Waiting for Wednesday (43 page)

‘No. I saw her kids, I think. It all made me feel a bit sick, if you want to know. Poisoned.’

‘Is there anything you haven’t told me?’

Ben shook his head miserably. ‘Josh is going to be mad at me. He made me swear not to say anything.’

‘That’s what happens when you start breaking the law. People get mad at you.’

FORTY-SIX

Frieda had got Judith’s email address from Chloë, and sent her a short message, saying she would be waiting for her at four o’clock the next afternoon at Primrose Hill, by the entrance just minutes from Judith’s school. The weather had changed: it was blustery and the clouds were low and grey, threatening rain.

She saw Judith long before Judith saw her. She was in a knot of friends, which loosened and dispersed as they went, and finally it was just the girl making her way slowly towards the gate. She was wearing her clumpy boots, which made her legs seem thinner than ever, and she had an orange scarf tied several times round her head, like a turban from which wild tendrils of hair escaped. Even her walk was unsteady, her feet in their heavy boots tripping on the pavement. She looked hunted, her eyes darting from side to side, and she kept putting her hand to her mouth, as if she was stopping herself saying anything.

As she came into the park, she noticed Frieda sitting on the bench and her step quickened. A series of expressions flickered on her face: bewilderment, anger, fear. Then it hardened into a mask of hostility. The blue eyes glittered.

‘Why is
she
here?’

‘Because it’s not me you need to speak to. It’s DC Long. Yvette.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t need to talk to either of you. I don’t want to. I want everyone to fuck off. Leave me alone, all of you.’ Her voice cracked. A hoarse
sob forced its way out of her mouth and she lurched where she stood, as if she would fall.

Frieda stood up and gestured to the bench. ‘You’ve been under terrible pressure. You must feel as if you’re about to explode with it.’

‘I don’t know what you’re going on about. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home. Or somewhere,’ she added.

But she didn’t move, and for a moment she looked so young and so full of uncertainty and terror that Frieda thought she would burst into tears. Then, as if her legs would no longer hold her, she crumpled on to the bench beside Yvette and pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, hunching her body up protectively.

‘Tell Yvette why you’re so scared.’

‘What do you mean?’ whispered Judith.

‘You can’t protect him.’

‘Who?’

‘Your father.’

Judith closed her eyes. Her face became slack, suddenly like that of a middle-aged woman, defeated by tiredness.

‘I sometimes think I’m going to wake up and this will be just a dream. Mum will still be there and we’ll be arguing about stupid stuff, like staying out late and makeup and homework, and all the horrible things won’t have happened. I wish I’d never had a boyfriend. I wish I’d never met Zach. I feel sick when I think about him. I want to be like I was before all of this.’ She opened her eyes and looked at Frieda. ‘Is it because of me he’s dead?’

‘You tell me.’

And then Judith did at last burst into tears. She leaned forward and covered her face with her hands and rocked her body to and fro and wept. Tears dripped through the lattice of her fingers and snorts and groans and gasps shook her.

Yvette stared at her, then tentatively put out one hand and touched her on the shoulder, but Judith reacted violently, lashing out and pushing her away. It was several minutes before the sobs got quieter, and at last they ceased. She lifted her face from the sieve of her hands; she was blotchy with weeping; there were streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. She was barely recognizable. Frieda took a tissue from her bag and, without a word, handed it over. Judith dabbed at her sodden face, still making sniffling sounds.

‘I told him about Zach,’ she said at last, in a whisper.

‘Yes.’

‘Did he kill him?’

‘I don’t know that.’ Frieda handed her another tissue.

‘But you did right to tell us,’ added Yvette, decisively. ‘We would have found out anyway. You’re not to feel responsible.’

‘Why? Why shouldn’t I? It’s my fault. I had sex with him.’ Her face puckered. ‘And then I told my dad. He just wanted to protect me. What’s going to happen to him? What’s going to happen to us? Dora’s just a little girl.’

‘Yvette’s right, Judith: you’re not responsible.’

‘He’ll know it was me who told you.’

‘He should never have put you in this position,’ Yvette said.

‘Why is this happening to us? I just want to go back to when it was all right.’

‘We should take you home,’ said Frieda.

‘I can’t see him, not now. I just can’t. My poor darling dad. Oh, God.’ And she ended on a juddering sob.

Frieda made up her mind. ‘You’ll come to my house,’ she said, thinking of how her calm, orderly home had become like a circus for other people’s grief and chaos. ‘You and Ted
and Dora. We’ll call them now.’ She nodded at Yvette. ‘And you’ll have to speak to Karlsson.’

When Yvette told Karlsson what she’d learned from Judith, he just stared at her for a moment.

‘Stupid, fucking idiot,’ he said finally. ‘Who’s going to look after his family now? What a mess. Russell Lennox knew about Judith and Zach. Josh and Ben Kerrigan knew about their father and Ruth Lennox. All those secrets. Where’s this going to end?’ His phone rang and he snatched it up, listened, said, ‘We’ll be there,’ then put it down again.

‘That was Tate in forensics. He’s invited us for a guided tour of Zach’s flat.’

‘But –’

‘Have you got anything better to do?’

James Tate was a small, stocky, dark-skinned and peppery-haired man with a peremptory manner and sarcastic sense of humour. Karlsson had known him for years. He was meticulous and dispassionate, very good at his job. He was waiting for them and when they arrived he gave them a small nod and handed them both paper shoes and thin latex gloves to put on, before they stepped into the scene of the crime.

‘You couldn’t have just told me on the phone?’ Karlsson asked.

‘I thought you’d like to see it for yourself. Like this, for example.’

