Waiting for Wednesday Read online

  Nicci French

  WAITING FOR WEDNESDAY

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  For Pat and John, once more with feeling

  ONE

  There was no sign that anything was wrong. It was just an ordinary terraced house on an ordinary Wednesday afternoon in April. It had a long, narrow garden, like all the other houses in the road. The one to its left had been neglected for many years. It was overgrown with nettles and brambles; at the far end there was a plastic sandpit full of sludgy water and a child-sized goal that had been tipped over. The garden on the other side was paved and gravelled, with plants in terracotta pots, chairs that the owners folded up in winter to store in their shed, and a barbecue under a black tarpaulin that would be wheeled into the centre of the patio for the summer months.

  But this particular garden had a lawn, just cut for the first time this year. White blossom shone on an old, twisted apple. The roses and shrubs in the borders had been pruned back so hard that they were like sticks. There were ranks of orange tulips near the kitchen door. There was a single trainer with its laces still done up under the window, empty flower pots, a bird table, with a few seeds scattered on its flat surface, a couple of empty beer bottles by the boot-scraper.

  The cat walked up the garden, taking its time and pausing by the door, head lifted as if waiting for something. Then it deftly inserted itself through the cat flap and entered the kitchen, with its tiled floor, its table – big enough for six or more people – and its Welsh dresser, which was really too large for the room and was cluttered with china and odds-and-ends: tubes of dried-out glue, bills in their envelopes, a cookery book opened at a recipe for monkfish with preserved lemon, a balled pair of socks, a five-pound note, a small hairbrush. Pans hung from a steel rail above the cooker. There was a basket of vegetables near the sink, a dozen more cookery books on a small shelf, a vase of flowers that were beginning to droop on the windowsill, a school textbook open spine-down on the table. On the wall was a whiteboard with a ‘to-do’ list in red felt pen. There was a half-eaten piece of toast, cold, on a plate on one of the surfaces, and a cup of tea beside it.

  The cat dipped its head delicately into its bowl on the floor and ate one or two granules of dried cat food, wiped its paw over the side of its face, then continued through the house, out of the kitchen, whose door was always open, past the little lavatory to the left, up the two steps. It sidestepped a broken glass bowl and walked around the leather shoulder-bag lying in the hallway. The bag was upended, its contents scattered over the oak floorboards. Lipstick and face-powder, an opened pack of tissues, car keys, a hairbrush, a small blue diary with a pen attached to it, a packet of paracetamol, a spiral-bound notebook. A bit further on, a black wallet splayed open, a few membership cards dotted around it (AA, British Museum). A framed print from an old Van Gogh exhibition was tipped to one side on the cream wall, and on the floor, its frame cracked, lay a large family portrait: a man, a woman, three children, with broad smiles.

  The cat picked its way through the debris and walked into the living room at the front of the house. An arm lay outstretched in the doorway; the hand was plump and firm with nails cut short and a gold band on the fourth finger. The cat sniffed at it, then gave the wrist a cursory lick. It half climbed on to the body, in its sky-blue blouse and its black work trousers, digging its claws purringly into the soft stomach. Wanting attention, it nuzzled against the head of warm brown hair that was greying now and tied back in a loose knot. There were small gold studs in the ear lobes. There was a thin chain and locket round the neck. The skin smelt of roses and something else. The cat rubbed its body against the face and arched its back.

  After a while, it gave up and went to sit on the armchair to wash itself, for its coat was matted now and sticky.

  Dora Lennox walked slowly back from school. She was tired. It was Wednesday and she had double science last lesson, then swing band in the after-school club. She played the saxophone – badly, splitting notes, but the music teacher didn’t seem fussy. She had only agreed to go because her friend Cam had persuaded her, but now Cam didn’t seem to be her friend any more, and whispered and giggled with other girls who didn’t have braces, weren’t skinny and shy but bold and curvy, with black lacy bras and shiny lips and bright eyes.

  Dora’s rucksack, heavy with books, bumped on her back; her music case swung against her shin; and the plastic carrier bag – bulging with cooking utensils and a tin of scorched scones that she’d made in food tech that morning – was ripped. She was glad to see their car parked near the house. It meant her mother was home. She didn’t like coming back to an empty house, with all the lights off and a grey hush to every room. Her mother put life into things: the dishwasher rumbling, maybe a cake in the oven or at least a tin of biscuits laid out ready for her, the kettle boiling for tea, a sense of ordered bustle that Dora found comforting.

