Waiting for Wednesday

THIRTY-ONE

Josh Kerrigan was making roll-ups, adding thick tufts of tobacco to the Rizla paper, rolling it deftly between thumb and forefinger, licking the edge and laying the thin, straight tube beside the others he’d already assembled. He had six so far and was on to his seventh. Yvette was finding it hard to concentrate on what he was saying. Perhaps that was the point: he was making it quite clear that she was simply an interruption. She was getting a bit tired of these Kerrigan boys.

‘Josh,’ she said, ‘I can understand why you might be upset –’

‘Do I seem upset?’ He passed the Rizla over the tip of his tongue.

‘– but I’m afraid I’m not going until you’ve answered my questions.’

‘No. You’re fine.’ He laid the seventh cigarette beside the others and tapped it into line with a finger, tipping his head on one side to examine them. He had a small vertical scar just above his lip that pulled it up slightly, giving him the suggestion of a perpetual smile.

‘Where were you on Wednesday, the sixth of April?’

‘Cardiff. Is that a good enough alibi?’

‘It’s not an alibi at all yet. How can you prove you were in Cardiff then?’

‘Wednesday, the sixth of April?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have lectures on Wednesdays, until five. I don’t think I could have got back to London in time to murder my father’s lover, do you?’

‘You didn’t have lectures that Wednesday. Your term had ended.’

‘Then I was probably out somewhere.’

‘You need to take this more seriously.’

‘What makes you think I’m not?’

He started on the next roll-up. At least there wasn’t much tobacco left in the tin, only enough for one or two more.

‘I want you to give proper thought to where you were on that Wednesday and who you were with.’

He lifted his head and Yvette saw the glint of his brown eyes. ‘I was probably with my girlfriend, Shari. We got together at the end of term, so it was pretty intense. The things you’re finding out about the sex life of the Kerrigan family.’

‘You think or you know?’

‘I’m a bit hazy on dates.’

‘Don’t you have a diary?’

‘A diary?’ He grinned as if she had said something unintentionally funny. ‘No, I don’t have a diary.’

‘When did you return to London for the holidays?’

‘When? At the end of that week, I think. Friday? Saturday? You’ll have to ask Mum. I know I was back by the Saturday because there was a party. So it was probably the Friday.’

‘Did you come back by train?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you can look at the ticket or your bank statement to confirm the date.’

‘If I paid by card. Which I’m not sure about.’

He had finished the tobacco at last. One by one he delicately lifted the roll-ups and put them into the empty tin. Yvette thought his hands were trembling, but perhaps she was imagining things: his expression gave nothing away.

‘Did you have any idea about your father’s affair?’

‘No.’

‘What do you feel about it?’

‘Do you mean, am I angry?’ he asked mildly, one dark eyebrow lifting. ‘Yes. Especially after all Mum’s gone through. Am I angry enough to kill someone? I think if I was going to kill anyone, it’d be my dad.’

‘I really don’t think I can help you.’

Louise Weller was still wearing an apron. Maybe she lived in it, he thought. She must always be clearing up mess or cooking meals, scrubbing floors, helping her children splash paint on to sheets of paper. He saw that her shirt sleeves were rolled up.

‘How old are your children?’ he asked, following his train of thought.

‘Benjy’s thirteen weeks old.’ She looked down at the baby asleep on the bouncy chair beside her, eyes twitching in dreams. ‘Then Jackson is just two and Carmen is three and a bit.’

‘You do have your hands full.’ Karlsson felt tired just thinking of it and at the same time dizzy with a kind of nostalgia for those days of mess and tiredness. For one brief moment, he let himself think of Mikey and Bella in Madrid, then blinked the image away. ‘Does your husband help?’

‘My husband is not a healthy man.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘But they’re good children,’ said Louise Weller. ‘They’re brought up to behave well.’

‘I’d like to ask you a few general questions about your sister.’

Louise Weller raised her eyebrows. ‘I don’t see why. Someone broke in and killed her. Now you have to find out who. You seem to be taking your time about it.’

‘It might not be as simple as that.’

‘Oh?’

Karlsson had spent years in the Met. He’d told mothers about children dying; he’d told wives about their husbands being murdered; he’d stood on countless doorsteps to deliver bad news, watching faces go blank with the first shock, then change, crumple. Yet he still felt queasy about telling Louise Weller that her sister had lived a double life. Ridiculous as it was, he felt that he was betraying the dead woman to the prim-mouthed living one.

‘Your sister,’ he said. ‘It turns out that she had a complicated life.’

