Was there anything else? Yes: they hadn’t heard the engine – what did that mean, for God’s sake? It sounded like a slightly mad metaphor for the way the mind works. Frieda thought so hard that it almost hurt. No, that was all, except that he’d said he’d come round and tell her what he found. So that was all. It didn’t seem much. The files of the girls. We’d been thinking about them in the wrong way. What had he meant by that? How could it be the wrong way? Was there some sort of connection they’d missed? He’d said ‘we’. In what way had Fearby and she been thinking together about the girls? She thought about the rest of the message. He was going to take another look. Another. What did that mean? Was he going to go back to one of the girls’ families? It was possible.
But then Frieda thought: No. There had been three parts to what he’d said. The girls. ‘We’ had thought wrongly about them – and he hadn’t heard the engine. And he was going to take another look. That must mean – mustn’t it? – that he was going to a place the two of them had been together.
Was he going to the horse sanctuary to talk to Doherty? No, that didn’t make sense. Then he would have said he was going to talk to someone. His message was about a place. That must mean he’d been going back to Croydon. To take another look. But what could be the point of that? The police had been to the house. They had searched it. What could there possibly be to take another look at? She thought again about the message, as if it was a machine she was taking apart and laying out on the table. The girls. We had the wrong idea about them. Taking another look. The first bit was clear enough. The girls. The third bit seemed obvious. Another look. That must be Croydon. The problem was the second bit, the middle. We had the wrong idea about them. We. That was clear enough: Fearby and Frieda. What did Fearby and Frieda have the wrong idea about? Them. The engine. They hadn’t heard the engine. What bloody engine?
And then, quite suddenly, it was as if Frieda had walked out of a dark tunnel into light so dazzling that she could hardly see.
Them. What if ‘them’ wasn’t the girls? What if the engine wasn’t a metaphor at all – because, after all, Fearby didn’t talk in metaphors. He made lists; he focused on objects, facts, details, dates. The engine was the one that Vanessa Dale had heard, the day she was attacked, just before Hazel Barton had been killed. Vanessa Dale, through her panic, when her attacker’s hands were round her throat, had heard an engine revving.
That meant her attacker hadn’t been acting alone. Someone else had been sitting in the car, revving the engine, waiting to drive them away. Not one person. Two. A pair of killers.
FIFTY-NINE
Everything had a steely clarity now, icy, hard-edged. She found Thelma Scott’s number and dialled it.
‘Dr Scott? This is Frieda Klein. I’ve got to cancel.’
There was a pause.
‘Do you have a moment to talk?’
‘Not really. I’ve got something to do. Something that can’t wait.’
‘Frieda, are you quite well?’
‘Probably not, just at the moment. But there’s something important. It overrides everything.’
‘It’s just that you don’t sound quite well.’
‘I’m so sorry. I’ve got to go.’
Frieda hung up. What did she need? Keys, jacket, her hated phone. That was all. She was just pulling on her jacket when the doorbell rang. It was Josef, dusty from work.
‘I’m on my way out. I’ve got no time. Not even to talk.’
Josef took her by the arm. ‘Frieda, what is happening? Everyone phoning everyone. Where is Frieda? What she doing? You never phoning. Never answering.’
‘I know, I know. I’ll explain. But not now. I’ve got to get to Croydon.’
‘Croydon? The girls?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Alone?’
‘I’m a big girl.’
‘I take you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Josef looked stern. ‘I take you or I hold you here and phone to Reuben.’
‘You want to try it?’ said Frieda, fiercely.
‘Yes.’
‘All right, drive me, then. Is this yours?’
Behind Josef was a battered white van.
‘Is for work.’
‘Then let’s go.’
It was a long, long drive, first across to Park Lane, then Victoria and over Chelsea Bridge into south London. Frieda had the map open on her lap, guiding Josef and thinking about what she was going to do. Battersea. Clapham. Tooting. Should she be calling Karlsson? And saying what? Suspicions about a man whose name she didn’t know? Whose address she didn’t know? About a girl nobody was looking for? And after their last awful encounter? Now they were in parts of south London with names she barely recognized. The instructions got more complicated and then, finally, Frieda steered Josef just a little past Lawrence Dawes’s house.
‘So,’ said Josef, expectantly.
Frieda thought for a moment. Lawrence and his friend, Gerry. Them. She didn’t know Gerry’s second name and she didn’t know where he lived. But she knew something. Upstream. That was what Lawrence had said. He lived upstream, which meant he was on the same side of the road, and she remembered that when she had stood in the garden with her back to the house, the river flowed from right to left. So Gerry’s house was up to the right. And it probably wasn’t next door. Lawrence would have said ‘my next-door neighbour’. And hadn’t he talked about next door being used for refugees? She got out of the car. She would start with the house next door but one. Josef got out as well.
‘I’m fine,’ said Frieda.
‘I come with you.’
Lawrence Dawes lived at number eight. Frieda and Josef walked up the path of number twelve. Frieda rang the bell. There was no response. She rang again.
‘No people home,’ said Josef.
They walked back on to the pavement and up to the door of number fourteen and rang the bell.
‘This is for what?’ said Josef, puzzled, but before Frieda could answer, the door was opened by a white-haired old woman.
Frieda was momentarily at a loss. She hadn’t thought of what she was going to say. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to drop something off for a friend of a friend. He’s called Gerry. He’s in his sixties. I know he lives in one of these houses but I’m not sure which one.’
‘It might be Gerry Collier,’ said the woman.
‘Early sixties?’ said Frieda. ‘Brown hair going grey?’
‘That sounds like him. He lives along there. Number eighteen.’
‘Thanks so much,’ said Frieda.
The woman closed the door. Frieda and Josef walked back to the van and got inside. Frieda looked at the house. A two-storey, semi-detached house, grey pebbledash exterior, aluminium window frames. Ornate front garden, with a little white brick wall, yellow, blue, red, white flowers spilling over.
‘And now?’ said Josef.
‘Wait a moment,’ said Frieda. ‘I’m trying to think what to do. We can –’
‘Stop,’ said Josef, in a hiss. ‘Look.’
The door of number eighteen opened and Gerry Collier stepped out. He was wearing a grey windcheater and carrying a plastic shopping bag. He walked out on to the pavement and set off along the road.
‘I wonder if we should follow him,’ said Frieda.
‘Follow the man?’ said Josef. ‘Is no good.’
‘You’re right. He’s probably going to the shops. We’ve got a few minutes. Josef, can you help me break inside?’
Josef looked bemused and then he grinned. ‘Break into the house? You, Frieda?’
‘Now, this minute.’
‘This not a joke?’
‘It’s really, really not a joke.’
‘OK, Frieda. You ask. Questions later.’ He picked up his work bag, from which he grabbed a heavy wrench and two large screwdrivers. They left the van and walked up to the front door of number eighteen.