  As she opened the gate and walked up the short, tiled garden path, she saw that the front door was open. Had she arrived just after her mother? Or her brother, Ted? She could hear a sound as well, a pulsing electronic sound. As she got closer she saw that the small frosted-glass window, just to the side of the door, was broken. There was a hole in the g
lass and it bulged inwards. As she stood looking at the strange sight, she felt something on her leg and looked down. The cat was rubbing against her, and Dora noticed that she had left a rusty stain on her new jeans. She stepped into the house, letting her bags slide to the floor. There were shards of glass from the window on the mat. That would need to be fixed. At least it hadn’t been her. It was probably Ted. He broke things all the time: mugs, glasses, windows. Anything fragile. She could smell something as well. Something burning.

  ‘Mum, I’m home!’ she called.

  There was more mess on the floor – the big family photograph, her mother’s bag, bits and pieces strewn around. It was as if a storm had blown through the house, dislodging objects and tossing them about. Dora briefly saw her reflection in the mirror that hung above the table: small white face, thin brown plaits. She walked through to the kitchen where the smell was strongest. She opened the door of the oven and smoke poured out like a hot breath, making her cough. She took an oven glove, lifted the baking tray from the top shelf and put it on top of the stove. There were six charred, shrunken black discs on the tray. Utterly ruined. Her mother sometimes made biscuits for her after school. Dora closed the door and switched off the gas. Yes, that was it. The oven had been left on and the biscuits had burned. The alarm and the smoke had scared Mimi and she had run around breaking things. But why had the biscuits burned?

  She called out again. She saw the fist on the floor in the doorway, fingers curled, but still she went on calling, not moving. ‘Mum, I’m home!’

  She walked back out into the hall, still calling. The door to the front room was slightly open. She saw something inside, pushed against the door and stepped into the room.

  ‘Mum?’

  At first, stupidly, she saw splashes of red paint on the far wall and the sofa and great daubs of it on the floor. Then her hand flew to her mouth and she heard a small moan coming up her throat, then widening out in the terrible room, becoming a shriek that went on and on and wouldn’t stop. She put her hands against her ears to block out the sound but now it was inside her. Not paint, but blood, streams of blood and then a dark, dark lake near the thing lying at her feet. An arm out-flung, a watch on the wrist that still told the time, a comfortable body in a blue shirt and black trousers, one shoe half off. All that she knew. But the face wasn’t a face any longer, because one of its eyes was gone and its mouth was shattered and shouted noiselessly at her through a spit of broken teeth. One entire side of the head was caved in and blistered with blood and gristle and bone, as if someone had tried to destroy it.

  TWO

  The house was in Chalk Farm, a couple of streets away from the noise of Camden Lock. There was an ambulance outside and several police cars. A tape had already been put up and a few passers-by had stopped to stare.

  Detective Constable Yvette Long ducked under the tape and looked at the house, a late-Victorian semi, with a small front garden and a bay window. She was about to go inside when she saw Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm Karlsson stepping out of a car and waited for him. He seemed serious, preoccupied, until he noticed her and gave a nod.

  ‘Have you been inside yet?’

  ‘I just arrived,’ said Yvette. She paused for a moment, then blurted out, ‘It’s funny seeing you without Frieda.’

  Karlsson’s expression turned harsh. ‘So you’re pleased she’s not helping us out.’

  ‘I … I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘I know you had problems with her being around,’ said Karlsson, ‘but that’s been sorted. The chief decided that she was out and she almost got killed in the process. Is that the bit that seemed funny?’

  Yvette blushed and didn’t reply.

  ‘Have you been to see her?’ Karlsson asked.

  ‘I went to the hospital.’

  ‘That’s not enough. You should talk to her. But meanwhile …’

  He gestured towards the house and they walked in. It was full of people in plastic overshoes, wearing overalls and gloves. They spoke in hushed voices or were silent. Karlsson and Yvette pulled on their shoes and gloves and walked down the hall, past a handbag lying on the boards, past a photograph in a smashed frame, past a man dusting for fingerprints, into the living room, where spotlights had been rigged up.

  The dead woman lay under the lights as if she was on stage. She was on her back. One arm was flung out, the other lay by her side, the hand in a half-fist. Her hair was brown, going grey. Her mouth was smashed open so it looked like an animal’s demented snarl, but from where he stood, gazing down at her, Karlsson could see a filling glinting among the splintered teeth. On one side of her face, the skin was quite smooth, but sometimes death uncreases wrinkles, takes away the marks that life has made and adds its own. Her neck had the wrinkles of middle-age.

