Waiting for Wednesday

targeted in
this …’ She stopped, trying to think of an appropriate word.
‘Project,’ she said finally.
    “Targeted”. That sounds like
you’re angry about it.’
    ‘No, it doesn’t,’ said
Frieda.
    The man wrote something in his notebook.
‘You get angry with Rundell and you confront him in a restaurant and attack him.
You get angry with Ian Yardley and you confront him in his home and a fight ensues. Do
you see a pattern?’
    ‘The two cases have nothing in
common,’ said Frieda. ‘And there was no fight in Ian Yardley’s
flat.’
    Suddenly the man glanced round, like a dog
that had caught a scent. ‘What’s that?’ he said.
    It was the banging from upstairs in the
bathroom. It had become so much a part of Frieda’s life that she had almost
stopped hearing it. ‘Do you really need to know?’ she said. ‘After
all, I’ve got an alibi. I’m down here with you.’
    The female officer frowned at her.
‘There’s nothing funny about violence against women,’ she said.
    ‘That’s it,’ said Frieda.
‘I’m done. If you want to charge me, then go ahead. Otherwise, we have
nothing left to talk about.’
    With a grimace of concentration, the man
wrote several lines of notes, then closed his book and stood up. ‘Betweenourselves,’ he said, ‘if I were you, I would talk to a
solicitor. We’ve put weaker cases than this one in front of a jury. But even if we
don’t, you might well be facing a civil case.’
    ‘What if I need to reach you?’
Frieda asked.
    ‘I was about to tell you,’ said
the man. He wrote in his notebook, tore a page out and handed it to Frieda. ‘If
you’ve anything more to say. But we’ll be in touch anyway.’
    When they were gone, Frieda sat for several
minutes staring in front of her. Then she looked through her address book and dialled a
number. ‘Yvette,’ she said. ‘Sorry, it’s Frieda. Have you got a
moment?’
Thank you for your letter. I carry it
around with me. It’s so like you to write a real letter – on good-quality
paper, in ink, with proper grammar and no abbreviations. I can’t remember the
last time anyone sent me a letter. My mother, maybe, years ago. She used to write to
me on very thin airmail paper, gummed down. I could never read her tiny, cramped
handwriting.
    My mother; yours. All the things
we’ve never told each other yet. I think we need to spend a month in a
lighthouse, with rough seas all round us, and enough food and drink never to have to
leave. We could talk and read and sleep and make love and share secrets. Make up for
all the lost time. Sandy xxxx



TWENTY-SEVEN
    Yvette and Karlsson walked together from the
Lennoxes’ house to the Kerrigans’. It took less than ten minutes. Yvette
struggled to keep pace with his long stride. She had a bad cold: her throat was sore,
her glands ached and her head throbbed. Her clothes felt tight and itchy.
    The house was smaller than Ruth and
Russell’s, a red-brick terraced building up a narrow side-street, with a tiny
front garden that had been gravelled over. Elaine Kerrigan opened the door before the
chime had died away. She stood before them, a tall woman with a long, pale face and
fading hair caught up in a loose bun; glasses hung round her neck on a chain. She was
wearing an oversized checked shirt over loose cotton trousers. The sun caught her as she
gazed at them, and she raised her hand – wedding ring and engagement ring on the fourth
finger – to shield her from its dazzle.
    She knows, Yvette thought. Her husband must
have sat her down and told her.
    She led them into the living room. Sun
streamed through the large window and lay across the green carpet and the striped sofa.
There were daffodils on the mantelpiece, doubled by the mirror. Yvette caught a glimpse
of her own face there – flushed and heavy, with dry lips. She licked them. Elaine
Kerrigan took a seat and gestured for them to do the same. She laid her long, delicate
hands in her lap and sat up straight.
    ‘I’ve been thinking about how to
behave,’ she said, in avoice that was low and pleasant, with a
faint burr of an accent that Yvette couldn’t place. ‘It all seems unreal. I
know I’m the wronged wife, but I can’t feel that yet. It’s just
so …’ She looked down at her hands, lifted her eyes again. ‘Paul
doesn’t seem the sort of man someone would choose to have an affair
with.’
    ‘When did he tell you?’ asked
Yvette.
    ‘When he came back yesterday. He
waited till his tea was on