‘Is it an hour already?’ she said.
He looked down at the phone before handing it to her. ‘An hour and a half,’ he said.
‘What happened? Did you find anything out?’
‘Not here,’ said Josef. ‘We go to pub. You buy me drink.’
They could see a pub as soon as they were back on the pavement and they walked to it in silence. Inside there was noise from a games machine, with several teenage boys clustered around it.
‘What do you want?’ said Frieda.
‘Vodka. Big vodka. And cigarettes.’
Frieda bought a double vodka, a packet of cigarettes, a box of matches, and a glass of tap water for herself. Josef looked at his drink disapprovingly.
‘Is warm like the bathwater,’ he said. ‘But budmo.’
‘What?’
‘It means we shall live always.’
‘We won’t, you know.’
‘I believe you will,’ he said sternly, and drank his vodka in a single gulp.
‘Can I get you another?’ she said.
‘Now we go for the cigarette.’
They stepped outside. Josef lit one and inhaled deeply. Frieda thought of long-ago days outside the school gates at lunchtime. He offered the packet to her and she shook her head. ‘So?’ she said.
His expression was sad, as he answered: ‘I talk to four women. There is one from Africa, I think maybe from Somalia. She speak English like me but much, much worse. I understand little. Man there also. He want more than twenty for her. Much more. Angry man.’
‘Oh, my God, Josef. What happened?’
‘Is normal. I explain.’
‘He could have had a gun.’
‘Gun would be problem. But no gun. I explain to him and I go. But no use. And then I see a girl from Russia and then one girl I don’t know where from. Romania, maybe. The last girl, the girl I just see, she say a few words and I have a strong feeling and I talk to her in Ukrainian. She have big shock.’ He gave a smile but there was harshness in his eyes.
‘Josef, I’m so sorry.’
He stubbed out his cigarette on the pub wall and lit another. ‘Ah. It’s not so big a thing. You expect me to say, “Oh, it’s little girl from my own village.” I’m not a child, Frieda. It’s not just the plumbers and the haircutters who come here from my country.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘I do not say that it is a good job. I see her apartment. It is dirty and damp and I see the signs of drugs. That is not good.’
‘Do you want us to do something to help?’
‘Ah,’ he said again, dismissively. ‘You start there and you finish nowhere. I know this. It is bad to see but I know it.’
‘I should have been the one doing all of this. It’s my problem not yours.’
Josef looked at her with concern. ‘Not good for you to do right now,’ he said. ‘You not well. We are both sad about her, about Mary. But you were damaged too. Not all better.’
‘I’m fine.’
Josef gave a laugh. ‘That is what everybody says and it means nothing. “How are you?” “I’m fine.”’
‘It means you don’t need to worry. And I also want to say that I’m sorry I wasted your time.’
‘Waste?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry I dragged you all the way down here.’
‘No. Not wasted. The one woman, the Romanian. I think Romanian. She also have the drugs, I think. You see it in the eyes.’
‘Well, not always …’
‘I see it. I talk to her of your Lily. I think she know her.’
‘What do you mean you think?’
‘She know a Lila.’
‘What did she say about her?’
‘She know her a bit. But this Lila, she was not completely … What do you say when someone is a bit part of it but not complete?’
‘A hanger-on?’
‘Hanger-on?’ Josef considered the phrase. ‘Yes, maybe. This girl Maria knew Lila a bit. Lila also with the drugs, I think.’
Frieda tried to digest what Josef had said. ‘Does she know where we can find her?’
Josef shrugged. ‘She not see her for a while. For two months or three months. Or less or more. They are not like us with the time.’
‘Did she know where Lila had gone?’
‘She did not.’
‘She must have moved away,’ said Frieda. ‘I wouldn’t even know where to start. That’s fantastic, Josef. But I guess it’s the end of the trail.’ Then she noticed a faint smile on his face. ‘What is it?’
‘This Lila,’ he said. ‘She have a friend. Maybe a friend with the drugs or the sex.’
‘Who was it?’
‘Shane. A man called Shane.’
‘Shane,’ said Frieda. ‘Does she have a number for him? Or an address?’
‘No.’
‘Did she know his second name?’
‘Shane, she said. Only Shane.’
She thought hard and murmured something to herself.
‘What you say?’
‘Nothing, nothing much. That’s good, Josef. It’s amazing you found that out. I never thought we’d get anything. But what do we do with it?’
Josef gazed at her with his brown, sad eyes. ‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’
‘I know you need to rescue this girl. But you cannot do this. Is over.’
‘Is over,’ repeated Frieda, dully. ‘Yes. Perhaps you’re right.’ That evening, Frieda put the plug in her bath. She had bought oil to pour in and a candle that she would light. For a long time now, she had imagined lying in the hot foamy water in the dark, just the guttering candle and the moon through the window to give light. But now it came to it, she found she wasn’t in the right mood. It would just be a bath. She pulled out the plug and stood under the shower instead, briefly washing away the day. The bath would have to wait. It would be her reward, her prize.
THIRTY-NINE
Before interviewing Paul Kerrigan, Karlsson Skyped Bella and Mikey, sitting in his office and looking at their photographs in frames on his desk, and at their jerky images on the screen. They were excitable, distracted. They didn’t really want to be talking to him and their eyes kept wandering away to something out of sight. Bella told him about a new friend called Pia who had a dog. She had a large sweet bulging in her cheek and it was hard to hear what she was saying. Mikey kept twisting his head to mouth something urgently at whoever was in the room. Karlsson couldn’t think of anything to talk about. He felt strangely self-conscious. He told them about the weather and asked them about school, like some elderly uncle they’d barely ever met. He tried to make a funny face at them but they didn’t laugh. He ended the call early and went to the interview room.
Kerrigan’s face was swollen from his attack. There was a purple and yellow bruise on one cheek and his lip was cut. There were also pouches of fatigue under his eyes and deep grooves bracketing his mouth, which was slack, like that of an old man. He was unshaven, the collar of his shirt grimy, and one of the buttons was undone so that his stomach showed through, shockingly white and soft. Sitting in the interview room, he had a lumpy, defeated air. The skin under his nostrils was red and he kept sneezing, coughing, blowing his nose. Karlsson asked him once more about his movements on Wednesday, 6 April, when Ruth Lennox had been murdered. He had a large white handkerchief that he buried his entire battered face in.
‘Sorry,’ he spluttered. ‘I don’t understand why you’re asking me this again. I’ve just been in hospital, you know.’
‘I’m asking because I want to get things clear. Which they are not. What did you do when you left Ruth Lennox?’
‘I’ve told you. I went back home.’
‘What time?’