Waiting for Wednesday

feels
like a dream. You here in this city, this flat, this bed. Everything feels different
now. Thank you for being here and remember everything I said. We’ve come too
far together to stop now. We’re on a journey together.



TWENTY-THREE
    At twenty past eight, Karlsson was standing
on the edge of a vast crater in the heart of the city, looking at the activity in front
of him: small diggers trundled across mashed earth, cranes lowered huge pipes into
trenches, men in yellow jackets and hard hats gathered in groups, or sat on top of
machines, operating their articulated metal arms. Around the site were several
Portakabins, some of them seeming almost as permanent as the buildings they were next
to.
    He saw Yvette walking towards him. She
looked solid and competent to him, with her robust shoes and her brown hair tied tightly
back. He wondered what he looked like to her: he felt fragile, incomplete. His head
banged from the three whiskies he’d drunk last night, and his stomach felt
hollow.
    ‘Morning,’ she said
cheerfully.
    ‘Hi.’
    ‘He said he’d meet us in the
office.’ Yvette jerked her head towards the main Portakabin, a few yards away,
with wooden steps leading up to the door.
    They made their way over the rutted ground
and up the steps, then Yvette knocked at the door, which was opened almost at once. The
man in front of them was also wearing a yellow jacket, although his was over a pair of
brown corduroy trousers and a grey-striped shirt. He was solidly built, with a creased
face and brown eyes. Although he could only have been in his mid-forties, his hair was a
thick silver-grey.
    ‘Paul Kerrigan?’
    ‘That’s me.’
    Yvette held up her ID. ‘I’m DC
Yvette Long,’ she said. ‘We spoke on the phone. And this is DCI Malcolm
Karlsson.’
    Karlsson looked into the man’s soft
brown eyes and felt a tremor of anticipation. He nodded at him.
    ‘You’d better come
in.’
    They entered the Portakabin, which smelt of
wood and coffee. There was a desk in there, a trestle table and several chairs. Karlsson
sat to one side and let Yvette ask the questions. He already knew that they had reached
a watershed: he could feel the inquiry shifting under their feet, turning into something
altogether different and unexpected.
    ‘We were given your name by Michael
Reader.’
    ‘Yes.’ It wasn’t a
question.
    ‘He said you rented thirty-seven A
Shawcross Road from him and had done for almost ten years.’
    Kerrigan’s eyes flickered. Karlsson
looked at him closely.
    ‘That’s right. Since June
2001.’ He looked down at his large, calloused hands.
    ‘The reason we’re asking you is
because we want to trace the last movements of Ruth Lennox, who was murdered twelve days
ago. A taxi driver delivered her to that address on the day she died.’
    ‘Yes,’ he said again. He seemed
passive and defenceless. He was simply waiting for the truth to emerge, lie in front of
the three of them.
    ‘Were you there?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You knew Ruth Lennox?’
    There was a silence in the room. Karlsson
listened to the sounds coming from the building site: the roar of engines and the shouts
of the men.
    ‘Yes,’ said Paul Kerrigan, very
softly. They could hear the sound he made when he swallowed. ‘I’m sorry I
didn’t comebefore. I should have done. But I didn’t see
the point. She was dead. It was finished. I thought I could stop the hurt
spreading.’
    ‘Were you having a
relationship?’
    He glanced from Yvette to Karlsson, then put
both hands on the table in front of him. ‘I have a wife,’ he said. ‘I
have two sons who are proud of me.’
    ‘You understand this is a murder
inquiry,’ said Yvette. Her eyes were bright.
    ‘Yes, we were having a
relationship.’ He blinked, folded his hands together. ‘I find it hard to say
that out loud.’
    ‘And you saw her on the day she was
killed?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Karlsson spoke at last. ‘I think
perhaps you’d better tell us the whole story.’
    Paul nodded slowly. ‘Yes,’ he
said. ‘But I …’ He stopped.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I don’t want anyone to
know.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know how to do this.’
    ‘Perhaps you can just tell us in
chronological order what happened. Begin at the beginning.’
    He stared out of the window, as if he
couldn’t start while looking at them. ‘I met Ruth ten years ago. We live
quite near each other. We met at fundraising events for the mothers and toddlers.’
He smiled. ‘She was selling falafels and I was