‘Eleanor,’ Janine said, ‘take it off while you have your breakfast.’
‘Why?’ Eleanor said, though it was a bit muffled.
‘It’ll get soggy.’ Janine rescued the milk from Tom and poured some into his bowl and cup.
Tom picked up a straw and started blowing bubbles in the milk; it frothed over the top of the cup in a big ball of bubbles, like a geodesic dome. Eleanor took off her cardboard box and sat down to eat.
Tom stared fondly at his creation. ‘An alien world,’ he breathed. Janine shot him a warning glance. Any more bubble blowing and the whole thing would collapse, making even more mess.
‘What makes wind?’ Tom asked thoughtfully.
Was it the moon, or the tides? Janine struggled, her mouth working. She should know this.
‘Beans!’ Eleanor supplied.
Janine slung two pieces of bread in the toaster and then began to clear up the lunchboxes and PE kits which had been left since the day before. Eleanor was messing about with the radio – tuning into different stations. She’d not found anything she liked. Had stopped searching in fact as she’d got more involved in her impromptu mixing. The telly was on too, blaring from the next room. Janine tried to tune it all out. Tom was stalking round the kitchen in carnivore mode, hands shaped like claws, his teeth bared in a fearsome growl.
‘Lunchbox.’ Janine instructed her daughter like a surgeon requesting forceps.
Eleanor passed it. ‘Lunchbox.’
Opening it, Janine took out a sodden note. Smoke began to pour from the toaster setting off the manic bleeping of the smoke alarm. Tom dived under the table. Grabbing the brush, Janine shoved it up and hit the re-set button on the detector. She chucked the blackened toast in the overflowing bin without a second glance.
‘Get dressed,’ she said to Tom. He left the room like a jet fighter. Janine unfolded Eleanor’s note from school. Read the words – Head Lice Outbreak.
‘Great!’ Janine said sarcastically, scratching at her own head. ‘Are you itchy?’
Eleanor nodded. Something else for the weekend list, thought Janine.
Janine had started doing the shopping list when her eldest child Michael surfaced. Still in his pyjamas, with his headphones on, he began to hunt through the cupboards in search of food. Given the chance, Michael browsed – like some sort of animal that had to eat its own body weight every day. A teenage thing. But until she’d gone to the supermarket Janine knew there was nothing much for him to find.
‘There’s no cereal,’ he complained
‘I’m doing a list.’
‘What?’
Janine gestured to her own ears – take them off.
Michael ignored her. He peered in the fridge. ‘And there’s no cheese.’
‘Any requests?’
‘What?’
Janine began to mime, moving her lips and throwing her arms about as though she was telling him a long and dramatic story. Michael fought to hide a grin.
Old Eddie Vincent had woken late, barely slept if truth be told, and was drawing back the curtains when he saw the lad coming off the allotments. The lad running, stopping to recce at the alley like a fugitive, breathless and scared. Lad was obviously up to no good. Probably been caught thieving and used the allotments to get away. You could reach the old railway line from here, wasn’t only foxes that made use of that to escape notice. Eddie winced as the pain caught him again. Needed his tablets. He turned away from the window and shuffled across the room. Tired. Always tired now.
Dean Hendrix had legged it, straight off. No messing about. He knew they’d come calling, they always came calling. Usually lads his own age with a copper’s sneer on their faces as they asked their questions in some sort of police speak that came out of the ark: on the night in question… at the time of the aforementioned incident.
He cursed, kicked the settee and paced up and down in front of it, fists balled and his heart skipping too fast for comfort. He grabbed the video and pushed it in the machine. Flung himself down on the leather couch which made a farting sound. The tape started and he watched, frowning and uneasy as he clocked what was going on. He hit the remote: eject.
Swallowing, short of breath, he rubbed his hand round the back of his neck, gathering the hair there into a short ponytail. Should he stay or should he go? The old Clash song sprang to mind, his knee trembling in a spasm as if he was tapping his foot to the remembered beat. Hadn’t any option. They’d bang him up for years. He thought of Paula and pushed the thought away.
He leapt up and ran upstairs. Filled a holdall with clothes, slid the cover off the battery compartment of the cassette radio and pulled out the baggie containing the last of his stash.
Downstairs again he put the video and his flick-knife into a carrier bag and put that in his holdall. He picked up his house keys, couldn’t take the Datsun, he was waiting for a new starter motor. He’d have to bus it.
Dean checked his wallet and got his passport from the drawer in the kitchen. You never knew. Flicked at the pages. Crap photo, looked like he’d just thrown up, skin the colour of porridge and one eye half-shut and his hair, that was before he grew it, a right mess like a bush stuck on top of his head. How could he have walked around looking like that?
He pushed it in the side pocket of the bag and checked round the room. Morning paper; wouldn’t do to be leaving that here. Blow his alibi. He’d go to Douggie’s. If they found him, he didn’t know if Douggie’s word as to his whereabouts at the time in question would be enough but it would have to do for now. ‘Cos if he had to sort anything else out his frigging brain’d melt.
He rang Paula on his mobile. Call messaging on. He began to speak as he zipped up his bag. ‘Paula, look, erm I’ve had to go away for a bit. Erm…’ He knew he was messing it up. ‘I’ll talk to yer later.’ He picked up the holdall, looked about. ‘Paula,’ his throat felt dry, he hesitated then spoke again. ‘I love you, Paula.’ End call.
He pocketed his mobile and made for the front door, pulled it shut, locked the mortise. Adios. He never looked back.
The kids were squabbling about the computer again. Janine was trying to referee.
‘It’s my go… it’s not fair,’ Eleanor complained.
‘Michael,’ Janine began, ‘come on, let Ellie have a go.’
‘I’ve only just started,’ he protested.
‘Phone,’ Tom announced.
‘See who it is,’ Janine sent him to answer it.
‘He’s lying,’ Eleanor said.
‘You’re lying,’ Michael retorted.
‘Mum!’
Tom wandered back in with the phone. ‘You’re The Lemon, aren’t you?’ he said, clear as a bell.
Janine, horrified, stopped in her tracks.
‘Mum,’ Tom piped at the top of his voice, ‘Mum, it’s The Lemon!’
Janine snatched the phone from him, she’d told him about this before. Talk about embarrassing.
‘No, no!’ she hissed at Tom, ‘Mr Hackett.’
She stepped into the hall, her face aglow, and tried to sound unruffled. ‘Sir?’
Ringing her at home, on a Saturday. Her own enquiry at last? A bubble of hope rose in her chest.
‘DCI Lewis, can you come in?’
‘Yes, sir. Right away, sir.’
Try and stop me, she thought. Murder. It must be murder.
CHAPTER TWO
Lesley Tulley had found parking space in the Pay and Display beyond The Triangle shopping centre. Sometimes she’d drive round for ages looking for a place. She didn’t like the multi-storeys; huge and grim, they made her feel claustrophobic. She had got out to get a parking ticket, already planning which shops she needed to visit and where to start. Her sister’s birthday was the following weekend. What could she get? She drew out her mobile and rang her but wasn’t surprised when the answer phone kicked in. Saturday morning, after all. Lesley left a message.