Waiting for Wednesday (35 page)

‘Where?’

‘Just to the chemist’s to get a few things.’

‘She thinks she’s pregnant, doesn’t she?’ Sasha asked, in a low voice.

‘How on earth do you know that?’

‘Are you going to get a Predictor?’

‘Yes. If it’s open.’

Sasha said, turning away and speaking in a casual voice: ‘I’ve got one in my bag she can use.’

‘Oh, Sasha!’ Images flashed through Frieda’s mind – Sasha not lifting her glass, Sasha talking to Dora in a new voice of maternal tenderness, Sasha’s hesitation earlier that evening, as if she was about to tell her something. ‘That’s what you wanted to tell me!’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you?’

‘Let’s talk later.’

Judith wasn’t pregnant. Her sickness and her lateness were, Frieda told her, probably to do with shock and grief. But she needed to think about this properly, she said, not simply continue as she had been doing. She was fifteen and in a relationship with a man who was more than thirteen years older than her. ‘You need to talk to someone,’ she said.

‘I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’

Frieda sighed. Tiredness was making her head pound. ‘Someone who’s not me,’ she replied.

She made Judith a mug of tea, and Dora, who was limp from crying, some hot chocolate. ‘I’ll order you a cab,’ she said. ‘Your father and aunt will be worried.’

Judith snorted.

Then the doorbell rang again.

‘That’ll be Chloë,’ said Frieda.

‘I’ll go.’ Sasha rose and put a hand on Frieda’s shoulder, then went to the door.

It wasn’t Chloë, it was Ted. He was clearly stoned.

‘Isn’t Chloë back yet?’ he asked.

‘No. I’m just ordering a cab,’ Frieda told him, putting her hand over the receiver. ‘You can all go home together.’ She gave the taxi company her address and put the phone down.

‘No way. No way in the world. Dad’s drunk out of his head and Aunt Louise is very, very angry in a stomping kind of way. I’m not staying there tonight.’

‘Well, then, I’m not either,’ said Judith. Her blue eyes blazed with a kind of scared excitement. ‘Nor will Dora. Will you, Dora?’

Dora stared at her. She looked stricken.

‘The cab will be here in about five minutes. You’re all going home.’

‘No,’ said Ted. ‘I can’t go there.’

‘You can’t make us,’ added Judith. Dora put her head on the kitchen table again and closed her eyes. Her lids seemed transparent.

‘No. I can’t. Where are you going, then?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes. You’re eighteen now, I think, and a boy, and you can look after yourself – theoretically at least. Judith is fifteen and Dora thirteen. Look at her. Have you got a friend you can stay with?’

‘Can’t we stay here?’ Dora said suddenly. ‘Can’t we be in your house for a night? It feels safe here.’

‘No,’ said Frieda. She could feel Sasha’s eyes on her.

She considered picking up a plate and throwing it against the wall; she imagined taking a chair and smashing it against the window so that clean air streamed into this hot kitchen, with its smell of curry and sweat and grief. Or better still,
just running out of her house, shutting the door behind her – she’d be free, in the April night, with stars and a moon and the wind soft in her face, and they could deal with their own chaotic sadness without her.

‘Please,’ said Dora. ‘We’ll be very quiet and we won’t make a mess.’

Ted and Judith were silent, just gazing at her and waiting.

‘Frieda,’ said Sasha, warningly. ‘No. This isn’t fair on you.’

‘One night,’ said Frieda. ‘One night only. Do you hear? And you have to ring home and tell your aunt and your father, if he’s in a state to understand.’

‘Yes!’

‘And when the cab arrives I’ll send it away but tell them to come back first thing tomorrow to take you home. You are all going to school. Yes?’

‘We promise.’

‘Where can we sleep?’ asked Dora.

Frieda thought of her lovely calm study at the top of the house that was now strewn with Chloë’s mess. She thought of her living room, with the books on the shelves, the sofa by the grate, the chess table by the window. Everything just so. Her refuge against the world and all its troubles.

‘Through there,’ she said, pointing up the hall.

‘Have you got sleeping bags?’

