‘You want to make yourself useful you could wash up.’
‘You only have to ask.’
‘I’m asking.’
Michelle swept crumbs and bits of sugar flakes from the kitchen table into her hand and threw them in the direction of the bin. Andy went to the sink. The dishes were piled up from the previous night’s fish and chip and ketchup supper.
‘I’m buyin’ you a present next time I go out, new washing-up brush. Look at this.’ The bristles were completely flattened and there were tea leaves stuck down between them. He turned on the taps.
‘Guess who I saw just now anyway.’
‘Go on then.’
‘That Nathan Coates.’
‘Right.’
‘Wasn’t you in his class?’
‘No. Dean’s.’
‘Oh yeah, Dean. That Nathan’s up himself. I waved at him, but oh no.’
‘He’s a copper.’
‘Didn’t look like one to me.’
‘CID.’
‘Gawd. What’s he doing up here then?’
‘Probably spends half his time this way.’
‘He went down Maud Morrison. What do you reckon?’
‘Bloody hell, how should I know … could be a dozen things, couldn’t it … you know more about what goes on round here than me. I been away, remember, ha ha.’
‘Yeah, well, it isn’t like that up this end.’
‘Oh no.’
‘Oh no, there’s people buy their own houses this end, it’s got a lot more respectable.’
‘Right.’
‘I shall find out, mind.’
‘I bet you bloody will.’
‘Don’t use up half a bottle of that, it costs.’
‘Needs half a bottle to get this fat off, you want to wash them up straight away.’
‘You watch yourself, you’re only here …’
‘OK, OK … I’ve got to see the probation officer today, maybe she’ll have something … flat or summat.’
‘Probation won’t get you a flat.’
‘Anyway.’
‘Or a job. You gotta do that for yourself.’
‘I might have already.’
‘You what?’
‘Got a job.’
‘What, street cleaner?’
Michelle lit a cigarette, put on her leather jacket and went out without waiting for a reply.
It took her all of ten minutes to find out why the CID were up this end of the Dulcie and two minutes more to join the other women at the end of the close. There were half a dozen of them but others were on their way, some pushing buggies and pulling toddlers, others returning from taking older children to school.
‘They kept it dark,’ Michelle said to the woman beside her.
‘Don’t they always? Try and get past us!’
A few laughed. Then, after the laughter, came the first shout.
‘Paedophile out.’
It was taken up. ‘Paed out. Paed out. Paedophile, paedophile, out, out, OUT.’
After a moment a curtain in the upstairs window shifted slightly.
‘Get out here, Brent Parker, we know who you are.’
‘Yeah, and what.’
‘Child molester.’
‘Rapist.’
‘Paed out, paed out, paedophile, paedophile, out, out, OUT.’
Placards came, home-made from sheets of old wallpaper tacked to board. ‘No Paedophiles.’ ‘Paedophiles OUT OUT OUT.’ ‘Protect our children.’
The curtain did not move again.
Andy Gunton went to the upstairs front-room window, from where he could just see the gathering crowd in the close. He did not need to open the window to hear them.
Nonces. They’d been hated inside, never safe, never off their guard, always looked out for by the screws. Beat up a nonce, trip him in the shower so he cracked his head open, knee him in the balls during a game, it was the quickest way to becoming a hero. There hadn’t been many of them but you could tell a mile off, even if they didn’t wear NONCE across their foreheads. They had a smell about them, they were shifty-eyed, there was just something. You never cured them, a screw had said. Treatment programmes, shrinks, rehab … might work on junkies, often did, surprisingly often really. But on nonces, never. Once a nonce, always a nonce … they were clever though, they knew the game and all the tricks, they could pull the wool. But they didn’t change.
He didn’t fancy the chances of one against Michelle multiplied by fifty … even against Michelle on her own come to that. What were they doing, putting him on a family housing estate anyway? Nonces wanted segregating off, putting in blocks of flats for singles, so the police knew where they were and what they were up to.
It was his only prejudice. He prided himself on not caring about blacks and browns and yellows. Live and let live. Even gays. But not nonces. No way.
*
In the end, uniform had to go round to the back of Brent Parker’s house and break in, while back-up tried to clear the crowd outside. By the time Nathan Coates arrived, Parker was in the kitchen, shaking, standing beside his snake tank.
‘I want protecting.’
