Waiting for Wednesday

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 weredoing 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, woodenspoons, 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