Mark Billingham - Scaredy cat

'I said no.' Louder now, unashamedly aggressive. McEvoy's eyes flicked to Mary, asking for help if she knew how to give it. She picked up her husband's hand and placed it on her knee. She took her hand away and held it up for Thorne and McEvoy's inspection.

'Bob worked in the Jewelry Quarter for forty years. He made this wedding ring in 1965. Made Carol's as well, four years ago. Sort of came out of retirement for it, didn't you?' She laughed and patted her husband's hand but he said nothing. 'See, we didn't have Carol until late.'

Thorne looked at McEvoy. He knew what she was thinking and he knew that she was wrong. These were not ramblings. These were fragments of a shattered picture that Mary Enright was holding up to the light in desperation, in the hope that Thorne and McEvoy might understand the whole. Might grasp the enormity of it. Now, she just shook her head and said it simply. 'Bob's taken everything very badly you see. Worse than me, really, or differently at any rate. It's often the way, I think, when something happens and there's two of you. One just muddles along, you know, gets on with things, while the other…'

Thorne could see them then. The old woman sitting in the corner of an overheated lounge, making jigsaws with her grandson or writing shopping lists, while her husband stands stooped in a back bedroom, shouting, his body racked with sobs.

He stared at Robert Enright until the old man met his eye, then he spoke. 'I want to find the man who did this thing to you. To your daughter and to you. Charlie saw him. We're here to let him tell us anything he feels like telling us. That's all.'

They all stiffened then, at the footfalls on the stairs. Thorne thought he saw Carol Garner's father nod, a second before the door flew open and her son ran into the room.

The boy froze on seeing the strangers, and lowered his eyes. He began to inch across to the sofa from where Mary reached out a hand and pulled him to her. He was perhaps a little small for his age, with longish mousy hair and brown eyes. He was wearing denim dungarees over a red long-sleeved top and his hands were covered in what looked like blue felt-tip pen.

'Some friends of ours have come to see you,' Marry said, her voice not much above a whisper. 'This is…?' She looked across at McEvoy and Thorne, the question in her eyes.

'Sarah,' McEvoy volunteered, leaning forward with a smile. She glanced at Thorne. 'And Tom.'

Charlie looked up, appraising them. He rubbed his grandmother's hand across his cheek for a second or two, before dropping it and racing across to where his toys lay on the floor. He picked up a yellow plastic toolbox and emptied the contents on to the carpet. McEvoy was flying by the seat of her pants. This was not the same as counseling a rape victim or trying to calm a battered wife. She'd noticed the hushed, almost reverential tone that Mary Enright had used when speaking to the boy and felt instinctively that this was wrong. At least, it was wrong if they wanted to get any information out of him. She knew that she had to gain his trust.

'Are you looking forward to Christmas, Charlie?' The boy picked up a thick, red plastic bolt and began pushing it through a hole in a tiny workbench.

'I'm sure Father Christmas will bring you lots of nice things if you're a good boy.' He pushed the bolt further in, his face a picture of concentration. McEvoy moved from her chair and knelt down, a few feet away. 'It looks like you're a good boy to me.' She picked up the plastic screwdriver and examined it, as Charlie furtively examined her. She tried hard to keep any hint of seriousness out of her voice. 'What would be very good is if you could tell me and Tom a little bit about when your mummy got hurt…' She glanced up at the Enrights. Mary's eyes were already filling with tears. Her husband sat motionless, his eyes on the floor. Charlie Garner said nothing.

'What you could do, if you wanted, is tell your Nan about it. Do you want to do that?'

He didn't…

McEvoy felt herself sweating and it was only partially due to the temperature. She was beginning to feel out of her depth. She started to say something but stopped. She could only watch helplessly as the boy stood up suddenly, marched past her and plonked himself down at Thorne's feet.

Thorne gazed down at Charlie and shrugged. 'Hello…' Charlie produced a small squeaky hammer and began vigorously banging on Thorne's shoe. It might have been nerves or it might have been because the moment was, in spite of everything, genuinely comical, but Thorne began to laugh. Then Charlie laughed too.

'I hammer your shoe…'

'Ow… ow… ouch!' Thorne winced in mock agony, and as the boy began to laugh even louder, he sensed that the moment might be right.

'Do you remember the man who was there when your mummy got hurt?'

The laughter didn't exactly stop dead, but the answer to Thorne's question was obvious. Charlie was still hammering on the shoe but it was purely reflexive. The intermittent squeak of the toy hammer was now the only sound in the room. Mary and Robert Enright sat stock still on the sofa, and Sarah McEvoy was all but holding her breath, afraid that the slightest movement could spoil everything. Thorne spoke slowly and seriously. He was not following a different tack to McEvoy for any particular reason. There was no strategy involved. Instinct just told him to ask the child the question, simply and honestly. Can you tell me what the man who hurt your mummy looked like?'

A squeak, as the hammer hit the shoe. And another. Then the tiny shoulders gave a recognisable shrug. Thorne had seen the same gesture in a hundred stroppy teenagers. Scared, but fronting it out. Maybe I know something, but you get nothing easily.

'Was he older than me do you think?' Charlie glanced up, but only for a second before returning to his hammering. 'Was his hair the same colour as yours or was it darker? What do you think?' There was no discernible reaction. Thorne knew that he was losing the boy. Hearing a sniff, Thorne looked up and could see that the old man on the sofa was quietly weeping, his big shoulders rising and falling as he pressed a handkerchief to his face. Thorne looked at the boy and winked conspiratorially, 'Was he taller than your Granddad? I bet you can remember that.'

Charlie stopped hammering. Without looking up he shook his head slowly and emphatically. Thorne flicked his eyes to McEvoy. She raised her eyebrows back at him. They were thinking the same thing. If that 'no' was as definite as it looked, it certainly didn't tally with Margie Knight's description. Thorne wondered who was the more credible witness. The nosy working girl or the three-year-old?

Eye witnesses had screwed him up before. So, probably neither… Whatever, as far as Charlie was concerned, it looked as though the shake of the head was all they were going to get. The hammering was growing increasingly enthusiastic.

'You're good at hammering, Charlie,' Thorne said. Mary Enright spoke up from the sofa, she too sensing that the questions were over. 'It's Bob the Builder. He's mad on it. It's what he calls you sometimes, isn't it, Bob?' She turned to her husband, smiling. Robert Enright said nothing.

McEvoy stood up, rubbing away the stiffness in the back of her legs from where she'd been kneeling. 'Yeah, my nephew's always going on about it. He's driving his mum and dad bonkers, singing the theme tune.'

Mary stood up and began tidying things away, while Charlie carried on, the hammer now replaced by a bright orange screwdriver. 'I don't mind that,' Mary said. 'It's just on so early. Half past six in the morning, on one of those cable channels.'

McEvoy breathed in sharply and nodded sympathetically. Thorne looked down and brushed his fingers against the boy's shoulder. 'Hey, think about your poor old Nan will you Charlie? Half past six? You should still be fast asleep…'