Waiting for Wednesday

right.’
    ‘Frieda walks everywhere. She’s
like a taxi driver. You could name any two places in London and she could walk between
them.’ Chloë was talking as if she was frightened by the idea of a moment’s
silence. ‘And she’s really critical of it as well. She thinks it all went
wrong after the Elizabethan age or the Great Fire of London. This is Ted’s road.
This is where it all happened. I’m sorry, I don’t want to start it up all
over again. I’ve done enough damage. This is actually his house, I mean his
parents’ house, but I’m going along the road with him to say goodbye and
sorry and then …’ She turned to Frieda, who had suddenly stopped.
‘Frieda, are you all right?’
    Frieda had been about to make way for a
group of people – two men and a woman – getting out of a car, but she had recognized
them at the very moment they recognized her.
    ‘Frieda …’ Karlsson seemed
too surprised to say anything else.
    The other man appeared more contemptuously
amused than surprised. ‘You can’t stay away, can you?’ said Hal
Bradshaw. ‘Is that some sort of syndrome?’
    ‘I don’t know what you
mean,’ said Frieda.
    ‘I was going to ask how you
are,’ Bradshaw continued. ‘But I think I already know.’
    ‘Yes. Your journalist rang me
up.’
    Bradshaw smiled. He had very white teeth.
‘Perhaps I should have warned you. But it would have spoiled things.’
    ‘What’s this?’ asked
Karlsson. He seemed both uncomfortable and distressed.
    ‘You don’t need to know.’
Frieda didn’t want anyone to know, and particularly not Karlsson, but she supposed
that soon enough they all would, and the gossip, the glee, the happy, whispering pity
would begin all over again.
    The woman was Yvette Long.
    ‘Frieda. What are you doing
here?’
    ‘I’ve been having cocoa with my
niece, Chloë. And this is Ted.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Bradshaw, still
smiling. ‘We do know Ted Lennox. Are you coming inside? I assume that’s what
you want.’
    ‘No.’ Frieda was about to deny
any connection, when she looked at the clenched, haunted figure of Ted standing with
Chloë. It would have sounded like a betrayal. ‘I was on my way home.’
    ‘She can go where she pleases,
can’t she?’ said Yvette, fiercely, turning her brown-eyed glare on Hal
Bradshaw, who seemed unperturbed.
    Frieda had to stop herself smiling at the
novelty of Yvette defending her. And defending her from what?
    Yvette and Bradshaw walked up the steps to the
house but Karlsson stayed on the pavement, hovering awkwardly.
    ‘Are you involved in this
somehow?’ he asked.
    ‘Chloë knows Ted,’ Frieda said.
‘She wanted me to have a word with him. That’s all.’
    Karlsson muttered something to himself.
‘I’m glad to see you anyway,’ he said. ‘You look all
right.’
    ‘Good,’ said Frieda.
    ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to
you. To see you. But now I’ve got to …’ He gestured at the house.
    ‘That’s fine,’ said
Frieda. She nodded goodbye to Chloë, turned and walked away in the direction of Primrose
Hill.
    Karlsson watched Frieda’s progress,
then went with the others into the house. Munster and Riley were already inside. They
followed Munster through into the kitchen. Yvette was taking folders from her bag and
arranging them on the table. They all sat down. Karlsson thought of the Lennoxes sitting
there, rowdy Sunday lunches, then tried not to. He looked at Bradshaw. ‘What was
it that Frieda was saying to you?’
    ‘Just shop talk,’ said
Bradshaw.
    ‘Right,’ said Karlsson.
‘Let’s sort out where we are.’
    ‘Are we really not charging Billy
Hunt?’ said Munster.
    ‘It should be him,’ said Yvette.
‘It really should. But the CCTV puts him in Islington at just after four. The
neighbour knocked on the door at four thirty and she didn’t answer.’
    ‘She might have been in the
bath,’ said Munster. ‘She might have had headphones on.’
    ‘What do the forensics say about the
time of death?’ said Karlsson, his eyes on Riley, whose expression was blank.
    Yvette picked up a file and thumbed through
the papers. ‘It’s not much use,’ she said. ‘She could have died
any time between half an hour and three hours before she was found. But, look,
we’re not taking the word of someone like BillyHunt, are we? I
mean, nothing about his statement makes sense. For example, he says he set off the
alarm. If he didn’t kill her, then why didn’t the person who did kill her
set it