Louise Weller didn’t move or speak. She just waited.

‘You don’t know about it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Has Mr Lennox not said anything?’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

‘So you had no idea that Ruth might have had a secret she was keeping from her family?’

‘You’re going to have to tell me what you’re referring to.’

‘She was having an affair.’

She made no response. Karlsson wondered if she’d even heard. Finally she spoke. ‘Thank goodness our mother never lived to find out.’

‘You didn’t know anything about it?’

‘Of course I didn’t. She would have known how I would feel about it.’

‘How would you have felt about it?’

‘She’s a married woman. She has three children. Look at this nice house. She never did know how lucky she was.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘People are very selfish nowadays. They put freedom before responsibility.’

‘She’s dead,’ Karlsson said mildly. He suddenly felt the need to defend Ruth Lennox, though he wasn’t sure why.

The baby woke, his face crinkled and he gave a piteous yelp. Louise Weller lifted him up and calmly unbuttoned her shirt, placing him at her breast and casting Karlsson a bright look, as if she wanted him to object.

‘Can we talk about the specifics?’ Karlsson said, trying neither to look at the naked breast nor away from it. ‘Your sister, Ruth, who has been killed and who was having an affair. You say you had no idea?’

‘No.’

‘She never said anything to you that, now you think about it, might have suggested there was something going on?’

‘No.’

‘Does the name Paul Kerrigan mean anything to you?’

‘Is that his name? No. I’ve never heard it.’

‘Did you ever see any sign that there was a strain in her marriage?’

‘Ruth and Russell were devoted to each other.’

‘You never got the impression that there was any problem?’

‘No.’

‘Did you notice that he was drinking heavily?’

‘What? Russell? Drinking?’

‘Yes. You didn’t see that?’

‘No, I did not. I have never seen him drunk. But they say that it’s the secret drinkers who are the problem.’

‘And you had no sense at all, looking back, that he knew?’

‘No.’ Her eyes glittered. She wiped her hands down her apron. ‘But I wonder why he didn’t tell me when he discovered.’

‘It’s not something that’s easy to say,’ said Karlsson.

‘Do his children know?’

‘Yes.’

‘And yet they haven’t shared it with me. Poor things. To find that out about your mother.’ She looked at Karlsson with distaste. ‘Your job must be like lifting up a stone. I don’t know how you have the stomach for it.’

‘Someone’s got to do it.’

‘There are things it’s better not to know about.’

‘Like your sister’s affair, you mean?’

‘I suppose everyone will find out now.’

‘I suppose they will.’

Back in his flat, Karlsson tidied away the last of the mess his children had made. He found it hard to believe he had ever been irritated by it. Now it simply filled him with nostalgic tenderness – the miniature plastic figures embedded in the sofa, the wet swimming things on the bathroom floor, the pastel crayons that had been trodden into the carpet. He stripped both their beds and pushed the sheets into the washing-machine, and then, before he had time to stop himself, called Frieda’s number. He didn’t recognize the person who answered.

‘Hello. Who’s this?’

‘Chloë.’ There was a terrific banging going on in the background. He could barely make out her words. ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Malcolm Karlsson,’ he said formally.

‘The detective.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you want me to call Frieda?’

‘It’s all right. It can wait.’

He put the phone down, feeling foolish, then called another number.

‘Hello, Sadie here.’

‘It’s Mal.’

Sadie was the cousin of a friend of Karlsson whom he bhad met a few times over the years, with his wife, or with Sadie’s current boyfriend. Their last meeting had been at a lunch a few weeks ago, both on their own, when, leaving at the same time, she had said that they ought to meet up, have a drink.

‘Can I offer you that drink?’ he said now.

‘How lovely,’ she said, and he was reminded of what he had always liked about her: her straightforward enthusiasm, her undisguised liking for him. ‘When?’

‘How about now?’

‘Now?’

‘But you’re probably busy.’

‘As it happens, I’m not. I was just worrying that my hair needs washing.’

He laughed, his spirits lifting. ‘It’s not a job interview.’

They met in a wine bar in Stoke Newington and drank a bottle of white wine between them. Everything was easy. Her hair looked fine to him, and so did the way she smiled at him, nodded in agreement. She wore bright, flimsy layers of clothes and had put lipstick on. He caught a whiff of her perfume. She put her hand on his arm when she spoke, leaned in close. Her breath was on his cheek and her pupils were large in the dimly lit room.