  Her right eye was open, staring. The left side of the woman’s head had been caved in, sticky with liquid and bits of bone. Blood soaked into the beige carpet around her, had dried in splashes all over the floor and sprayed the nearest wall, turning the middle-class living room into an abattoir.

  ‘Someone hit her hard,’ murmured Karlsson, straightening up.

  ‘Burglary,’ said a voice behind him. Karlsson looked round. A detective was standing at his back, slightly too close. He was very young, pimply, with a slightly uneasy smile on his face.

  ‘What?’ said Karlsson. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Riley,’ said the officer.

  ‘You said something.’

  ‘Burglary,’ said Riley. ‘He was caught in the act and he lashed out.’

  Riley noticed Karlsson’s expression and his smile melted away. ‘I was thinking aloud,’ he said. ‘I was trying to be positive. And proactive.’

  ‘Proactive,’ said Karlsson. ‘I thought we might examine the crime scene, search for prints, hair and fibres, take some statements before deciding what happened. If that’s all right with you.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Boss.’ Chris Munster had come into the room. He stood for a moment, gazing at the body.

  ‘What do we know, Chris?’

  It took an effort for Munster to shift his attention back to Karlsson. ‘You don’t get used to it,’ he said.

  ‘Try to,’ said Karlsson. ‘The family don’t need you to do their suffering for them.’

  ‘Right,’ said Munster, consulting his notebook. ‘Her name is Ruth Lennox. She was a health visitor for the local authority. You know, old people, new mothers, that sort of thing. Forty-four years old, married, three kids. The youngest daughter discovered her when she came back from school at about half past five.’

  ‘Is she here?’

  ‘Upstairs, with the father and the other two kids.’

  ‘Any estimate of time of death?’

  ‘After midday, before six o’clock.’

  ‘That’s not much use.’

  ‘I’m just repeating what Dr Heath told me. He was saying that it was a heated house, warm day, sun through the window. It’s not an exact science.’

  ‘Fine. Murder weapon?’

  Munster shrugged. ‘Something heavy, Dr Heath said. With a sharp edge but not a blade.’

  ‘All right,’ said Karlsson. ‘Is someone getting the family’s prints?’

  ‘I’ll check.’

  ‘Anything stolen?’ asked Yvette.

  Karlsson glanced at her. It was the first time she’d spoken in the house. Her tone still sounded shaky. He’d probably been too hard on her.

  ‘The husband’s in a state of shock,’ said Munster. ‘But it looks like her wallet’s been emptied.’

  ‘I’d better talk to them. Upstairs, you say?’
/>
  ‘In the study. First room you come to up the stairs, next to the bathroom. Melanie Hackett’s with them.’

  ‘All right,’ said Karlsson. ‘There was a detective used to work round here, Harry Curzon. I think he retired. Could you get his number for me? The local police will know him.’

  ‘What do you want him for?’

  ‘He knows the area. He might save us some trouble.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘And have a word with young Riley here. He already knows what happened.’ Karlsson turned to Yvette and signalled her to follow him up the stairs.At the door he paused and listened. He could hear no sound at all. He hated this bit. Often people blamed him because he was the bearer of bad news and at the same time clung to him because he promised some kind of solution. And this was a whole family. Three kids, Munster had said. Poor sods. She looked like she’d been a nice woman, he thought.

  ‘Ready?’

  Yvette nodded and he knocked on the door, three times, then pushed it open.

  The father was sitting in a swivel chair, rotating this way and that. He still wore his outdoor jacket and a cotton scarf tied round his neck. His jowly face was white with mottled red patches on his cheeks, as if he’d just come in from the cold, and he kept blinking as if he had dust in his eyes, licking his lips, pulling the lobe of one ear. On the floor at his feet the younger daughter – the one who’d found Ruth Lennox – was curled in a foetal ball. She was hiccuping and retching and snuffling and gulping. Karlsson thought she sounded like a wounded animal. He couldn’t see what she looked like, only that she was skinny and had brown hair in unravelling plaits. The father put a helpless hand on her shoulder, then drew it back.

  The other daughter, who looked fifteen or sixteen, sat across from them, her legs folded under her and her arms clasped around her body, as though she wanted to make herself as warm and as small as possible. She had chestnut curls and her father’s round face, with full red lips and freckles over the bridge of her nose. She had mascara smeared around one of her blue eyes, but not the other, which gave her an artificial look, clown-like, and yet Karlsson could see at once that she had a sultry attractiveness that even the ruined makeup and her chalky pallor couldn’t mask. She was wearing maroon shorts over black tights, a T-shirt with a logo he didn’t recognize. She stared at Karlsson when he entered, chewing her lower lip furiously.