Waiting for Wednesday fk-3 Page 19

  ‘So she knew.’

  ‘She smelled it on me. She was pretty contemptuous – that’s a bit rich, isn’t it, with what she was doing at the same time?’

  ‘Which you still claim you had no knowledge of.’

  ‘I don’t claim. I had no knowledge.’

  ‘And you still say you had a good marriage?’

  ‘Are you married?’

  Yvette felt a violent blush heat her neck and face. She saw herself through his eyes – a solid, brown-haired, clumsy, lonely woman with big feet and large, ringless hands. ‘No,’ she replied shortly.

  ‘No marriage looks good when you start searching for the fault lines. Until now, I would have said that, although we sometimes wrangled and sometimes took each other for granted, we had a good, solid marriage.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now it doesn’t make sense. It’s been smashed apart and I can’t even ask her why.’

  Frieda had only just arrived home when there was a ring at the door. She opened it to find two police officers, a man and a woman.

  ‘Are you Dr Frieda Klein?’ said the man.

  ‘Did Karlsson send you?’

  The two officers looked at each other.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the man. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Well, what are you here for?’

  ‘Can you confirm that you are Dr Frieda Klein?’

  ‘Yes, I can. Is something wrong?’

  The officer frowned. ‘I have to inform you that we need to interview you in connection with an alleged case of assault causing actual bodily harm.’

  ‘What case? Is this something I’m supposed to have witnessed?’

  He shook his head. ‘We’re responding to a complaint that names you as the perpetrator.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  The female officer looked down at her notebook. ‘Were you present at flat four, number two Marsh Side on the seventeenth of April?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It is currently occupied by Mr Ian Yardley.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Frieda.

  ‘You admit you were present?’

  ‘Yes, I admit I was present but –’

  ‘We need to talk to you about this,’ said the man. ‘But we can’t do it on the doorstep. If you wish, we can take you to an interview room.’

  ‘Can’t you just come in so that we can sort it out?’

  ‘We can come in and put a few questions to you,’ said the man.

  In their bulky uniforms, the two of them made Frieda’s house seem smaller. They sat down awkwardly, as if they were unused to being inside. Frieda sat opposite them. She waited for them to speak. The man took off his hat and laid it on the arm of the chair. He had curly red hair and pale skin.

  ‘It’s been reported that there was an incident,’ he said. He took a notebook from the side pocket of his jacket, slowly opened it and inspected it, as if he was seeing it for the first time. ‘I need to inform you from the outset that we are investigating a case of common assault and also a case of assault causing actual bodily harm.’

  ‘What actual bodily harm?’ said Frieda, trying to remain calm. At the same time she tried to remember the event. Could the woman have hit her head when she fell? The officer looked back down at his notebook.

  ‘A complaint has been made by Mr Ian Yardley, the owner of the flat, and by Polly Welsh. Now, at this point I need to warn you that you are not under arrest and that you are free to stop the interview at any time. And I also need to tell you that you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’ When he had finished this small speech, the officer’s pale skin reddened. Frieda was reminded of a small boy reciting a speech at a school assembly. ‘We always have to say that.’

  ‘And that I’m entitled to a lawyer.’

  ‘You’ve not been arrested, Dr Klein.’

  ‘What was the “actual bodily harm”?’ said Frieda. ‘Was she injured?’

  ‘I believe there was bruising and some medical attention was needed.’

  ‘Does that count as actual bodily harm?’ said Frieda.

  ‘It is alleged,’ said the woman, ‘that psychological harm was caused. Sleep problems. Distress.’

  ‘Psychological harm,’ said Frieda. ‘Is it possible that Dr Hal Bradshaw was connected with the assessment?’

  ‘I can’t comment on that,’ said the man. ‘But you admit that you were present at the incident.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frieda. ‘Haven’t they waited rather a long time to report it?’

  ‘From what I’ve heard,’ said the man, ‘Miss Welsh was at first too traumatized to talk about it. She needed reassurance and treatment before she was able to come forward. We’re trying to be more sensitive in our response to women who suffer violence.’

  ‘Well, that’s a good thing,’ said Frieda. ‘Do you want to know what happened?’

  ‘We would be interested in your version of events, yes,’ said the man.

  ‘I arranged to see Ian Yardley to ask him some questions,’ said Frieda.

  ‘You were angry with him, I understand. You felt humiliated by him.’

  ‘Is that what he said?’

  ‘That’s what our enquiries suggest.’

  ‘I wasn’t angry with him. But his friend …’

  ‘Miss Welsh.’

  ‘She was aggressive as soon as I arrived. She jabbed at me and tried to push me out of the flat. I pushed back. When she tried to retaliate, I think she fell over a chair. It all happened very quickly. And then I left. End of story.’

  The man looked down at his notebook.

  ‘One report claims that you pushed Miss Welsh against a wall and held her there. Is that accurate?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. She started pushing at me. I told her to stop, and when she wouldn’t, I pushed her against the wall. But not roughly. Just to make her stop. Then I let her go and she came at me and fell over. I wasn’t even touching her.’

  ‘She just fell,’ said the woman.

  ‘That’s right.’

