Waiting for Wednesday

she could smell bread baking in the little bakery on the
corner. Lights were coming on in flats and houses; metal shutters rattled up in
newsagents and corner shops; a bus lurched by with a single passenger staring out of the
window. A postman pulling his red cart passed her. The great life of London starting up
again.
    Frieda reached Muswell Hill and consulted
her
A-Z
, then turned off into a wide residential street full of handsome
detached houses. Number twenty-seven. From the outside, the damage wasn’t
immediately obvious – just darkenedbricks, some charred woodwork, a
broken window on the first floor and, as she drew closer, the acrid smell that caught in
the back of her throat. She hesitated, then stepped into the front garden with its
gravelled pathway and its tub of red tulips that had survived the blaze. From here she
could see through the large bay window into the front room, where the devastation was
obvious. She pictured the fire raging through the orderly spaces, gobbling tables,
chairs, pictures, doors; licking ashy blackness up the walls. Dean had done this –
casually pushed a petrol-soaked rag through the letterbox, dropped a match after it.
We couldn’t let him get away with it.
In a way, Bradshaw was right:
this was her fault.
    There was a side door to the left of the
house, and when she pushed at it, it opened on to the garden at the back. She stepped
through into a green space, and now she was looking in at what had once been a
conservatory and kitchen but was now a ruin. She was about to turn away when she saw
something that stopped her.
    Hal Bradshaw was in there, stooped over the
scorched remains. He squatted, pulled out what had obviously once been a book, held it
up to examine, then dropped it again. He was wearing a crumpled suit and wellington
boots and stepped softly through the silt of ashes that stirred as he walked, lifted in
dark petals around him. Frieda saw his face, which was tired and defeated.
    He seemed to sense her presence because he
straightened up. Their eyes met and his expression tightened. He pulled himself back
into the Hal Bradshaw she knew: controlled, knowing, defended.
    ‘Well,’ he said, coming towards
her. ‘Quite a sight, isn’t it? Come to assess the damage?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I needed to see it. What were you
looking for?’
    ‘Oh.’ He smiled mirthlessly,
lifted his sooty hands, then let them drop. ‘My life, I suppose. You spend years
collecting things and then – poof, they’re gone. I wonder now what they all
meant.’
    Frieda stepped into the ruin and picked up
the remains of a book that crumbled at her touch. She watched words dissolve into ash
and dust.
    ‘I’m very sorry,’ she
said.
    ‘Is that an admission?’
    ‘A regret.’
    As she made her way towards the
Underground, Frieda turned on her mobile and looked at all the messages. So many, from
people she knew and people she didn’t. She was walking towards uproar, questions
and comments, the dazzle of attention that she dreaded, but for now she was alone.
Nobody knew where she was.
    But there was someone she did have to
call.
    ‘Karlsson. It’s me.’
    ‘Thank God. Where are you?’
    ‘I’m on my way to Tooting, to
the hospital.’
    I’ll meet you there. But are you all
right?’
    ‘I don’t know. Are
you?’
    He met her in the lobby, striding towards
her as he came in through the revolving door, putting one hand briefly on her shoulder
as he stared into her face, looking for something there.
    ‘Listen –’ he began.
    ‘Can I say something first?’
    ‘Typical.’ He tried to smile,
his mouth twisting. He looked exhausted and stricken.
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘You’re sorry!’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But you were right. Frieda, you were
horribly right.’
    ‘But I did wrong, too. To you. And I
apologize.’
    ‘Oh, Jesus, you don’t need to
–’
    ‘I do.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Have you been there?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Have they found the missing
girls?’
    ‘It’ll take more than one night.
But yes.’
    ‘How many?’
    ‘It’s too early to say.’
He swallowed hard. ‘Several.’
    ‘And have you found …’
    ‘Of course we have. Gerald Collier
isn’t saying anything. Nothing at all. But we don’t need him to. They were
in his cellar.’
    ‘Poor Fearby,’ said Frieda,
softly. ‘It was him, you know, not me. I would have given up, but he never
did.’
    ‘An old drunk hack.’
Karlsson’s voice was bitter. ‘And a traumatized therapist. And you solved