I’m falling apart, Cherie. I can’t deal with this any longer. I’ll be coming alone tonight. Marcus.
She sent a reply.
We’ll talk later, after dinner. Just try to keep calm, all will be fine.
She called out, ‘We’re one down tonight. Penny’s not feeling well so Marcus will be coming alone.’ For now, she wouldn’t tell him what was happening. She had to work it out herself. She tried to call Penny again but, once again, her phone went to voicemail.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Gina exhaled a plume of white mist into the chilly afternoon air. Jacob followed her from the car towards the row of terraced eighties houses. A cluster of teens ran past, flapping around in black bin bags and topped with witch hats. The shouting and laughing disappeared with them around a corner. She swallowed and forced all thoughts of the letters to the back of her mind, for now.
They finally reached the row of houses that they were looking for. Red tiles covered the frontage, making them look as if the roof was on the front wall. Then Gina spotted the number they were looking for. At least thirty gnomes of varying sizes filled the tiny front garden, leading the eye to the plastic butterflies that were stuck all around the porch door. Gina checked the house number again. They definitely had the correct address. ‘What’s Alexander Swinton’s mother’s name again?’
‘Eveline Peterson, guv.’
She rang the doorbell and listened as the sound of dogs barking came from behind the door. The owner shouted before opening it.
Gina held up her identification. ‘DI Harte and DS Driscoll.’
‘Bunty, shut up.’ The bony woman picked up the miniature poodle and the boxer dog continued to bark.
From behind the front door, it had sounded like she had more dogs than she actually did. ‘May we come in?’
The woman nodded. Gina could see how she was taking the news of her son’s murder. Her creased clothes and inflamed eyelids gave her away. A slight tremble came over the woman as she lowered the poodle to the floor. Both dogs continued to bark until a much older man in a leather waistcoat came out. He led the dogs into the living room before shutting them in.
The outside of the house clearly reflected what the inside was like. The couple had more cabinets and shelves full of tat than Gina could take in, from models of hula dancers to toys collected from McDonald’s Happy Meals. The hoard never ended.
‘Come into the kitchen. We’ll be able to hear ourselves speak in there.’
Gina and Jacob waded through the hoarded boxes of laundry powder and the recycling pile. The kitchen table was covered in dusty pots full of dying spider plants.
‘I’m so sorry that we had to give you such terrible news, but it would really help us if we got to know a little more about Alexander,’ Gina said.
The woman slumped into a rickety chair. ‘He hated his full name. It was Alex.’ Gina sat on the bench along the back wall so that Jacob could get in next to her. The warmth of the house and the smoke from whatever they’d been burning under the grill was almost suffocating. Gina coughed a little, trying to ignore the smell of rot that hung in the air while trying to see through the dispersing smoke.
‘D’ya wan’ a drink?’ The man held a crud-infested cup up.
‘No, thank you,’ Jacob replied. Gina smiled, pleased that he’d read her mind.
He poured Eveline Peterson a brandy and held it out to her.
She took the glass and stared into the deep amber liquid, her head bowed, exposing white roots in her crimson red hair. ‘I’ve read the papers today. I know what happened to him, I can’t—’ She stared into the glass and made a click noise as she swallowed. ‘It’s turning my stomach now.’ She took another sip and winced. ‘I don’t normally drink.’
‘We’re definitely not judging you, Mrs Peterson.’
‘Oh, stop with the Mrs. It’s Miss, but I prefer Eveline. Peterson,’ she said with a smile as she stared vacantly into her drink. ‘Alex took his father’s name when I had him but we never married. We were meant to, but he sadly died of cancer at a young age.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Gina tilted her head slightly.
‘It was a long time ago. Gareth brought him up, didn’t you, love?’
The man nodded and sat beside her. ‘We did everything we could for him. Gave him whatever we could afford. I loved him like my own boy, he was my own. He even called me Dad.’ The man looked to one side and scratched the dimple in his stubbly chin.
‘How often did you see Alex?’
‘Never.’ Eveline began circling the rim of her glass with her finger. ‘We had to sever contact for our own health. When he started taking drugs, we just couldn’t cope with him any more.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘We should have done more.’
Her partner lay a chubby hand across her shoulder and pulled her towards him. ‘We did everything we could. Don’t upset yourself over that, love.’ He kissed her on the side of the head. ‘Eveline and I have been through a lot. We helped him so many times. He had a lovely wife and they had a beautiful baby boy, then he went and blew it all.’ The man fiddled with a stray hair under his chin. ‘After his redundancy things slowly got worse. He’d sit at home and fester all day, feeling inadequate as they struggled from hand to mouth each month. I mean, his wife had a good job an’ all, but they both needed to work.’ The man paused. ‘We didn’t know he had a problem before it was too late. He was already addicted to heroin. Nicky threw him out and he ended up here. It wasn’t safe for him to be around the baby with him being on drugs all the time. He ran up debts and then the bailiffs took Nicky’s car. ’Orrible times, they were.’