  The man looked back at his notes. ‘Do you have a history of fighting in public?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He turned a page. ‘You know a man called James Rundell?’ he said. ‘We’ve heard something about a fight in a restaurant, significant damage done. And it ended with you being arrested.’

  ‘Where did you hear about that?’

  ‘It’s information we’ve received.’

  ‘What’s the relevance?’

  ‘We’re just trying to establish a pattern. And isn’t James Rundell involved in this case as well?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Frieda. ‘Rundell is one of the other therapists who were targeted in this …’ She stopped, trying to think of an appropriate word. ‘Project,’ she said finally.

  “Targeted”. That sounds like you’re angry about it.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Frieda.

  The man wrote something in his notebook. ‘You get angry with Rundell and you confront him in a restaurant and attack him. You get angry with Ian Yardley and you confront him in his home and a fight ensues. Do you see a pattern?’

  ‘The two cases have nothing in common,’ said Frieda. ‘And there was no fight in Ian Yardley’s flat.’

  Suddenly the man glanced round, like a dog that had caught a scent. ‘What’s that?’ he said.

  It was the banging from upstairs in the bathroom. It had become so much a part of Frieda’s life that she had almost stopped hearing it. ‘Do you really need to know?’ she said. ‘After all, I’ve got an alibi. I’m down here with you.’

  The female officer frowned at her. ‘There’s nothing funny about violence against women,’ she said.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Frieda. ‘I’m done. If you want to charge me, then go ahead. Otherwise, we have nothing left to talk abo
ut.’

  With a grimace of concentration, the man wrote several lines of notes, then closed his book and stood up. ‘Between ourselves,’ he said, ‘if I were you, I would talk to a solicitor. We’ve put weaker cases than this one in front of a jury. But even if we don’t, you might well be facing a civil case.’

  ‘What if I need to reach you?’ Frieda asked.

  ‘I was about to tell you,’ said the man. He wrote in his notebook, tore a page out and handed it to Frieda. ‘If you’ve anything more to say. But we’ll be in touch anyway.’

  When they were gone, Frieda sat for several minutes staring in front of her. Then she looked through her address book and dialled a number. ‘Yvette,’ she said. ‘Sorry, it’s Frieda. Have you got a moment?’

  Thank you for your letter. I carry it around with me. It’s so like you to write a real letter – on good-quality paper, in ink, with proper grammar and no abbreviations. I can’t remember the last time anyone sent me a letter. My mother, maybe, years ago. She used to write to me on very thin airmail paper, gummed down. I could never read her tiny, cramped handwriting.

  My mother; yours. All the things we’ve never told each other yet. I think we need to spend a month in a lighthouse, with rough seas all round us, and enough food and drink never to have to leave. We could talk and read and sleep and make love and share secrets. Make up for all the lost time. Sandy xxxx

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Yvette and Karlsson walked together from the Lennoxes’ house to the Kerrigans’. It took less than ten minutes. Yvette struggled to keep pace with his long stride. She had a bad cold: her throat was sore, her glands ached and her head throbbed. Her clothes felt tight and itchy.

  The house was smaller than Ruth and Russell’s, a red-brick terraced building up a narrow side-street, with a tiny front garden that had been gravelled over. Elaine Kerrigan opened the door before the chime had died away. She stood before them, a tall woman with a long, pale face and fading hair caught up in a loose bun; glasses hung round her neck on a chain. She was wearing an oversized checked shirt over loose cotton trousers. The sun caught her as she gazed at them, and she raised her hand – wedding ring and engagement ring on the fourth finger – to shield her from its dazzle.

  She knows, Yvette thought. Her husband must have sat her down and told her.

  She led them into the living room. Sun streamed through the large window and lay across the green carpet and the striped sofa. There were daffodils on the mantelpiece, doubled by the mirror. Yvette caught a glimpse of her own face there – flushed and heavy, with dry lips. She licked them. Elaine Kerrigan took a seat and gestured for them to do the same. She laid her long, delicate hands in her lap and sat up straight.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about how to behave,’ she said, in a voice that was low and pleasant, with a faint burr of an accent that Yvette couldn’t place. ‘It all seems unreal. I know I’m the wronged wife, but I can’t feel that yet. It’s just so …’ She looked down at her hands, lifted her eyes again. ‘Paul doesn’t seem the sort of man someone would choose to have an affair with.’

  ‘When did he tell you?’ asked Yvette.

  ‘When he came back yesterday. He waited till his tea was on the table and blurted it out. I thought he was joking at first.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s mad, isn’t it? It can’t be happening to me. And this woman’s dead. Did he say that I was the one who told him about it? I saw the story in the paper? I thought she had a nice face. I wonder if she thought about me when it was all happening.’

  ‘We know it must be a shock,’ said Yvette. ‘Obviously we need to establish people’s movements on the day that Ruth Lennox died.’

  ‘You mean my husband? I can’t remember. I’ve looked in the diary but the page is blank. It was just another Wednesday. Paul says he was definitely here at the time but I don’t remember if I came home from work first or if he did. I can’t remember if he was later than usual. If something unusual had happened, I suppose it would have stuck in my mind.’

