The kitchen door opened and closed and after a moment Karen could hear the rise and fall of voices without being able to decipher the words. Then the voices stopped and mother and son returned, Ion with his hands in his jeans pockets, head bowed.
‘Ion,’ his mother said, measuring her words, ‘would like the opportunity to reconsider some of the remarks he’s previously made.’
Clare Milescu made more coffee; her son fetched a bottle of Lucozade Sport from the fridge and, at his mother’s insistence, grudgingly poured it into a glass. One of the windows out on to the balcony had been opened slightly, allowing a residue of breeze and traffic noise into the room.
The truth was, Ion said, he did know Petru Andronic, but by sight, little more. He’d bumped into him a few times at a cafe down in Chiswick where some of the Moldovan lads hung out, along with others from Romania and the Ukraine; they’d been involved, all of them, in a handful of scratch soccer games over in Brondesbury Park. He couldn’t remember ever having given Andronic his mobile number, but he supposed it was possible. A lot of that went on, mobiles out all the time, the cafe especially, numbers being exchanged.
‘So,’ Karen asked, ‘when Andronic called just before Christmas, what was all that about?’
He’d been in a bit of a state, excited about something, Ion told her, he’d never really been able to establish what. Something about someone who was supposed to meet him.
‘A girlfriend?’
Ion didn’t know. Maybe. Yes, probably. But if it was a girl he didn’t know her name. Calm down, he’d told him. Give me a call tomorrow. Tomorrow morning.
By tomorrow morning, he was dead.
‘Why didn’t you come forward with any of this before?’ Karen asked. ‘When it was all over the news and we were appealing for help? Information?’
A quick glance towards his mother. ‘I didn’t want to get involved.’
‘He was your friend.’
‘He was not my fucking friend.’
‘Ion!’ His mother’s reaction was automatic, instantaneous.
‘I’m sorry, but how many times do I have to say it? He was not my friend.’
The burr of traffic from outside was more audible than before.
‘I really think,’ Clare Milescu said, rising, ‘Ion has helped you all he can.’
Karen set her cup down evenly in its saucer. ‘Thank you. Thank you both.’
Clare Milescu walked her to the door.
‘You realise,’ Karen said, ‘it’s possible we may want to speak to your son again.’
‘I don’t think that should be really necessary, do you?’ The smile was there, then gone, the door closing with a firm click. Karen paused, then turned away. Stairs rather than lift.
10
Sasha Martin. Sixteen years and seven months. Sixth form student at the same school as her friend, Lesley Tabor. Only not today.
The house was a stone’s throw from Mountsfield Park. More Hither Green than Catford, truth be told. Suburbia, Karen thought, but not quite as we know it. A Range Rover and a customised Mini were parked outside. The hedge had been trimmed to within an inch of its life.
Costello reached past Karen, rang the bell and stepped back.
The woman who came to the door was in her forties, slim, well-toned, fingernails that would have done justice to a bird of prey. Three mornings a week down the gym, Karen reckoned. That, at least. No obvious resort yet to plastic surgery, but it would come.
‘Mrs Martin?’
‘Yes?’
‘Fay Martin?’
‘Yes.’
Karen showed her warrant card, Tim Costello likewise.
‘We’d like to speak to your daughter, Sasha. They told us at the school she was here at home.’
‘You’ve not come about that, surely?’
‘No. No, not at all.’
‘Well, then …’ Her eyes flickered from one to the other, lingering on Costello a fraction longer. ‘You’d best come in. Sasha’s upstairs in her room.’
Someone, perhaps even Fay Martin herself, had been overworking the Pledge in the hall, shining the occasional table, buffing up the parquet.
‘Sasha! Sash! Come on down, there’s a love.’
A pause, a door opening, then the usual bored, resentful teenage voice, ‘What for now?’
‘It’s the police, Sash. Just a couple of questions, that’s all.’
‘What about?’
‘Come down and you’ll see.’
She raised an eyebrow to signify, kids, you know what they’re like, and led them into a living room that was a testament to World of Leather. French windows leading out to a conservatory. A large flat-screen television was tuned to some confessional chat show, sound barely above a whisper — I slept with my girlfriend’s sister, my mum’s best friend. Faces anxiously searching for the camera as they sought their moment in the mire.
‘She’ll be down in a minute.’ With a flick of the remote she switched off the TV. ‘Maybe you’d like to tell me what all this is about?’
‘Let’s wait for Sasha, shall we?’
Fay Martin looked as if she was about to argue, thought better of it and reached for her cigarettes instead. ‘Bad habit, I know …’ Favouring Costello with a knowing smile. ‘’Bout the only one I’ve got left.’
The attractiveness that twenty years before had drawn boys like flies to the slaughter was holding up well; Karen could sense Tim Costello responding to it alongside her, smiling back.
Sasha finally entered blearily, rubbing her eyes. A voluminous T-shirt fell well past her hips, bare legs, bare feet, fair hair tied back.
‘You might have put something else on,’ her mother said. ‘Made yourself decent.’
‘I am decent. I was sleepin’, wasn’t I?’
Folding her legs beneath her, she plonked herself at one end of the settee, T-shirt pulled down over her knees. A little puppy fat, but her mother’s daughter, her mother’s features nonetheless.
‘Sasha’s not been feeling too well, have you, babe? Else she’d be at school.’
‘Playing the wag,’ Costello suggested.
The girl shot him a look.
‘Sasha,’ Karen said, ‘we need to ask you about your boyfriend.’
‘What boyfriend?’
‘She hasn’t got a boyfriend, have you, Sash?’
‘Petru,’ Karen said. ‘Petru Andronic.’
Some people, when embarrassed, go red, others turn pale. Sasha turned pale.
‘He’s not her boyfriend,’ Fay Martin said. ‘Never was, was he, Sash? Not really. Besides, all done and dusted a long time back, eh, babe? What happened to him, though, the boy, reading about it, seeing it, you know, on the news … someone you sort of knew, even if it was only just a little …’
Face aside, Sasha was suddenly fighting back tears, gulping air.
‘Sash, what is it, babe? What’s the matter?’
Her mother reached for her hand and the girl pulled away, sobbing, starting to shake.
‘Sasha, come on …’
