Waiting for Wednesday (6 page)

‘Was the door usually double-locked?’ said Karlsson.

‘Not when they were at home,’ said Yvette. ‘According to the husband.’

‘And?’

‘Also according to the husband, when he’d calmed down and looked around, a set of silver cutlery had been stolen from a drawer in the kitchen dresser. Also a Georgian silver teapot that was on a shelf in the dresser. Plus the money from her wallet, of course.’

‘Anything else taken?’

‘Not that we know of,’ said Yvette. ‘She had jewellery upstairs, but it wasn’t touched.’

‘And –’ Riley began, then stopped.

‘What?’ said Karlsson.

‘Nothing.’

Karlsson forced himself to adopt a gentler tone. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘If you’ve got an idea, just say it. I want to hear everything.’

‘I was going to say that when I saw the body, she had nice earrings on and a necklace.’

‘That’s right,’ said Karlsson. ‘Good.’ He looked back at Yvette. ‘So? What are we thinking?’

‘I’m not saying you shouldn’t talk to the husband,’ said Yvette, ‘but the state of the scene seems consistent with a burglary that was interrupted. The burglar goes to the kitchen, takes the silver. Then he encounters Mrs Lennox in the living room. There’s a scuffle. She receives a fatal blow. He flees in panic.’

‘Or,’ said Karlsson, ‘someone who knows Mrs Lennox kills her and stages the burglary.’

‘That’s possible,’ said Yvette, woodenly.

‘But not very likely. You’re right. So there we are: an apparent burglary, a dead woman, no witnesses, no fingerprints as yet, no forensics.’

‘What about your old detective?’ said Munster.

‘I think we need him,’ said Karlsson.

Standing on the pavement outside the Lennoxes’ house, Harry Curzon looked like a golfer who’d taken a wrong turning. He was dressed in a red windcheater over a checked sweater, light grey chinos and brown suede shoes. He was overweight and wore thick, heavy-framed spectacles.

‘So, how’s retirement?’ said Karlsson.

‘I don’t know what kept me,’ said Curzon. ‘How far away are you? Seven, eight years?’

‘A bit more than that.’

‘You need to see the writing on the wall. It’s all productivity and pen-pushing now. Look at me. Fifty-six years old and a full pension. When you called me I was heading up to the Lee River for a day’s fishing.’

‘Sounds good.’

‘It is good. So, before I head off and you go back to your office, what can I do for you?’

‘There’s been a murder,’ said Karlsson. ‘But there’s also been a burglary. You worked here.’

‘Eighteen years,’ said Curzon.

‘I thought you could give me some advice.’

As Karlsson showed Curzon around the house, the older man talked and talked and talked. Karlsson wondered whether he was really enjoying his days of fishing and golf as much as he’d said he was.

‘It’s gone out of fashion,’ said Curzon.

‘What?’

‘Burglary.’

‘Back in the seventies it was TV sets and cameras and watches and clocks. In the eighties in was video players and stereos, and in the nineties it was DVD players and computers. It took them a few years but then the burglars suddenly woke up. A DVD player costs about the same as a DVD, and people are walking around in the streets with a phone and an iPod and probably a laptop that’s worth more than anything they’ve got at home. What’s the point of breaking in and getting a couple of extra years inside when you can mug them in the street and get something you can sell?’

‘What indeed?’ said Karlsson.

‘Try going to a dodgy second-hand dealer and offering them a DVD player and they’ll laugh in your face. Garden
equipment, though, that’s saleable. There’s always a market for a hedge-trimmer.’

‘Not really relevant in this case,’ said Karlsson. ‘So, you don’t think this was a burglary?’

‘Looks like a burglary to me,’ said Curzon.

‘But couldn’t it have been staged?’

‘You could say that about anything. But if you were doing that, I reckon you’d break a window at the back. You’re less likely to be spotted by a nosy neighbour. And you’d take some stuff from the room where the body was.’

‘That’s basically what we’ve been thinking,’ said Karlsson. ‘So we’re looking for a burglar and you know about burglars.’

