Waiting for Wednesday

the
consultant ends up in a knife fight and then spends a month in intensive care,
that’s not exactly an example of success. In my book, at least.’
    Karlsson was on the point of saying
something but again he remembered where he was.
    ‘This is hardly the place,’ he
said coolly. ‘A mother has been murdered. Her family are upstairs.’
    Bradshaw held up a hand. ‘Shall we
stop talking and go through?’
    ‘I wasn’t the one
talking.’
    Bradshaw stepped inside and took a deep
breath, as if he were appraising the aroma of the room. He moved towards the body of
Ruth Lennox, treading delicately to avoid the pool of blood. He looked towards Karlsson.
‘You know, blundering into a crime scene and being attacked, doesn’t count
as solving a crime.’
    ‘Are we talking about Frieda
again?’ said Karlsson.
    ‘Her mistake is to get emotionally
involved,’ he said. ‘I heard she slept with the man who was
arrested.’
    ‘She didn’t sleep with
him,’ said Karlsson, coldly. ‘She met him socially. Because she was
suspicious of him.’
    Bradshaw looked at Karlsson with a
half-smile. ‘Does that trouble you?’
    ‘I’ll tell you what troubles
me,’ said Karlsson. ‘It troubles me that you seem to feel competitive with
Frieda Klein.’
    ‘Me? No, no, no. Simply concerned for
a colleague who seems to have lost her bearings.’ He gave a sympathetic grimace.
‘I feel very sorry for her. I hear she’s depressed.’
    ‘I thought you’d come to look at
a murder scene. If you want to discuss an earlier case, we should go somewhere
else.’
    Bradshaw shook his head. ‘Don’t
you think this is like a work of art?’
    ‘No, I don’t.’
    ‘We need to think, what is he trying
to express? What is he telling the world?’
    ‘Maybe I should just leave you to
it,’ said Karlsson.
    ‘I imagine that you think this is a
simple burglary gone wrong.’
    ‘I’m trying to avoid quick
conclusions,’ said Karlsson. ‘We’re gathering evidence. Theories can
come later.’
    Bradshaw shook his head again.
‘That’s the wrong wayround. Without a theory, data is just
chaos. You should always be open to your first impressions.’
    ‘So what’s your first
impression?’
    ‘I’ll be delivering a written
report,’ said Bradshaw, ‘but I’ll give you a free preview. A burglary
isn’t just a burglary.’
    ‘You’ll have to explain that to
me.’
    Bradshaw made an expansive gesture.
‘Look around you. A burglary is an invasion of a home, a violation, a rape. This
man was expressing anger against a whole area of life that was closed to him, an area of
property and family ties and social status. And when he encountered this woman, she
personified everything that he couldn’t have – she was at the same time a well-off
woman, a desirable woman, a mother, a wife. He could have run away, he could have struck
her a simple blow, but he’s left us a message, just as he left
her
a
message. The injuries were directed to her face, rather than to her body. Look at the
splashes of blood on the wall, so out of proportion to anything that was needed. He was
trying to literally wipe an expression off her face, an expression of superiority. He
was redecorating the room with her blood. It was almost a kind of love.’
    ‘A strange kind of love,’ said
Karlsson.
    ‘That’s why it had to be so
savage,’ said Bradshaw. ‘If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t have to
do something so extreme. It wouldn’t matter. This has an emotional
intensity.’
    ‘So who are we looking for?’
    Bradshaw closed his eyes before he spoke, as
if he was seeing something nobody else could see.
    ‘White,’ he said. ‘Early
to mid-thirties. Strongly built. Unmarried. Of no fixed abode. No steady job, no steady
relationship. No family connections.’ He took out his phone and pointed it in
various directions around the room.
    ‘You need to be careful with those
images,’ said Karlsson. ‘Things have a way of ending up online.’
    ‘I’m cleared for this,’ said
Bradshaw. ‘You should take a look at my contract. I’m a criminal
psychologist. This is what I do.’
    ‘All right,’ said Karlsson.
‘But I think we should leave. The scene-of-crime team need to take
over.’
    Bradshaw slipped his phone into his jacket
pocket. ‘That’s fine. I’m done. Oh, by the way, give Dr Klein my best.
Tell her I’ve been thinking of her.’
    As they left, they met Louise Weller coming
back into the house. The baby was still slung round her, but