When nothing had happened by Thursday I didn’t understand. I knew the bullet was speeding through the air but didn’t know when it would hit. My stomach was a mess; I’d hardly eaten in four days and I jumped at the slightest noise, the smallest provocation. I didn’t see Jake in the library at all and I wanted it over and done with so I dragged myself to the bullet to get it done. I planted myself at the end of a quiet street on his route home from school and waited. I half expected him to be walked home flanked by police, helicopters hovering, but he made his way down the street alone as usual, his hands holding his rucksack straps, his bouncy step pushing him forward. He saw me from a way off and speeded up. I couldn’t help the pleasure that gave me, to have him happy to see me. I called out to him. He was walking fast and I had to up my speed to walk with him. I asked what the police had been doing round at his. He narrowed his eyes and looked like he was trying to think back to a time impossibly long ago. ‘There was a police car parked outside your house on Monday, after school,’ I reminded him. It was coming back to him now and he started to nod.
‘They came because of the trouble. They asked me questions,’ he said.
‘What trouble Jake? What were they asking you?’
‘They asked if I’d seen anything unusual.’
‘And what did you tell them?’
‘I told them I hadn’t seen anything,’ he said.
‘Did your mum ring the police Jake?’
He shook his head. ‘It was Mrs Holt next door,’ he said.
‘Why did she ring the police?’
‘She was crying. They took loads, but she said it wasn’t the money, it was the stuff she couldn’t replace, like the letters from Mr Holt.’
‘She’d been burgled Jake?’
‘Yeah. She says she feels like her home isn’t safe any more. She was crying at our house.’
‘And that’s why the police were at your house?’
‘They were asking what was taken,’ Jake said.
I wanted to hug him.
‘Did your mum say anything to you after I’d been round Jake? Did she mention seeing me?’
He shook his head.
‘So she didn’t say anything to you on Sunday?’
‘She wasn’t well,’ he said. ‘She had a tummy bug and spent the day in her room and then at night we watched TV together.’
‘And she didn’t mention anything to you about anyone being in the house?’
He shook his head again. She was too drunk to know that a stranger had spent the night in her house with her eight-year-old son. The stupid cow. I didn’t walk with him much further. I thought it best not to risk it. I turned to head home. I was hungry for the first time in days.