me straight. How're you messed in with that dead bloke from the Nez?"
"I already said," Rachel told her. "I gave him the receipt so he could see how much Sahlah loved him. She told me she was worried. She said she didn't think he believed her and / thought that if he saw the receipt - "
"Rubbish!" Connie shrieked. "Bloody flaming bollocks! If that rot's the truth, then I'm Mother Goose. Why didn't you tell that police person when she asked you about it, eh?
But we know the answer to that one, don't we? You didn't say cause you hadn't cooked up a good explanation till now. Well, if you expect me to believe a half-arsed story about proving some coloured girl's eternal love for her intended bloody sodding bridegroom, then - "
The doorbell rang again. Three times in succession.
Connie herself stormed to answer it. She flung the door open. It smashed against the wall.
"What?" she barked. "What bloody what? Who the hell are you? And do you know what time it is, by the way?"
A young voice, male. It was carefully deferential.
"Rachel in, Mrs. Winfield?"
"Rachel? What d'you want with my Rache?"
Rachel went to the door, standing behind her mother. Connie attempted to block her with her hip.
"Who is this wanker?" Connie demanded of her. "And what's his business showing up at
. . .
Piss on your face! Do you know what time it is, you?"
It was Trevor Ruddock, Rachel saw. He was standing well into the shadows so that neither the light from the house nor the light from the street-lamps touched him. But still, he couldn't do much to hide. And he looked worse than usual because his T-shirt was dirty, with holes round the neckline, and his jeans had gone so long unwashed that they probably could have stood up on their own.
Rachel attempted to step past her mother. Connie caught her arm. "We aren't finished, you and me, Missy-miss."
"What is it, Trev?" Rachel asked.
"You know this bloke?" Connie demanded incredulously.
"Obviously," Rachel replied. "Since he asked for me, I probably know him."
"C'n you talk for a minute?" Trevor asked.
He shifted his weight, and his boots - unlaced and unpolished - scraped against the concrete front step. "I know it's late, but I was hoping . . . Rachel, I need to talk to you, okay? Private."
"About what?" Connie demanded hotly.
"What've you got to say to Rachel Lynn that you can't say in front of her mum? And who are you anyways? Why've I never seen you before if you and Rachel know each other good enough for you to come calling at quarter past eleven?"
Trevor looked from Rachel to her mother. He looked back to Rachel again. His expression said clearly, What d'you want her to know? And Connie read it like a psychic.
She jerked Rachel's arm. " This is what you been messing with? This is what you snuck up round the beach huts for? You been lowering yourself to do the job with a wally no better than yesterday's rubbish?"
Trevor's lips jerked as if he were stopping himself from responding. Rachel did it for him.
"Shut up, Mum." She twisted out of her mother's grasp and stepped onto the porch.
"You get back in this house," her mother said.
"And you stop talking like I was a baby,"
Rachel retorted. "Trevor's my friend and if he wants to see me, I mean to know why. And Sahlah's my friend and if I want to help her, I'm going to do it. And no policeman - and you neither, Mum - is going to make me do anything else."
Connie gaped at her. "Rachel Lynn Winfield!"
"Yeah, that's my name," Rachel said. She heard her mother gasp at the sheer audacity of her reply. She took Trevor's arm and led off the front step, in the direction of the street where he'd left his old motor scooter. "We can finish our talking once I talk to Trevor,"
she called back to her mother.
A slammed door was the answer.
"Sorry," she said to Trevor, stopping midway down the path. "Mum's in a state. The cops came round to the shop this morning and I scarpered without telling her why."
"They came to me, too," he said. "Some sergeant bird. Sort of fat with her face all ..."
He seemed to recall whose presence he was in and what a remark about a banged-up face might mean to her. "Anyway," he said, driving a hand into the pocket of his jeans. "The cops came. Someone at Malik's told them