One of the great things about Marco’s was the style of electric wall heater. They were high up and old-fashioned – orange bars against curved shining metal. They hummed while they worked, like Marco himself.
George sipped hot chocolate, wondering what to do about his missing books. It would be impossible to roll up, take his bag and disappear again. No, he couldn’t see Nancy not until it was all over – when Riley had been arrested. Then George could explain why he’d vanished, and why he’d deceived her. But that left open the possibility that she might leaf through volume twenty, where her husband made his first appearance. It was a risk he’d have to take. She wouldn’t look, though.., she wasn’t like that. She’d been well brought up.
The windows were grey and streaming with condensation. Through the glass door George saw a dark figure swaying left and right in the cold. George stirred milky froth and thought of Graham Riley.
It had been one of the stranger things about the whole trial. Jennifer Cartwright – she’d been a detective sergeant back then – had quizzed him very carefully about Quilling Road. He’d drawn a plan of the house. He’d described the wallpaper. He’d labelled each room with numbers and names. He’d told her of Riley’s strange manner.., his never going up the stairs, his insistence on meeting everyone near the bottom step. And DS Cartwright had written it all down, smoking incessantly Months later he’d had a meeting with a CPS solicitor called Miss Lowell. This time there’d been typed-up depositions and a colour-coded floor plan. George had told his story all over again. The details were cross-referred to other witness statements, confirming their coherence with the broader picture. Finally there’d been a conference with a barrister called Pagett, a tall fellow in a morning suit – the kind of thing you got married in. George could almost recite his statement by now Again, he went over what he’d seen and heard, and what he knew of Riley’s idiosyncratic behaviour. But the strange thing was this: neither DS Cartwright nor Miss Lowell nor Mr Pagett thought to ask George if he had met Graham Riley before. None of them wondered why George had been so prepared to help these three girls in the first place. They weren’t like the barrister Riley had on his side – the one who’d asked, ‘What did David do that George wanted to forget?’ If he’d been at the conference with DS Cartwright and Miss Lowell, he’d have rumbled George, of that there was little doubt.
The figure at the door swayed side to side. It had the bulk of a man. George wondered why he didn’t step inside. The heaters were just out of this world.