He pointed at the doorbell. ‘Nice clear prints.’

‘Do they match –’

‘Don’t be in such a hurry.’ He opened the door into the little entrance hall. ‘Exhibit number two.’ He pointed at the muddy footprints on the floor. ‘Size forty-one shoes. We’ve
got a clear image. And three: signs of some kind of struggle. This picture has been dislodged.’

Karlsson nodded. Yvette, following them past the disordered kitchenette into the bedroom, had the strange sensation that she would find the body all over again.

‘Four. Blood splash. Here, here and here. And substantially more there, of course, where the body was. Exhibit four, or should that be five: in that bin there,’ he pointed, ‘we found a very dirty kitchen towel covered with more blood. We took it away for DNA testing. Somebody had used it to clean himself up.’

‘And that would be …’

‘Exhibit six: fingerprints, containing traces of the victim’s blood, all against that wall. There. What do you think?’

‘What do I think? What do you
know
?’

‘We can construct a very plausible scenario. Someone – a man wearing size forty-one shoes – entered. Presumably he was let in by the victim, but we can’t be sure. There was no sign of a forced entrance. They had some kind of a struggle in the hall, then went into the bedroom where the victim was bludgeoned to death with a weapon as yet unfound. The perpetrator must have got splashed with the victim’s blood and he wiped himself with the cloth and flung it into the bin. I take it he was feeling unsteady by then. He leaned against that wall, leaving several very satisfactory fingerprints. Then he left.’ Tate beamed at them. ‘There.’

‘And the fingerprints belonged to?’

‘Russell Lennox.’ Tate’s triumphant smile faded. ‘Aren’t you impressed?’

‘No, I’m sorry. I really am. But there’s being careless and there’s being really careless.’

‘You know all about that, Mal. Murderers are almost always in an almost psychotic state because of the stress.
They suffer memory loss. I’ve found wallets, jackets at crime scenes.’

‘You’re right,’ said Karlsson. ‘I’m not going to say no to a clear result.’

‘You’re welcome,’ said Tate.

FORTY-SEVEN

When Frieda and the Lennox children had arrived at her flat, it was far from the calm place of refuge she had wanted for them. Instead, it felt like a battle zone. Shoes of all shapes and sizes lay in the hall, with coats piled up by the banisters; bags and satchels, spilling their contents, led into the living room. Music was playing loudly. The air was thick with the smell of cooking: onions, garlic, herbs. She had to pause for a moment and take a few deep breaths. She felt as if she had led them all on stage. She heard loud voices, the rattle of glasses, like a party. As she stepped into the living room, Josef and Chloë looked up. She saw the bottle of wine on the table, the glasses, a bowl of nuts.

‘It’s all right,’ said Chloë. ‘Reuben’s making supper. I thought it would be nice for you not to think about it for once. He says it’s his speciality. Oh, hi, Ted!’ She blushed and smiled.

Then the door opened and Reuben peered round, his face flushed and beaming. Drunk, thought Frieda. Drunk as a lord.

‘Hello, Frieda. I thought we all needed a slap-up meal and since you won’t come to me I thought –’ He noticed the Lennoxes bunched in a corner, dazed and scared. ‘Sorry. I didn’t realize. You must be the poor kids whose mother died.’

‘Yes,’ said Judith, faintly. Dora started to snivel.

‘Very tough,’ said Reuben. ‘Very very very tough.’ He lurched a bit. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But for now, I’ve made enough for an army. The more the merrier. And the food is ready.’ He gave a sweeping bow and winked at Judith.

‘I don’t think it’s the right night,’ Frieda said firmly. ‘We need to have a bit of quiet here. I’m sorry.’

His expression curdled. He glared at her and raised his eyebrows, ready to pick a fight.

‘Don’t be mean, Frieda!’ Chloë was indignant. ‘He’s been working for
hours
on this. You don’t mind, do you, Ted?’ She put a hand on his shoulder and he stared at her with stupefied eyes.

‘Nah. It’s OK,’ he said listlessly. ‘It doesn’t really matter one way or another.’

‘I don’t think –’ began Frieda.

‘Great!’

Josef had already laid the table with unfamiliar plates that Frieda never used. He must have found them at the back of a cupboard. But when he laid them out on the table, it added to her impression that she was a guest in her own house and a stranger in her own life. He filled tumblers with water from a jug. Then Reuben drew a large blue casserole dish from the oven, his hands swathed in two tea-towels. Frieda already knew what it was. Reuben’s speciality, his fallback dish, his comfort food, ever since she had known him, was a particularly hot, spicy and meaty chilli con carne. When he triumphantly lifted the lid, the sight of the meat and the purple kidney beans almost made her gag.

‘This was the meal I used to cook as a student,’ he said, to Chloë. ‘You’ll need to build up a few dishes for when you go to college. And you’re a bit peaky, if I may say so,’ he told Judith. ‘Red meat is what you need!’

‘You didn’t make a salad as well, did you?’ Frieda asked.

Reuben left the room and returned with a fairly small
green salad. He ladled the chilli on to the plates and passed them round. When he had finished, he poured wine into the glasses.

Chloë took a mouthful of chilli, flinched and coughed. ‘It’s really hot,’ she said, with a gasp. She took a gulp of water.

‘Water only makes it worse,’ Reuben said. ‘Wine’s better.’

Josef took a large forkful and munched. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Feel it in the chest.’

Frieda toyed with the food. She took a salad leaf in her fingers and put it into her mouth. Ted drank a glass of wine as if it was water and, without asking, poured himself another. Dora simply stared at her plate and then at Frieda with her huge beseeching eyes.