Movement and then the boy, bare-chested, in bare feet, jeans hanging low, boxers visible, trotted downstairs. The scrape on his arm and the cut on his cheek scabbed over.
‘What?’
‘We’re looking for your dad,’ said Mitch.
‘Not here,’ the boy said.
‘You know where he is?’ Rachel asked.
A shrug, ‘No.’
He didn’t give a toss, Rachel thought, then she saw the bravado of his gaze slip momentarily and she realized he was unnerved, scared. She decided to push him.
‘I’ll ask you again, Connor, do you know where your dad is?’
‘No,’ he said hotly, ‘I told you.’
His mother intervened. ‘He doesn’t. I don’t. That’s the truth.’
Something off-key, Rachel thought. What? Do they really know where he is?
Mitch obviously picked up on the atmosphere too. ‘You won’t have any objection to me checking that Mr Tandy isn’t in the house?’
‘You calling us liars?’ Connor said.
‘Connor,’ his mother said sharply, ‘leave it! Go ahead,’ she said to Mitch.
Rachel followed and they scanned each room upstairs and down, finding no other occupants.
‘Look, I have to get to work,’ Gloria Tandy said.
‘Thanks, we’re done here,’ Rachel said.
‘There’s pizza in the freezer,’ his mother told Connor. ‘Here,’ she got money from her purse, ‘get some milk.’
She dithered for a moment, uneasy about leaving them with the boy. So Rachel nodded to Mitch and they made a move outside. Mrs Tandy got into her own car, a tatty-looking Ford, and turned the engine over several times before it started.
Connor emerged on his bike. He hesitated for a moment at the pavement’s edge then bounced his front wheel up and down.
‘What do you want him for anyway?’ he said, squinting a little. The sky was bright, the sun struggling to break through the clouds.
‘Just want to talk,’ Mitch said.
‘He might be able to help us,’ Rachel said.
‘About that murder?’
‘You heard anything about that?’ Rachel said.
‘I’m not a grass,’ the boy said quickly.
‘So you have?’ He looked down at his bike, twisted the handlebars this way and that. ‘You picked someone up, it said on the telly. Is it the Perrys?’
The names had not been disclosed but it must have been easy enough for Connor to guess the ‘two twenty-two-year-old men’ were the twins, given their reputations and previous conviction for arson.
‘Why would you think that?’ Rachel said, seeing if he’d let something slip.
‘A friend of mine, she seen them being arrested. Everyone knows it was them. It is, isn’t it?’
Neither Mitch nor Rachel replied.
Connor sniffed, ducked his head and hawked on the pavement. Nice.
‘How come people think the Perrys are involved?’ Rachel said.