As he hauled the pleading Curtis around the back of the block, the chain swinging from his free hand, RiRi walking beside him, he remembered someone else who needed to be taught a lesson. That little rich bitch. He’d told Larry to give her the warning but hadn’t seen or heard from either of them since.

He made a mental note to do something about it. To get a message to her. Just as soon as he’d finished with this muppet who’d dissed his dog.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12
Patrick – Day 3

The woman who opened the door of the narrow terraced two-up two-down had probably been beautiful once. It was there in the way she held herself, a sense memory from her past in which every man she encountered would look her up and down. Life had worn her down, though, as surely as the tide turns pebbles to sand. She had blonde hair with the roots showing and her eyes were dull behind thick-framed glasses.

‘Yeah?’ she said.

Patrick showed her his warrant card, Carmella echoing him. Patrick said, ‘Detective Inspector Patrick Lennon. Trisha Gould? We’re looking for your son, Larry.’

She hesitated and Patrick cut off the lie. ‘We know he’s in, Mrs Gould. We just saw him come in the door. Unless you have another teenage boy visiting.’

‘What’s it about?’

Carmella stepped forward. On the drive over, she had been unusually quiet and the whites of her eyes had a pink tinge as if she’d been crying or had a sleepless night. He knew he should have asked her but he was bloody useless at things like that, about delving into the touchy-feely. Gill had always laughed at how he would do anything to swerve away from conversations about emotions. If he wanted to say something important to her, tell her he was hurting about something, he would put a record on that covered the way he was feeling, hoping she would take the hint and find some magical way of making it better.

‘We need to talk to your son,’ Carmella said in her most no-nonsense tone, and Trisha Gould sighed and beckoned them in.

Larry Gould was slouched on the sofa with a paperback novel in his hands. He turned his face towards them, a picture of innocence. He was seventeen, a handsome lad, with short hair and a gold earring. His expression was neutral, like he’d been expecting them. Patrick guessed that Alice must have told him they’d been asking about him.

His mum stood behind them as Patrick said, ‘What’s the book? Any good?’

Larry held it so they could see the cover. To Kill a Mockingbird.

‘Great book,’ Carmella said warmly. ‘Is that homework?’