The One Safe Place (51 page)

"This is Mrs. Travis, Mrs. Fancy," Angel said.

"Why say her name like that? Supposed to mean something?"

"It ought to. Her late husband had an encounter with yours and then with some of your relatives."

"Don't try to blame me for any of that. I'm not their mam."

This denial of responsibility was too much for Susanne. "But you're this boy's mother," she said, and faltered. She was almost certain she'd heard movement overhead.

Perhaps Mrs. Fancy was raising her voice to blot it out. "Don't you think I know that? I've had to put up with it for thirteen years."

"Twelve, mam."

"All right, lad, if you're so clever you do all the talking."

"Thank you, Mrs. Fancy." Angel shifted his weight only minutely, but it seemed as if he'd brought it all to bear on Darren. "Now, son, just you give me direct answers and we'll get this over quick. Where were you yesterday afternoon?"

"I was here, wasn't I, mam?"

"Don't look at me."

"That's not the way we hear it, son."

"Who's been fucking lying? I was here all day and nobody can say different."

"Someone does."

"Then they're a fucking liar. Who?"

"Who do you think it might be?"

"Mr. Shit out of your arse."

"Not too clever, Darren. Try again. Try telling the truth."

"I fucking am. I did. I was here all yesterday, never went out."

"You're asking us to believe that a lively young feller like you stays home all day when he isn't at school."

"I was—" Darren's voice trailed off, and his gaze drifted upward as though in search of inspiration. This time everyone in the room must have heard the creak of floorboards overhead. Susanne glanced at Askew to reassure herself that he was blocking any escape from the room. Darren was lowering his head to Angel, and looked more defiant than ever, but that had to be a last bluff. "You were what, son?" Angel said with a gentleness close to parental.

"I had to look after my granda. Didn't I, mam?"

"If you say so."

"I did. You know I did. I couldn't go out because you was."

His mother stared at him, pressing her lips thin and pale as though he'd shown her up. Angel let her do so for some seconds before he asked, "Where would the gentleman in question be?"

"Up in bed where he always is." Darren jerked a thumb at the ceiling. "That's him."

The boards had creaked again. Susanne felt her stiff body go limp. She shouldn't have imagined Marshall was in the house—it was surely the least logical place for the other boy to have taken him. Angel's voice seemed to have retreated some distance from her. "Your grandfather will confirm you were here, will he?"

"He doesn't know who I am half the time, him."

"Not much of a witness compared to our man. I want to give you one more chance, son. Tell us the truth and we'll go as easy as we can on you. You know why we're here, so help us."

Darren's head turned almost imperceptibly toward his mother as though he was appealing for advice. The woman didn't speak or otherwise acknowledge him. Susanne's chest began to ache from holding her breath. She tried to admit air into her lungs without making any sound that might divert his attention from what Angel had said. Then Mrs. Fancy scoffed, "What man?"

"Mrs. Fancy, if you can just—"

"I don't believe there's any man or you'd have said by now who he is. The fact is you're here because this bitch has got it in for us. You don't know what they're on about any more than I do, lad, because they don't know nothing. They're just fishing, so don't get taken for a fool."

Angel didn't try to interrupt again. He kept Darren at the centre of his gaze, and when Mrs. Fancy sprawled back in her chair to indicate she'd finished, he clapped his hands softly once before he spoke. "I wouldn't count on any of that, son. You were seen by a guard at the Arndale."

"So where is he? Why didn't you bring him?"

That was Mrs. Fancy. Susanne told herself that if she tried to shut the woman up she would only be adding to the distractions. She trapped her hands under her armpits to make herself feel restrained, just as Darren said, "It's all right, mam. He did."

His mother swung her staring face toward him and then decisively away, as if the wall deserved her attention more than he did. "Carry on, son," Angel said.

"I was at the Arndale, so he wasn't lying after all."

"That's the way. Feels better when you tell the truth, doesn't it? Now tell us the rest of it. Take your time."

"That's all."

"I don't think so, son. When were you there?"

"Afternoon."

"That's our information. Who were you with?"

"Myself."

"You would be, and who else?"

"No bugger."