Curzon grimaced. ‘I’ll give you some names. But these burglaries are mainly about drugs, and the junkies come and go. It’s not like the old days.’

‘When you had your trusty local burglar?’ Karlsson smiled.

‘Don’t knock it. We all knew our place.’

‘What I hoped,’ said Karlsson, ‘is that you’d be able to look at this crime scene and identify the burglar by his style. Doesn’t every burglar have his own trademark?’

Curzon pulled another face. ‘There’s no trademark to this. He broke the window, opened the door and let himself in. You can’t get more basic than that. The only trademark in this scene was the trademark of a basic idiot. They’re the worst kind, except when you catch them in the act.’ He paused. ‘But I’ve had a thought. There’s a couple of local shops, trinkets, cheap stuff mostly but not always. There’s Tandy’s up on the corner of Rubens Road and there’s Burgess and Son over on the Crescent. Let’s say that if someone goes in there and offers them some silverware, they don’t ask too many questions. Get someone to look in the window over the next few days. They might see something. You could take it from there.’

Karlsson was doubtful. ‘If you’ve killed someone, you’re not exactly going to take your swag to the local jeweller, are you?’

Curzon shrugged. ‘These clowns are addicts, not bank managers. Burgess and Son is a bit further away. That might be his idea of being clever. It’s worth a try, anyway.’

‘Thanks,’ said Karlsson.

On the way out of the house Curzon put his hand on Karlsson’s sleeve. ‘Can I get you out on the course? Show you what you’re missing out on?’

‘I’m not really a golfer. In fact, not a golfer at all.’

‘Or come and get a little fishing in. You wouldn’t believe how peaceful it is.’

‘Yes.’ Karlsson nodded. He didn’t like fishing either. ‘Yes, that would be good. Maybe when the case is over. We can celebrate.’

‘I almost feel guilty,’ said Curzon. ‘Showing you what you’re missing.’

‘Go there with Russell Lennox, if he feels up to it,’ said Karlsson to Yvette. ‘See if he recognizes anything.’

‘All right.’

‘Take young Riley with you.’

‘Fine.’ Yvette hesitated, then, as Karlsson turned to go, blurted out, ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘Do you blame me?’

‘Blame you? For what?’ He knew what, of course – ever since Frieda had been found lying on the floor of Mary Orton’s house, in that scene of carnage, Yvette had wanted his forgiveness, his reassurance that it wasn’t really her fault.

‘For not taking her concerns seriously. All that.’ Yvette gulped. Her face had turned very red.

‘This isn’t really the right time, Yvette.’

‘But …’

‘It isn’t appropriate,’ he said. His gentleness was worse than anger. She felt like a small child facing a kind, stern adult.

‘No. Sorry. Tandy’s and Burgess and Son.’

‘That’s right.’

Frieda took the phone out of its holster and considered it. Her eyes itched with tiredness, and her body felt hollow yet enormously heavy. The grave in Suffolk seemed like a dream now – a neglected patch of soil where the bones of a sad man lay. She thought of him, the father she had not been able to rescue. If she let herself go back, she could remember the way his hand had felt, holding hers, or breathe in his smell of tobacco and the cloves from his aftershave. His hopelessness. His heavy posture. And Dean Reeve had sat over him, with that smile.

The cat clattered through the cat flap and she looked down at it, the two of them staring at each other. Then, still holding the phone, she walked slowly up the stairs – stairs were still hard for her – and sat on her bed, gazing out of the window at the soft grey evening that was settling over the city, making it mysterious again. At last she lifted the phone and keyed in the numbers.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Frieda!’ There was no mistaking the warmth of his voice.

‘Hello.’

‘I’ve been thinking of you.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘In my office. Five hours behind you.’

‘What are you wearing?’

‘A grey suit. A white shirt. You?’

Frieda looked down at her clothes. ‘Jeans and a creamy-brown jumper.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Sitting on my bed.’

‘I wish I was sitting on your bed too.’

‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes. I dreamed I was ice-skating. Did you?’

‘Dream I was ice-skating?’

‘Sleep well.’

‘All right.’

‘So you didn’t.’

‘Sandy?’ She wanted to tell him about her day but the words wouldn’t come. He was too far away.

