boy was still asleep, the television off now, just the flicker of the oil-lamp for company.
He leaned forward, watched the rise and fall of his chest, the slight movement of his lips as he breathed. He looked angelic, young and untroubled, a long way from the problems at home. In that light, unaware of his surroundings, he was just another young boy.
He scuffed his feet on the floor, the noise of his soles in the dust loud, as if the surroundings weren’t used to sound. The walls were thick with cobwebs, the ones above the oil-lamp dancing in the heat of the flame, grey flicks as they waved in the half-light.
He stood up and stretched. He knew he couldn’t stay there all day. He knew the boy would be all right. There was still enough sedative in him to keep him quiet until the next morning. Just one more night and then it would all be better.
He leaned over the boy, watched his face for a moment. His hand reached down and moved the boy’s hair to one side, as if to keep it out of his eyes. He smiled, almost paternal, and then leaned forward to kiss him on the forehead. His lips touched softly, just a light brush.
He would be back, to make things right.
‘I always knew there was money in property,’ said Pete.
Laura looked up, and through the windscreen she saw what he meant.
They were approaching a pair of high steel gates sitting between brick pillars, the central point of long brick walls that surrounded a house she could see at the top of a sweeping gravel drive.
The house stood out as a blemish in a quiet green valley, Laura thought. It was too new for the setting, the ivy planted around the base of the walls not up to the ground-floor windows, so that the brickwork still gleamed. Maybe in a hundred years or so, when the roof had dipped in a few places and the walls had weathered darker, it would look desirable, but Laura thought that it seemed more lottery-win than country-set.
Pete had to bark stern words at the intercom to get the gate to open, but within a couple of minutes his tyres crunched on the gravel and they had parked in front of the large oak double doors at the front of the house. Jimmy King stood on the front doorstep. He was wearing a shirt open at the neck, but the rest of his attire was smart, with crisp pleats in his pinstriped trousers and a deep gleam to his shoes.
‘What are you doing here?’ he barked.
‘Good afternoon, Mr King,’ said Laura, stepping ahead of Pete, guessing that her diplomatic skills would be better than his. ‘We are currently holding your son, Luke, at Blackley police station, and we just need to have a look around.’
‘Do you have a warrant?’
‘Do I need one?’ It was a clichéd question, but it usually worked.
Jimmy King paused for a moment, and then stepped forward to block Laura’s way. ‘Yes, you do,’ he said, before turning around and walking back into the house.
Laura and Pete exchanged looks, and before she could stop him, Pete was bounding up the steps to the front doors, large and imposing, a stone above the entrance engraved with a motto: Strength in Unity. Pete jammed his foot in just as the door was about to close.
Pete grinned. ‘No, we don’t.’ When Jimmy King stepped back, surprised, Pete continued, ‘Your son is under arrest and we have the authority of an inspector to be here, so we can do it with or without your co-operation.’
‘Which inspector?’
Pete shook his head. ‘That doesn’t concern you. So it’s arrest or search. Which do you fancy?’
‘I’ve met bully-boys like you before,’ said Jimmy, his face impassive, his voice cold. ‘You need to remember that it’s only a job, that you’ll want to go home at night and forget about it.’ His look hardened. ‘I don’t forget anything.’
Pete glared at him. ‘And I’ve met plenty like you before,’ he said, and pushed past him and into the house.
Laura shook her head. She admired Pete’s style, but she wondered how many complaints he could fend off and stay in the job.
When they went in, Laura saw how unlike a country house it was. There were no panelled walls or dark corners, no oak beams across the ceilings. Instead, the light almost bounced its way around the house as it streamed through large windows and off the gold stripes on the wallpaper. The stairs went up out of the hall and fanned out to both sides of the house. Laura thought she saw a chaise longue at the top, below a large window that streamed light down into the hall. The rooms on either side of her were carpeted in pristine cream, and flowers adorned every spare piece of surface. It made Laura realise how much she had to do in her own home, with so many boxes still unpacked and none of the rooms in colours she liked.
Laura was pulled back to the reason for the visit by Dawson’s growl.
‘Where’s Luke’s car, the blue Audi?’
Jimmy King stared at them both for a few seconds, and then sat down. ‘I thought this was a search,’ he said, his fingers together, steepled upwards. ‘So find it then.’
‘I’ll show you,’ said a female voice from the top of the stairs.
Laura looked up and saw a woman in her late fifties, with bottle-blonde hair swept back into a tight wave. She was wearing a yellow jumper, her shirt collar up, and a string of pearls, like a woman who ached to be accepted for what she would like to be, higher up the social scale than everyone else. It was the unpleasant rise to her smile that gave her away, looking down on Laura like she was trying to sell her lucky heather.
Laura glanced towards the pictures on the wall, dominated by a family portrait: the success story with his society wife and his two perfect boys. Luke King was the youngest, and he looked nervous in the gaze of the lens. The woman at the centre of the picture, sitting on a throne-style chair, was the woman now coming down the stairs towards Laura.
Laura smiled. ‘Thank you.’
Mrs King nodded as she passed and then walked towards the back of the house, through a large kitchen full of the stainless-steel trappings that looked like they cost as much as Laura earned in a year, and then into a brick-built conservatory filled with wicker furniture and pot plants.
As they stepped into the garden, Laura saw someone watching them from the end of the lawn, a tall, dark-haired man, lean and fit in his jeans and T-shirt. But he headed off to a brick workshop tucked away into a corner as soon as he saw them. Laura watched him as he padlocked it and then headed back to where he had just been, pocketing the key as he went.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Laura.
Mrs King followed her gaze and then said, ‘Danut, our gardener and handyman.’
‘Danut?’
‘He’s Romanian.’
‘Has he worked for you for long?’
‘Started at the beginning of the summer.’
As Laura watched Danut, she noticed how he avoided her gaze, how he seemed suddenly engrossed in putting his tools away.
‘He’s a good worker,’ continued Mrs King, seeing that Laura was watching
