Waiting for Wednesday

give to
Ted.’
    ‘He won’t be at school,’
said Frieda. ‘And, anyway. I need that book today.’
    Karlsson stood in front of her but he
didn’t look at her. ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ he said at
last.
    ‘I know. This won’t take
long.’
    ‘You don’t understand, Frieda.
You shouldn’t be here. The commissioner doesn’t want you here. And
you’ll not make your case any better with Hal Bradshaw if you start hanging round
the station. He already thinks you’re an arsonist and a stalker.’
    ‘I know. I won’t come
again,’ said Frieda, steadily. ‘I want to see the murder weapon.’
    ‘As a favour? But you’ve called
in the favour, Frieda. And I’m in huge trouble now. I won’t bother you with
the details.’
    ‘I’m very sorry,’ said
Frieda. ‘But I need to see it. And then I’ll go away.’
    He stared at her, then shrugged and led her
down the stairs into a basement room, where he opened a metal drawer.
    ‘This is what you want,’ he
said. ‘Don’t put fingerprints on it, and let yourself out when you’ve
finished.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘By the way, Elaine Kerrigan has
confessed to the murder of Ruth Lennox.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Don’t worry. I think Russell
Lennox is about to confess as well. And the Kerrigan sons. The whole station will be
full of people confessing and we still won’t know.’
    And he left.
    Frieda pulled on plastic gloves and lifted
out the large cog, placing it on the table in the centre of the room. It looked as if it
should be in the machinery of a giant clock, but the Lennoxes had had it on their
mantelpiece as a sort of sculpture.
    She opened Ted’s artbook at the page
dated Wednesday, 6 April and put it on the table as well. She stared from cog to drawing
so hard that everything began to blur. She stood back. She walked round the table so
that she could see the cog from every angle. She squatted on the floor and squintedup at it. Very delicately, she tipped the object, swivelled it, held
it so that it flattened out in her view.
    And then at last she had it. Viewed at a
certain angle, levered back and twisted, the heft object looked like a straight notched
line. The same straight and notched line that she could see among the items that Ted had
drawn for his mock art A level, on the morning of Wednesday, 6 April.
    Frieda’s face became expressionless.
At last she gave a small sigh, put the cog back into the metal drawer, which she slid
shut, pulled off the gloves and left the room.



FIFTY-SEVEN
    Louise Weller and her family lived in Clapham
Junction, in a narrow red-brick terraced house set slightly back from the long, straight
road, lined with plane trees and regulated by speed humps. The bow windows downstairs
had lace curtains, to prevent anyone looking in, and the door was dark blue with a brass
knocker in the middle. Frieda rapped on it three times, then stood back. The spring
weather had turned cooler, and she felt a few welcome drops of rain on her hot skin.
    The door opened and Louise Weller stood in
front of her, holding a baby to her chest. Behind her the hall was dark and clean.
Frieda could smell drying clothes and detergent. She remembered Karlsson telling her
about the sick husband and imagined him lying in one of the rooms upstairs,
listening.
    ‘Yes? Oh – it’s you. What are
you doing here?’
    ‘Can I come in, please?’
    ‘This is probably not a good time.
I’m about to feed Benjy.’
    ‘It’s not you I’ve come to
see.’
    ‘They don’t need to be
disturbed. They need stability now, a bit of peace.’
    ‘Just for a moment, then,’ said
Frieda, politely, and stepped past Louise Weller into the hall. ‘Are they all
here?’
    ‘Where else would they be? It’s
a bit cramped, of course.’
    ‘I mean, all here at the
moment.’
    ‘Yes. But I don’t want them
troubled.’
    ‘I’d like a word with
Ted.’
    ‘Ted? Why? I’m not sure
that’s appropriate.’
    ‘I’ll be brief.’
    Louse Weller stared at her, then shrugged.
‘I’ll call him,’ she said stiffly. ‘If he wants to see you. Come
through into the drawing room.’
    She opened the door beside them and Frieda
stepped into the front room with the bow window. It was too hot and had too much
furniture in it, too many little tables and straight-backed chairs. There was a
doll’s buggy parked by the radiator, with a flaxen-haired blue-eyed doll propped
in it. She found it hard to breathe.
    ‘Frieda?’
    ‘Dora!’
    The girl’s face had a greeny