‘We’ll get rid of them. I was coming up to have another word with you anyway.’
‘You won’t leave alone, will you? I served my time, I done with all that, but you’ll never leave alone. I told you last night, we don’t need to start again. And I ain’t stopping here without protection. You drive off, what do you think they’ll do? You think I’ll be safe, do you?’
‘You could try letting one of your reptiles out for a walk. I doubt they’d come close after that.’
‘Reptiles need heat.’
‘Plenty of it out there. OK, they’ll be gone in a half a minute. Forget about them. Sit down.’
‘I’m all right standing.’
‘Suit yourself. You said last night you didn’t know anything about the missing boy.’
‘I don’t.’
‘You weren’t involved, weren’t even interested.’
‘I’m not … no more than most people.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Stands to reason.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Kid goes missing, it’s a terrible thing. You don’t want that happening. Kids aren’t safe.’
‘No.’ Nathan looked at the man. He was unshaven, he smelled, his hair was filthy, and he had his hands on the snake tank as if it were a protective talisman. He had shifty eyes. Only that was the sort of thing you were told not to think … eyes were eyes, call them anything else other than blue or brown, you got told it was inadmissible. But Nathan knew shifty eyes when he saw them – they shifted.
‘So you’re not interested in David Angus?’
‘Not specially. I said.’
‘Then why do –’ Nathan stopped.
‘What? Why do I what?’
The newspaper poster of the missing boy had gone. Last night Nathan had seen it through the half-open door, clear as day, stuck to the wall above the snake tank. He got up.
‘Move.’
‘What you doing? You leave me be.’
‘Just move.’
Parker hesitated, then edged round, his hands still touching the snake tank. Heat came off it and it smelled rank. Nathan preferred not to look closely at the inside.
‘What’s been up here?’
He touched the slightly sticky patches on the wall.
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing been stuck up here? Not a notice … or a poster maybe? Sheet out of a newspaper?’
‘Yeah … no. There was a note.’
‘What sort of note?’
‘About the snake. Feeding times.’
‘You need a reminder?’
‘No. It was for … someone else. Someone else was feeding it while I was out.’
‘Who?’
‘A mate.’
‘You got mates? What’s his name?’
‘I don’t have to tell you.’
‘Yes, you do. If you don’t tell me so I can check it out with him, I might think you was making that up. I might think you’d had a sheet out of the newspaper stuck up there … with the picture of David Angus on it.’
‘Well, you’d be wrong.’
Nathan turned quickly and took two strides to a pedal bin with its lid hanging half off. The pedal didn’t work. He didn’t fancy touching it with his hands but it fell open easily enough when he poked the lid with his shoe.
‘Empty that out, will you? Don’t look too clean in there.’
‘Empty it yourself. What you want? You need a search warrant.’
‘To get to the bottom of your manky rubbish bin? I don’t think so.’
‘You want to look in my rubbish, you look. I ain’t moving.’
‘I suppose asking for a pair of rubber gloves would be a waste of time?’
‘Right.’
‘Newspaper?’
‘Under the sink.’
It took Nathan Coates three minutes to spread the only newspaper he could find, an ancient copy of the greyhound section of the Racing Post, on the floor and tip the contents of the bin out on to it. The congealed mess of egg remains, hair, tea bags, and dirty wood shavings which had probably come from the snake tank made a soggy clump. But there was no news paper, not even shredded up. No poster of David Angus.
‘OK,’ Nathan said. ‘For now.’
‘Where you going?’
‘Get some fresh air.’
‘You ain’t leaving that lot.’
Nathan grinned, turned his back and got out of the house fast. The air of the Dulcie estate had never smelled sweeter.
Only a couple of the women were left, a few yards away from the house, talking closely together. The patrol car was still parked at the kerb. Nathan bent down to the window.
‘They’ll be back, minute you’ve gone.’
The PC shrugged.
‘He’ll ring again.’
‘We’ll take that as it comes then. You got anything on him?’
It was Nathan’s turn to shrug. As he went towards his own car, one of the women turned round. ‘It’s that jumped-up little prick Nathan Coates. Surprised you show your face round here these days, thought we was all beneath you.’
Leave it, Nathan said to himself. Let it go. ‘Morning, Michelle,’ he said, before slamming the car door and accelerating away from the Dulcie estate as fast as he knew how.