‘Don’t just want toast,’ he complained.
‘I saw a chippie down the way. I’ll go, give you a chance to try the intercom when I get back.’
‘Sound!’ He grinned like it was a game.
‘Change your clothes and shoes first, put everything you are wearing now in these.’ She gave each of them evidence sacks and passed them the bags of new gear.
‘I’m not going out like this,’ Connor moaned when he re-emerged. ‘What are these – Primark?’ He stuck out a foot in a blue and black trainer.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Rachel said.
Gloria didn’t want anything to eat, but Connor asked for chicken and chips, or sausage, chips and gravy. And Coke. Rachel wondered if she could claim it on expenses.
She let herself out, put the evidence bags in the car and walked along past the lawyers’ and accountants’ offices, shielding her cigarette from the wind and rain to light it.
She wondered if there was a link between the attack on Shirelle and this one. All three targets – Shirelle, Gloria and Connor – were on the fringes of the case, close to potential main players. Shirelle knew the murder victims and worked with Keane, who might be a suspect. Connor also knew the dead couple, well enough to tell Rachel that Shirelle had dated Victor. And Gloria was married to a man who was now a candidate for the killing of the two young people. A man with access to weapons and with accelerant on his gloves.
When she got back to the safe house she pressed the intercom.
‘Who is it?’ Connor’s voice crackled.
‘It’s me, you daft git, let me in.’
‘Not if you’re calling me names,’ he said.
‘I’ll eat your chips then, shall I?’
He buzzed her in.
While Connor ate in front of the telly, Gloria sat in the kitchen, smoking and drinking tea. Her earlier shock and exhaustion gave way to a burst of anger when she said to Rachel, ‘This is him, isn’t it? Greg, it’s because of him?’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘What else can it be?’ she hissed.
‘We’re trying to establish what Mr Tandy has been doing. If you can help-’
‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head sharply. ‘All I know is he was shooting his fucking mouth off after that tramp got killed and I told him I didn’t want to hear it. He could go. So he did. No argument. We hadn’t been getting on since he came out, not for a long while before that.’
‘What was he saying about the tramp?’
‘How it was a good thing, people like that scrounging off the rest of us, scum of the earth. He’d like to shake the hand of whoever did it. He was pissed,’ she added. ‘Not like it was a Muslim, is it?’
‘Kavanagh?’ Rachel said.
‘Yeah. Not a terrorist, a Paki. I could understand that. Coming over here and blowing stuff up. Forced marriages. Grooming our kids. And they’re dirty.’
Rachel didn’t know where to start with that little lot. Didn’t even try. ‘So you argued?’
‘I’d had enough. He’d only been home a week and I knew he was up to something. I don’t want Connor going the same way.’
Rachel remembered Connor’s earlier comments, ‘They all look the same to me, niggers.’ A chip off the old block.
‘Connor wanted to go with him. They don’t get it at that age. You try and keep them steady but-’
‘You wouldn’t let him?’
‘No. To God knows where, and with the probation after Greg once they find out he’s not at home. Anyway…’ She ground out her cigarette and as if on automatic took the ashtray and emptied it into the bin. ‘… I said I wasn’t having it so then I’m in the doghouse with Connor, and Greg goes and makes it ten times worse by saying that he didn’t need a kid hanging round his neck, whining all day. And now this – whatever he’s done.’
Rachel didn’t give her anything. Better not to say.
‘That’s it,’ Gloria said. ‘If he’s brought this down on us, he can forget it. I’ll divorce him.’
‘What about Marcus Williams or Stanley Keane?’ Rachel said. ‘Did Greg say anything about them? Could they have been behind the attack?’
‘No, he never said anything about anybody,’ Gloria insisted.
Rachel went over the precautions with them one more time before she left. ‘You are not under house arrest, you are here for your own protection. You can go out, though I’d advise you to stay here as much as possible. Do not go anywhere you may be recognized. That means staying away from home, work, family, friends, school. Yes?’
‘Cool,’ Connor smiled.
Gloria rolled her eyes. ‘How long for?’
‘I don’t know. We need to identify the threat. If you do speak to anyone on the phone do not reveal your whereabouts.’
Rachel sat outside in her car and rang in. Godzilla answered.
‘Rachel. Everyone all right?’
‘Yes, boss, settled in for the night.’
‘Good. We’ve recovered several bullets from the scene.’
‘Any witnesses?’ Rachel said.
‘None. All too busy tucked up watching the soaps.’
‘I’ve got the clothes to log in,’ Rachel said. ‘Boss, I didn’t get to talk to the neighbours about Tandy’s recent movements.’
‘Briefing tomorrow, we’ll look at that then.’
Another inch, Rachel thought, a different angle of entry and they would have had another fatality on their hands, a scrappy, mouthy fourteen-year-old, shot watching TV.
27
Rachel had been brooding about Sean blabbing to her mother for twenty-four hours. It all came to a head as soon as she got in. He started wittering on about tomorrow’s football and where to watch it, like nothing was wrong. Even Sean must have noticed the god-awful atmosphere last night and her mother’s sudden departure from the pub.
‘How could you tell Sharon about Dom, about me turning him in?’ Rachel said. ‘That was private.’
‘But she’s your mam,’ Sean said, ‘Dom’s too.’
‘In name only. You had no right!’
‘Rachel, please, calm down.’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down.’
‘I thought she knew, knew he was in prison, I thought you’d have told her.’
‘That I fucking put him there? And now she’s playing the bloody martyr, the saint. Blood is thicker than water. You look out for your own. Fucking hypocrite.’
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but at least it’s out in the open.’
He really did not get it. He thought shoving people back together again meant they’d all play happy families. He did not see the Baileys were more your Jeremy Kyle-style family. Fractured and fucking hopeless. She should never have married him. The thought was like a knife, swift, lancing through her. Oh God. She felt awful, disloyal, and cruel. Don’t be daft, she told herself, give it time.
‘You know what she’s like,’ she was saying, ‘a bloody disaster.’
‘She’s not all bad,’ he said.
‘I can’t be doing with her, Sean, every time I turn round she’s here, wanting things, talking-’ She didn’t know how to make him see it.
‘She’s missed a lot,’ he said.
‘And whose fault is that?’
‘But it’s water under the bridge, isn’t it? Think of the future.’
She didn’t want to. ‘I need to take it more slowly,’ she said, ‘small doses, you know?’
‘OK.’ He sounded reluctant.
‘So don’t encourage her. If she comes round, tell her we’re busy or we’re going out.’
He looked pained. For all his street smarts Sean was rubbish at lying, at playing games.
‘Though we probably won’t see her for a bit, the way we left things. Least not till she’s running short,’ Rachel said.
Sean nodded, pulled her close, kissed her. Rachel felt uncomfortable, too hot, and twitchy. She drew away. ‘Think I’ll have a run,’ she said.
‘Now?’
‘Wind down.’
‘What’s wrong with the sofa, Thai chicken curry?’