For a moment she didn’t take in what he’d said. She knew he went into the Coble occasionally, but she didn’t like it. Stuart had once said in his dry, practical way: ‘Boys that age are going to drink anyway. Better that they do it in the pub where there are other adults around.’ Her worry, which she’d never discussed with Stuart, was about where Ryan got the money from for drink. She gave him an allowance, but would that run to pub prices? She knew Malcolm Kerr paid him, but Ryan always seemed to have cash. Deep down she was anxious that he’d started thieving. It was as if she had a stranger in the house. She remembered the small, affectionate boy who’d held her hand when they walked to the park, but this stylish young man bore no resemblance.

Then the shock of another killing hit her and her concern about Ryan seemed petty.

‘What did you say?’

Ryan seemed sober, but hyper, and he repeated the words with a kind of repressed excitement that made her feel ill.

Stuart seemed not to notice the boy’s reaction. ‘Do you know who the victim was?’

‘Some woman,’ Ryan said. ‘She drinks in the Coble and lives in Percy Street. Dee Robson they call her.’

Kate recognized the name and remembered that Margaret had talked about her. One of her waifs. Dee needs someone to look after her, and all they can do is call her names.

‘We’re waiting for the late local news.’ Chloe was wearing the same black knitted jumper as she’d had on for school; it was too big for her, and she seemed to disappear inside it. She was drinking a mug of tea.

There was a strained silence. Kate was quite sober now, but she couldn’t find anything appropriate to say.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Stuart said at last. ‘Anyone else want a brew?’

But nobody answered because the local news came on the television and there were the flats in Percy Street, with blue-and-white police tape stretched around the lamp posts, and scientists in white suits and masks making their way to the door. Even Stuart paused on his way to the kitchen to watch.

Chapter Twenty

Joe Ashworth found Vera still standing outside the flat in Percy Street when he arrived, as if she’d been fixed there since calling in the murder, waiting for him to arrive. He knew that she’d be upset. Something about Dee Robson had moved her. She could be as callous as hell, but occasionally she connected with a witness and, when that happened, she would move heaven and earth to help them. The objects of her pity were usually loners, clumsy, despised. And fat, Joe thought, grinning to himself despite the situation. Much like Vera herself.