bread-bin, then a mumbled request for an apology as he moved to the fridge. ‘Oh, right, as if you would have scoffed it all…’ He scanned the inside of the fridge, looking in vain for a yoghurt he knew had been there the day before. Kieron, the flatmate who had moved out at the end of the previous year, had a habit of polishing off the last of the communal bread, milk or whatever, as well as eating stuff that had never been his in the first place. Now Alex was shaping up to be almost as bad. But Greg was more inclined to forgive his own sister, and she did leave the bathroom smelling a lot nicer than Kieron had done.
She pushed the paper away when he finally brought over his tea and toast and sat down. ‘You’re going in early.’
‘Twelve o’clock lecture,’ Greg said. ‘Henry the sodding second. And it’s not really what the rest of the world would call early.’
‘Feels early enough to me.’
‘What time did you get in?’
‘I don’t know,’ Alex said. ‘Not stupidly late. But a bunch of us ended up in some place in Islington where they were necking these lethal-looking vodka shots.’
‘They were necking?’
Alex grinned. ‘Fair enough, I necked a few.’ She pointed as Greg shook his head and slurped his tea. ‘You can’t get all big brother-ish, matey. Not with some of the things you get up to.’
Greg blushed, which annoyed him, then he got even more annoyed when Alex giggled knowingly and he blushed some more. ‘Look, you’ve only been here two weeks, that’s all I’m saying.’ He cut her off when she opened her mouth. ‘And don’t tell me to “chillax” or whatever. You’re not twelve.’
‘I’m making friends,’ she said.
‘Well, you need to pace yourself. Oh yeah, and maybe do some work.’ He struck his chest theatrically. ‘I know, mental idea…’
‘Like you said, I’ve only been here two weeks.’ She reached across, tried and failed to grab a piece of his toast. ‘And, you know… it’s drama. It’s not like there’s a lot of work to do.’
‘How thrilled was the old man when you got a place here? When you told him you were moving in with me?’
She shrugged.
‘And how pissed off would he be if he knew you were caning it every other night?’
Just when it looked as though Alex was about to shout, or storm off, she produced the same butter-wouldn’t- melt smile she’d been turning on for eighteen years. ‘You’re just jealous because you got lumbered with a proper course, with proper lectures,’ she said. ‘Henry the sodding second.’
‘Dull as fucking ditchwater,’ he said.
They both laughed, and she made another, more successful grab for the toast. Greg called her a sneaky bitch. Alex called him a tight-arse, then got up to make them both some more.
‘You going to be in the Rocket tonight?’
Alex turned from the worktop, pulled a mock-horrified face. ‘After what you just said?’
‘I’m just letting you know I’ll probably be in there.’
‘Right. Probably.’ She pointed accusingly, with a knife smeared in butter and Marmite. The Rocket complex on Holloway Road was the student union of the Metropolitan University ’s north London campus. It was also home to one of the city’s trendiest clubs and until very recently had not been a place her brother had been known to frequent very often. ‘That’s three times this week.’
‘So?’
‘Making a bit of a habit of it, aren’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘The drink’s cheap.’
‘Right, so it’s not like you’ve got your eye on anyone, or anything like that?’
Greg blushed again and stood up. He told her he was running too late for more toast, that he needed to get ready. She shouted after him, told him he could eat it on the way. He shouted back: ‘Yeah, if I want to get killed…’
Five minutes later, he was wheeling his bike on to the pavement and doing his best to finish the toast Alex had thrust into his hand at the top of the stairs. That was often the way it went. However much their father thought Greg would be keeping an eye his little sister, she was the one who usually ended up doing the looking after. Fussing and checking up on him, and generally behaving like the mother they didn’t have.
As he climbed on to the bike and waited for a gap in the traffic, he glanced up and saw her waving from her bedroom window. She pressed her face against the glass like a child. He waved back and cycled away, heading for the Hornsey Road, the Emirates Stadium glorious against the grey sky ahead of him.
Greg raised a hand to wave again, in case Alex was still watching.
Unaware of the eyes on him.
On both of them.
FOUR
Though what was inside their heads remained largely a mystery to Dave Holland, he had seen the way that those directly affected by violent death could seem altered physically. It was as if they had been hollowed out by it; or, as in the case of George Walker, shrunken slightly. Walker was six two or three and thickset, but sitting opposite him in the Interview Room at Colindale station, Holland saw a man who seemed almost slight.
‘Won’t be too much longer,’ Holland said. ‘It really helps us to get everything down on tape, you know?’
The Murder Squad was based five minutes away at the Peel Centre, but the brown, three-storey building that housed the offices was no more than the administrative HQ. While investigations were orchestrated from Becke House, officers needing the use of interview rooms, custody suites or good old-fashioned cells would usually make the short journey up the road to Colindale.
‘Anything I can do,’ Walker said.
Holland nodded. He had no way of knowing what George Walker had sounded like before his wife was murdered, but now even his voice seemed small. ‘So, the day before yesterday, you came home at the usual time?’
‘Twelve forty-five, give or take.’
‘And stayed for an hour or so.’
Walker nodded, then said, ‘Yes, an hour,’ when Holland prompted him to speak for the benefit of the tape. He was a teacher at a school close to where he and his wife lived, and Holland had already established that he came home for lunch every day.
‘School meals not got any better, then?’
‘They’re pretty good actually,’ Walker said. He’d been staring at the tabletop, picking at the edge of it with a thumbnail. Now, he looked up and directly at Holland. ‘I just enjoyed going home.’
‘Wish I could do the same,’ Holland said. ‘The canteen here’s bloody atrocious-’
The door opened and Thorne walked in. Holland announced his entrance for the tape, then paused the recording while Thorne made his apologies to Walker for being late. Walker told him not to worry about it.
‘Traffic’s a nightmare,’ Thorne said.
He had popped into the Whittington en route and caught the tail-end of the Friday morning rush hour. They had finally performed the D and C the previous afternoon but had kept Louise in overnight. She had eaten an enormous breakfast and was in better spirits than at any time since she and Thorne had been told about the miscarriage. Thorne could not explain why, but it had made him oddly nervous.
‘I just want to get home now,’ she had said.
He had told her he would do his best to pick her up at lunchtime, or to let her know if there was a problem.
In the Interview Room, once Thorne had sat down, Holland quickly filled him in on what had been covered so far, and they resumed recording George Walker’s statement.
‘Tell us about when you got back after school,’ Thorne said.
