Waiting for Wednesday

ordered tea for
himself and for her a kind of coffee with an exotic name. Although it was the smallest
size, the foamy concoction looked enough for four people. Vanessa Dale was dressed in a
dark red skirt over thick tights, ankle boots and a brightly patterned shirt. He noticed
she had a badge with her name on just above her left breast. He took out his pen and his
notebook. You think you’ll remember things, but you don’t. That was why he
wrote everything down, transcribed it, put the date beside each entry.
    ‘Thank you for taking the time,’
he said.
    ‘That’s all right,’ she
said.
    ‘Did you manage to find an old
picture?’
    She opened her purse and took out two
passport pictures, snipped from a set of four. He looked at it, then at her. The older
Vanessa was plumper in the face, the hair long and dark. ‘Can I keep this?’
he said.
    ‘I’m not bothered,’ she
said.
    ‘Someone rang me,’ said Fearby.
‘Someone from the police. He said that you contacted them on the thirteenth of
July 2004. Is that right?’
    ‘I did contact the police once, years
ago. I don’t remember the date.’
    ‘Why did you ring them?’
    ‘Someone gave me a fright. I called
the police about it.’
    ‘Could you tell me what
happened?’
    Vanessa looked suspicious.
‘What’s this about?’
    ‘I told you, I’m writing a
story. But your name won’t come into it.’
    ‘It seems stupid now,’ said
Vanessa, ‘but it was really creepy. I was walking back from the shops near where
my parents lived. There was a bit of scrubland. There’s a Tesco’s there now.
And a car pulled up. A man asked for directions.He got out of the car
and then he made a grab at me. He got me round the throat. I hit out and screamed at
him, then ran away. My mum made me phone the police. A couple of them came round and
talked to me about it. That was it.’
    ‘And it didn’t feature in the
trial.’
    ‘What trial?’
    ‘The trial of George
Conley.’
    She looked blank.
    ‘Do you remember the murder of Hazel
Barton?’
    ‘No.’
    Fearby thought for a moment. Was this just
another wrong turn? ‘What do you remember about your attack?’
    ‘It was years ago.’
    ‘But a man tried to kidnap you,’
said Fearby. ‘It must have been a memorable experience.’
    ‘It was really weird,’ said
Vanessa. ‘When it happened it was like a dream. You know when you have a really
scary dream and then you wake up and you can hardly remember anything about it? I
remember a man in a suit.’
    ‘Was he old? Young?’
    ‘I don’t know. He wasn’t a
teenager. And he wasn’t an old man. He was quite strong.’
    ‘Big? Little?’
    ‘Sort of average. Maybe a bit bigger
than me. But I’m not sure.’
    ‘What about his car? Do you remember
its colour, its make?’
    She screwed up her face in concentration.
‘Silver, I think. But I might be saying that because most cars are silver.
Honestly, I can’t remember anything, really. I’m sorry.’
    ‘Nothing?’
    ‘I’m sorry, it was just a blur
even then and now it’s seven years ago. I remember the man and the feeling of his
hand on my throat and the car revving and revving, and that’s all.’
    Fearby wrote everything – such as it was – in
his notebook.
    ‘And he didn’t say
anything?’
    ‘He asked for directions, like I said.
He may have said things when he was grabbing me. I don’t remember.’
    ‘And you never heard back from the
police?’
    ‘I didn’t expect to.’
    Fearby closed his notebook. ‘Well
done,’ he said.
    She looked puzzled. ‘What do you
mean?’
    ‘You fought him off.’
    ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she
said. ‘It didn’t feel like me. It was like watching myself on TV.’ She
picked up her phone. ‘I’ve got to get back.’



TWENTY-ONE
    Frieda didn’t know New York: it was an
abstract to her, a city of shadows and symbols, of steam rising from drains; a place of
arrivals and scatterings.
    She liked flying in when it was still dark,
though dawn showed in a ribbon of light, so that everything was partially hidden from
her, just a shifting pattern of massed buildings and pulsing lights, life glimpsed
through windows. Soon she would see it laid out clear before her, its mystery resolving
into plainness.
    She hadn’t told Sandy she was coming
because she hadn’t known that she was. It was early morning and he would still be
in bed, so she did what she always did when she felt uncertain: she walked, following
the map she had bought, until at last she