  ‘What about your sons?’

  She turned her head. Following her gaze, Karlsson and Yvette saw the photograph next to the daffodils of two boys, young men even, both with dark hair and their father’s broad face. One had a scar above his lip that pulled his smile slightly awry.

  ‘Josh is at university in Cardiff. He hadn’t come back for Easter by then. The other, Ben, he’s eighteen and he takes his A levels this year. He lives at home. He’s a bit vague about dates. And everything else. I haven’t told them yet about the affair. After that I can tell them about the murder. That’ll be fun. How long was it for?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘How long had the affair been going on?’

  ‘Your husband didn’t tell you?’

  ‘He said it was more than a fling, but he still loved me and he hoped I would forgive him.’

  ‘Ten years,’ said Yvette, calmly. ‘They met on Wednesday afternoons. They rented a flat.’

  Elaine Kerrigan sat up even straighter. Her face seemed to loosen, the skin grow slack. ‘Ten years.’ They could hear her swallow.

  ‘And you didn’t know?’

  ‘Ten years, with a flat.’

  ‘And we will also need to conduct a search here,’ said Yvette.

  ‘I understand.’ Elaine Kerrigan’s voice was still polite, but it had become faint.

  ‘Have you noticed nothing unusual in his behaviour?’

  ‘Over the last ten years?’

  ‘Over the last few weeks, perhaps.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He hasn’t been upset or distracted?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You didn’t know that several hundreds of pounds have been disappearing monthly from your husband’s bank account to pay for the rooms he rented?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You never met her?’

  ‘The other woman?’ She gave them a tired half-smile. ‘I don’t think so. But she lived near here, didn’t she? Maybe I did.’

  ‘We would be grateful if you could try to find out exactly what time you and your husband came home on the Wednesday – ask colleagues at work, perhaps.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  She didn’t stand up as they left, but stayed sitting upright on the sofa, her long face blank.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ Yvette asked Karlsson, trying to sound casual – as if she didn’t care one way or the other. She heard her voice grate.

  ‘I’m taking the rest of the day off and I won’t be in tomorrow so I …’

  ‘Fine. Just a suggestion. There was something I wanted to mention. Frieda rang me.’

  ‘What about?’

  As Yvette described the details of Frieda’s police interview, Karlsson started to smile but finally he just looked weary.

  ‘I said she should talk to you about it, but she said you’d probably had enough of her. You know, after that last time with Rundell.’

  ‘What is it with her?’ said Karlsson. ‘There are nightclub bouncers who get into fewer fights than she does.’

  ‘She doesn’t always choose them.’

  ‘Yes, but they seem to happen wherever she goes. Anyway, she rang you. You’d better make a couple of calls.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you with it.’

  Karlsson hesitated, looking at her flushed face. ‘I didn’t mean to snap. I’m spending the time with my kids,’ he said gently. ‘They’re going away soon.’

  ‘I didn’t know – how long for?’

  He found he couldn’t tell her. ‘Quite a long time,’ was all he could manage. ‘So I want to make the most of this.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Mikey had had his hair cut very short; it was like soft bristle; his scalp showed through and his ears stuck out. Bella’s hair had been cut as well, so it was a mass of loose curls around her face. It made them seem younger and more defenceless. Karlsson felt too tall and
solid beside them. His heart swelled in his chest and he stooped down and held them against him. But they squirmed free. They were excited; their bodies throbbed with impatience. They wanted to tell him about the flat they were going to live in, which had balconies on both sides and an orange tree in the courtyard. A fan in every room, because it was very hot in the summer. They’d got new summer clothes, shorts and dresses and flip-flops. It hardly ever rained there – the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. There was an outdoor pool a few streets away and at the weekends they could get a train to the coast. They would have to wear a uniform to their new school. They already knew some words. They could say, Puedo tomar un helado por favor? And gracias and mi nombre es Mikey, mi nombre es Bella.

  Karlsson smiled and smiled. He wanted them never to leave and he wanted them to be gone already, because waiting to say goodbye was the worst thing of all.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The following morning, when Frieda received Rajit Singh’s call, she arranged to meet him in her rooms, which stood empty for so many hours of the week now, the red armchair abandoned. Later in the day she had to see Joe Franklin, so she could stay on for that, stand for a while at the window that overlooked the deserted and overgrown building site, sifting through the rubble of her thoughts. She walked as swiftly as her injured leg would allow through the narrow streets, the familiar clutter of shops. She had the sensation of following a thread, as thin as a spider’s, through a dark and twisting labyrinth. She didn’t know why she couldn’t let go of the story: it had been a fake tale, crudely obvious, designed to trip her up and make her look foolish and incompetent. She should feel enraged, humiliated, exposed; instead, she felt troubled and compelled. She woke in the night and her thoughts, drifting up from the mud of her dreams, snagged on the story. There was a faint but insistent tug on the thread.

  Singh arrived promptly. He was still wearing his thick black jacket – in fact, he seemed to be wearing the same clothes that Frieda had last seen him in. His face sagged with weariness and he sat heavily in the chair opposite her, as if this were indeed a therapy session.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’