‘I’ll go and see them, tell them to be careful, find out what more I can.’
‘Before you go tonight, phone them both up, make sure there’s a uniform outside each house until tomorrow.’
‘I’ve got one person already,’ Wendy said, thinking of Constable Ecclestone who had been absent most of the morning, following up on a lead he had said. The man was on night duty, sitting downstairs, taking it easy. He’d not like it, but she didn’t care. To her, people who didn’t pull their weight got what was coming to them. She’d find another constable for the other house, but not Kate Baxter, who was doing a sterling job.
***
The following day it started to rain, an English rain, the type that overseas visitors to London remember only too well. At the cemetery, the crime scene investigators had gone as far as they could, and apart from the tape around the grave and the small patch of grass surrounding it, people were starting to walk through again and to begin visiting the graves, although few did.
Larry went with Wendy to the first house for that day, the Robinson residence. Brad Robinson and his mother lived in a nondescript row of red-brick houses; not the upmarket terraces of Holland Park and Bayswater, more downmarket than that, as far removed from the wealth of the area as could be.
On the next-door neighbour’s front lawn, a motorcycle with its engine removed. Looking at the rust, Larry could see that it would never run again. A dog barked from inside another house, a yapping sound that grated on the nerves, a street where the animal would meet an unfortunate ending, poisoned bait.
Two knocks at the door and Brad Robinson’s mother opened it. She was a woman who had seen better days, Wendy conceded, but she had a cheery disposition and an easy smile. A woman, Wendy thought, who had been dealt a cruel hand by her upbringing, her lack of education, a family that skirted the boundary between legal and illegal, slipping over into the latter on more than a few occasions.
Larry knew Jim Robinson, the woman’s elder son, in passing and had spoken to him a few times, the man not averse to a beer and a fifty-pound note in exchange for information; not that it had ever been any good.
‘You’ll be wanting Brad,’ Gladys Robinson said. ‘He’s expecting you, but he’s got school later.’
‘We’ll make sure he gets there,’ Wendy said.
‘Not in your car. People are sensitive around here, recognise a police officer from a mile off.’
It was true, Larry knew. He drove a regular car, dressed as others, but in an area where crime abounded, they always knew he was the police.
The house was clean enough, although there was an air of decay, not necessarily on account of its occupants, but because the local council had through experience realised that if you gave something too pristine to those who could only afford the low rents that they paid, they wouldn’t respect what they had been given. The Robinsons had clearly tried, but even so, one of the drawers in the kitchen was broken, a windowpane was cracked, and the cooker had seen better days.
Larry shook Brad’s hand as he came into the kitchen wearing his school uniform.
‘We’ve a few questions,’ Larry said.
‘Her father’s been on the phone,’ Gladys Robinson said. ‘None too happy. Accused Brad of seducing his daughter, and her only fifteen.’
‘He dropped Brad home on the night,’ Wendy said.
‘He did, and I grant you that it was the right thing to do.’
‘Your son and Rose Winston?’
‘I’ve nothing against it. I’ve seen her, not spoken to her, but she’s a pretty little thing. I can see why Brad likes her, and if they want to go out, then it’s fine by me.’
‘She’s underage, not at the age of consent.’
‘I’ve known her father almost our entire lives; grew up with him, went to the same school. He wasn’t so posh back then, and as for his wife…’
‘A reputation?’
‘Stuck up, nose in the air, looking down at us, even at school. She’s done well for herself, so has he. Brad could do worse than their daughter.’
‘This may take a while,’ Larry said, aware that the mother wanted to talk. She had lived in the area all her life and was a good source of local knowledge, someone who might know something.
The four sat down at a small table, the mother having dragged a damp cloth across its surface first.
Wendy had no objection to the mother being present, as she was clearly not obstructionist.
‘He doesn’t want me to see Rose again,’ Brad said. ‘Blames me for what happened.’
‘You can’t blame the man,’ Larry said. ‘It was his daughter.’
‘He’s right, I know that, but I want to see her again. He reckons our family is bad news, more than our being out together late at night.’
‘Tim Winston’s right,’ Gladys Robinson said. ‘But Brad’s not like the rest of us. He’s never been in any trouble, not likely to be. He’ll be the one to save this family.’
‘Your other son?’ Larry said.
‘He takes after his father. He’ll be in and out of prison till the day he dies, which won’t be too long, not with his drink driving record, and the people he goes around with.’
‘Local gangs?’
‘Violent individuals. Cross them, and you’re dead. Jim’s a good-hearted man, give you the shirt off his back, but trouble and he go together, and then there’s his and Brad’s sister, my daughter.’
‘Janice?’ Wendy said.
‘I was wild at her age, but back then, it was alcohol more than drugs. A few pills, uppers, downers, but never
