Frankie nodded cautiously. ‘Mmm?’
‘I knew Cherie quite well, because Davy always plays with Daniel and Wayne when he’s staying with Richard. Also, I helped her out when she was trying to get a divorce from Eddy, her ex.’ I paused, but Frankie didn’t lift her eyes from her curry.
Nothing for it but to soldier on. ‘I was driving home with Davy this afternoon just after Cherie had been shot. The place was jumping with police and ambulance crews, and we saw the boys being taken away in a police car. Then when we got home, all the neighbours were talking about Cherie being shot. The bottom line is that Davy’s in a hell of a state. He’s terrified because Cherie’s been shot, but he’s even more frightened because Daniel and Wayne have been carted off in a police car.’
‘Not particularly surprising,’ Frankie said sympathetically. ‘Poor Davy. So what do you want me to do?’
‘I just wondered if there was any chance you could fix up for me to take Davy to see Daniel and Wayne this evening. I know it’s bending the rules and all that, but I don’t see how I’m going to get him to sleep otherwise. He’s climbing the walls. He thinks Daniel and Wayne have gone to prison, you see.’ I sighed and shrugged. ‘I’ve tried to explain, but he won’t believe me.’
‘I wonder why not,’ Frankie said drily. She gave me a shrewd look. ‘Are you sure you’re asking for Davy and not for yourself?’
‘Give me a break, Frankie,’ I complained. ‘You know I don’t do murders. Strictly white collar, that’s Mortensen and Brannigan.’
She snorted, not a wise move when you’re dealing with curry spices. After she’d finished spluttering and sneezing, she said, ‘And Patrick Swayze’s strictly ballroom. OK. I believe you. God knows why. But if I find out you’ve been lying to me, Brannigan, I’ll be really disappointed in you.’
Just as well I’m not a Catholic or I’d never get out of bed in the morning with the weight of guilt on my shoulders. I smiled meekly and said, ‘You won’t regret this, Frankie.’
‘Where is Davy now?’ she asked. ‘Is he with Richard?’
‘My friend Alexis is looking after him. She was going to take him to the pictures to see if she could take his mind off what’s happened.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘They should be back within the next half-hour or so.’
Frankie ran a hand through her spiky hair. ‘I hope for your sake I don’t live to regret this, Brannigan. I’ll tell you what would make me feel happier, though.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked, willing to go along with anything half-reasonable so long as I still had the chance to hit the boys with a few questions.
‘I’d be a lot happier if Richard brought Davy along rather than you. Then I could be sure there wasn’t a hidden agenda.’ Frankie said calmly.
I hoped the dismay I felt didn’t reach the surface. I pulled a face and said, ‘You and me both. But the boy wonder is out of town tonight. He’s gone to Birmingham to see some international superstar I’ve never heard of at the NEC. He went off this afternoon early. He doesn’t even know about Cherie.’
Frankie sighed. ‘I’ll just have to live with it, then. OK. We’ve placed Wayne and Daniel with emergency foster parents in Levenshulme. Normally, it would take a few days to organize a visit while we checked out the credentials of the person claiming to be friends or family, but in this case, I don’t see why we shouldn’t speed the wheels of bureaucracy since I know both you and Davy. Besides, it might just help the boys to settle, feel less abandoned. After we’ve eaten, I’ll find a phone box and call the foster parents, see what time will fit in with their arrangements.’
I put my mobile phone on the table. ‘Have this one on me,’ I said, nudging it towards her.
Frankie shook her head, smiling wryly. ‘Since I’ve known you, I’ve come to realize what the essential quality of a private investigator is,’ she said, reaching across and picking up the phone.
‘What’s that?’
‘You simply don’t recognize the point where the rest of the world backs off,’ she said. ‘Now, how do I work this thing?’
It was just after seven when Davy and I pulled up outside a trim between-the-wars semi off Slade Lane. The street was quiet; one of the few in the area that motorists driven demented by traffic don’t think is a short cut to anywhere. I’d had a difficult half-hour with Davy, explaining what had happened to Cherie and the boys. I thought I should keep it low-key so I wouldn’t frighten him, but I’d forgotten how small boys like things to be gory. He hadn’t seen it happen right in front of his eyes, so it was no more real, no more frightening than a cartoon or a video. I was glad Frankie had gone off to her meeting; anything less like a terrified nervous wreck than Davy it would be hard to imagine.
You couldn’t say the same for Daniel and Wayne. They sat huddled together on a settee in the front room. The television was on and their eyes were pointing at it, but they weren’t watching. They didn’t look up when the foster mother showed Davy and me into the room, but when she spoke, they both turned their heads towards us, a look of bafflement on their faces. They had the bewildered, desperate air we’ve all grown used to seeing in endlessly recurring TV film of refugees from disaster areas.
‘Hi, lads,’ I said. ‘Davy and I were wondering if you fancied going to the ice-cream parlour.’
Wayne got to his feet and, after a moment, Daniel joined him. I felt like a monster, dragging these two shattered kids out of the nearest thing they were going to have to a home, just to satisfy my curiosity. Then I looked at Davy and remembered my front door. That reminded me there was a lot more at stake than my nosiness. ‘Or we could go somewhere else, if you’d rather,’ I said.
‘It’s good there,’ Davy said anxiously, disturbed by his friends’ silence. ‘I want to go home,’ Wayne said. ‘That’s where I want to go.’
The foster mother, a bulky, comfortable-looking woman in her late thirties, stepped past me and gave Wayne a hug. ‘You’ve got to stay with us for a while, Wayne,’ she said in a soothing voice. ‘I know it’s not the same as home, but tomorrow we’ll go back to your house and get your clothes and the rest of your stuff and you can be at home here, OK?’
‘We’ll go to the ice-cream place, then,’ he said grudgingly to me. Wayne shrugged off the woman’s arm and pushed past her into the hall, where he stood expectantly by the door. Daniel followed him, and, after a quick glance at me for permission, so did Davy.
‘I’ll have them back in an hour,’ I promised.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Quite honestly, love, the more worn out they are tonight the better.’
For the first twenty minutes, I said nothing about Cherie or the shooting. We pumped money into the Wurlitzer, we argued the relative merits of everything on the menu. Then I sat back and watched while the boys wolfed huge ice-cream sundaes, gradually returning to something approaching normal behaviour, even if it was tinged with a kind of hysteria. I even joined in some of their fun, dredging my memory for old and sick jokes. When I reached the point where the only one I could remember was the one about the Rottweiler and the social worker, I reckoned it was time to change tack.
‘Davy got a lot of new transfers yesterday, didn’t you?’ I said brightly.
‘Where did you go?’ Daniel asked.
‘VIRUS,’ said Davy and proceeded to enthuse about the virtual reality centre.
‘Maybe we could all go together the next time Davy’s up,’ I suggested. ‘Show them your tattoos, Davy.’
He took off his New York blouson to reveal tattoos that spread up from his wrists and finally disappeared into the sleeves of his T-shirt. Wayne and Daniel studied the intergalactic warriors and dinosaurs, desperately trying not to look impressed.