Waiting for Wednesday

THIRTY

‘I think I should be present,’ said Elaine Kerrigan.

‘He’s eighteen years old,’ said Yvette, firmly. ‘He counts as an adult.’

‘That’s ridiculous. You should see his bedroom.’ There was a pause. ‘You wait here. I’ll get him.’

Yvette and Munster sat in the living room and waited. ‘Do you ever think,’ she asked, ‘that we just go around and make things worse? In the great scheme of things. That in the end, when we’re done, the general level of happiness is a bit less than it was before?’

‘No, I don’t,’ said Munster.

‘Well, I do.’

The door opened and Ben Kerrigan came in. Yvette first saw his stockinged feet, with odd socks, one red, one with green and amber stripes, a big toe poking through the end. Then she saw faded grey corduroy trousers, a flowery blue shirt, long floppy dark-brown hair. He sank on to the sofa, one leg pulled up beside him. He pushed his hair back off his face.

‘You’ve heard about your father and this woman,’ said Yvette, after they’d introduced themselves.

‘A bit.’

‘How did it make you feel?’

‘What do you think?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I wasn’t exactly happy about it. Does that surprise you?’

‘No, it doesn’t. Were you angry?’

‘Why should I be?’

‘Because your father was being unfaithful to your mother.’

‘It doesn’t matter what I feel.’

‘Could you tell us where you were on Wednesday, the sixth of April?’

Ben looked puzzled, then grimly amused. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘All right, then. I’m a schoolboy. I was at school.’

‘And you can prove that?’

He gave a shrug. ‘I’m in the sixth form. We go out sometimes, if we’ve got a free. We might go for a coffee or, you know, a walk.’

‘But not for the whole day,’ said Yvette. ‘And when you have coffee, you have it with someone. You have a walk with someone. And they can vouch for you?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘Hang on,’ said Munster. ‘What you need to do first is take this seriously. A woman has been killed. Some children have lost their mother. We don’t want to waste our time chasing up false leads. So, what we want you to do is, first, to show us some respect, and second, pull your finger out, look through your diary or your phone, talk to your friends and put together a convincing story of what you were doing for every minute of that Wednesday. Because if we have to do it ourselves, we won’t be very happy about it. Do you understand?’

‘Whatever,’ said Ben. ‘So is it just me? Are you going to hassle Josh as well?’

‘Your brother was a hundred and fifty miles away, so far as we know, but we’ll check up with him.’

‘Can I go now?’ said Ben. ‘I’ve got homework to do.’

When they were back in the car, Yvette asked if they could make a diversion via Warren Street.

‘Is this about Frieda?’ said Munster.

‘Why shouldn’t it be about Frieda?’

‘I was just saying.’

When Frieda opened the door, Yvette noticed over her shoulder that there were people there. She recognized Josef but no one else. For a few seconds, the two women stared at each other, then Frieda stepped back and invited Yvette in. She shook her head.

‘Why did you call me about the charge?’ she asked.

‘If it’s a problem,’ said Frieda, ‘just say.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’ Yvette glanced round to see if Munster was listening, but he was oblivious in the front seat of the car with his headphones on. ‘Since your injury, we hadn’t talked properly.’

‘We hadn’t talked at all.’

‘Yes, well.’ Yvette bit her lip. ‘Anyway, I hadn’t said things I meant to say. So when you rang, I didn’t know how to interpret it.’

‘You don’t need to interpret it,’ said Frieda. ‘I told you about it on the phone. I thought Karlsson was sick of clearing up my messes.’

‘And now it’s my turn?’

‘As I said, if it’s a problem …’

‘I called the police down at Waterloo. Look, Frieda, what you did wasn’t sensible. All right, that bastard Bradshaw set out to humiliate you. If it were me, I’d want to go and sort him out. But you can’t do things like that. If you do, you leave yourself open to all kinds of trouble.’

‘So you think I’m in trouble?’

‘I talked to the officer you saw. I explained about our relationship with you, things you’ve done for us. So I think this will go away.’

‘Yvette, this was all rubbish.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. But if these things get into court, you just never know which way they’ll go. And another thing: you don’t want to put yourself into the power of someone like Bradshaw.’

‘Thank you,’ said Frieda. ‘Really. I hope you haven’t gone out on a limb for me. But I just want you to know that when I went to see Ian Yardley it wasn’t anything to do with Bradshaw.’

‘Then what was it about?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Frieda. ‘Just a feeling.’

‘I get worried about your feelings.’

Frieda began to close the door, then hesitated. ‘What was it you wanted to say to me? I mean, apart from my so-called fight.’

Yvette looked at the people behind Frieda. ‘Some other time,’ she said.