The Silent Suspect by Nell Pattison (epub e ink reader .TXT) 📕

and yelling something at a woman who was walking past. She kept her head down and scurried past as quickly as she could, and for a moment I thought the man on the bike was going to follow her, but he obviously thought better of it and carried on doing his laps.

I glanced at the houses on either side, and the twitch of a curtain caught my eye in the house nearest to me. An elderly Asian woman in a colourful dress was watching the gang from her window – because they did appear to be a gang of some sort.

The lad who had cycled off was back, one of his mates giving him a fist bump as he skidded into the front yard. A playful shove from the youth on the other bike soon turned into a bit of posturing, and before I knew it a fight had broken out. Within seconds, the front door had been pulled open and the same man appeared. He marched in between the two throwing punches at each other and forcibly separated them, snarling something at them as he did so. They fell back, glowering at each other, but they obviously didn’t dare argue with the older man.

By now I’d parked up at the side of the road, interested to see what happened next. Would I be able to get Mariusz on his own to ask him what it was he wanted to say when he came to visit Sasha the other day? With everything that had gone on with Roy, the man who’d attacked me, and my break-up with Max I’d almost forgotten about Mariusz. Would he even talk to me in front of his friends?

A man was walking up the other side of the road, glancing over at the house occasionally, until he crossed in front of my car and went up the path. His clothes were filthy, his hair straggly and unwashed, and I was glad I couldn’t smell him as he went past. Rubbing his hands together nervously, he approached the front door, watched the whole time by the group out the front. A moment later, he disappeared inside the house. None of the gang moved until, about ninety seconds later, the door opened again and the man was ejected into the street. A couple of the teenagers heckled him, and he looked like he was going to go for them, but his emaciated frame would have been no match for their youth and he shied away, ducking back out onto the path and scuttling away up the street.

Making my mind up, I got out of the car, taking no chances and locking it behind me. As I approached the house, my heart was in my mouth; I told myself a group of mostly kids was no threat to me, but I knew that age had nothing to do with it. It was clear I didn’t fit in in this environment, and the look one or two of them gave me was almost predatory.

‘Mariusz?’ I said, trying to get his attention. He didn’t look up, so I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘Mariusz, can I speak to you?’

When the boy didn’t look up, one of his friends kicked him on the shin. ‘Oi, Mac. Your mum’s ’ere.’ This sent a snigger around the group, but I ignored them.

Eventually, Mariusz looked up at me. The recognition in his eyes darkened almost instantly, and he looked down at the ground again. He muttered something that I didn’t catch.

‘I need to talk to you about your father,’ I said quietly, hoping he’d respond.

He looked up again, his expression furious. ‘I said, piss off. I don’t want to talk to you.’

At that, a couple of his mates sidled closer to me. I could see the movement out of the corner of my eye, and I felt the atmosphere shift. It was only subtle, but I suddenly didn’t feel very safe at all.

Taking a step back, I nodded, admitting defeat. ‘Okay. Get in touch with Sasha if you want to talk.’

I turned around and walked back to my car, willing myself to walk slowly and not respond to the unspoken threat the boys posed. Before I got in, I heard a voice. The elderly Asian lady was standing with her door open, sheltering behind it and beckoning me over.

‘They’re terrible boys,’ she said softly once I’d moved nearer.

Her English was heavily accented, but I knew what she was telling me.

‘Are they here often?’ I asked.

‘No. Only two days. I called the police.’

‘You’ve called them today?’

She shook her head. ‘I call yesterday. Boys very loud, shouting at people, break a window in that house.’ She pointed to the house they were gathered outside. ‘Police come, speak to my neighbour, but do nothing. Boys come back.’ She gave a little shrug, as if to say she had tried but there was nothing else she could do.

‘Who lives there?’ I asked, pointing at the house.

‘An old man. Bill. His name is Bill.’

‘On his own?’

She nodded. The man who came to the door wasn’t old, so I was sure he wasn’t the owner she’d just described. So where was Bill? I looked at the gang, who were swaggering and talking loudly, but I knew they were keeping an eye on me.

‘Does he invite these people round?’ I asked, unsure how an elderly man who lived alone could be connected to this group of teenagers.

The old lady shrugged, and I could see her backing away. She didn’t want to be seen talking to me, so I thanked her and walked back to my car.

As I drove away I was reminded of the gang of teenagers who had been seen outside the house that had caught fire a few days after Lukas’s. Could it be the same gang? And Eric, Lukas’s neighbour, had told me he’d seen a lot of people coming and going from there a couple of days before Nadia died. There had to be some connection,