Waiting for Wednesday

FIFTY-TWO

Frieda opened her door to find Karlsson, Yvette and a woman she didn’t recognize outside. The woman forced her way inside. Ted and Judith, Dora and Chloë were sitting around the table in the living room, with mugs and plates and phones and a laptop.

‘Oh, my darlings, my poor, poor darlings,’ said Louise. The three Lennoxes shrank from her, but she didn’t seem to notice. Chloë put a hand on Ted’s shoulder.

‘What’s going on?’ Frieda asked Karlsson, who murmured a quick explanation to her. When she heard, she looked round at the young people. Her face became stern.

‘We want to stay here.’ Judith turned to Frieda. ‘Please? Please, Frieda.’

‘They’re quite welcome,’ Frieda said to Karlsson. ‘If I can do anything to help.’

Louise put her hands on her hips, as if willing to square up to her. ‘No. Absolutely not. They’re coming home with me. That’s what they need. Children, say thank you to this woman for everything she’s done.’ She looked back at Frieda with a fierce expression. ‘They need to be with their family,’ she said, in a sort of stage whisper. Then she turned back to the children. ‘Now, we’re going back to our house, I mean my house, and this policewoman is coming with us.’

‘No!’ said Chloë. ‘Frieda, can’t you stop this?’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘But it’s horrible and –’

‘Chloë, quiet now.’

Karlsson turned to Yvette. ‘Are you going to be all right dealing with this? It’ll be difficult.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Yvette had paled. ‘That’s what female police officers are for, isn’t it? To do the emotional stuff.’

‘Not exactly,’ said Karlsson.

There was a chaos of bags being picked up and jackets looked for and Chloë being hugged and the three Lennoxes making their way out to Louise’s car. They got inside. It was a tight fit, with Yvette sitting in the front seat. Ted’s face stared out through the window.

‘This doesn’t feel right,’ said Frieda.

‘It’s the beginning of the rest of their lives,’ said Karlsson. ‘They’d better get used to it. Sorry. That came out wrong. But what can we do? They’ve lost their mother, and now they’re losing their father, for the time being at least. They need a family. You can’t be that for them.’

‘But it’s important how they hear about their father,’ said Frieda. ‘And how they’re listened to afterwards.’

‘You don’t think Yvette can handle it? All right. You don’t need to answer that. You’d probably be the person to do it.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘I can’t ask you,’ said Karlsson. ‘I’m sorry. Yvette may fuck it up. She probably will. But she’ll do her very best, and at least she’s on the payroll.’ He frowned. ‘Can I have a word?’

Frieda glanced at Chloë.

‘What?’ Chloë’s voice was high and harsh.

‘I’m going to have to tell you something in a minute,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s about Ted and Judith’s father. But, first, Karlsson and I are going out for a few minutes. Is that all right?’

‘No! It isn’t all right. They’re my friends and I have a right to –’

‘Chloë.’ Frieda spoke in a quiet, warning tone that silenced her niece. She pulled on a jacket and stepped outside.

‘You don’t mind walking?’ she said.

‘I’m used to it,’ said Karlsson.

Frieda led the way out of the cobbled mews and turned right. When they reached Tottenham Court Road, they stood for a moment and watched the buses and cars careering past them.

‘You know,’ said Frieda, ‘that if you move from the countryside to a big city like London, you increase your chance of developing schizophrenia by five or six times.’

‘Why?’ said Karlsson.

‘Nobody knows. But look at all this. It makes sense, doesn’t it? If we abolished cities and went back to living in villages, we’d reduce the incidence of the disease by a third at a stroke.’

‘That sounds a bit drastic.’

Frieda turned south, then took a small quiet road off to the right.

‘I missed you today,’ said Karlsson.

‘But you saw me today. Remember? With Hal Bradshaw and your commissioner.’

‘Oh, that,’ Karlsson said dismissively. ‘That was just a farce. No, when Lennox confessed, I actually expected to see you standing there with your beady-eyed expression.’

‘But I wasn’t. And you seem to have done all right. So what happened?’

As they headed west, Karlsson gave Frieda a brief account of the day’s events.

‘Will you charge him with manslaughter?’

‘Probably. He hears about the relationship. Rushes round in a rage. A father’s anger. A jury would probably be sympathetic to that.’

‘I don’t suppose it matters,’ said Frieda, ‘but he didn’t find out just before he killed Zach. According to Dora, he’d known for some time.’

Karlsson frowned. ‘Really? That’s not what he said. I’m not sure I want to know that. Oh, well, it probably won’t make much difference. He’s still an angry father. And we’ve got the pattern of behaviour. An argument escalates into violence. It’s the same thing.’

Frieda stopped. ‘Yes. It is the same.’

‘You’ve got a way of saying that that makes it sound suspicious.’

‘No. I was just echoing what you were saying.’

‘We know that Lennox has a habit of turning violent. Look at him with Paul Kerrigan, we’re pretty sure that was him, and even that dealer in stolen goods. Why not his daughter’s predatory boyfriend?’

The streetlight shone on Frieda’s face, which seemed thin and sad.

‘Poor kids,’ she said softly. ‘With that dreadful aunt.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about their mother’s murder?’

Karlsson shrugged. ‘I’m going to have another go at Lennox,’ he said. ‘Everything points to him. But it’s all so tangled. There’s so much rage and grief swilling around the whole affair, so many people who knew or might have known. It was a leaky secret, after all, for all they thought they were being so careful.’

‘Tell me.’

‘The Kerrigan boys knew,’ said Karlsson. ‘It turns out that Ruth Lennox – this cheerful, kind woman – turned a bit nasty when she discovered that Paul Kerrigan was going to leave her and she must have sent them a poison-pen letter. Someone did, anyway.’

‘Oh,’ said Frieda. ‘So that changes everything.’

‘They knew about the relationship and they knew who it was with. They tracked her down – the younger one even posted a nasty little message through the Lennox letterbox.’

‘What did it say?’

‘It wasn’t in words. It was a rag doll, with its genitals cut out.’

‘So it was like a warning.’

‘Perhaps – though the wrong person picked it up, as it happens. Also, once a secret’s out, it spreads. You can’t stop it. Who else did they tell? They swear they didn’t mention it to Mrs Kerrigan – but I don’t know if I believe them. Those boys adore their mother.’