‘We need to be quick,’ said Frieda. ‘And quiet. If you possibly can.’
Josef ran his fingers over the lock with a certain delicacy. ‘Which is most important? Quick or quiet?’
‘Quick.’
Josef pushed one screwdriver into the gap between the door and the frame. He flexed it, and the gap widened slightly. Then he pushed the other screwdriver into the gap about a foot further down. He looked at Frieda. ‘All right?’
She nodded. She saw him silently mouth the words, one, two, three, and pull the two screwdrivers sharply towards him, at the same time leaning hard on the door. There was a splintering sound and the door swung inwards.
‘Where now?’ said Josef, in a hoarse whisper.
Frieda had seen Lawrence Dawes’s house. Where was possible? She pointed downwards. Josef put down his bag, and they walked softly along the hallway, by the left side of the staircase, Josef in front. He stopped and nodded to the right. There was a door leading back under the stairs. Frieda nodded and Josef gently opened it. Frieda saw the beginning of stairs leading down into darkness. There was a smell, something slightly sweet that she couldn’t quite identify. Josef fumbled along the wall and switched on a light.
With a start, Frieda saw that a figure was sitting at the bottom of the flight, on the floor, back against the brick wall, half lost in shadow. Whoever it was didn’t look round. Josef hissed at Frieda to stop, but she walked decisively down the steps. She had only taken a few steps before she knew who it was. She recognized the jacket, the white hair, the bent frame. When she reached the cellar floor, Jim Fearby was looking up at her with open, unblinking, unseeing, yellow dead eyes. His mouth gaped open as well, as if in surprise, and there was a large brown stain extending from his scalp down one side of his face. Frieda was going to lean down and check if he was dead but she stopped herself. There was no point. She felt a jolt of nausea that was overtaken by an intense aching sadness as she gazed down at this abandoned, dear man, who had finally been proved right.
Josef was coming down the stairs and Frieda was turning to speak when she heard a sound, like the whimper of an animal, somewhere further in the cellar, where it went under the pavement. She looked and saw a movement. She stepped forward and in the semi-darkness a figure took shape. A person, female, young, propped upright against the wall, arms splayed, legs splayed. Frieda saw matted hair, staring blinking eyes, taped mouth. She stepped forward and saw that the woman was secured by wire around her wrists and ankles, waist and neck. She was whimpering. Frieda put her finger to her lips. She tried to pull at the wire around one wrist but then Josef was beside her. He took something from his jacket pocket. She heard a click of pliers and one hand was free. The other wrist, the neck, the waist and then the woman fell forward. Frieda supported her, fearing she might break her ankles. Josef knelt down and cut her free and the woman fell to her knees.
‘Call for help,’ said Frieda to Josef.
Josef took out his phone.
‘Upstairs for signal,’ he said.
‘Nine, nine, nine,’ said Frieda.
‘I know it,’ said Josef.
Frieda looked into the woman’s face. ‘Sharon?’ There was another whimper. ‘I’m going to pull the tape off. You’ll be fine but keep quiet. Gerry has gone out but we have to move.’ Another whimper. ‘You’ll be all right. But this will sting.’ Frieda got some purchase on the tape and pulled it off. The skin underneath was pale and raw and smelt of decay. Sharon whimpered like an animal. ‘It’s all right,’ said Frieda, soothingly. ‘I told you. He’s gone.’
‘No,’ said Sharon, shaking her head. ‘Other man.’
‘Fuck!’ Frieda turned round and started to run up the stairs. ‘Josef.’
As she ran she heard a clattering and banging, like furniture falling downstairs, and as she emerged from the cellar door she saw shapes moving and heard shouts. She couldn’t make anything out clearly and her foot slipped. The floor was wet, sticky. Then there was a mess of impressions: the figures moving and flexing, flashes of metal, cries, splashes, bangs, impacts so that the floor shook under her feet. Her focus became narrow, as if she was looking at the world through a long thin tube. Her thoughts became narrow as well. They seemed slow and time seemed slow and she knew that she must not collapse because then it would all have been for nothing. She found something in her hand – she didn’t know what it was or how it got there, but it was heavy and she was hitting with it, as hard as she possibly could, and then the scene became clearer, as if the light had gradually been turned up. Lawrence Dawes was lying face down on the hall floor and a dark red pool was spreading out from him, and Josef was leaning back against the wall, panting and groaning, and Frieda herself was leaning against the wall opposite and she realized that the wet sticky stuff on her hands and clothes was blood.
SIXTY
‘Frieda? Frieda, Frieda.’ Josef seemed to have lost his English; her name was all that he could say, over and over.
Frieda crossed to him. She felt suddenly clear and light and calm, a sense of purpose and energy coursing through her. She saw that he had a violent gash running down his face and neck and one of his arms was hanging in an odd way. His face was horribly pale under the grime.
‘It’s all right, Josef,’ she said. ‘Thank you, my very dear friend.’
Then she stooped down beside Lawrence Dawes. There was a matted red patch on his head where she had hit him but she could see that he was breathing. She looked at the heavy object she was still holding: it was one of Josef’s heavy spanners, which must have tumbled from his bag, and it had red smeared across it.
‘Take this,’ she said to Josef. ‘If he comes round, hit him again. I’ll be back in a minute.’
She ran into the kitchen and started pulling drawers open. Gerry Collier was a very organised man: everything had its proper place. She found a drawer full of string, masking tape, pens, and took out a roll of washing line. That would do. She returned to the two men and, bending down, brought Lawrence Dawes’s hands together and rapidly bound the line round them multiple times, before bringing it down and wrapping it round his ankles as well, until he was trussed.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket with fingers that were not trembling, and dialled the emergency services. She said she needed the police, lots of them, and ambulances and gave the address, repeating it to make sure they had it. She gave her name, and heard it as if it belonged to someone else. She told them they should be quick. Then she put her phone back into her pocket. She could hear Josef’s laboured breathing beside her and, turning, saw the pain on his drawn face. She took the spanner out of his hand and touched him lightly on the shoulder.
‘Wait there for one more minute,’ she said, and kissed him on his clammy forehead.
She ran down the cellar stairs. At the bottom, she stopped briefly to put two thumbs on Fearby’s lids, closing them. She smoothed his hair off his face, then went to where Sharon Gibbs was still on her knees, her head cradled on her arms. She was making guttural little cries, like those of an animal in pain. She was wearing a bra that barely covered her shallow breasts and some filthy drawstring trousers; her feet were bare and torn. Frieda could see in the dim light that she was covered with bruises and what looked like cigarette burns.
She squatted beside her and put a hand under her elbow. ‘Can you get up?’ she asked. ‘Let me help. Here.’ She took off her jacket and wrapped it around the girl’s emaciated frame. Her ribs stood out starkly, and her collarbone. She smelt of rot and decay. ‘Come with me, Sharon,’ Frieda said gently. ‘It’s over, and you’re safe. Come out of here.’