Waiting for Wednesday

in the
garden.’ She could no longer tell if she was speaking quietly or shouting, as if
from a pulpit. ‘Or bodies in the cellar.’
    Sharon Gibbs was lifted from her crouched
position on the steps to a stretcher. Her huge eyes gazed imploringly at Frieda from her
pinched, dirty face. Now Lawrence Dawes was carried from the house, still tangled in the
washing line. His eyes were flickering and they opened briefly on Frieda. For a moment
they stared at each other, into each other, and then he turned his head away.
    ‘Please can someone tell
Karlsson?’ Frieda continued.
    ‘Karlsson?’
    ‘DCI Malcolm Karlsson.’
    A woman was wrapping a blanket around
Josef’s shoulders, unwrapping Frieda’s bloody scarf from his neck. He stood
up, bulky and dazed, staggering slightly. Frieda put her arms round him, careful of his
dangling arm, and pressed her head against his chest. She could feel his heart hammering
and smell his sweat and his blood. ‘You’ll be fine now,’ she said.
‘You’ve done well, Josef.’
    ‘I?’
    ‘Yes. I will write to your sons to tell
them. They will be very proud of you.’
    ‘Proud?’
    ‘Yes, proud.’
    ‘But you –’
    ‘I’ll come and see you very
soon.’ She looked at the woman. ‘Where are you taking him?’
    ‘St George’s.’
    Now Josef was gone and Fearby’s body
was being carried out of the house. His face was covered, but Frieda could still see his
fine white hair. His feet poked out of the blanket the other end; the shoes were old and
scuffed and on one the lace was undone.
    The ambulances slid away, and suddenly she
was alone. There were gathering crowds in the street, and in the house the light was
unnaturally bright and full of noises, voices. But here, on this small patch of soil,
she was by herself at last. The door gaped behind her, like a foul, hot mouth; she could
smell its sickening stench.
    ‘Frieda Klein?’
    A man was in front of her, blocking out the
light.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I need to talk to you urgently. I
will be a few more minutes. Would you wait for me here, please?’
    He left her again. Her mobile rang. She
looked at it – Sandy – but didn’t answer. Then she turned it off.
    Without thinking what she was doing, she
stood up and went into the house. No one stopped her or even seemed to notice. She
stepped out of the back door into the garden. It was the same size and shape as Lawrence
Dawes’s garden, and was full of flowers. Bright, sweet, fragrant flowers, peonies
and roses and foxgloves and tall lupins; perhaps they were feeding on the bodies, she
thought. Perhaps that waswhy they were so strong and bright and
colourful. She walked down the lawn, past a well-tended vegetable plot, until she was
standing by the shallow brown River Wandle. She could see the pebbles on its bottom, and
a few tiny dark fish. Behind her, there was the roar of the world, but here just the
trickle of water; she could hear its faint gurgle. A swallow dipped past her, low and
fast, then up into the evening sky.
    She knew she had to go home. She thought of
something she had read in a book when she was a child. If you’re lost in the
jungle, find a stream and follow it downhill and it will reach a larger river or the
sea. This little brook would take her home.
    She took off her sandals, rolled up her
jeans and stepped into the water. It was cool, not cold, and rose to her ankles. She
walked delicately along the stony bed until she was standing outside Lawrence
Dawes’s garden. They’d drunk tea together there, and he’d shown her
this little river. She could hear his voice now, mild and amiable:
… we used to
make little paper boats and put them on the stream and watch them float away. I used
to tell them that in three hours’ time, those boats would reach the Thames and
then, if the tide was right, they’d float out to sea.
    Frieda crossed to the other side and stepped
out on to a narrow, overgrown path, pulling her sandals back on to her wet feet. Here it
was green, tangled and wild – a place of nettles and cow parsley, a smell of grass,
mulched leaves and moisture. She started to walk.
    The secret river narrowed to a ribbon of
brown water. Frieda kept pace with its flow, watching the bubbles beading and bursting
on its surface. She saw Jim Fearby’s face. She saw his dead eyes staring at her.
What had his last thoughts been? She wished so much that he had stayed alive long enough
to know he had won. She saw Josef’s face. He would lay downhis
life for