“Kid’s been in trouble since he was eight years old,” the constable said. “He came up before the magistrate first when he was nine-bag snatching from an old lady, this was-and the last time we hauled his bum through the door, it was for breaking into a Dixon’s. Planned to sell the takings in one of the street markets, our Jared.”

“You knew him personally?”

“As good as anyone round here, yeah.”

Nkata handed over a photo of the body that Felipe Salvatore had named as that of his brother. Constable Silver examined it and nodded his confirmation of Felipe’s identification. It was Jared, all right. The almond eyes, the squashed-tip nose. All the Salvatore kids had them, gift of the racial mix of their parents.

“Dad’s Filipino. Mum’s black. A crackhead.” Silver looked up quickly as he said this last, as if he’d suddenly realised he might have given offence.

“I sorted that.” Nkata took the picture back. He asked about the cooking that Jared was supposedly learning.

Silver knew nothing about this and declared it the product of either Navina Cryer’s wishful thinking or Jared Salvatore’s outright prevaricating. All he knew was that Jared had been turned over to Youth Offenders, where a social worker had tried-and obviously failed-to make something of him.

“Youth Offenders over here,” Nkata said, “could they’ve arranged some training for the boy? D’they get jobs for kids?”

“When pigs fly,” Silver said. “Our Jared frying fish in your local Little Chef? Don’t know I’d’ve eaten a meal that bloke put on a plate if I was starving.” Silver took a staple remover from the top of his desk and used it to dig some grime from beneath his thumbnail as he concluded, “Here’s the real truth about scum like the Salvatores, Sergeant. Most of them end up where they’re heading all along, and it was going to be no different for Jared, which was something Navina Cryer couldn’t accept. Felipe’s locked up already; Matteo’s in remand. Jared was third in line of the kids, so he was next in line for the nick. Do-gooders over at Youth Offenders might’ve done their best to stop that from happening, but they had everything set against it from the start.”

“Everything being…?” Nkata inquired.

Silver eyed him over the staple remover and flicked the detritus from beneath his thumbnail onto the floor. “No offence meant, but you’re the exception, man. You’re not the rule. And I expect you had some advantages along the way. But there’re times when people don’t add up to much, and this is one of those times. You start out bad, you end up worse. That’s just how it is.”

Not if someone takes an interest, was what Nkata wanted to reply. Nothing was written in stone.

But he said nothing. He had the information he’d come for. He had no greater understanding of why Jared Salvatore’s disappearance had gone largely unremarked by the police, but he needed no greater understanding. As Constable Silver himself had put it: That’s just how it was.

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHEN SHE GOT BACK TO CHALK FARM AT THE END OF the day, Barbara Havers was feeling almost jaunty. Not only had the interview with Charlie Burov-aka Blinker-seemed like a moment of actual progress, but being out of the incident room and engaged in the human end of the investigation in Lynley’s company made her feel as though regaining her rank was not a pipe dream after all. She was, in fact, blithely humming “It’s So Easy” when she hiked homeward from the spot she’d found to park the Mini. Even when rain began to fall and was driven into her face by the wind, she was not bothered. She merely stepped up her pace-and the tempo of her tune-and hurried towards Eton Villas.

She glanced quickly at the ground-floor flat when she went up the drive. Lights were on inside Azhar’s digs, and through the French windows she could see Hadiyyah sitting at a table with her head bent over an open notebook.

Homework, Barbara thought. Hadiyyah was a dutiful pupil. She stood for a moment and watched the little girl. As she did so, Azhar came into the room and walked by the table. Hadiyyah looked up and followed him longingly with her gaze. He didn’t acknowledge her, and she didn’t speak, merely ducking her head again to her work.

Barbara felt a sharp twinge at the sight of this, struck by an unexpected anger whose source she didn’t want to examine. She went along the path to her bungalow. Inside, she flipped on the lights, tossed her shoulder bag on the table, and dug out a tin of All Day Breakfast, which she dumped unceremoniously into a pan. She popped bread into the toaster and from the fridge took a Stella Artois, making a mental note to cut back on the drinking since this was yet another night when she was not supposed to be imbibing at all. But she felt like celebrating the interview with Blinker.

As her meal was doing what it could to prepare itself without her participation, she went as usual for the television remote, which again as usual she couldn’t find. She was searching for it when she noticed that her answer machine was blinking. She punched it to play as she continued her search.

Hadiyyah’s voice came to her, tense and low, sounding as if she was trying to keep someone else from hearing her. “I got gated, Barbara,” she said. “This’s the first chance I had to ring you ’cause I’m not meant even to use the phone. Dad said I’m gated ‘till further notice’ an’ I don’t think it’s fair at all.”

“Damn,” Barbara muttered, studying the grey box from which her little friend’s voice came.

“Dad said it’s owing to my arguing with him. I di’n’t really want to give back the Buddy Holly CD, see. Then when he said I had to, I said could I just leave it for you with a note. And he said no, I had to do it in person. And I said I di’n’t think that was fair. And he said I was to do what he told me and since I ‘clearly di’n’t want to do it’ he’d make sure it was done properly, which’s why he came with me. And then I said he was mean, mean, mean and I hated him. And he…” A silence as if she were listening to something nearby. She hurried on. “I’m not meant to argue with him ever is what he said and he gated me. So I can’t use the phone and I can’t watch telly and I can’t do anything but go to school and come home and it’s not fair.” She began to cry. “Gotta go. ’Bye,” she managed to say with a hiccup. Then the message was over.

Barbara sighed. She had not expected this of Taymullah Azhar. He had broken rules himself: leaving an arranged marriage and two small children to take up with an English girl with whom he’d fallen in love. He’d been ousted from his family as a result, forever a pariah to his own kin. Of all the people on earth, he was the last person she would have anticipated being so inflexible and unforgiving.

She was going to have to have a talk with him. Punishments, she thought, should match their crimes. But she knew she would have to come up with an approach that didn’t seem like actually talking to him, by which of course she really meant giving him a piece of her mind. No, she was going to have to dress it in the guise of a natural part of a conversation, which meant she was going to have to develop a subject of conversation that would allow the topics of Hadiyyah, lying, being gated, and unreasonable parents to arise naturally. At the moment, though, the very thought of all that verbal manoeuvring made Barbara’s head feel like a balloon too full of air. She made a mental note to seek out a reasonable excuse to talk to Azhar, and she uncapped her Stella Artois.

There was a good chance, she thought, that she would need to consume two bottles of lager tonight.

FU MADE THE necessary preparations. These did not take long because He had laid the groundwork well. Once the chosen boy had proved himself worthy, He had watched him until He knew all his routines and movements. So when the time was right, He was able to make a quick choice of the environs in which He would finally act. He chose the gym.