I trickled along in second gear, reading the street names, steering round the litter and scavenging dogs. Dickens Avenue. Kipling Drive.
Tolstoy Grove. Tolstoy? How did he get in here?
There it was Chesterton Court. Number 23 was marginally better than the average: the gate worked, the windows were made of glass and grass managed to exist in the garden. A few broken kids' toys were scattered about.
A heavily pregnant girl answered the door. I said: "Is Eddie in?"
She looked scared. "I dunno, I'll see," she said, starting to close the door.
"Are you Marie?" I asked.
"Er, yeah. Who are you?"
"Inspector Priest. I arrested Eddie six years ago. Met you then. Let me in, love."
Eddie was slumped in an armchair, watching a black American woman tell her shrieking audience about the time she was date-raped by the spiritual leader of the Mississippi Morons. A little girl aged about six was sitting next to him. He looked up as I entered.
"Hello, Eddie. Charlie Priest. Nice place you have here." It was reasonably tidy inside.
"What do you want?" he grumbled morosely.
"Mind if I sit down? Just a little chat. Could we have the telly off, please?"
Marie followed me in and sat protectively alongside him, as if she were his mother. When I'd first seen her she was sixteen, and looked like an angel. She could have gone in any direction she chose, had she known the options. But she didn't, and fell into the same one as all her friends: get married to the first yob you meet with a prick bigger than his IQ and have kids, not necessarily in that order. Now she was twenty-two, pushing fifty, and lumbered with a short-arsed layabout who had all the personality of a used tyre. It depressed me. Given another chance, I think I would dedicate my life towards steering sixteen-year-old girls away from idiots like him and towards a loftier lifestyle. The sugar daddy could have an important role to play in society; he should be sponsored by the community tax. I didn't understand what it was, but maybe I was also a little jealous of the attraction Eddie held for her.
"This is your daughter?" I said, nodding towards Marie mark two, already doomed to a life of poverty and hardship.
"Yes."
"Hello."
She glowered at me. Ah, well, you can woo 'em all.
"Do you think she could go up to her room?" I suggested.
Grant patted her backside, pushing her towards the door. "Go play outside, Shelley," he told her.
When she had gone I said: "You must have brought her up yourself, Marie."
"Yes, I did, until she was four."
"That can't have been easy."
She shrugged, as if to say: You didn't think of that when you banged her daddy up for ten years.
Eddie Grant had robbed a series of banks and building societies at gunpoint. It was only an air gun but he'd fired it once or twice, and a young girl cashier had lost an eye. He'd also pistol-whipped a customer who'd had a go at him. He was a vicious piece of work. When the judge sent him down he left the dock swearing to kill me and my wife and kids. He said he knew where I lived, and he'd hunt me down for as long as it took. As I was in the middle of expensive divorce proceedings at the time, it didn't perturb me. But he'd served his five, after time off, and was back on the streets again. And somebody was trying to kill me.
"Right, Eddie," I said. "Where were you at nine o'clock on Friday night?"
"Friday night?"
"Uh-uh."
"Dunno."
"You'll have to try harder than that."
"Er, Mr. Priest?"
"Yes?"
"I read about the shooting in the paper. You don't fink it was me, do yer?"
"You said you would kill me, so convince me you weren't having a go.
Where were you on Friday?"
"I s'pose we was 'ere. Together."
"That's right," Marie announced. "We can't afford to go out, and can't get no baby-sitters since we moved 'ere."
"Can anybody else confirm this?"
They shook their heads.
"Why did you move here?" I asked.
"To get away from "Eckley," he replied. "We was in wiv a bad crowd.
Drugs an' stuff. That's why I did the banks. All that I said in court them freats — I was off my 'ead at the time. I'd 'ad some stuff the night before. Pills. Don't ask me what they was. An' Marie was pregnant. And when 'e said ten years it just blew my 'cad. I didn't mean anyfing."
"Have you a job?"
"Now and again."
"What doing?"
"RoofinV
It's always roofing.
Marie said: "Would you like a cup of tea?"
I shook my head. "No thanks, Marie." I turned to him. "There's plenty of drugs around Towncroft, Eddie. Are you managing to stay away from them?"
He nodded. Marie said she made sure he did. We made small talk, mainly about how they were settling in a strange town. After a while Eddie said: "Mr. Priest?"
"That's me."
"When I was inside, this last time, they put me wiv this old lag; 'e was about forty. I was braggin' about what I'd do to you, playing the big man. He told me to shut up. "E said that if you deserve it, you should serve it. Then 'e said that 'e knew you. "E said you was all right; not bent like all the rest. It wasn't me, Mr. Priest, I promise it wasn't."
I stood up to leave, saying: "I'm touched, Eddie." At the door I added: "But I'm not impressed. If you think of anything, anything at all, let me know. Maybe we can do business." I pointed a finger at Marie's belly and smiled. "Good luck," I said. She didn't smile back, and why should she? I'd only accused her husband of attempted murder and given him a veiled invite to become a grass, to add to their other problems.
Shelley was drawing pictures in the dirt on my car. I winked at her and drove off, back to my world, on the other side of the universe.
My intention was to call at the General and see Annabelle again, but I reluctantly decided not to. She wasn't expecting me, and I only encouraged her to talk, aggravating her sore throat. Rest would do her more good.
Two reporters were waiting on my doorstep. They were local, and were hoping for an update for the Heckley and District Weekly, due out on Thursday, although I knew that anything juicy that they gathered would immediately be syndicated. I invited them in for a coffee and repeated what they already knew. They had nothing to tell me.
My appetite had returned. A new take away was open on this side of town, so I gave it a try. I had chicken bhuna, with pilau rice and a couple of chap atis washed down by a brace of lagers. The list was on the table. I drew a line through Eddie Grant, then modified it with a question mark. I put another next to the one already against the ABC entry and scanned the also-rans, but nothing obvious jumped out at me.
When I looked out of the bedroom window the car was parked down the road again. I slipped my trainers on and went outside, through the back door. I climbed over the fence and sneaked down my neighbour's garden, narrowly avoiding falling into his new goldfish pond. Back on the street, I turned right, and right again at the end. I was now approaching the car from behind. When I reached it I opened the passenger's door and got in.
"Evenin', Dave," I said.
"Evenin', Charlie," Sparky replied.
"Does Gilbert know you're mucking up his overtime allowance?"
"This is extracurricular."
"Good. Seen anything?"
"Yeah. The woman next to you doesn't draw the curtains when she goes to bed."
"Well, thank God there isn't a window at my side. She frightens me to death when she's fully dressed." We sat in silence for a while. I said: "You're getting on better with Nigel these days. I'm glad about that."
"He's OK," Sparky concurred. From him it was the equivalent of an Academy Award.
"I forgot to ask. Did Sophie get the results she wanted?"
He chuckled. "Let me down. She got five As and three Bs. I'd told her straight Ds, or else. Looks like she's going to cost me a fortune."