‘Yes, my very darling Frieda.’

‘I hate this.’

‘This?’

‘All of it.’

‘Feeling weak, you mean?’

‘That too.’

‘Me being here?’ There was a pause. ‘What’s that noise? Is there a thunderstorm going on?’

‘What?’ Frieda looked around and then realized. She’d almost stopped hearing the sound herself. ‘There’s a new bath being put in.’

‘A new bath?’

‘It wasn’t exactly my idea. In fact, it wasn’t my idea at all. It’s a present from Josef.’

‘That sounds good.’

‘The bath hasn’t arrived yet. So far there’s just lots of banging and drilling going on. There’s dust everywhere. Including on several shirts – you left them here.’

‘I know.’

‘And some kitchen stuff, and a few books by the bed.’

‘That’s because I’m coming back.’

‘Right.’

‘Frieda, I’m coming back.’

SIX

‘Is that Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Constable Fogle from Camden. I’ve a Mr Russell Lennox with me.’

‘Russell Lennox?’ Karlsson blinked. ‘Why on earth?’

‘He’s been involved in an affray.’

‘I don’t understand. Why would he be involved in an affray? The poor man’s wife’s just been murdered.’

‘He seems to have caused some criminal damage. At a Burgess and Son.’

‘Ah.’

He broke a window, not to mention several pieces of china that the owner seems to think might be worth a good deal, and was also somewhat threatening.’

‘I’m on my way. Treat him gently, will you?’

Russell Lennox was in a small interview room, sitting with his hands plaited together on the table and staring ahead, blinking every so often as if to clear his vision. When Karlsson came in with the uniformed officer who had called him, Lennox turned his head. For a few moments it seemed that he didn’t recognize the detective.

‘I’ve come to take you home,’ said Karlsson, lowering himself into the chair opposite. ‘You know that you could be prosecuted for affray, assault, whatever?’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Would that help your children?’

Lennox just stared at the table surface and didn’t reply.

‘So you went back to Burgess and Son?’

Lennox gave a faint nod. ‘I couldn’t get it out of my head. Anyway, what else am I supposed to do with my time? Ruth’s sister Louise is with the children and they don’t want to see me upset on top of everything else. So, I walked over there, just to check. I saw this fork.’

‘One fork?’ said Karlsson, doubtfully.

‘Ruth’s godmother gave them to us when we got married. I didn’t care about them or notice them, really, but this one had a bent spike. That’s how I recognized it. Judith used to get angry if she was given it at meals. She said it stabbed her gums. I went inside and asked to see it. Then things got out of hand.’ He looked up at Karlsson. ‘I’m not a violent man.’

‘I think there might be some argument about that,’ said Karlsson.

Jeremy Burgess, the owner of Burgess and Son, was small, skinny, with the wariness of someone who had spent years never quite getting anything pinned on him. Karlsson was leaning over a glass counter crammed with medals, old necklaces, cigarette cases, dented snuff boxes, thimbles and small silver boxes, glittery clip-on earrings and oversized cuff links. He took the fork with its crooked tine and laid it on the glass.

‘Where did this come from?’ he asked.

Burgess gestured helplessly. ‘I just pay in cash for little things like that.’

‘I need to know, Mr Burgess.’

‘I’m the one who was attacked. What’s happening about that? I’m just trying to run a business.’

‘Shut up,’ said Karlsson. ‘I know about your business. If the local police aren’t bothered, that’s their affair. But this is
evidence in a murder inquiry, and if you don’t co-operate, then I will make your life very difficult indeed.’

Burgess glanced uneasily at two women on the other side of the shop who were poring over a tray of rings. He leaned forward and spoke in a lower tone. ‘I’m just a businessman,’ he said.

‘Give me a name and I’ll go away. Otherwise I’ll send some officers round here to go through this piece by piece.’

‘Billy.’

‘Billy who?’

‘Billy. Young, dark-haired, thin. That’s all I know.’

Curzon’s voice kept coming and going. He explained that the reception was bad out there on the river. ‘Hunt,’ he said. ‘Billy Hunt.’