Waiting for Wednesday

don’t know. I asked him and
he said that names weren’t important. He said he’d had several names, and it
was easy to change them. He said you could change names the way you change clothes, and
I should try it myself one day. I said I wanted to be called Jemima!’ She gave
another of her raucous bursts of laughter.
    But the air had cooled around Frieda. She
sat down opposite Olivia and leaned across the table towards her, speaking with quiet
urgency. ‘What did this man look like, Olivia?’
    ‘Look like? Well. I don’t know.
Nothing to write home about.’
    ‘No, really,’ said Frieda.
‘Tell me.’
    Olivia made the face of a sulky schoolgirl.
‘He had grey hair, cut very short. He was solid, I suppose. Not tall. Not
short.’
    ‘What colour were his eyes?’
    ‘His eyes? You are strange, Frieda. I
can’t think. Brown. Yes, he had brown eyes. I told him he had eyes like a dog we
once had so they must have been, mustn’t they?’
    ‘Did he say what he did?’
    ‘No, I don’t think so.
Why?’
    ‘You are sure he said he knew
me?’
    ‘He said he’d helped you
recently. He said you’d remember.’
    Frieda shut her eyes for a moment. She saw
Mary Orton gazing at her as she lay dying. She saw a knife raised towards her – and
then, like a flutter at the margins of her vision, she saw, or sensed, a shape, a figure
in the shadows. Someone had saved her.
    ‘What else did he say?’
    ‘I think I talked more than he
did,’ said Olivia.
    ‘Tell me anything you
remember.’
    ‘You’re scaring me a
bit.’
    ‘Please.’
    ‘He knew I had a daughter called Chloë
and that she was staying with you.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘There’s nothing else.
You’re giving me a headache.’
    ‘He didn’t mention Terry or
Joanna or Carrie.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Or send any message.’
    ‘Just his regards or love. Oh, and
something about daffodils.’
    ‘Daffodils – what about
daffodils?’
    ‘I think he said he’d once given
you daffodils.’
    Yes. Dean had sent a little girl across the
park to her, bearing a bunch of daffodils and a message. Four words that Frieda had
carried with her: ‘It wasn’t your time.’
    She stood up. ‘Did you leave him alone
at all?’
    ‘No! Well, I went to the loo, but
apart from that – he didn’t steal anything, if that’s what you mean. He was
just being kind to me.’
    ‘How many spare keys do you
have?’
    ‘What? This is stupid. Anyway, I
don’t know. I’ve got keys and so has Chloë and there are a few others
knocking around, but I’ve no idea where they are.’
    ‘Listen, Olivia. I’m going to
get Josef to come round and change all the locks in the house and fit proper safety
devices on your windows.’
    ‘Have you gone mad?’
    ‘I hope so. He’ll come tomorrow
first thing, so make sure you’re up in good time.’
    ‘What’s going on?’
    ‘Nothing, I hope. It’s just a
precaution.’
    ‘Are you going?’
    ‘I’m meeting Sasha. But, Olivia,
don’t go letting any more strange men into your house.’



THIRTY-SIX
    Before his appointment with Sadie, Karlsson
spent twenty minutes with Dora Lennox. They sat in the kitchen together, while Louise
made loud clearing-up noises in the living room and hall. Karlsson thought that
everything about Dora was pale – her thin white face, her bloodless lips, her small,
delicate hands, which kept fiddling with the salt cellar. She seemed insubstantial. Her
blue veins showed under her milky skin. He felt brutal as he took out the rag doll,
hearing the suppressed whimper she gave on seeing it. ‘I’m sorry to distress
you, Dora, but we found this in your room.’
    She stared at it, then away.
    ‘Is it yours?’
    ‘It’s horrible.’
    ‘Did you do this, Dora?’
    ‘No!’
    ‘It doesn’t matter if you did.
No one’s going to be angry with you. I just need to know if you did this
yourself?’
    ‘I just wanted to hide it.’
    ‘Who from?’
    ‘I don’t know. Anyone. I
didn’t want to see it.’
    ‘So you cut it up a bit and then
wanted to hide it?’ Karlsson asked. ‘That’s OK.’
    ‘No. I didn’t do it! It’s
not mine. I wanted to put it in the dustbin but then I thought someone would see
it.’
    ‘If it’s not yours, whose is
it?’
    ‘I don’t know. Why are you
asking?’ Her voice rose hysterically.
    ‘Dora. Listen. You haven’t done
anything wrong, but I just need to know how this came to be in your room, if it’s
not yours.’
    ‘I found it,’ she said, in a
whisper.
    ‘Found it