jim Fearby, his long task over.
    At last they came, sirens and lights
shattering the soft evening. She heard them before she saw them, blue arcs swinging over
the street before the cars and ambulances arrived, a screech of brakes, a sudden rush of
men and women, voices speaking urgently, orders and exclamations, people bending towards
them, stretchers, oxygen masks. Neighbours gathering on the road, a sudden sense of
being at the centre of a world closing in on them.
    There was a man standing in front of her,
asking her something. She couldn’t make out his questions but she knew what she
had to say.
    ‘My name is Frieda Klein.’ She
heard her voice, calm and clear. ‘I made the call. This is Josef, who is hurt. And
Sharon Gibbs, who has been missing for weeks. She has been held in the cellar by the man
tied up inside, Lawrence Dawes. Be careful with her. You can’t know what
she’s been through. A second man is at large, Gerry Collier. You have to find
him.’
    ‘Gerry Collier, you say?’
    ‘Yes. He owns this place. And a man
called Jim Fearby is dead, inside the house. You’re too late for him.’
    Faces hovered above her, blurred, anonymous,
mouths opening and stretching, eyes large and staring. Someone was saying something, but
she pressed on.
    ‘There will be bodies