‘Did he go to school?’
Fly shakes his head. ‘Said someone had to get the money and it wasn’t going to be Mum. He was well strict wi’ me. Said I was the clever one. I was the one readin’ all them books. I wish I didn’t now. I wished I got off my butt and helped him.’
‘Helped him how?’
‘So he could be proper – no sellin’ and dealin’ and what not.’
‘What was the “what not”?’
Fly shrugs. ‘This ’n’ that.’
‘Like what?’
‘He din tell me, he din wan me to know.’
‘Did Taylor ever mention a girl named Edith Hind?’
‘Dat girl on the news? She’s famous. She’s on telly.’ And his eyes light up, as if being dead were as nothing next to the wonder of celebrity.
‘Yes, did he know her?’
‘Nah.’
‘What do you think happened to him, Fly?’
Fly looks at her, and he is all eyes, huge black pupils, wide and vulnerable. He has a way of pushing his lips out when he sniffs that is innocence itself. ‘He say he was sorting money for us. He say what was happening now was just, well, our luck about to change. But he din want me to know his bidniss – kept everyfing away from me.’ His eyes have filled up again, the wetness un-burst this time. He has the terrified look of someone who is falling off the edge of the world. ‘He my brudder.’
‘One last question, Fly. Have you ever heard the name Tony Wright?’
He thinks. Sniffs. Shakes his head. ‘Did he hurt Taylor?’
‘We don’t know. But we’re going to find out, Fly. We’ll find out what happened to Taylor and whoever hurt him will go to prison, I promise you. What’s happening now, with you, I mean? Have the social workers told you anything?’
He shakes his head. ‘I wanna stay at school, at home wi’ Mum. I manage with what the guys at Bestco gimme. I went to a friend’s house at Christmas. I’m all right. I don’t need no care home ’n’ all dat.’
Manon sits back, looking at him. Looking and looking, her mind racing.
‘Wait there,’ she says.
At the till, the café owner is staring up at the Portuguese game show, agog.
‘A word,’ says Manon, showing the woman her badge.
She leads Manon to a corridor stacked with food and they stand with the multi-coloured slats of the doorway curtain about their shoulders like plastic hair.
‘I want you to keep a tab for that boy over there,’ says Manon. ‘Give him whatever he wants to eat, whenever he wants it, and send the bill to me. I can give you card details as surety.’
‘Is OK, your job. You will pay,’ says the woman, smiling. ‘He just a boy. I feed him no problem.’
‘Right,’ Manon says to Fly when she gets back to the table. ‘Come on, we’re going to buy you a coat.’
‘Davy,’ she says. She’s gasping for breath, leaning against a wall, the phone to her ear. She’s looking at the dirty Cricklewood sky, opaque as wool. She cannot seem to get a full lungful. ‘Davy,’ she gasps.
‘Calm down, Sarge. What is it?’
‘We’ve got to help him.’
‘Who? Help who?’
‘Taylor’s brother, Fly. He’s in a shithole and his mum’s out of it, and no one’s feeding him, not now Taylor’s gone. Davy, he’s going to get taken into care. He’s ten.’ She feels dizzy with the lack of oxygen. A bus roars past and she cannot breathe because she’s whipped about by a grey fog of exhaust fumes, unnaturally warm. ‘Social workers are onto him. You remember what that woman said from child protection – what was her name?’
‘Sheila Berridge,’ says Davy. ‘Didn’t think you were listening.’
‘Fine, Davy, fine. I’ve changed my tune. What can we do?’
‘Care’s not always bad. Sometimes it’s better than where they are.’
‘D’you believe that?’
‘Course I do. I’m not saying it’s lovely. I’m not saying it’s mum and dad and roast chicken for Sunday lunch. But people get through it. It’s dry, there’s food. He might get a decent foster family.’
‘Or he might get shoved into a massive care home which is stalked by paedos. I just want someone – a teacher, education welfare, anyone – to keep an eye on him, that’s all. Free school meals, I dunno. Taylor fed him and now …’
‘All right, all right,’ says Davy. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll talk to my mentoring buddy. See if she can’t pull a few strings down there. When did you turn so soft?’
Miri am
‘Iaaaan!’ she shouts up the stairs as she makes for the front door, rubbing her hands and thinking she must put the heating on. Their thermostat timer has not been adjusted to all these bodies being home during the daytime.
Miriam opens the front door and there is DS Bradshaw, a rumpled mass of black clothing, a capacious bag dropping off one shoulder. Her curls are pushed back from her forehead. She half-smiles a hello.