Waiting for Wednesday

a
crime we didn’t even know existed. We’ll be tremendously efficient now, of
course. Now that it’s too late. We’ll identify the remains and we’ll
inform the poor bloody relatives and we’ll go back over their lives and
we’ll find out everything there is to be discovered about those two fucking
bastards who got away with it for so many years. We’ll update computers and
conduct an inquiry as to how this could have happened. We’ll learn from our
mistakes, or that’s what we’ll tell the press.’
    ‘His own daughter,’ said Frieda.
‘She was the one I was looking for.’
    ‘Well, you found her.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You’ll need to answer a lot of
questions, I’m afraid.’
    ‘I know. I’ll come to the
station later. Is that all right? But first I’m going to see Josef. Have you seen
him?’
    ‘Josef?’ A tiny smile broke
through Karlsson’s wintry expression. ‘Oh, yes, I’ve seen
him.’
    Josef had a room to himself. He was sitting
up in bed, wearing oversized pyjamas, with a bandage round his head and his arm encased
in plaster. A nurse stood by his side with a clipboard. He was whispering something to
her and she was laughing.
    ‘Frieda!’ he cried. ‘My
friend Frieda.’
    ‘Josef, how are you?’
    ‘My arm is broken,’ he said.
‘Bad break, they say. But clean snap so good recovery. Later you write on arm. Or
draw one of your pictures maybe.’
    ‘Does it hurt?’
    ‘Drugs take away pain. I have eaten
toast already. This is Rosalie and she is from Senegal. This is my good friend
Frieda.’
    ‘Your good friend who nearly got you
killed.’
    ‘Is nothing,’ he said. ‘A
day’s work.’
    There was a knock at the door and Reuben
came in, followed by Sasha, who was bearing a bunch of flowers.
    ‘I’m afraid you aren’t
allowed flowers,’ said Rosalie.
    ‘He’s a hero,’ said
Reuben, decisively. ‘He has to have flowers.’
    Sasha kissed Josef on his bristly cheek,
then put her arm around Frieda, gazing at her with beseeching concern.
    ‘Not now,’ said Frieda.
    ‘I’ve brought you some
water.’ Reuben drew a little bottle out of his pocket and gave Josef a meaningful
look.
    Josef took a gulp, flinched and offered it to
Frieda. She shook her head, withdrew to the chair by the window, which looked out on to
another wall and a narrow strip of pale blue sky. She could see the vapour trail of a
plane, but it was too soon for it to be Sandy’s. She was aware of Sasha’s
eyes on her, heard Reuben’s voice and Josef’s boisterous replies. A junior
doctor came in and then left. A different nurse entered, wheeling a trolley; the creak
of shoes on lino. Doors opening, doors closing. A pigeon perched on the narrow sill and
stared in at her with a beady eye. Sasha said something to her and she replied. Reuben
asked her a question. She said yes, no, that she would tell them everything later. Not
now.
    Sandy took her in his arms and held her
against him. She could feel the steady beat of his heart and his breath in her hair.
Warm, solid, strong. Then he drew away and looked at her. It was only when she saw the
expression on his face that she began to understand what she had come through. It took a
great effort not to turn away from his pity and horror.
    ‘What have you done,
Frieda?’
    ‘That’s the question.’ She
tried to laugh but it came out wrong. ‘What
have
I done?’



SIXTY-TWO
    Frieda had the strange feeling that she was
on stage but that she was playing the wrong part. Thelma Scott was sitting in what
should have been Frieda’s chair and Frieda was pretending to be a patient. They
were facing each other and Thelma was looking straight at her with a kind, sympathetic
expression, an expression that said there was no pressure: anything could be said,
anything was allowed. Frieda knew the expression because it was one she used herself.
She felt almost embarrassed that Thelma was trying it out on her. Did she think she
would be so easily fooled?
    Frieda kept her own consulting room
deliberately austere, with neutral colours, a few pictures deliberately chosen not to
send out any precise signals. Thelma Scott’s room was quite different. She had
busy, patterned wallpaper, blue and green tendrils intertwined, here and there a bird
perched on them. The surfaces were crowded with little objects, knick-knacks. There were
miniature glass bottles, porcelain figurines, a glass vase with pink and yellow roses,
pill boxes, china mugs, a set of plates decorated with