bag of yours when I startled you.’ The ones I pulverised you with, she thought but did not say. ‘Come now, how did you know they were valuable? Most thieves would have taken the TV instead.’
‘I saw the trains through the window grate when I was doing a recce. And you didn’t startle me, I knew you were there all along…’
‘You looked pretty startled to me. You can’t see anything through that grating. Anyway, the light in that room’s been off for weeks.’
‘What are you, Sherlock friggin’ Holmes?’
‘Fred,’ the officer warned again. ‘One more, and it’s back inside for you.’
‘I said “friggin”!’ he moaned in response.
Mrs Dixit lowered her voice. She was surprised at her steeliness, her tenacity. She didn’t feel scared at all – she felt like a beagle trying to flush out a fox.
‘How did you know about the trains?’ she hissed.
‘Look, sometimes you see things and then afterwards you google it. Stuff you never think is valuable. Old chairs. Art and junk. Model trains. People don’t usually leave money lying around, and everyone has top-of-the-line TVs now, there’s no money in it. But people will quite happily keep antiques out on display, a Fabergé egg if they got one, put it in a glass case in the hallway. People are idiots like that.’
‘Trusting, you mean?’
He nodded.
‘How did you know about Naveem?’
‘I never said I did.’
‘But you know who I’m talking about when I say Naveem?’
‘Your husband?’
‘I never mentioned his name.’
‘Yeah you did, before…’
‘I didn’t,’ she replied empathically.
‘I probably saw it written down,’ he said.
‘Where?’
‘You know, in your house.’
This was possible. Mrs Dixit considered how to phrase her next sentence.
‘On the night, you were annoyed I wasn’t asleep. Why was that?’
‘Because everyone’s supposed to be bloody sleeping in the middle of the night!’
‘Yes, but you looked put out – as if you’d been guaranteed I’d be asleep. Had someone told you about my sleeping pills?’
‘What are you, a lawyer now? I don’t have to answer anything I don’t want to. I’m a minor, remember?’
Mrs Dixit sat back and took a breath, massaging the inside of her mouth with her tongue to try and make it relax. The tip of her tongue nagged the empty space where her canine had popped out – she still hadn’t gone to the dentist about it.
‘What happened to that tooth?’ the boy asked, as if reading her mind. ‘Did I do that?’
She shook her head.
‘It fell out of its own accord.’
‘They do that then when you’re old, do they?’
Mrs Dixit shrugged.
‘I’m never going to get old,’ the boy continued. ‘Bits falling off you. I’m going out all guns blazing.’
Both the security officer and the social worker looked up then at this trigger word.
‘I met you when you were working at the waxworks.’
‘Hmph, that dump.’
‘How long were you there?’ She knew this already, but she wanted to check on something she knew the answer to.
‘Too long. Six months. Minimum wage. The place is falling down. You should see the rats. They make their nests in the mini golf holes, with their squirming babies, it’s grim.’
‘I can understand why you turned to a life of crime.’
‘Yeah, well, the pay’s better. Better hours. No bloody rats – sorry,’ he said, holding up his hands as the officer’s head twitched in their direction. ‘Sorry!’
The officer shook his head and folded his arms.
‘And how do you break into that line of work?’
‘Ha, break in,’ the boy replied, ‘nice.’ He shifted back in his seat, obviously enjoying this part of the conversation. ‘I just sort of fell into it, whatever “it” is. And I’m not specifying I was ever at these houses they said I was, or that I was even at your place. It’s your word against mine.’
‘The police arrested you in my property.’
‘Allegedly.’
Mrs Dixit rolled her eyes.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Don’t you have parents? Siblings?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘Didn’t you feel bad for them?’
‘Bad for them? It’s their fault! If they’d given me the money like I wanted in the first place… But no, I have to get a stupid job at the poxy waxworks. My dad does metalware for shop fittings – a shop in Essex, one in China, makes a mint. Do I ever see that money? A job at the waxworks…’ He shook his head in revulsion.
‘Are your parents still together?’
‘Oh yeah. It’s disgusting! Who wants to see your parents still lovey-dovey after a million years? My mum won’t stop visiting me, she cries the whole time. Can’t get a word out of her. I don’t know why