Waiting for Wednesday

off?’
    ‘Because she let him in,’ said
Bradshaw. ‘Psychopaths are plausible, convincing.’
    ‘You said before that he was
expressing rage against women.’
    ‘I stand by that.’
    ‘Why was the alarm on?’ said
Yvette.
    ‘What do you mean?’ said
Karlsson.
    ‘Why would the burglar alarm be
switched on if she was home?’
    ‘That’s a good question.’
Karlsson stood up and walked to the front door. He opened it and stepped outside. Then
he returned to the kitchen. ‘This house doesn’t have a fucking burglar
alarm,’ he said. ‘We’re being idiots.’
    ‘There we are,’ said Yvette.
‘So Billy Hunt was lying. Again.’
    Karlsson drummed his fingers on the table.
‘Why would he lie about that?’
    ‘Because he’s a
psychopath,’ said Bradshaw.
    ‘He’s a thieving
layabout,’ said Karlsson, ‘but he wasn’t lying.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ said
Yvette.
    ‘Look,’ said Karlsson, pointing
at the ceiling. ‘There’s a smoke alarm.’
    ‘How could Hunt set off a smoke
alarm?’
    ‘He didn’t,’ said
Karlsson. ‘Look at the scene-of-crime file. Riley, what will I find in the
file?’
    Riley’s eyes flickered nervously.
‘Do you mean, like, one thing in particular?’ he said.
    ‘Yes, one thing in particular. Oh,
never mind. As far as I remember, there was a tray of burned something or other on top
of the cooker. That’s what set off the alarm.’
    Yvette flicked through the file.
‘That’s right,’ she said.
    ‘Are you saying Billy Hunt broke into
the house and took some burned cakes out of the oven?’ Munster asked
dubiously.
    Karlsson shook his head. ‘You should
talk to the little girl again, but I know what she’ll say. She came home, smelled
burning, took the tray out of the oven. Then she found her mother. Check the smoke alarm
in the living room, Chris. Hunt said there was an alarm in there as well.’
    Munster left the room.
    ‘All right,’ said Yvette.
‘So that explains the alarm. It doesn’t help us with the time.’
    ‘Hang on,’ said Karlsson.
    Munster came back into the
kitchen.‘There isn’t one,’ he said.
    ‘What?’ said Karlsson.
‘Are you sure?’
    ‘There’s one in the hallway.
That must be the other one he heard.’
    Karlsson thought hard. ‘No,’ he
said at last. ‘Anyway, if smoke sets off the smoke alarm, you don’t talk
about alarms. You think of them as one alarm.’
    ‘Really?’ said Yvette.
    ‘Are Ruth Lennox’s effects here
or at the station?’
    ‘At the station.’
    ‘All right,’ said Karlsson.
‘Give me a moment. I need to make a call.’
    He stepped outside. After a long pause,
Yvette spoke to Bradshaw. ‘Is something up with you and Frieda?’
    ‘Have you talked about it with
her?’ he said.
    ‘What do you mean
“it”?’
    ‘Your involvement with her incident,
accident, whatever you call it.’
    ‘Sorry, I don’t understand what
you mean.’
    ‘It’s just that I hope you
don’t feel guilty about it.’
    ‘Look –’ Yvette began fiercely,
and was interrupted by Karlsson coming back into the kitchen.
    ‘I just talked to the woman in
Storage,’ he said. ‘And I found what I expected to find. What Hunt heard in
the living room was Ruth Lennox’s phone. It had an alarm on it. It was set to go
off at ten past four in the afternoon. That was the other alarm that Billy Hunt
heard.’
    ‘It may have been,’ said
Yvette.
    ‘It was,’ said Karlsson.
‘Put everything together. Look what we’ve got. Biscuits or cakes burning in
the oven. A smoke sensor. And a phone alarm set for ten past four. It’s reasonable
to suggest that the alarm was to remind her that they were ready.’
    ‘Possible.’
    ‘It’s also reasonable to suggest
that when the alarm went off, Mrs Lennox was no longer able to respond to it. So she was
dead by ten past four, at the very latest.’
    There was a silence around the table.
    ‘Fuck,’ said Yvette.



FIFTEEN
    She was expecting him. She glanced at herself
in the mirror to make sure she was looking in control and reasonably healthy – she
couldn’t stand the thought of anyone’s pity, and certainly not his – then
ate the slice of quiche standing by the kitchen window, with the cat at her feet,
rubbing its flank against her calves. The house was quiet now after a day of terrible
bangs and tearing sounds and drilling. Stefan had been there again as he and Josef had
carried two industrial-looking beams into the house. But they were gone now. Frieda
didn’t know