Waiting for Wednesday

Yvette
wrinkled up her face. ‘They’re both pretty contemptuous and angry. But Josh
seems to have been in Cardiff – although he hasn’t been able to come up with any
concrete alibi apart from being in bed with his girlfriend, who confirms that was
probably the case. No sign on his bank statements that he used his card for a train
ticket or anything. But that doesn’t mean much – as he himself pointed out, he
could have used cash. His younger brother Ben was in a lesson. Apparently. His teacher
can’t remember his being there, but she can’t remember his
not
being there and she thinks she would have noticed.’
    ‘Brilliant.’
    ‘What about Louise Weller?’
asked Yvette. ‘She was on the scene pretty quickly.’
    ‘On the scene?’ Karlsson shook
his head. ‘She came round to help.’
    ‘It’s a common expression of
guilt,’ Bradshaw explained comfortably. ‘Perpetrators like to involve
themselves in the inquiry.’
    ‘What? Mother of three kills
sister?’
    ‘You can’t rule it out,’
said Bradshaw.
    ‘I’m the one who rules people in
or out.’ Karlsson spoke quickly. ‘But you’re right. We’ll talk
to her again. And the Kerrigan boys. Anything else?’
    ‘Samantha Kemp,’ said Riley.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The woman Kerrigan had his affair
with.’
    ‘Yes, I know who she is,
but …’ Karlsson paused. ‘You’ve got to talk to her anyway, to
check Kerrigan’s claim he was with her that afternoon. Maybe it’ll turn out
she has a jealous boyfriend.’ He slammed the file shut. ‘Right, that’s
it. Yvette, check that alibi. Chris, you talk to this Samantha Kemp. Now, for
God’s sake, one of you go out and get me something.’



FORTY-THREE
    Yvette was still smarting as she left the
room. She could feel Chris Munster looking at her sympathetically, which made it worse.
She snapped at him when he asked her if she wanted a coffee and slammed herself down at
her desk.
    First, she rang Zach at his workplace in
Shoreditch, but the woman who answered the phone said he wasn’t in that day – he
didn’t work full time and as a matter of fact he wasn’t the most reliable of
employees. So she rang his mobile and went straight to voicemail, then his landline,
which rang and rang. She sighed and pulled on her jacket.
    On her way out, she met Munster once
more.
    ‘Where are you going?’ she
asked.
    ‘To see Samantha Kemp. You?’
    ‘To see bloody Zach Greene.’
    ‘Would you like me to –’
    ‘No, I would not.’
    Samantha Kemp was doing some work for a
digital-camera company just off Marble Arch. She met Munster in the small room set aside
for visitors on the first floor; its window overlooked a sari shop.
    When she came into the room, Munster was
surprised by how young she was. Paul Kerrigan was a plump, greying, middle-aged man, but
Samantha Kemp was in her twenties, neatly dressed in a black skirt and a crisply ironed
white shirt. A ladder ran up her tights, from her ankle to her shapely knee. She had
fluffy silver-blonde hair that framed her round pale face.
    ‘Thank you for seeing me. This
won’t take long.’
    ‘What’s it about?’
    Munster saw she was nervous: she kept
sliding her palms down her skirt.
    ‘Is it true that you know Paul
Kerrigan?’
    ‘Yes. I do work for his company
sometimes. Why?’ A flush spread over her fair skin, and even when the colour
receded it left faint blotches on her cheeks. ‘What’s this about?’
    ‘Can you remember what you were doing
on Wednesday, the sixth of April?’ She didn’t answer.
‘Well?’
    ‘I heard you. I just don’t know
what you’re getting at. Why should I tell you anything about my private
life?’
    ‘Mr Kerrigan says that you were with
him on the afternoon and evening of Wednesday, the sixth of April.’
    ‘With him?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Is that a problem?’
    ‘You tell me.’
    ‘He might be married, but that’s
his look-out, not mine.’
    ‘Wednesday, the sixth of
April.’
    ‘He’s not happy, you
know.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    ‘He’s not.’ To his horror,
Munster saw that she was about to start crying: tears stood in her grey-blue eyes.
‘And I comfort him. I’m not going to be made to feel bad about
that.’
    ‘The point is, did you comfort him on
Wednesday, the sixth of April?’
    ‘Is he in trouble?’
    ‘Do you have a diary?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. I
was with him on that Wednesday.’
    ‘You’re sure?’
    ‘Yes. It was the day after my
birthday. He bought me a bottle