Dawes looked thoughtful and pained in a way that Frieda had never seen him before. ‘Yes, yes, I can see that,’ he said, almost to himself.
‘You’d never heard of Shane,’ said Frieda. ‘But now that we know his real name – Mick Doherty – do you recognize it?’
Dawes shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t remember ever hearing that name.’
‘What about Sharon Gibbs?’
‘No, I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean anything to me. I can’t help you. I wish I could.’ He looked in turn at Frieda and Fearby. ‘I must seem like a bad father to you. You know, I always thought of myself as the sort of man who would move heaven and earth to find his daughter, if anyone had tried to harm her. But it wasn’t like a five-year-old girl going missing. It was more like someone growing up, moving away and wanting to lead their own life. Bit by bit, she disappeared. Some days I think of her all the time and it hurts. It hurts here.’ He pressed his hand to his heart. ‘Others, I just get on with things. Gardening, mending. It stops me thinking, but perhaps I shouldn’t stop thinking because that’s a way of not caring so much.’ He paused. ‘This man, what’s his name?’
‘Doherty,’ said Fearby.
‘You think he’s connected with Lila’s disappearance?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Fearby, then glanced at Frieda.
‘There’s some kind of link,’ said Frieda. ‘But he can’t be responsible for both. Doherty was in prison when Sharon Gibbs disappeared. I can’t make it out. Jim’s been looking at some girls who’ve gone missing and Sharon Gibbs fits with that pattern. But the case of your daughter seems different. Yet she seems connected to them through Doherty. Somehow he’s the hinge to all of this, but I don’t know why.’
‘Why is she different?’ asked Dawes.
Frieda stood up. ‘I’ll take the tea things in and wash up and Jim can tell you what he’s been up to. Maybe something will ring a bell with you. Otherwise, we’ve got through one brick wall only to run up against another.’
Dawes started to protest but Frieda ignored him. She picked up the patterned plastic tray that he had leaned against the leg of the table and put the mugs, the milk jug and the sugar bowl on to it. Then she walked into the house and turned right into the little kitchen. The window above the sink looked out on to the garden and Frieda watched the two men as she did the washing-up. She could see them talking but couldn’t hear anything that was being said. Dawes was probably the sort of man who was more comfortable saying things to another man. They got up from the table and walked down the garden away from the house. She saw Dawes gesturing towards various plants and at the end of the garden where the little river flowed. The Wandle, shallow and clear, trickling its way towards the Thames.
There were four other mugs in the sink and some dirty plates and glasses on the Formica worktop. Frieda washed those as well, then rinsed and stacked them on the draining-board. She looked around the kitchen, wondering if men reacted to absence differently from women. The contrast with Fearby’s house was sharp. Here, it was tidy, clean and well organized where Fearby’s house was dirty and neglected. But there was something they had in common. Frieda thought that a woman would perhaps have turned the home into some sort of shrine to the missing person but Fearby and Dawes were the opposite. Their very different spaces were both like highly organized ways of keeping all those terrible thoughts and feelings of loss at bay. Fearby had filled his house with other missing faces. And this house? It seemed like a house where a man lived alone and had always lived alone. Even doing the washing-up, she felt like a female intruder.
She wiped her hands on a tea-towel, neatly hanging on its own hook, then stepped outside to join the men. They turned at the same moment and gave a smile of recognition, as though in the few minutes she had been away, they had bonded.
‘We’ve been comparing notes,’ said Fearby.
‘It feels like we’ve been doing the same sort of godforsaken work,’ said Dawes.
‘But you were a salesman, not a journalist,’ said Frieda.
Dawes smiled. ‘Still too much time on the road.’
‘I suppose you got out just in time?’ said Fearby.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do offices have photocopiers any more?’
‘They certainly do,’ said Dawes.
‘I thought they’d gone paperless.’
‘That’s a myth. They use more than ever. No, Copycon are going strong. At least, my pension still arrives every month.’ He smiled but then seemed to correct himself. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Tell me something, do you think my daughter is alive?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Frieda, softly.
‘It’s the not knowing that’s hard,’ said Dawes.
‘I’m sorry. I keep coming around and stirring up old feelings and it’s not as if I’ve got much to report.’
‘No,’ said Dawes. ‘I’m grateful anyone’s trying to do anything for my daughter. You’re welcome here whenever you want to come.’
After a few more exchanges, Frieda and Fearby were back out on the street.
‘Poor man,’ said Frieda.
‘You came back out just in time, though. Dawes was just explaining in unnecessary detail how he and his neighbour were building a new wall.’
Frieda smiled. ‘Speak of the devil,’ she said, pointing. And there was Gerry, walking down the road, clasping two enormous bags of compost that almost obscured him. Frieda saw that one bag was leaking, leaving a thick brown trail in his wake.
‘Hello, Gerry.’
He stopped, put the bags down, wiped a grimy hand across his forehead. His moustache was still uneven. ‘I’m getting too old for this,’ he said. ‘Not to seem unfriendly, but why are you here again?’
‘We came to ask Lawrence a couple of questions.’
‘I hope you had good reason.’
‘I thought so, but –’
‘You mean well, I can see that. But he’s had enough pain. You leave him be now.’ He bent to lift up his bags again and stumbled away, his trail of soil behind him.
‘He’s right,’ said Frieda, soberly.
Fearby unlocked his car. ‘Can I drop you home?’
‘There’s a station round the corner. I can walk and take the train back. It’s easier for both of us.’
‘Tired of me already?’
‘I’m thinking of your trip back. Look, Jim, I’m sorry for dragging you all the way down here. It didn’t amount to much.’
He laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve driven across the country for way less than this. And been glad to get it.’ He got into his car. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘Aren’t you baffled by the way these girls can just disappear?’
‘Not baffled,’ he said. ‘Tormented.’
He closed the door but opened it again.
‘What?’ asked Frieda.
‘How will I get in touch? I don’t have your phone number, your email, your address.’
They swapped numbers and he nodded to her. ‘We’ll speak soon.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not over.’
FIFTY
Frieda walked to the station slowly. The day was grey but hot, almost oppressive, and she felt grimy in the clothes she’d worn yesterday. She allowed herself to think of her bath – Josef’s gift to her – waiting in her clean, shaded house, empty at last of all people.
She turned on her mobile and at once messages pinged on to the screen: missed calls, voicemail, texts. Reuben had called six times, Josef even more. Jack had written her a very long text full of abbreviations she couldn’t understand. Sasha had left two texts. Judith Lennox had phoned. There were also several missed calls from Karlsson. When she rang voicemail she heard his voice, grave and anxious, asking her to get in touch as soon as she got his message. She stared down at her phone, almost hearing a clamour of voices insisting she get in touch, scolding her and pleading with her and, worst of all, being in a state of distress about her. She didn’t have the time for any of that now, or the energy or the will. Later.