‘No.’ She stood up. Her body felt so heavy it took an enormous effort of will to move at all. Her head thudded. ‘I’ll get some duvets and sheets, and you can use the cushions from the sofa and chair.’

‘I’ll sort all of that.’ Sasha sounded urgent. She looked at Frieda with an expression of concern, even alarm.

‘Can I have a bath?’ asked Ted.

Frieda stared at him. The new plug was in her bag. ‘No! You can’t. You mustn’t! Just the washbasin.’

The bell rang again and Sasha went to cancel the cab. Then, almost immediately, Chloë came in, in her usual high pitch of angry excitement after seeing her father. She threw her arms around Ted, around Frieda, around Sasha.

‘Out of here,’ said Frieda. ‘I’m going to clean the kitchen, then go to bed.’

‘We’ll tidy,’ Chloë shouted gaily. ‘Leave it to us.’

‘No. Go into the other room and I’ll do it. You’re all to go to sleep now – you’re getting up at seven and leaving shortly after that. Don’t make a noise. And if anyone uses my toothbrush I’ll throw them out whatever time of night it is.’

You seem to have gone off radar. Where are you? Talk to me! Sandy xxxxx

THIRTY-SEVEN

‘It’s fun, isn’t it?’ said Riley.

‘In what way?’ asked Yvette.

‘We’re looking through people’s things, opening their drawers, reading through their diaries. It’s all the stuff you want to do, but you’re not meant to. I wish I could do this at my girlfriend’s flat.’

‘No, it’s not fun,’ said Yvette. ‘And don’t say that aloud, even to me.’

Riley was going through the filing cabinet in the Kerrigans’ living room. They’d searched the main bedroom and the kitchen already. Paul Kerrigan had stayed in hospital only one night after he was beaten up and now he was out, but his wife had let them in, tight-lipped and silent. She hadn’t offered them coffee or tea, and as they searched among the couple’s possessions, lifting up underwear, turning on computers, reading private letters, noticing the tidemark in the bath and the moth holes in some of Paul Kerrigan’s jumpers, they could hear her slamming doors, banging pans. When Yvette had last met her, she had been dazed and wearily sad. Now she seemed angry.

‘Here,’ she said, coming into the room. ‘You might not have found these. They were in his bike pannier in the cupboard under the stairs.’

She was holding a small square packet between forefinger and thumb, with an air of distaste. ‘Condoms,’ she said, and dropped them on to the table, as if they’d been used. ‘For his Wednesday dates, I assume.’

Yvette tried to keep her expression neutral. She hoped Riley wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t react. ‘Thank you.’ She picked up the packet to put in the evidence bag.

‘He didn’t use them with you?’ said Riley, in a bright voice.

‘I had cancer several years ago and the chemotherapy meant that I’m now infertile,’ said Elaine Kerrigan. Briefly, her stiff expression changed to one of distress. ‘So, no, he didn’t.’

‘So …’ Yvette began.

‘There’s something else I should say. Paul didn’t get home until quite late on that day.’

‘We’re talking about the sixth of April.’

‘Yes. I was here a long time before him. I remember because I made a lemon meringue pie and I was worried it would spoil. Funny the things you worry about, isn’t it? Anyway, he was late. It must have been gone eight.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us that before?’’

‘It’s hard to remember everything at once.’

‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Yvette. ‘We’ll need you to make a new statement.’

She glanced at Riley. There was a gleam about him, almost as if he were suppressing a smile.

‘He had a long shower when he came in,’ continued Elaine, ‘and put his clothes straight into the wash. He said he’d had a hard day on site and had to wash away the grime before supper.’

‘It’s important you tell us everything you know,’ said Yvette. ‘I know how angry you must be, but I want to be clear that there is no connection between you finding this and your new account of events. Which is quite damaging to your husband’s situation.’

‘I’m angry with Paul, if that’s what you mean,’ said Elaine. ‘I’m quite glad someone beat him up. It feels like they were
doing it for me. But I’m just telling you what I remember. That’s my duty, isn’t it?’

As they were leaving, they met the two Kerrigan sons. They had their father’s face and their mother’s eyes and they both stared at Yvette and Riley with what looked to Yvette like hatred.

