someone they knew well, until they were referred to in that awful past tense. The fact of their death seemed to come home in one tiny word.
‘So why was she on your motorbike?’ asked Hitchens.
‘She was just looking, she said. A lot of birds like bikes, you know. They find ‘em dead sexy. They can’t wait to get their legs astride one.’
o
‘Is that why you ride one?”
Holmes grinned again. ‘Not really. But it helps, you know?’
‘So are you saying she was interested in the bike, not in you?’ asked Fry.
Holmes looked at her, ignoring her frown as the grin stayed on his face. ‘Give over. Well, you might have thought so at first — she was pretending to play it a bit cool, like. But all I had to do was give a bit of chat, you know, and we got talking straight
o ‘ j ‘ o o to
off. She came in the arcade to watch me play. Yeah, and later on one of the other lads in there, who knew her — he told me she’d been asking about me a couple of days before. She wanted to know who I was, what my name was, you know. So she’d obviously fancied me. The bike thing was just a bit of a ploy.’ He turned towards Hitchens again. ‘Birds do that sort of stuff,
o ‘
you know?’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Hitchens. For a moment. Fry thought the
‘ ‘ ‘ J to
DI was going to give Holmes a matey wink. If he did, she was going to have to walk out.
to o
‘Birds like her especially,’ said Holmes.
‘Like what?’
‘Well, she was from the posh school, you know. High Carrs.
220
The lads there aren’t supposed 10 be douii 111 tov.a during school hours, not even the sixth formers. But she’d sneaked out. She was like that, Laura. Didn’t give a toss about school really.’
‘ o J
‘She was a bright girl, though, from what we hear.’
‘Sure. Dead bright. She could have sailed through her GCSEs, I reckon, but she couldn’t be bothered with all the studying. She was more into music. I reckon her parents put her right off school. It happens, you know. Some parents push their kids too hard and they go totally the other way. It’s a shame really.’
‘Teenage rebellion, eh?’
‘Yeah, right. Did it yourself, eh, mate? Well, maybe Laura would have come out of it, if she’d pot the chance.’
‘ o
‘Yes, Simeon. But you didn’t exactly encourage her to go back to school, did you?’
‘Well, no. We hit it off pretty well, you see, from the beginning. She started coming down to the arcades regular. I was a bit surprised, to be honest — she was a bit too upmarket for me, if you know what I mean. Not my usual type. But she was dead keen. Yeah, dead keen. And I didn’t say no. Well, you don’t, do you?’
The curious smell was definitelv coming from Holmes. Fry
J O J
discounted the sweet smell of alcohol, the rank bite of cigarette
‘ O
smoke. No drugs she had ever come across smelled quite like that. Perhaps it was something to do with the motorbike leathers. Some kind of oil used to soften up the leather maybe, which was now being evaporated by the heat and humidity in the interview room. But to produce that sort of stink it would have to have been something like rancid pig fat.
‘Didn’t Laura get into trouble at school for breaking the rules?’ she asked.
‘Dunno. She never said. She wouldn’t have given a toss anyway.’
‘But her parents might have.’
Holmes shrugged. ‘She didn’t talk about them much.’
‘Basically, you would say that Laura instigated the relationship?’ asked Hitchens.
‘What? Oh, yeah. She started it, all right. Dead keen, like 1 said.’
221
‘Had she had other boyfriends?’
‘Sure. She was no Liltle misj. Innocent. Don I go getting that idea.’
Fry leaned forward to put her next question.
‘When did you start having sex with her, Simeon?’
