iBoy

... Eden replaced Winston Churchill as prime minister in April, 1955. Later that year he attended a summit conference at Geneva with the heads of government of the USA, France and the Soviet Union ...

'Sir Anthony Eden,' I said.

Gram looked surprised. 'Very good.'

'He was succeeded by Harold Macmillan on 10 Janu­ary 1957,' I added, 'and he spent his later years writing his memoirs, which were published in three volumes between 1960 and 1965. He also wrote an account of his war experiences called Another World which was pub­lished in 1976.' I smiled at Gram. 'He died in 1977.'

Gram shook her head in disbelief. 'You really have been studying.'

'I told you, didn't I.'

'I'm impressed.'

You shouldn't be, I thought.

'Yeah, well,' I said, looking at the clock on the wall. 'I'll be off to the library again now, if that's OK.' I grinned at her. 'Get some more studying done.'

She nodded. 'I'd better get to work myself.'

'How's it going?' I asked her.

'Not bad ...' She smiled at me. 'Maybe my publishers might even give me a bonus for this one.'

'Very funny,' I said.

She grinned.

I got to my feet. 'I'll see you later, OK?'

'OK ... but don't stay out too long. You are looking tired.'

'I'll be back in a few hours,' I said, heading for the door. 'I promise.'

'And Tommy?'

I stopped and looked back at her. 'Yeah?'

'I'm sorry ... sorry I doubted you.'

'You don't have to apologize, Gram. Honestly ... it's OK.'

'I know. But I am sorry.'

I felt too bad to say anything else to her. What could I say? She was apologizing for not trusting me, but she had every right to mistrust me. I was lying to her. I was betray­ing her trust. I should have been apologizing to her ...

I very nearly told her the truth then.

I was so sick of lying to her and making her feel bad about herself that I'd just about decided that no matter how difficult it would be, I simply had to tell her the truth.

But then, just as the words were beginning to form in my mind, the doorbell rang, and before I had a chance to say anything, Gram had got up from the table, gone out into the hallway and opened the door.

'Oh, it's you,' I heard her say. 'What do you want?'

'Good morning, Ms Harvey,' a vaguely familiar male voice said, is your grandson in?'

It took me a moment to recognize the two men who followed Gram into the kitchen. The last time I'd seen them was at the hospital, when I'd only just woken up from another dream that wasn't a dream, the non-dream about Lucy — A 15-year-old girl has been raped by a gang of youths on the Crow Lane Estate — which, understandably, had left me feeling slightly confused at the time. Now, though, as the two men stood there looking down at me, smiling their supposedly comforting smiles, I wasn't too confused to remember them. The tall fair-haired one — the one with the tobacco-stained teeth and bad skin — was DS Johnson. The other one — who was so unremarkable-looking that he didn't really look like anything — was DC Webster.

'Hi, Tom,' Johnson said. 'How's it going?'

I looked at Gram.

She half-shrugged. 'Sorry, Tommy ... they want to ask you some questions. You can say no, if you like.'

I looked at Johnson. 'Questions about what?'

Without asking, he sat down at the table. 'So, Tom,' he said over-casually, 'how's the head? That's a nice- looking scar you've got there.' He smiled, winking at me. 'The girls are going to like that, you know.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'They all love a guy who's had brain surgery, don't they?'

His smile faded, and for a moment he looked a little embarrassed. He sniffed and cleared his throat. 'All right,' he said. 'Well, the reason we're here ...' He looked up at Gram. 'Would you like to sit down, Ms Harvey?'

'Nice of you to ask,' Gram said, 'but I'm all right here, thanks.' She looked at Webster, who was standing behind Johnson with an open notebook and a pencil in his hands. 'Would you like to sit down?' she asked him.

'No,' he mumbled, glancing at Johnson. 'No ... I'm all right here, thanks.'

Johnson frowned at Gram, not sure if she was being sarcastic or not, then — after a quick glance at DC Webster — he turned back to me. 'So, as I was saying, the reason we're here ... well, basically, we'd just like to ask you a few more questions about your accident —'

'It wasn't an accident.'

'No, I know ... well, actually, we don't know if it was an accident or not, but we're assuming it wasn't. We think the mobile phone that caused your injuries was probably thrown out of the window during the attack on Lucy and Ben Walker.'

'Yeah,' I said, it was.'

'You saw it being thrown?'

I nodded. 'I couldn't see who threw it, though. The sun was in my eyes. All I could see was someone at the window.'

'Can you describe them?'

I shook my head. 'They were too far away.'

'Was it a man? A boy?'

'A boy, I think.'

'Black or white?'

'I don't know.'

'How old?'

'I couldn't tell.'

'OK ... but you definitely saw a boy at the window, and you think he threw the phone at you?'

'Yeah.'

'What time was this?'

'Ten to four.'

Johnson raised his eyebrows. 'That's very precise.' I shrugged. 'I remember looking at my watch just before it happened. It was ten to four.'

He nodded. 'Right. So you'd just left school?'

'Yeah.'

'And where were you going?'

'Home.'

'Right... you were coming here?'

'Yeah.'

'OK.' He glanced at Webster, who was busy writing down everything I was saying, then he looked back at me. 'Were you aware at the time that an assault was taking place in a flat on the thirtieth floor?'

'No.'

'You didn't find out until later?'

'That's right.'

'Remind me again how you found out about the attack.'