Meanwhile, Chris Munster was searching the flat where Paul Kerrigan and Ruth Lennox had met every Wednesday afternoon for the past ten years, barring holidays. He was making an inventory. Dutifully, he wrote down everything he found: two pairs of slippers, his and hers; two towelling robes, ditto; a single shelf full of books in the bedroom – an anthology of poems about childhood, an anthology of writings about dogs, Winston Churchill’s
History of the English-Speaking People
, a collection of humorous pieces, a volume of cartoons that Munster didn’t find particularly amusing – all books that he supposed were meant to be read in snatches. The bed linen had been removed for traces of bodily fluids, but there was a brightly patterned quilt thrown over the small chair and a woven strip of rug running along the floor. The curtains were yellow-checked, very cheery. The stripped-pine wardrobe was empty except for two shirts (his) and a sundress with a torn zip.

In the clean, bare bathroom: two toothbrushes; two flannels; two towels, shaving cream, deodorant (his and hers), dental floss, mouthwash. He imagined the two of them carefully washing, cleaning their teeth, gargling with mouthwash, examining themselves in the mirror above the sink for traces of their activities, before getting back into their sensible clothes and going back to their other lives.

In the kitchen-living room there were four recipe books, along with a set of basic cooking utensils (pots, pans, wooden
spoons, a couple of baking trays) and a small number of plates, bowls, glass tumblers. Four mugs that looked to Munster much like the mugs he had seen in the Lennox house. She might well have bought them at the same time. There was a bottle of white wine in the little fridge and two bottles of red wine on the surface. There was a dead hyacinth tilting in its dried-up soil. Two onions shrivelling on the windowsill. A striped tablecloth thrown over the wooden table in the centre of the room. Jigsaws on the side, several, of different levels of difficulty. A pack of cards. A digital radio. A wall calendar with nothing written on it. A red sequined cushion on the two-seater sofa.

Ten years of lying, he thought. Just for this.

‘Kerrigan no longer has an alibi,’ said Karlsson.

‘Well, maybe he doesn’t,’ said Yvette. ‘I’m not sure which of Mrs Kerrigan’s stories I believe.’

‘So you’re taking his side.’ There was a sound to his left, a sort of cackle. It came from Riley.

‘Yvette’s definitely not taking Kerrigan’s side. She can’t stand him.’

‘And what did he need condoms for?’ said Karlsson. ‘Not for his wife.’

‘And not for Mrs Lennox,’ said Yvette. ‘We know she had an IUD fitted.’

‘He still could have worn a condom,’ said Riley.

‘What for?’ said Karlsson.

Riley looked uneasy now. Karlsson shouldn’t need to be told this.

‘You know,’ he said. ‘To stop him catching something from Ruth Lennox. You know what they say, when you sleep with someone, you’re sleeping with all their partners and their partners’ partners and their partners’ parners …’

‘Yes, we get the idea,’ said Yvette.

Karlsson suddenly thought of Sadie. It had been bad enough already. It wasn’t possible, was it? He suppressed the idea. It was too terrible to think about. ‘Do you think so?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Yvette, firmly. ‘If the condoms had been for Ruth Lennox, they would have been in the flat and Munster didn’t find any there. There must have been someone else.’

‘That sounds right,’ said Karlsson. ‘The question is, did Ruth Lennox know about that?’

‘The other question is why she had that dial of pills in her cupboard.’

‘Also,’ said Yvette, ‘I’ve been thinking about the doll.’

‘Go on.’

‘We’re assuming it was sent to Ruth Lennox and it was a warning. Which would mean that someone was on to them.’

‘Yes?’

‘What if it was meant for Dora all the time? We know she was being badly bullied at school in the months leading up to her mother’s death. Maybe kids who knew she was ill and would be alone in the house did it.’

‘Why?’ Riley sounded indignant.

‘Because kids are cruel.’

‘But that’s just horrible.’

‘They would think it was just a game,’ said Yvette. Everyone noticed the note of bitterness in her voice and her colour rose.

‘You may be right.’ Karlsson spoke quickly to cover the awkwardness. ‘We might be leaping to conclusions.’

‘Poor thing,’ said Riley. ‘Whichever it was.’