Waiting for Wednesday

Judith
turned to Frieda. ‘Please? Please, Frieda.’
    ‘They’re quite welcome,’
Frieda said to Karlsson. ‘If I can do anything to help.’
    Louise put her hands on her hips, as if
willing to square up to her. ‘No. Absolutely not. They’re coming home with
me. That’s what they need. Children, say thank you to this woman for everything
she’s done.’ She looked back at Frieda with a fierce expression. ‘They
need to be with their family,’ she said, in a sort of stage whisper. Then she
turned back to the children. ‘Now, we’re going back to our house, I mean
my
house, and this policewoman is coming with us.’
    ‘No!’ said Chloë. ‘Frieda,
can’t you stop this?’
    ‘No. I can’t.’
    ‘But it’s horrible and
–’
    ‘Chloë, quiet now.’
    Karlsson turned to Yvette. ‘Are you
going to be all right dealing with this? It’ll be difficult.’
    ‘I’ll be fine.’ Yvette had
paled. ‘That’s what female police officers are for, isn’t it? To do
the emotional stuff.’
    ‘Not exactly,’ said
Karlsson.
    There was a chaos of bags being picked up
and jackets looked for and Chloë being hugged and the three Lennoxes making their way
out to Louise’s car. They got inside. It was a tight fit, with Yvette sitting in
the front seat. Ted’s face stared out through the window.
    ‘This doesn’t feel right,’
said Frieda.
    ‘It’s the beginning of the rest
of their lives,’ said Karlsson. ‘They’d better get used to it. Sorry.
That came out wrong. But what can we do? They’ve lost their mother, and now
they’re losing their father, for the time being at least. They need a family. You
can’t be that for them.’
    ‘But it’s important how they
hear about their father,’ said Frieda. ‘And how they’re listened to
afterwards.’
    ‘You don’t think Yvette can
handle it? All right. You don’t need to answer that. You’d probably be the
person to do it.’
    ‘I didn’t say that.’
    ‘I can’t ask you,’ said
Karlsson. ‘I’m sorry. Yvette may fuck it up. She probably will. But
she’ll do her very best, and at least she’s on the payroll.’ He
frowned. ‘Can I have a word?’
    Frieda glanced at Chloë.
    ‘What?’ Chloë’s voice was
high and harsh.
    ‘I’m going to have to tell you
something in a minute,’ said Frieda. ‘It’s about Ted and
Judith’s father. But, first, Karlsson and I are going out for a few minutes. Is
that all right?’
    ‘No! It isn’t all right.
They’re my friends and I have a right to –’
    ‘Chloë.’ Frieda spoke in a
quiet, warning tone that silenced her niece. She pulled on a jacket and stepped
outside.
    ‘You don’t mind walking?’
she said.
    ‘I’m used to it,’ said
Karlsson.
    Frieda led the way out of the cobbled mews
and turned right. When they reached Tottenham Court Road, they stood for a moment and
watched the buses and cars careering past them.
    ‘You know,’ said Frieda,
‘that if you move from the countryside to a big city like London, you increase
your chance of developing schizophrenia by five or six times.’
    ‘Why?’ said Karlsson.
    ‘Nobody knows. But look at all this.
It makes sense, doesn’t it? If we abolished cities and went back to living in
villages, we’d reduce the incidence of the disease by a third at a
stroke.’
    ‘That sounds a bit drastic.’
    Frieda turned south, then took a small quiet
road off to the right.
    ‘I missed you today,’ said
Karlsson.
    ‘But you saw me today. Remember? With
Hal Bradshaw and your commissioner.’
    ‘Oh, that,’ Karlsson said
dismissively. ‘That was just a farce. No, when Lennox confessed, I actually
expected to see you standing there with your beady-eyed expression.’
    ‘But I wasn’t. And you seem to
have done all right. So what happened?’
    As they headed west, Karlsson gave Frieda a
brief account of the day’s events.
    ‘Will you charge him with
manslaughter?’
    ‘Probably. He hears about the
relationship. Rushes round in a rage. A father’s anger. A jury would probably be
sympathetic to that.’
    ‘I don’t suppose it
matters,’ said Frieda, ‘but he didn’t find out just before he killed
Zach. According to Dora, he’d known for some time.’
    Karlsson frowned. ‘Really?
That’s not what he said. I’mnot sure I want to know that.
Oh, well, it probably won’t make much difference. He’s still an angry
father. And we’ve got the pattern of behaviour. An argument escalates into
violence. It’s the same