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?’