They went back to her flat because he didn’t want to be in his, even though it was closer. She apologized for the mess, but he didn’t mind that. He was a bit fuzzy from the wine and he was tired and all he wanted to do was to lose himself for a while.

She took an opened bottle of white wine from the fridge door and poured them each a glass. She looked up at him, expectant, and he leaned down and kissed her. As they undressed, he couldn’t stop thinking what a long time it had been since he had done this. He closed his eyes and felt her against him, her soft skin, took in the smell of her. Could it really be this easy?

Paul Kerrigan wasn’t exactly drunk, but after three pints and no food since the cheese sandwich he hadn’t finished at lunch, he was blurry, hazy, a bit adrift. Theoretically he was on his way home, but he really didn’t want to go there, to see his wife’s thin, sad face, his sons’ hostile, derisive stares. He was like a stranger in his own house, a hated impostor. So now he walked slowly, feeling the weight of his heavy body with each step he took, the thump of blood in his aching head. He needed to make sense of all that had happened, but this evening everything felt like an effort and thoughts were sludge in his brain.

One month ago, Ruth had been alive and Elaine had known nothing, and his boys had been full of teasing affection for him. Now, each morning when he woke, he had to realize all over again that the old life was over.

He reached the corner of his road and stopped. The pub was disgorging its drinkers on to the pavement in a burst of noise. He didn’t hear the footsteps behind him, or turn in time to see who it was who brought something heavy down on the back of his head, so that he reeled, stumbled, fell in an ungainly heap on to the road. The blow came again, this time on his back. He thought how that would hurt later. And so would his cheek, which had scraped along the tarmac when he fell. He could taste blood, and there was also grit in his mouth. Through the roar in his head, he could hear the pubgoers, like distant static. He wanted to call out for help but his tongue was swollen and it was easier to close his eyes and wait for the footsteps to recede.

At last he struggled to his feet and blundered along the street to his front door. He couldn’t make his fingers hold the key so he knocked and knocked until Elaine opened it. For a moment she stared at him, as if he was a monster standing in front of her, or a madman. Then her hand flew to her mouth in a cartoonish gesture of horror that he would have found funny in his safe old life.

‘I didn’t do it.’ Russell Lennox’s eyes were bloodshot. He had the sweet, stale smell of alcohol on him. Since the bottles had been found hidden in the garden shed, he seemed to have taken to drink in earnest – almost as if, now the secret was out, he had given himself permission.

‘It would be understandable if …’

‘I didn’t do anything. I was here. Alone.’

‘Can anyone confirm that?’

‘I told you I was.’

‘You seem to have had a fair bit to drink.’

‘Is that illegal?’

‘The man who was having an affair with your wife has been badly beaten up, not ten minutes from your house.’

‘He had it coming to him. But I didn’t do it.’

That was all he’d say, over and over, while Dora peered through the banisters at him, her face small and pale in the darkness.

Frieda lay in bed and tried to sleep. She lay quite straight, staring at the ceiling, and then she turned on to her side, rearranging the pillow, closing her eyes. The cat lay at her feet. She put an image in her mind, of a shallow river running over pebbles, but the water bubbled and the faces rose from the bottom. Thoughts stirred in the mud of her mind. Her body was sore.

It was no good. She could hear Chloë downstairs. She was talking to someone on Skype and had been for what seemed like hours, sometimes loudly and emphatically, with occasional bursts of laughter. Or was she crying? Frieda looked at the time. It was nearly one o’clock and tomorrow Chloë had school and she herself had a whole day to get through. She sighed and got out of bed, tweaking her curtains back to see the half-moon and then going down the stairs.

Chloë looked up from her computer guiltily. Frieda saw the image of Ted Lennox there, his peaky adolescent face staring out at her. She stepped back, out of range. ‘I didn’t know you were still awake.’

‘I don’t want to be.’

‘I need to talk to Ted.’

‘You were talking rather loudly. And I think it’s time for you to go to bed.’

‘I’m not sleepy.’

‘Go to bed, Chloë. You have classes tomorrow.’ Frieda stepped forward so that she could see Ted and Ted could see her. He looked dreadful. ‘You too, Ted.’

‘Can I have some tea first? With just a small amount of milk,’ Chloë asked.

‘This isn’t a hotel.’

‘Sorry.’ Chloë didn’t sound sorry. She grimaced into her computer screen and raised her eyebrows dramatically at Ted.

‘Take your things up with you. And don’t touch anything in my study.’

She returned to her room but for a long while she didn’t get into her bed. Instead, she stood at the window, gazing out at the night.