Waiting for Wednesday

all happened.’ She ushered them inside.
    ‘Are you staying here?’ said
Karlsson.
    ‘I’m looking after the family,
as much as I can,’ she said. ‘Someone’s got to. It won’t get
done by itself.’
    ‘But you have children of your
own.’
    ‘Well, of course Baby’s always
here. My sister-in-law is helping out with the other two when they’re not at their
nursery. This is an emergency,’ she added reprovingly, as if he had forgotten
that. She regarded him critically. ‘I suppose you’re here to see
Russell.’
    ‘You must have been close to your
sister,’ said Karlsson.
    ‘Why do you say that?’
    ‘You’re here helping her family,
even though you have small children of your own. Not everyone would do that.’
    ‘It’s my duty,’ she said.
‘It’s not hard to do one’s duty.’
    Karlsson gave her a closer look. He felt she
was telling him who was in charge. ‘Did you see much of your sister?’
    ‘We live over in Fulham. My hands are
full with my family and we have very different lives. We saw each other when we could.
And Christmas, of course. Easter.’
    ‘Did she seem happy?’
    ‘What does that have to do with
anything? She was killed by a burglar, wasn’t she?’
    ‘We’re just trying to build up a
picture of your sister’s life. I was interested in her frame of mind. As you saw
it.’
    ‘She was fine,’ said Louise,
shortly. ‘There was nothing wrong with my sister.’
    ‘And she was happy in her family
life?’
    ‘Haven’t we suffered
enough?’ she said, looking at Yvette and then back at Karlsson. ‘Are you
digging around trying to find something nasty?’
    Yvette opened her mouth to say something but
Karlsson flashed her an urgent look and she stopped herself. Somewhere out of sight, the
baby began to cry.
    ‘I’d just got him to
sleep.’ Louise gave a long-suffering sigh. ‘You’ll find my
brother-in-law upstairs. He has his own room at the top.’
    Russell Lennox’s room was a little den
at the back of the house that looked over the garden. Karlsson and Yvette could barely
squeeze inside. Yvette leaned on the wall to one side, next to a poster of Steve McQueen
clutching a baseball glove. Lennox was sitting at a small pinewood desk, on which was a
computer. The screensaver was a family group. They were posing by a blue sea, all
wearing sunglasses. Karlsson reckoned it must have been taken a few years earlier. The
children were smaller than he remembered.
    Before speaking, he examined Lennox,
assessing hiscondition. He seemed in control, clean-shaven, in an
ironed blue shirt, evidently the work of his sister-in-law.
    ‘How are you doing?’ said
Karlsson.
    ‘Haven’t you heard?’ said
Lennox. ‘My wife’s been murdered.’
    ‘And I was expressing concern. I want
to know how you are. I want to know how your children are.’
    Lennox replied in an angry tone, but without
meeting Karlsson’s eyes. He just stared down at the carpet. ‘If you really
want to know, Dora is scared to go to school, Judith cries all the time and I
can’t talk to Ted at all. He just won’t communicate with me. But I
don’t want your concern. I want all this brought to an end.’ Now he looked
up at Karlsson. ‘Have you come to tell me about the progress of the
investigation?’
    ‘In a way,’ said Karlsson.
‘But I also need to ask you a few questions as well.’ He waited for a
moment. He wanted to do this gradually but Lennox didn’t speak. ‘We’re
trying to build up a fuller picture of your wife’s world.’ He glanced at
Yvette. ‘Some of it may feel intrusive.’
    Lennox rubbed his eyes, like someone trying
to wake himself up. ‘I’m beyond all that,’ he said. ‘Ask me
anything you want. Do anything you want.’
    ‘Good,’ said Karlsson.
‘Good. So. Well, one question: would you describe your relationship with your wife
as happy?’
    Lennox started slightly, narrowing his eyes.
‘Why would you even ask that?’ he said. ‘You were here when it
happened. On the same day. You saw us all. You saw what it did to us. Are you making
some kind of insane accusation?’
    ‘I’m asking a
question.’
    ‘Then I’ll give you a simple
answer, which is, yes, we were happy. Satisfied? And now I’ll ask you a simple
question. What’s going on?’
    ‘We’ve had an unexpected
development in the inquiry,’ said Karlsson. As he spoke, he was aware of listening
to himself and being repelled by what he heard. He was talking like a machine because he
was nervous