Waiting for Wednesday

tired
of these Kerrigan boys.
    ‘Josh,’ she said, ‘I can
understand why you might be upset –’
    ‘Do I seem upset?’ He passed the
Rizla over the tip of his tongue.
    ‘– but I’m afraid I’m not
going until you’ve answered my questions.’
    ‘No. You’re fine.’ He laid
the seventh cigarette beside the others and tapped it into line with a finger, tipping
his head on one side to examine them. He had a small vertical scar just above his lip
that pulled it up slightly, giving him the suggestion of a perpetual smile.
    ‘Where were you on Wednesday, the
sixth of April?’
    ‘Cardiff. Is that a good enough
alibi?’
    ‘It’s not an alibi at all yet.
How can you prove you were in Cardiff then?’
    ‘Wednesday, the sixth of
April?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I have lectures on Wednesdays, until
five. I don’t think Icould have got back to London in time to
murder my father’s lover, do you?’
    ‘You didn’t have lectures that
Wednesday. Your term had ended.’
    ‘Then I was probably out
somewhere.’
    ‘You need to take this more
seriously.’
    ‘What makes you think I’m
not?’
    He started on the next roll-up. At least
there wasn’t much tobacco left in the tin, only enough for one or two more.
    ‘I want you to give proper thought to
where you were on that Wednesday and who you were with.’
    He lifted his head and Yvette saw the glint
of his brown eyes. ‘I was probably with my girlfriend, Shari. We got together at
the end of term, so it was pretty intense. The things you’re finding out about the
sex life of the Kerrigan family.’
    ‘You think or you know?’
    ‘I’m a bit hazy on
dates.’
    ‘Don’t you have a
diary?’
    ‘A diary?’ He grinned as if she
had said something unintentionally funny. ‘No, I don’t have a
diary.’
    ‘When did you return to London for the
holidays?’
    ‘When? At the end of that week, I
think. Friday? Saturday? You’ll have to ask Mum. I know I was back by the Saturday
because there was a party. So it was probably the Friday.’
    ‘Did you come back by
train?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So you can look at the ticket or your
bank statement to confirm the date.’
    ‘If I paid by card. Which I’m
not sure about.’
    He had finished the tobacco at last. One by
one he delicately lifted the roll-ups and put them into the empty tin. Yvette thought
his hands were trembling, but perhaps she was imagining things: his expression gave
nothing away.
    ‘Did you have any idea about your
father’s affair?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What do you feel about it?’
    ‘Do you mean, am I angry?’ he
asked mildly, one dark eyebrow lifting. ‘Yes. Especially after all Mum’s
gone through. Am I angry enough to kill someone? I think if I was going to kill anyone,
it’d be my dad.’
    ‘I really don’t think I can
help you.’
    Louise Weller was still wearing an apron.
Maybe she lived in it, he thought. She must always be clearing up mess or cooking meals,
scrubbing floors, helping her children splash paint on to sheets of paper. He saw that
her shirt sleeves were rolled up.
    ‘How old are your children?’ he
asked, following his train of thought.
    ‘Benjy’s thirteen weeks
old.’ She looked down at the baby asleep on the bouncy chair beside her, eyes
twitching in dreams. ‘Then Jackson is just two and Carmen is three and a
bit.’
    ‘You do have your hands full.’
Karlsson felt tired just thinking of it and at the same time dizzy with a kind of
nostalgia for those days of mess and tiredness. For one brief moment, he let himself
think of Mikey and Bella in Madrid, then blinked the image away. ‘Does your
husband help?’
    ‘My husband is not a healthy
man.’
    ‘I’m sorry to hear
that.’
    ‘But they’re good
children,’ said Louise Weller. ‘They’re brought up to behave
well.’
    ‘I’d like to ask you a few
general questions about your sister.’
    Louise Weller raised her eyebrows. ‘I
don’t see why. Someone broke in and killed her. Now you have to find out who. You
seem to be taking your time about it.’
    ‘It might not be as simple as
that.’
    ‘Oh?’
    Karlsson had spent years in the Met.
He’d told mothers about children dying; he’d told wives about their husbands
being murdered; he’d stood on countless doorsteps to deliver bad news, watching
faces go blank with the first shock, then change, crumple. Yet he still felt queasy
about telling Louise Weller that her sister had lived a double life. Ridiculous as it
was, he felt that he was