‘We used to come here last summer,’ Elise said, ‘after school sometimes.’
I didn’t know. Did Ade? Was that how he knew to look here? Something else I missed because of work?
Janet watched the water, the dimples made by insects, the patterns cast by the bulrushes. Her daughter was here, safe. She could hear her, each breath, see the way she absentmindedly threaded her fingers together. But Vivien… who would never again share a moment sitting side by side with Olivia, whose life would never be complete… Janet looked up. The sky was blank, a suffocating white.
‘Oh, Mum,’ said Elise, still staring out across the water.
‘I know,’ Janet said, ‘I know.’
26
Rachel had the police scanner on, force of habit as she was driving back to Manorclough. The boss wanted more on Greg Tandy. The fact that his house was close to the warehouse, just over the canal, meant sightings of him in the vicinity could be completely innocent. Rachel would talk to his neighbours, see if she could plot his comings and goings.
When a burst of static came over the airwaves followed by a call-out to patrols in Manorclough with reports of shots fired in Manton Road, she felt the shock jolt through her. Tandy’s street!
Rachel took the next left, flooring the accelerator as soon as she was round the corner. This road had ramps but she didn’t slow down as the car bucked and banged over them. Protocol for incidents involving firearms was to isolate the area and wait for the armed response unit. But she was so close. There might be something she could do to help.
She flew along Shuttling Way and then turned on to Derby Fold Lane, past the ruined warehouse and over the bridge then sharp left into Manton Road.
As she jumped out she could hear sirens not far away and she saw several people gathered outside the house, among them Connor Tandy and his mother Gloria. The air smelled of cordite. The front downstairs window was smashed, glass glittered on the pavement, the front door was wrecked with bullet holes. The lights were on in the house, the curtains, closed but shredded, billowing out of the broken window, the TV still burbling away.
Rachel pushed through the crowd to reach Gloria and Connor. They looked terrified, standing shivering. Gloria had a cigarette in one hand; when she raised it, her hand shook uncontrollably.
‘What happened?’ Rachel asked.
‘They shot at us!’ Connor’s words were jerky.
‘Who, did you see anyone?’
He shook his head, his mother copying him. ‘I was upstairs,’ Gloria said, ‘getting changed. Connor was-’ she choked, ‘he was in there.’ Tears glinted in her eyes as she nodded to the front room.
‘You’re not hurt?’ Rachel looked at the boy’s face, his hands. The cut on his cheek from when he’d fallen off his bike was almost healed.
‘No.’ He shook his head, frowning, and pressed his hands to his ears. That many shots a few feet away from him, he’d be half deafened. It was a miracle he hadn’t been hit. Had the gunman aimed to kill or just frighten and silence those inside?
‘You can’t go back in,’ said Rachel.
‘But our stuff?’ Gloria said.
‘We need to recover the bullets, they might help us work out who did this. Can you think of anyone who would?’
Surely, if the woman knew, she’d tell Rachel now, having come so close to losing her boy.
‘I don’t know,’ she said and seemed genuinely bewildered. ‘Who the fuck would do this? What’s he ever done,’ she pointed her fag at Connor, ‘or me?’
Or did the culprits think Greg Tandy was still in residence?
‘We’re going to get you moved,’ Rachel said.
‘What?’ Gloria scowled.
‘You can’t stay here.’
The squad cars arrived and Rachel had a word with the officers and agreed on where to erect the cordon. ‘Take statements from all the onlookers,’ she told them. ‘Did anyone hear or see anything? Was there a car, or motorbike, any words shouted, anyone behaving oddly. Yes?’
The officers agreed.
Rachel rang Gill but got Janet instead. ‘Someone’s been shooting up Greg Tandy’s, no casualties but we need a safe house for Mrs Tandy and Connor. Can you find out what’s available and get back to me?’
‘Of course.’
Rachel took the Tandys to sit in the back of her vehicle while she waited for an address.
Janet finally got back to her with the location of a house in Bolton. Someone would meet them there with basic provisions: tea, milk, bread and margarine.
‘What size are they, clothes wise?’ Janet said.
Rachel relayed the question.
‘Twelve,’ Gloria said, ‘why?’
‘We need to take your clothes,’ Rachel said, ‘get you new ones.’
‘Why?’ Connor asked.
‘In case there’s evidence on them, you were in the middle of a crime scene. It’s standard procedure. What size shoes?’
‘Six,’ Gloria said.
‘Connor? Clothes?’ Rachel said.
‘Don’t know,’ he shrugged.
‘Men’s – small,’ his mum said.
‘Feet?’
‘Sevens,’ he said.
Rachel passed on the information to Janet.
‘How long will we be there?’ Connor asked.
‘Don’t know.’
‘What about work?’ This from Gloria.
‘You can’t go,’ Rachel said. ‘Not until we’ve assessed the risk. Which is pretty fucking high given what just happened.
The witness protection service was, of course, hush-hush. Cops like Rachel knew next to nothing about how it worked, beyond being able to access safe houses in an emergency for vulnerable or intimidated witnesses and victims.
Mother and son were subdued as Rachel drove the twenty miles to their destination. The wind was getting up and bringing rain with it, heavy squalls that spattered the windscreen and drummed on the car roof. Rachel checked in the rear-view mirror regularly but no vehicles stayed on their tail long enough to concern her.
She stopped as instructed on the roadside outside the house at the end of a row of Georgian terraces and was met by a woman who was driving a small van. The woman checked Rachel’s identity but did not share her own, handed her the key to the house, told her there was an intercom and panic alarms throughout and handed her two large laundry bags with clothing and shoes and a bag of groceries.
Like some spooks movie. But Rachel didn’t mind if this was the way to safeguard Connor and Gloria.
Most of the houses nearby had been converted into offices with brass nameplates by the door. Presumably it was easier to be anonymous here when people were only around during office hours.
The safety measures were apparent: no glass in the front door, bolts and locks on that, double-glazed frosted-glass windows with wrought-iron screens too, tastefully done but they would significantly increase the security. Intercom at the door provided a means to check out by both audio and video link who was calling, and there were bright-red panic buttons in every room. The door to the upstairs was locked and had a no-entry notice on. But the ground floor provided two bedrooms, a dining kitchen, lounge and shower room. There was no back door.
The furnishings were practical, minimal. Industrial-style carpet, flecked so as to mask marks. Formica table and four dining chairs, a modest TV. Plain green curtains. No paintings or cushions, no touches to make it anything other than a place of transit. Rachel thought of a budget hotel crossed with a clinic or a dentist’s. Bland pretending to be homely and failing.
‘I’m starving,’ said Connor.
‘There’s bread and milk.’ Rachel held up the bag.
The kitchen smelled stale though the pedal bin and fridge were empty. The fridge was switched off so she turned it on. Gloria examined the central heating controls and set that going. ‘It’s freezing,’ she said.
‘You’ll be cold from the shock, too,’ Rachel said. ‘There’s a toaster,’ she showed Connor.