"Now, son, that's not how the guard tells it. You don't want to go calling him a liar again after you were saying he was right."

"He was wrong if he says I was with anyone, and that's not all he's wrong about."

"What are you trying to tell us now, son?"

"He saw me the day before yesterday, that's when I was there. He couldn't have seen me yesterday because I told you, I was home all day with my granda."

"Is that true, Mrs. Fancy?"

"You don't expect me to call my kid a liar. He already told you I was out."

Her face was blank with defiance. She looked exactly like an overgrown child refusing to own up, Susanne thought, and gripped her hands harder with her arms, because if they pulled free she no longer knew what she might be capable of. Angel rested his gaze on the Fancys, then straightened himself away from the mantelpiece. "I think it's time we spoke to the gentleman upstairs."

"I can't stop you, I suppose. There's only one of me, and you're the police."

This was a kind of defiance too. She knew everything, Susanne was certain, otherwise there were any number of questions she would have asked by now. Askew opened the door and stepped into the hall, and Susanne followed quickly to make it harder for the Fancys to hide anything, although what could there be for them to hide? He was halfway up the stairs, and she was close behind him, when Mrs. Fancy tramped after them in a fit of anger. "Third one along," she shouted.

At the top of the stairs a bathroom gaped; along the right-hand wall were three closed doors. Askew leaned into the bathroom and surveyed it, then strode along the narrow landing as Angel arrived at the foot of the stairs, trapping Darren and his mother on them. Askew closed his hand around the last doorknob and was turning it before Mrs. Fancy started yelling, "Third one, I said, you. That's my room."

"Oh, third door. I thought you meant third bedroom." Askew opened the door as he spoke, and Susanne edged along the shaky banister so that she could see in. Had the woman tried to direct him away from the room simply because she was ashamed to have him see how she lived? Even from across the landing Susanne could smell the staleness, a mixture of cigarettes and perfume and unwashed sheets. Askew picked his way among the clothes littering the carpet and held onto one door of the wardrobe while he persuaded the other to wobble along its grooves. Having peered within, he squatted to glance under the bed, where Susanne could see there was nothing worth seeing. He gave the room a thorough scan and came out to face Mrs. Fancy, who was standing on the top stair with her legs so wide apart that the lowest surviving button on her dress was losing its grip on its hole. "This one, you mean," Askew said, moving to the next door.

"That's what I said and you know it."

Darren's head rose over the edge of the landing as he crept up one more stair. Now he would be able to see into the room, and Susanne saw him set blankness on his face. He was nervous, she was almost certain, and she felt her body grow brittle as Askew raised his fist to rap on the door. "Mr. Fancy, is it?" he said to Darren's mother.

"I wouldn't have him for my da, I'll tell you that."

Askew knuckled the flimsy panel, which looked coated with coloured oil. "Mr. Fancy? Can we speak to you?"

A series of noises responded. At first they were groans, rising in pitch, and then they formed into a word, still rising. "What? What?" they protested as Askew pushed open the door.

The smell of the room filled Susanne's throat, and she had to plant her feet more firmly in order not to sway against the banister. For a dismaying few moments the smell affected her vision, so that she was unable to distinguish the contents of the room. It resembled a long-abandoned attic more than a bedroom, and a rubbish tip more than either, but in the midst of the clutter an old man lay in a bed. His long white half-melted candle of a head wavered up to peer at the intruders, his chin bumping against his collarbone, as he wrapped his thin arms about himself. The quilt was sagging off the foot of the bed, uncovering him as far as his navel. "Come to see how I'm doing, have you?" he growled at Askew. "All the same, you bloody officers. Never there when there's fighting and then you come sniffing round to find out who's been hurt."

"It's the police, Mr. Fancy."

The old man tried to lift his head further, but his chin was already on his chest. "I've done nowt. Touched nobody. Who's been putting it round that I have?"

"This isn't about you, sir. We just want to ask you some questions. Do you know where you are?"

"What's that you want to know?"

"I'm asking you if you can tell me where this is."

"Where what is? It's like a bloody court-martial, this. Worse than being captured by the Japs, going up in front of an officer."

"I just want you to tell me where you're living now, where this house is."

