Waiting for Wednesday

connection.’
    ‘Did you ever meet Mrs
Lennox?’
    ‘I
saw
her. I didn’t
meet her.’
    ‘She didn’t know about
you?’
    ‘Jude thought she wouldn’t
understand. And I wasn’t going to argue.’
    ‘You’re quite sure you never
met?’
    ‘I think I’d
remember.’
    ‘And you think that Mrs Lennox
wasn’t aware of your existence.’
    ‘Not that I know of.’
    ‘Did she suspect that Judith was
involved with someone?’
    ‘I never met the woman. Why don’t
you ask Jude?’
    ‘I’m asking you,’ said
Yvette, curtly. She saw him give his tiny smile.
    ‘As far as I know, she didn’t
suspect. But mothers have a way of sensing things, don’t they? So maybe she
noticed something was up.’
    ‘Where were you on the evening she was
murdered – Wednesday, the sixth of April?’
    ‘What? Do you really think I would
have killed someone because I didn’t want them to find out about a relationship
with their daughter?’
    ‘It’s a criminal offence. You
could go to prison.’
    ‘This is all crap. She’s nearly
sixteen. She’s not a little kid in pigtails with scabby knees. You’ve seen
her. Drop-dead gorgeous. I met her at a club. Where you have to be eighteen to get in,
by the way. And show your ID.’
    ‘How long have you been involved with
her?’
    ‘What do you mean by
involved
?’
    ‘Oh, please, just give me an
answer.’
    He closed his eyes. Yvette wondered if he
could feel the pulse of her hostility from where he was sitting.
    ‘I met her nine weeks ago,’ he
said. ‘Not long, is it?’
    ‘And she’s on the
Pill?’
    ‘You’ll have to ask Jude about
things like that.’
    ‘Are you still with her?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘You don’t know?’
    ‘No. That’s the truth.’
For a moment, his mask seemed to slip. ‘She couldn’t bear to touch me. She
wouldn’t even let me hug her. I think she feels responsible for it all. Does that
make sense?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Which somehow makes
me
responsible too.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Not really responsible,’ he
added hastily.
    ‘No.’
    ‘So, really, I think it’s over.
You should be pleased. I’m legal again.’
    ‘I wouldn’t say that,’
said Yvette.
    That evening, there was a ring at the
doorbell of the Lennox house. Russell Lennox heard it from the top of the house and
waited for someone else to answer it. But Ted was out and he thought that Judith was too
– that was something he ought to know, of course. Ruth would have known. Dora was in her
room and already in bed. And, for once, Louise wasn’t in the house, vacuuming with
her bloody baby strapped round her, or doing her endless baking. The doorbell rang once
more and Russell sighed. He went heavily down the stairs.
    He didn’t recognize the woman on the
doorstep and she didn’t immediately introduce herself, just stared at him as
though she was searching for someone. She was tall and bony rather than thin, with long
hair tied loosely back and glasses hanging round her neck on a cord. She was wearing a
long patchwork skirt with a muddy hem.
    ‘I thought I should come.’
    ‘I’m sorry – who are
you?’
    She didn’t answer, just raised her
eyebrows, almost as though she was amused. ‘You should recognize me,’ she
said at last. ‘I’m your partner in humiliation.’
    ‘Oh! You mean …’
    ‘Elaine Kerrigan,’ she said, and
held out her long slim hand, which Russell took, then didn’t know how to let it
go.
    ‘But why are you here?’ he
asked. ‘What do you want?’
    ‘Want? To see you, I suppose. I mean,
see what you look like.’
    ‘What do I look like?’
    ‘You look done in,’ she said,
and suddenly tears welled in Russell’s eyes.
    ‘I am.’
    ‘But really I came to thank
you.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘For beating up my husband.’
    ‘I don’t know what you’re
talking about.’
    ‘You gave him a lovely black
eye.’
    ‘You’re on the wrong
track.’
    ‘And a swollen lip so he can’t
talk properly. And I don’t have to listen to his lies.’
    ‘Mrs Kerrigan –’
    ‘Elaine. You did what I wanted to.
I’m grateful.’
    Russell was about to protest again, then his
face softened in a smile. ‘It was my pleasure,’ he said. ‘You’d
better come in. Maybe you’re the only person in the world I want to talk
to.’



FORTY
    This time Frieda didn’t need to ring
the doorbell. Lawrence Dawes was at the front of the house with another man. Dawes was
up a stepladder and the other man was holding it. When Frieda announced herself,