Waiting for Wednesday

making friends for you
out here). We talked about free will – does it exist etc. She was arguing that with
everything we know now about the brain, it’s impossible to believe there is
such a thing, and yet it’s impossible not to believe in it at the same time
and to live our life as if we have choices. A necessary delusion.
    It’s a beautiful evening, with a
full moon shining on the river. I wonder what it’s like in London – but, of
course, it’s nearly morning for you now. You’re asleep. At least I hope
you are. Sandy xxxx



SIXTEEN
    So it was that the very next day Frieda once
more walked past the Roundhouse, past the little café where Ted and Chloë had drunk hot
chocolate the evening before and the larger one where an aeroplane nose-dived down the
wall and music throbbed, into Margaretting Road. Karlsson was already outside, drinking
coffee from a paper mug that he raised in salute as she came towards him. He noticed
that she walked more slowly than she used to, and with a slight limp.
    ‘You came.’
    ‘I said I would.’
    ‘I’m glad.’
    ‘As long as you’re sure no
one’s in?’
    ‘I’m certain. The family has
been staying with neighbours. The house is still officially a crime scene.’
    ‘And Hal Bradshaw?’
    ‘Fuck him.’ The vehemence of
Karlsson’s response surprised her.
    Frieda followed Karlsson through the front
door. Although the window was still broken, the barriers had been cleared away and the
forensic team had gone. But the house had the special emptiness of an abandoned place,
already neglected and musty from disuse – and, of course, it was the place where a woman
(a wife, a mother, a good neighbour, Karlsson had said) had recently been murdered. As
Frieda stood in the silent hallway, she felt that the house somehow knew it and felt
abandoned.
    A large photograph, the frame cracked and
the glasssmashed, was propped against the wall and she bent down to
look at it.
    ‘The happy family,’ said
Karlsson. ‘But it’s usually the husband, you know.’
    Official family photographs that are framed
and hung in the hall are always happy. Everyone has to stand close together and smile:
there was Ted, not as gangly and dishevelled as she’d seen him, with the smooth
face of youth; there was the elder of the girls, her arresting pale eyes and nimbus of
coppery curls; the youngest daughter, skinny and anxious, but grinning despite her
train-track braces, her head tipped slightly towards her mother’s shoulder. There
was the husband and father, as proud and protective as a husband and father is meant to
look when he’s standing with his family grouped around him for the picture that
will represent them – he had greying brown hair, jowly cheeks, his eldest
daughter’s eyes, eyebrows that tilted at a comic angle, a face that was made to be
cheerful.
    And there she was, standing in the centre
with her husband – in a flecked sweater, her soft hair tied back loosely, her candid
face smiling out of the picture. One hand on the shoulder of her elder daughter, who sat
in front of her, and one against her husband’s hip. It was a touching gesture for
the official portrait, thought Frieda, casual and intimate. She bent closer and stared
into the dead woman’s eyes. Grey. No makeup that she could see. Small signs of age
drawing down her mouth and creasing her brow. Smile marks and frown marks, the map of
our days.
    ‘Tell me about her. Describe
her,’ she said to Karlsson.
    ‘Her name is Ruth Lennox. Forty-four
years old. A health visitor, and has been since her younger daughter started school; she
had several years out when the children were small. Married to Russell Lennox,’
Karlsson pointed to theman in the photo, ‘happily, from all
accounts, for twenty-three years. He’s an executive in a small charity for
children with learning difficulties. Three kids, as you see – your Ted, Judith,
who’s fifteen, and Dora, thirteen. All at the local comp. Has a dragon of a sister
who lives in London. Both her parents are dead. On the PTA. Good citizen. Not rich, but
comfortable, two modest but stable incomes and no big outgoings. Three thousand pounds
in her current account, thirteen thousand in her savings account. Healthy enough pension
pot. Donates to various charities by standing order. No criminal record. Clean driving
licence. I’m using the present tense but, of course, last Wednesday she sustained
a catastrophic injury to the head and would have died