Waiting for Wednesday

of champagne.’
    ‘What time?’
    ‘He arrived in the afternoon, about
four. And we drank some champagne and then …’ Her face was flaming again.
‘He left at about seven or eight. He said he had to go back for his
dinner.’
    ‘Is there anyone who can confirm
this?’
    ‘My flatmate, Lynn. She came back at
about six and had a bit of the champagne. I suppose you need her details as
well.’
    ‘Please.’
    ‘Does she know about us? His wife, I
mean? Is he in trouble?’
    Munster looked at her. Surely she must know
about Ruth Lennox. But it was impossible to tell, and he didn’t want to be the one
to break it to her. Paul Kerrigan should do his own dirty work.
    Zach Greene lived near Waterloo, a few
roads south of the station on a road that was clogged with midday traffic: cabs and cars
and vans and buses. Cyclists wove in and out of the queues, heads down against a
strengthening wind. An ambulance blared past.
    Number 232 was a small terraced house set
slightly back from the road, with steps leading up to a cracked green door. Yvette rang
the bell, then knocked hard as well. She already knew he wouldn’t be in, so she
was surprised when she heard footsteps and the rattling of a chain. A woman stood in
front of her, clutching a baby in a striped all-in-one.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I’m looking for Zach
Greene,’ said Yvette. ‘Does he live here?’
    ‘He’s our tenant. He lives in
the flat. You have to go through the garden.’ She came out in her slippers and
took Yvette down the steps, pointing. ‘That little road takes youround the back and there’s a small garden with a gate that doesn’t shut
properly. If you go through there, his flat’s to the side.’
    ‘Thank you.’ Yvette smiled at
the baby, who stared at her in terror, then started to bawl. She’d never been good
with babies.
    ‘Tell him to keep the noise down, will
you? He was making a hell of a racket last night, just after I’d got this one off
to sleep at last.’
    Yvette found her way in through the rickety
back gate. Wooden stairs led from the house she’d just been in, down to the small
garden, where a child’s plastic tricycle lay tipped on its side. Tucked under the
stairs was the door to the flat. Yvette rang the bell and waited. Then she knocked on
the door and it creaked open a few inches.
    For a moment, Yvette stood quite still,
listening intently. Outside, she could hear the clamour of traffic. From within, there
was nothing.
    ‘Hello,’ she called.
‘Zach? Mr Greene? It’s Detective Long here.’
    Nothing. The wind blew a flurry of white
blossom down on her where she stood. For a moment she thought it was snow. Snow in
April: but stranger things happen. She pushed the door wider and stepped inside, onto a
balding doormat. Zach Greene was not a tidy man. There were shoes on the floor, piles of
junk mail, a couple of empty pizza boxes, a tangle of phone chargers and computer cords,
a cotton scarf with tassels.
    She took a few more cautious steps.
    ‘Zach? Are you here?’ Her voice
rang out in the small space. To her right, a tiny kitchen, a hob encrusted with ancient
food, an army of mugs, granules of instant coffee.Two shirts hanging
to dry on the radiator. A smell of something going off somewhere.
    It’s odd, she thought. How you know
when there’s something wrong. You get a feel for it. Not just the open door, the
smell. Something about the silence, as if it hummed with the aftermath of violence. Her
skin prickled.
    Another shoe, a brown canvas one with yellow
laces, on the floor, in the barely opened door that presumably led to Zach’s
bedroom. She pushed the door with the tips of her fingers. The shoe was on a foot. The
beginnings of the leg could be seen, encased in dark trousers and riding up to expose a
striped sock, but everything else was covered with a patterned quilt. She took in the
pattern: birds and swirling flowers; it looked Oriental, brightening up the grey and
brown pokiness of the dingy flat.
    She looked at her watch and noted the time,
then squatted down and very carefully drew off the quilt, feeling how damply sticky it
was, seeing now that she was close up to it how its vivid pattern had obscured the
stains.
    It must be Zach lying in front of her at the
foot of his bed, but the narrow face, the golden eyes, the rosebud lips that had given
her the creeps were all gone – smashed into a pulp. Yvette made herself look properly,
not squint in a reflex of horror. She could still make out the