Reilly hung up, and Peter turned to see Angela Savage watching him from her front door. Peter held up the iPad.
‘Can I use your wifi?’ he asked. ‘I need to email the video to the station.’
‘Of course,’ she stepped back, made room for him to enter the house.
It only took Fisher a minute to log into his own email account, attach the video and send it off, and for most of that minute he was mentally berating himself for not having done that before he called Reilly. He’d been worked up, maybe not thinking straight. Well, that was the last mistake he was going to make. From now on he was keeping his head. He waited for the confirmation that the email was gone, then turned to Angela.
‘Thanks. I’ll need to keep this I’m afraid, but we’ll get it back to you as soon as possible.’
She shrugged.
‘What can you tell me about the neighbours?’ he asked, already moving towards the door. She followed.
‘I don’t think you’ll get much out of them,’ she said.
Fisher had reached the open front door. He stepped outside. There were twelve semi-detached houses in total in the little cul-de-sac, six on one side of the street, six on the other. Signs of life were minimal. Angela leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.
‘Mrs McCluskey at the end of the street will have been at home. She never goes anywhere but she’s as blind as a bat and sleeps half the day. You might get a few others. But if anyone saw it they would have called you, wouldn’t they? It’s not the kind of thing you ignore.’
‘Okay, thank you.’ Peter was halfway down the driveway by now, still looking back towards Angela. Movement from the bedroom window above caught his eye. He looked and saw Fred standing there, staring down at him, looking half-afraid and wholly sick. He was pale as a ghost, with great dark circles under his eyes. Peter thought of Reilly mobilising the few officers they had left. Thought of the video, which, after all, had shown nothing much.
‘Angela, what are the chances that Fred made this up?’ Fisher asked. ‘In a bid for attention, maybe?’ He thought about the boy’s dad in London, wondered how often they saw each other.
‘Jesus,’ she rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve been hovering over him for the last two weeks. How much more attention do you think he might need? No, I’m telling you, he’s not the type. My son’s a smart, capable boy who does well in school and is well liked by his friends. There’s no way he would do something like that.’ She paused, glanced at the boy. ‘And his name’s not Fred, just by the way. That’s what his father calls him, because he thinks he looks like Fred Savage. Which he doesn’t.’ The last said firmly. ‘His name is actually Dominic.’
Angela spoke with conviction, and she didn’t seem to be the rose-tinted glasses type. On the other hand …
‘That video game … the app that Fred … Dominic, was playing. It’s definitely not suitable for a twelve-year-old.’
Angela Savage looked surprised, then gave him a hard look. ‘Jesus. Everyone’s a parent, aren’t they? Haven’t you bigger problems right now?’
Peter flushed, nodded, and got on with it.
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