"Handel Close." What Susanne took at first to be a wriggle of delight passed through the old man's undernourished frame, but he was easing himself worm-like up the creaking bed to rest his shoulders against the pillow and let his head fall back. "Ask me another. Do I get a fiver if I get them all right?"

Askew gave him a fleeting almost straight-lipped smile. "I don't mean this rudely, but would you mind telling me what day this is?"

"That's as easy as wiping your bum, that. The day after yesterday," the old man croaked, adding a cackle which turned into a cough. This was the signal—or rather, Susanne thought, the excuse—for Mrs. Fancy to intervene, hurrying along the landing to shove past Askew. "Granda, you'll be catching something undressed like that. Let's do you up."

Susanne wouldn't have allowed her in the room. Suppose she murmured to the old man what to say or silently menaced him into it? At least Askew had followed the woman, though he stopped short of the bed. She hauled the old man's pyjama jacket around his chest while he flapped his arms like a dying chicken's wings, then she seized the edge of the quilt. "Let's have this up over you. You don't want everyone looking at you in your nightie."

The quilt shifted an inch, and then something caught at it from under the foot of the bed. As she gave another tug the quilt was pinned down more firmly from beneath, and the cause of that began yapping. "Leave it, mam," Darren called over the edge of the landing, "or the dog'll get out."

Her gaze drifted toward him, passing over Askew and Susanne. "Right enough, it will," she said slowly as the yapping grew louder and more vicious. "It bites, so don't you all come crowding in here. It goes for anyone it doesn't know."

Askew retreated softly out of the door. Susanne was considering taking his place when Angel tapped Darren on the shoulder. "Just go along to your grandfather's room where he can see you. No need to talk."

He paced after Darren, not quite treading on his heels. The yapping sounded as though it was tearing the animal's throat raw. The noise—the meaninglessness of it—felt like hooks in Susanne's brain, and she couldn't help being grateful to Darren when he intervened from the doorway. "It's all right, boy. I'm here. It's Darren. Quiet now. You'll be fine."

His voice had grown progressively gentler. As he fell silent, so did the yapping. If he cared so much for an animal, Susanne thought, perhaps he wouldn't have been able to bring himself to do anything very bad to Marshall. "Mr. Fancy?" Angel said.

"Another bugger. How many more of you is there out there? Come cheaper by the dozen, do you? Trot them all on and let's have a gander."

"I'm PC Angel, Mr. Fancy, and this is PC Askew. We're—"

"They've got Phil's lad." The old man thumped the mattress with his knuckles in an attempt to raise himself. "Look, Marie, they've got Darren. You sods lay off him. Pick on someone your own size for a change."

"It's Darren we want to ask you about," Angel said.

"Ask away. Here I am, not going nowhere. He's a good lad, sits with his old granda. Never saw him do nobody no harm. Needs a bit more loving, that's all. You can see he does. Just look at his face."

"Sits with you, you said. But he wasn't doing that yesterday, was he?"

"What, was you in here watching? I don't reckon so, pal. Him and me knows he was here, don't us, Darren?"

"Ah, but which part of the day, Mr. Fancy?"

"Eh?"

The old man dug his elbows into the pillow and succeeded in cupping his hands behind his ears. Angel took a heavy step forward, and the quilt at the end of the bed stirred where it touched the floor. "Which part of the day?" Angel repeated, separating each word.

"Hard to tell in here. Haven't seen proper daylight for years, seems like."

"I see what you mean. So you'd have to say you don't know—"

"Hang on, pal. Let a man get his breath to answer. I'm saying nowt like that. Which part, every part. The lad was sitting with me all day yesterday until after it got dark."

"Excuse me for suggesting this, but I wonder if you can be sure—"

"I'm sure what bloody day it is and don't you be saying different, and I'm sure we're talking about yesterday before you ask. He was in here soon as he'd got up and had his bath because I asked him to come in, and he listened to his old granda telling tales all day about the war. He only went down for five minutes to get me a drink and a bit of bread."

"You're absolutely certain."

"Absobloodylutely. Certain as I am that I'm due for a piss if someone brings me the jerry and if they don't too."