Waiting for Wednesday

doorbells, and when someone answered, I asked if Steve was in and then
said I must have the wrong address. I got to that house. There was no answer. I got
in.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘I picked half a brick off a skip and
smashed the window next to the front door. Then I opened it.’
    ‘Weren’t you surprised it
wasn’t double-locked?’ said Karlsson. ‘Or locked on a
chain?’
    ‘If it had been double-locked, I
wouldn’t have been able to get in.’
    ‘But if it isn’t
double-locked,’ said Karlsson, ‘that suggests someone is at home.’
    ‘But I’d already tried the
doorbell.’
    ‘Forget it. Go on, then.’
    ‘I went in. Took some stuff from the
kitchen. Then I went into the other room and … you know.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘She was lying there.’
    ‘What did you do?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Hunt.
‘I was in shock.’
    ‘Why didn’t you call an
ambulance?’
    Hunt shook his head. ‘The alarm was
going off. I just got out.’
    ‘Except you took the cog.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Although it had been used as the
murder weapon and was covered with her blood.’
    ‘I had a couple of plastic shopping
bags from the kitchen.’
    ‘Why didn’t you call the
police?’ said Karlsson.
    ‘Because I was being a burglar,’
said Hunt. ‘I mean, I’m not a burglar but at that moment I was in the middle
of taking things. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking straight.’
    ‘So what did you do?’
    ‘I got out. Ran away.’
    ‘And then?’
    ‘I had this stuff to sell. I told you,
I needed cash.’
    ‘So you sold all the
silver?’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Except the cog?’
    ‘It needed, you know …’
    ‘The blood cleaning off it?’
    ‘I felt bad about it,’ said
Hunt. ‘Seeing her there. What was I meant to do?’
    Karlsson stood up. ‘I don’t
know, Billy. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’



FOURTEEN
    ‘Frieda?’
    ‘Hello, Chloë.’ Frieda walked
through to the living room with the phone and eased her sore body into the armchair by
the hearth where in the winter she lit a fire every day. Now that it was spring and the
weather was balmy, the sky a delicate washed blue, it stood empty. ‘Are you
OK?’
    ‘I need to see you.’
    ‘Before Friday?’ Friday was the
day that Frieda taught her chemistry, which Chloë loathed with a scowling intensity.
    ‘Now.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I wouldn’t ask if it
wasn’t important.’
    It was nearly six o’clock. Frieda
thought of the pot of tea, the slice of quiche she’d bought from Number 9 for her
supper, the quiet evening in the dimly lit cocoon of her house that she’d planned,
sitting in her study with her soft-leaded pencils and her thick-grained paper, the
answering machine turned on and no demands on her, then the softness of her pillows and
the sealing darkness. Maybe no dreams, just oblivion. She could say no.
    ‘I’ll be there in half an
hour.’
    ‘I’m not at home. I’m in a
café near the Roundhouse. You can’t miss it. It’s got this giant upside-down
aeroplane hanging outside and it’s an alternative art gallery as well.’
    ‘Hang on, Chloë –’
    ‘Thanks, Frieda!’ Chloë
interrupted enthusiastically, then ended the call before Frieda could change her
mind.
    The café was named, for no obvious reason,
Joe’s Malt House, and there was indeed a large upside-down plane nose-diving down
its outside wall. Frieda pushed open the door and went into a long, dark room, cluttered
with tables and mismatched chairs, the walls hung with paintings she could barely make
out in the gloom. People were sitting at tables and milling about at the bar that cut
across the middle of the room. Music played, throbbing and insistent; the air was thick
with the smell of beer, coffee and incense.
    ‘Do you need a table?’ asked a
young woman, dressed in shredded black, with a lightning streak tattooed down her cheek.
Her accent was upper-class Estuary. Her boots were like the Terminator’s.
    Frieda heard her name and squinted up the
room. She made out Chloë at the far end, waving her arms in the air to attract her
attention.
    ‘This had better be
important.’
    ‘Beer?’
    ‘No, thank you.’
    ‘Or tea. They do herbal teas
here.’
    ‘What’s this about?’
    ‘I had to get you here. It’s
Ted.’
    ‘Ted? You mean the young
man?’
    ‘He needs help.’
    ‘I’m sure he does.’
    ‘But the thing is, he won’t do
anything about it. He just gets angry when people tell him, so I thought I’d have
to do it for him.’
    ‘I can give