“I won’t keep you long,” Gerry said, when she had her mug of tea in one hand and her pen in another, the notebook open on her knee. While she questioned them, she looked primarily at Sean, whom she knew was the elder of the two by several weeks, and who appeared to be the leader. “Do you often play down on Hollyfield Lane?”

Neither boy said anything at first. They glanced shiftily at one another and eventually Sean said, with a guilty glance toward his father, “We’re not supposed to go down there. But we weren’t doing any harm.”

“There are all sorts of dubious characters on the streets,” Sean’s father added.

“But you do go, sometimes, right?” Gerry insisted.

Sean nodded. “Most of the houses are empty now,” he said. “We thought that one was empty.”

“We like to play in the empty houses,” Luke added.

Sean gave him a withering look.

“That’s all right,” Gerry said. “I was the same when I was a girl.”

Both boys stared at her open-mouthed, as if they couldn’t believe that a girl would be brave or adventurous enough to play the way they did.

“Believe me,” Gerry went on, “you’re not in any trouble for going in there.” She glanced at the parents. “Not from me, at any rate.”

“He won’t be going anywhere for a few weeks,” Mr. Bancroft said, through clenched teeth.

“Had you seen the man on the mobility scooter before?” Gerry asked.

“Dunno,” said Sean. “I mean, we didn’t get a really good look at him, did we, Luke?”

Luke shook his head. “We legged it,” he said.

“And it was pretty dark in there.”

“So you don’t know if you’ve ever seen him before?”

“There’s a bloke on a mobility scooter with long hair and a beard like his who comes in the park sometimes.”

“What?” said Mr. Bancroft. “In our park?” He glanced at Gerry. “It’s at the bottom of the hill,” he explained. “Just a small park, like. But our kiddies play there. There’s been trouble about people from the old estate hanging around there before. There was a convicted pedophile—”

“A park’s a public place, Mr. Bancroft,” Gerry said. “Hard to keep people out. But I get your point.” She turned to Sean again. “What was he doing when you saw him in the park?”

“Nothing,” said Sean.

“Just sitting there,” Luke added.

“On his scooter?”

“No. On a bench. He’d have it beside him. The scooter. He could walk, but not very much.”

“Did he ever say anything to you or any of the other children?”

“No. He’d usually be reading a book or something.”

“Did you ever see him with anyone else, talking to anyone?”

“No. He was always by himself.”

“Did you hear about that young lad we found on the East Side Estate yesterday?” she asked.

“The boy in the bin?” said Luke, parroting a Daily Mail headline.

“That’s the one.” Gerry took the computer-generated photograph from her briefcase and showed it to them. “That’s what he looked like. Did you ever see him while you were playing?”