Waiting for Wednesday

bright
eyes.
    Dora’s rucksack, heavy with books,
bumped on her back; her music case swung against her shin; and the plastic carrier bag –
bulging with cooking utensils and a tin of scorched scones that she’d made in food
tech that morning – was ripped. She was glad to see their car parked near the house. It
meant her mother was home. She didn’t like coming back to an empty house, with all
the lights off and a grey hush to every room. Her mother put life into things: the
dishwasher rumbling, maybe a cake in the oven or at least a tin of biscuits laid out
ready for her, the kettle boiling for tea, a sense of ordered bustle that Dora found
comforting.
    As she opened the gate and walked up the
short, tiled garden path, she saw that the front door was open. Had she arrived just
after her mother? Or her brother, Ted? She could hear a sound as well, a pulsing
electronic sound. Asshe got closer she saw that the small frosted-glass
window, just to the side of the door, was broken. There was a hole in the glass and it
bulged inwards. As she stood looking at the strange sight, she felt something on her leg
and looked down. The cat was rubbing against her, and Dora noticed that she had left a
rusty stain on her new jeans. She stepped into the house, letting her bags slide to the
floor. There were shards of glass from the window on the mat. That would need to be
fixed. At least it hadn’t been her. It was probably Ted. He broke things all the
time: mugs, glasses, windows. Anything fragile. She could smell something as well.
Something burning.
    ‘Mum, I’m home!’ she
called.
    There was more mess on the floor – the big
family photograph, her mother’s bag, bits and pieces strewn around. It was as if a
storm had blown through the house, dislodging objects and tossing them about. Dora
briefly saw her reflection in the mirror that hung above the table: small white face,
thin brown plaits. She walked through to the kitchen where the smell was strongest. She
opened the door of the oven and smoke poured out like a hot breath, making her cough.
She took an oven glove, lifted the baking tray from the top shelf and put it on top of
the stove. There were six charred, shrunken black discs on the tray. Utterly ruined. Her
mother sometimes made biscuits for her after school. Dora closed the door and switched
off the gas. Yes, that was it. The oven had been left on and the biscuits had burned.
The alarm and the smoke had scared Mimi and she had run around breaking things. But why
had the biscuits burned?
    She called out again. She saw the fist on
the floor in the doorway, fingers curled, but still she went on calling, not moving.
‘Mum, I’m home!’
    She walked back out into the hall, still
calling. The door tothe front room was slightly open. She saw something
inside, pushed against the door and stepped into the room.
    ‘Mum?’
    At first, stupidly, she saw splashes of red
paint on the far wall and the sofa and great daubs of it on the floor. Then her hand
flew to her mouth and she heard a small moan coming up her throat, then widening out in
the terrible room, becoming a shriek that went on and on and wouldn’t stop. She
put her hands against her ears to block out the sound but now it was inside her. Not
paint, but blood, streams of blood and then a dark, dark lake near the thing lying at
her feet. An arm out-flung, a watch on the wrist that still told the time, a comfortable
body in a blue shirt and black trousers, one shoe half off. All that she knew. But the
face wasn’t a face any longer, because one of its eyes was gone and its mouth was
shattered and shouted noiselessly at her through a spit of broken teeth. One entire side
of the head was caved in and blistered with blood and gristle and bone, as if someone
had tried to destroy it.



TWO
    The house was in Chalk Farm, a couple of
streets away from the noise of Camden Lock. There was an ambulance outside and several
police cars. A tape had already been put up and a few passers-by had stopped to
stare.
    Detective Constable Yvette Long ducked under
the tape and looked at the house, a late-Victorian semi, with a small front garden and a
bay window. She was about to go inside when she saw Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm
Karlsson stepping out of a car and waited for him. He seemed serious, preoccupied, until
he noticed her and gave a nod.
    ‘Have you been inside yet?’
    ‘I just arrived,’ said Yvette.
She paused for a moment, then blurted out, ‘It’s funny