‘Would you be looking for something specific?’ Donna asks.
‘I shouldn’t have thought so,’ says Joanna. ‘Would we be looking for something specific, Paul?’
‘I shouldn’t have thought so,’ says Paul.
‘There you have it,’ says Joanna. ‘Neither of us should have thought so.’
‘Just access for Paul?’ says Donna. ‘Not for your mum, not for Elizabeth?’
Joanna gives the slightest of shrugs. ‘Well, I suppose that’s up to Paul, isn’t it, Paul?’
‘Just for me,’ says Paul. ‘Joyce can beg but I won’t be broken.’
Joanna and Donna share a look.
‘In return for letting you know about the Bitcoin,’ says Joanna. ‘Only seems fair.’
‘I can’t,’ says Donna. ‘I –’
‘I’ll tell you what, then,’ says Joanna. ‘Why don’t I phone Fairhaven police station right now, let them know you’re here. I mean they already know, of course, but I’ll let them know we’ve been talking and –’
‘Okay,’ says Donna. ‘Your wish is my etcetera.’
‘I thought it might be,’ says Joanna.
Donna’s phone starts to ring and she looks at the number. She holds up her hand in apology and takes the call. After a few nods and a ‘yeah’ and a ‘gotcha’, she stands.
‘Jesus,’ she says. ‘Someone just tried to shoot Jason Ritchie. I need to get to work.’
‘You’re already at work,’ says Paul again, but Donna is halfway out of the door.
49
You shouldn’t listen in on conversations, Kendrick knows that, but the flat is quite small. He supposes he could put his headphones on, but the wire is knotted together and would take ages to undo. So here he is.
The police arrived five minutes ago. Chris and Donna – he’d met them before. Uncle Jason told them he didn’t want to speak to them, and they said that it would be in everybody’s best interests if he did, and then Grandad said that, well, it wouldn’t be in his best interests, and Donna asked if that was the butt of a marijuana joint in Grandad’s ashtray, and Grandad said, ‘Heaven forbid you ever suffer from arthritis, Donna,’ and Donna said, ‘Heaven forbid we have to arrest you both for possession,’ and Grandad waved Kendrick in and said he and Tia should go to the spare bedroom. Kendrick said, ‘Good, I can do some homework,’ but he’d already finished his homework, so that’s another reason he is listening to the conversation. It is always interesting listening to adults talking when they don’t know you’re listening.
‘Somebody shot through your front door in broad daylight,’ says Chris. ‘And I know a thing or two about firearms these days.’
‘I certainly heard something,’ agrees Jason. ‘I’ll take your word about what that was.’
‘Your neighbours reported you and Kendrick fleeing over your back fence and into woodland,’ says Donna.
Kendrick likes being mentioned.
Uncle Jason takes a moment before answering. ‘We go for a walk when Kendrick finishes his homework.’
Not true, but Kendrick would like that. There are pine cones behind Uncle Jason’s house.
‘Why is Kendrick staying with you?’ Chris asks.
‘That sounds like family business,’ says Grandad. ‘Not police business.’
That’s true, Kendrick thinks. Kendrick knows that the police are important, and that they do a difficult job, but he trusts Grandad and Uncle Jason more than he trusts Chris and Donna. A policeman once came to their school and talked about the dangers of drugs, but Kendrick saw him having a cigarette afterwards and had called out to him that he knew it wasn’t his business, but nicotine was actually a drug too, and the policeman had looked at him and said, ‘I’m off the clock, son,’ and kept smoking.
‘Jason,’ says Chris, ‘let us help you. Do you know who shot at you?’
‘It was Amazon at the door,’ says Grandad. ‘Perhaps it was them.’
Grandad is being cheeky here, Kendrick knows that.
‘I’m not a Prime member,’ says Uncle Jason. ‘Perhaps that upset them.’
‘I heard Danny Lloyd has skipped town,’ says Chris. ‘What would you know about that?’
It’s funny when you hear your dad’s name read out in full.
‘Is that why Kendrick’s with you?’ Donna asks. ‘A family falling-out?’
Kendrick thinks of his mum’s eye, black and swollen. It will stay in his mind far longer than the image of his mum pointing a gun. ‘Falling-out’ didn’t seem the right way to describe it.
‘Did he send someone to shoot you?’ Chris asks.
Kendrick wonders if this is true. It probably is, isn’t it? Dad sending someone to shoot at Uncle Jason. What if they’d shot Kendrick by mistake?
Kendrick hears his grandad standing up. ‘You know I like you both, you know that. But you know we can’t talk to you.’
‘Just talk to us as friends, Ron,’ says Chris. ‘Give us a steer. There’s someone out on the streets with a gun. Help us track him down.’
His grandad sighs. ‘I can’t, Chrissy boy, I just can’t.’
‘We don’t grass,’ says Uncle Jason. ‘I’d ask that you respect our culture.’
‘We don’t grass.’ Kendrick has been brought up knowing that. Don’t talk to the police. It’s not something he’s had to worry about until now. Surely Chris and Donna could help? Surely you can tell the police if someone’s done something bad? It’s a confusing one.
‘Don’t be so boring, Jason,’ says Donna. ‘It’s the twenty-first century. You’re not the Kray Twins.’
Kendrick is sure he’s heard of the Kray Twins. Are they those two blond YouTubers?
‘You’ve helped us before,’ says Chris. ‘We’ve worked together.’
‘You’re not dealing with the Thursday Murder Club any more,’ says Grandad. ‘You’re dealing with the Ritchie family.’
Kendrick wonders if he will be a Ritchie now, and not a Lloyd. He’d like that.
‘Don’t do anything stupid, Ron,’ says Chris. ‘If somebody kills you, I’ll have Elizabeth on the phone.’
Chris is saying this with a little laugh, but Kendrick also hears that he’s worried. Kendrick doesn’t think that anyone will kill Grandad, but if a policeman is worried, perhaps he should be too? If his dad is gone forever, and Kendrick dearly hopes that he is, his family is quite small now. Mum, and Uncle Jason and Grandad. What if one of Kendrick’s jobs is to keep everybody safe?
‘Last chance, Ron,’ says Donna. ‘Please, let’s all help each other.’
‘Sorry, Donna,’ Grandad says. ‘You know how we feel. Talking to the police is the worst crime of all.’
Kendrick is proud that his grandad is so strong, but something is niggling at him. Because, while he knows that talking to the police is wrong, he also knows now that it’s not the worst crime of all.
50
‘Do you suppose you and Donna will get married?’ says Elizabeth, as Bogdan takes down a light fitting in her kitchen.
‘Maybe if she asks,’ says Bogdan.
‘Perhaps she’s waiting for you to ask,’ says Elizabeth.
‘No,’ says Bogdan, taking the new fitting out of a John Lewis box. ‘She’s in charge of that sort of thing.’
‘I see,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And what sort of thing are you in charge of?’
Bogdan shrugs. ‘The bins, I suppose. And being in love with her.’
‘Oh, yuck,’ says Elizabeth.
Bogdan clips the new light into place. ‘How much you pay for this?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It was on the website.’