make us look like Jehovah’s witnesses? They always go in pairs.’
‘I don’t think there’s much chance of anyone thinking you’re doing the Lord’s work,’ I say, eyeing her grey T-shirt, which has ‘Gang Sh*t’ printed on it in black. How did I not notice that before? ‘If you’re coming with, you’ll need to zip up your jacket,’ I tell her. ‘Did you have it zipped while we were talking to Lou Munday?’
‘Irrelevant, since that’s in the past.’ Zan snorts dismissively. ‘What, you think she’d have spilled everything she knows if I’d worn a Bambi T-shirt instead? Anyway, there’s an asterisk, so it’s not even a swear word. Which house shall we start with?’
‘Let’s just go door to door.’
‘Let’s definitely not do that. We should pick the ones that look most chilled.’
‘Chilled? Oh, you mean—’
‘Not refrigerated. Most of them look uptight and closed off – walls, fences, high gates. Kind of like luxurious prisons. There’s no way people who live in houses like that are going to invite two strangers in and start chatting to them, answering a load of weird questions.’
‘So shall we start with the only one up this end that doesn’t look like that?’ I point at it through the car window. On one of its gateless gateposts, there’s a sign saying ‘No. 3’. There’s a wall, but it’s low and crumbling. There’s nothing to suggest that its owners want to hide themselves from prying eyes.
‘Number 3 looks a good shout,’ Zan agrees. ‘Especially as it’s got a wheelie bin at an angle outside its front door.’
‘Why? How’s that relevant?’
‘Think about it, Mother.’
We sit in silence for a few seconds. Then I say, ‘Thought. Still don’t know.’
‘It can’t be bin day, or everyone’s bins would be out on the pavement. Or a good few still would, at least – the ones belonging to people who aren’t yet back from work. All these houses have massive gardens, loads of space on either side. But number 3’s owners couldn’t be arsed to wheel the bin a few feet further and put it there, in that wooden bus-shelter type thing attached to the side of the house that’s probably a bin store. They’d rather make the least possible effort, and leave it at the top of the driveway, where it makes the house look worse to anyone who passes by. I mean, who cares, right? I wouldn’t either. There are bins in the world – deal with it.’
‘But that’s your point,’ I say, getting it at last.
‘Uh-huh. Number 3’s owners can’t be arsed with trivial shit. All their neighbours hate them for lowering the tone with their noticeable bin, and they don’t care. Maybe they also won’t care that it’s not the done thing to tell strangers about what secret, twisted things your neighbours get up to.’
‘Okay. Number 3 it is.’
I lock the car and we walk up the driveway. It’s a wide house, as enormous as all the others on Wyddial Lane, painted the colour of buttermilk, with a red-brick chimney attached to its front. Next to the front door there’s a sign that says ‘Low Brooms’.
I ring the bell and we wait. ‘We might have to wait a while,’ I mutter. ‘Getting to the front door in a house this size …’
It opens surprisingly quickly. A woman who looks around my age, wearing cut-off bleached-denim shorts and a pink long-sleeved top, smiles at me and Zan and says, ‘Please say something nice!’
Not the response I was expecting.
Her frizzy brown hair has streaks of grey in it. Round her neck, on a leather cord, she’s wearing a huge silver pendant that looks like a jellyfish, with a shiny dark green stone at its centre. ‘I like your pendant,’ I tell her, hoping that’s nice enough.
She beams at me. ‘That’s the best thing you could have said. You can come again!’ She laughs. ‘I couldn’t adore it more, and I’ve worn it every day since I bought it and, do you know what? No one has said anything about it apart from you. No one’s spontaneously said, “What a beautiful piece of jewellery!” Look, it’s two-sided. Nautilus with a malachite eye on one side, ammonite fossil on the other. Oh – that wasn’t what I meant when I said, “Say something nice!” I wasn’t fishing for compliments!’
‘Jellyfishing for compliments,’ I say, trying to present myself as the sort of person this woman would get on well with.
‘Huh? Oh! No, a nautilus is very different from a jellyfish. Though in the grand