driveway.
There was no sign of the uniformed officers Dutton had sent to canvass the neighbours. I wondered where they'd parked. At least one patrol car should be touring the area too, using a megaphone to ask if anyone had seen the boy. We hadn't passed it on the way but it would be out there, driving around. Standard procedure. Dutton would have seen to it. No matter how much I despised him, I couldn't deny that he knew his job.
The boy's mother answered the door before we reached the end of the path.
'Are you the police?' Mrs Wilson was 31 years old, according to the information Dutton passed along. But you'd have guessed at 40. She wore a light sweater, jeans, sandals. Her face looked as if the skin was being stretched in different directions. Her eyes were wet and red. She winked at me, which was odd. I wasn't sure whether to wink back or ignore it. Then she winked again and I realised it was a twitch.
I introduced myself. Erica did the same.
Mrs Wilson looked into Erica's eyes and said, 'I'm so glad to see you.'
She led us inside.
The sitting room had red walls. And a red ceiling. Ought to have been too much but it was a big room and the colour scheme worked. Lot of light, too, from the bay windows. Picked up the shine from the varnished floorboards, which was maybe why the room smelled faintly of floor polish. An enormous expensive-looking rug lay in front of a green-and-silver marble fireplace. The sofa and armchairs were white. And spotless. I was impressed she managed to keep them so spic and span with a kid around. Probably had a cleaner in a couple of times a week to give her a hand. No question she could afford it.
Mrs Wilson invited us to sit down on the settee. We did, to make her comfortable. She sat down too, crossed her ankles and uncrossed them again.
Erica perched on the edge of the settee, opened her notebook and said, 'In your own time, Mrs Wilson. Would you mind running through what happened once again?'
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.
