Mrs Wilson looked at her feet. "I went to pick up Bruce from school." She raised her head. Her gaze moved from Erica to me, back to Erica. Then back to the floor. "He wasn't there."
"You usually pick him up where, exactly?" I asked.
"No," Mrs Wilson said, shaking her head.
"No?"
She kept shaking her head. "Not 'usually'," she said, her voice louder. " Always. I always pick him up outside the school gates. I'm always there when the bell rings."
"And he wasn't there today?"
"That's right."
"He wasn't in his classroom?"
Mrs Wilson breathed in slowly. Didn't answer the question.
"Maybe one of the other parents…?"
Mrs Wilson was shaking her head furiously again, so Erica stopped talking, scribbled in her notebook.
I wondered if I should say something. After all, it was my case.
I was about to speak when Erica asked Mrs Wilson, "How can you be so sure?"
"I stay out of their business. They stay out of mine."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
Erica pursed her lips, probably annoyed with me for cutting her off.
"Nobody wants to hear about tragedy," Mrs Wilson said. "People want to get on with their lives and tragedy holds you up. Even someone else's tragedy can hold you up. It can infect you like some kind of wasting disease." She laughed without any trace of humour. "Surprised no one's asked me to wear a bell round my neck so they can hear me coming."
I gave Erica a quick look.
"What tragedy?" she asked Mrs Wilson.
Mrs Wilson breathed deeply.
"If you don't mind telling us," I said.
"Talking about it doesn't hurt quite so much now." She looked up from her hands. "John's dead," she said. "Bruce's dad. He's dead."
The officers who took her statement must have told Dutton about this and he should have let us know. I wouldn't be surprised if he had deliberately withheld the information.
Mrs Wilson was talking again. "Car crash." She put her fingertips to her temples. "Got ploughed into head-on by a drunk driver." She lowered her hands, gripped her thighs. "He took a corner on the wrong side of the road. Killed John."
"I'm very sorry to hear that," I said. "How old was your son at the time?"
"It happened seven years ago in March. Bruce was just a baby. Eight months old."
I looked at Erica again but she was no help. I asked, "Do you have a photo of Bruce, Mrs Wilson?"
"Bruce is camera shy."
"It doesn't have to be a good photo. Anything will do. Just so we have a likeness."
She said it again, slower this time. "Bruce is camera shy."
"You don't have any photos?" I asked again. She must have given one to the uniformed officers. "Just one — "
"He doesn't like having his photo taken," she said. Then maybe she realised she'd been a little loud and said it again, softly, looking at her feet.
"What about a school photograph?"
"What is it you don't get?" Mrs Wilson stood up, banging her shins against the coffee table so hard I winced. But she didn't seem to notice. "I won't put Bruce through any kind of an ordeal. I won't do that. He's suffered enough, losing his father. Can you imagine what that's like? I know he's too young to understand, but the older he gets, the more it shows and he acts up and… and I let him, I suppose. Maybe I spoil him a bit. But he hurts. I know. I feel it." She was crying. Big messy tears, runny nose. She wiped her face with her hand.
Erica plucked a tissue from a box on the coffee table and handed it to Mrs Wilson.
Mrs Wilson blew her nose. "My boyfriend says Bruce is damaging our relationship. Can you believe that? Blaming my baby?"
"What's your boyfriend's name?" Erica asked.
"Les. And he's my ex — boyfriend." Mrs Wilson dabbed at her nose. "I got fed up with his jealousy. I finished with him last week. Told him to leave us alone. And that's what he's done."
"Les who?"
"Green. Les Green."
"Do you have his address?"
She gave it to us and Erica wrote it down.
"I'm sorry to have to ask this," I said. "But did your relationship with Mr Green end on good terms?"
She shrugged. "He called me a 'mad bitch'. But he didn't throw any punches. If that's what you mean."
"Might Mr Green have picked up Bruce from school?"
"Les wouldn't dream of it."
"I think we should talk to him anyway," I said.
"Whatever you think."
We sat for a bit, staring at each other. Then Erica said, "Could we see Bruce's room?"
"Why not." Mrs Wilson got to her feet, led us down the hallway and up the stairs. She swung a bedroom door open and stepped inside.
We followed her in. A little boy's room. Piles of books in the bookcase, games stacked in the corner, toys in their boxes. But there were things I would have expected to see that weren't here.
"No TV?" I asked.
"I don't like him watching too much television."
"Computer?"
"He's not old enough to be interested."
"Really?" I asked. "My two were into computers from before they could speak."
"You have two boys?" Mrs Wilson looked me in the eye and there was no sign of the twitch.
"Yeah. Older one just had his thirteenth birthday. His brother's ten."
She looked as if she was about to ask something else, but Erica interrupted. "Have you tidied up in here?"
"No need. Bruce is a neat little boy."
"Very," Erica said. "Noticed anything missing? Clothes, maybe? Money?"
"Money?" Mrs Wilson leaned back slightly, her head tilted to the side.
"I just wondered," Erica said. "Kids sometimes have a bit of cash stashed away."
"Not Bruce. He doesn't need money. What would he need with money? I have money."
"Clothes?" Erica's voice was calm but firm. "Any clothes missing?"
Mrs Wilson shook her head.
"Can you take a look, please," I said. "Just to make sure?"
"For God's sake." Mrs Wilson pulled out the drawers, scanned through the wardrobe. A couple of minutes later, she crossed her arms and said, "Everything's here. Apart from what he's wearing."
"And what was that?" Erica asked.
Mrs Wilson told us he was wearing his school uniform, and described it, and mentioned the Hearts scarf he liked, but wasn't allowed to wear in class. It matched the information we'd got from Dutton. At least he'd got something right.
I asked Mrs Wilson, "There's not one single photo of him?" I wondered what Uniform were working with. Just a description?
She looked as if she was going to leap across the room and choke me. But instead she said, "John was the positive one."
I had no idea what she was talking about. She must have picked up on my confusion.
"Bruce's dad," she said. "My husband. Remember?"
I nodded. "Yes, yes, John, of course," and no doubt sounded like a total idiot. But I hadn't forgotten her husband's name. I just didn't see how her reply had answered my question about Bruce's photo.
But who knew how her mind was working right now.
"You know what it's like not being able to say sorry?" Mrs Wilson asked, clenching her fists. "We'd argued, me and John. Just before… It was a silly thing, didn't know it would become important. He hadn't shaved for a couple of days."
I ran my thumb over my chin.
"I asked him if he was growing a beard." She started pacing around the bedroom. "He was already stressed out. Rough day at work with a major client. I didn't realise how stressed he was until he told me to shut up. Told me to stop nagging him." She was walking up and down, pumping her fists. "That was the day before the accident. And I never apologised to him, and now I can't tell him I'm sorry. Can't tell him that he looked just fine." She smacked her fists against her thighs. "I don't give a crap about him not shaving. I was a total fool! I've lost John. I can't lose Bruce too."