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oozing confidence. 'Arrogant bastard,' she thought.
      'Did she have any enemies? Can you think of anyone who might have hated her enough to want to do this to her?' Peterson asked.
      'Look,' Johnny burst out, anguish flaring suddenly in his eyes. 'I'm doing my best to get my head round all this. Not just losing my girl, as if that's not bad enough, but …' He dropped his head into his hands. His shoulders shook. This was no act. He wasn't that good. Geraldine gave him a moment.
      'I'm sorry, Mr Drew,' she resumed, 'but we're investigating a murder. If there's anything you can tell us, anything at all, we need to know. And your alibi …' She tailed off pointedly.
      'I'm not a fucking idiot,' he snapped, raising bloodshot eyes to meet her gaze directly. 'If I'd wanted to do her in – which I didn't so don't go getting the idea that I did – but if I had, don't you think I would've sorted out a story? Do you think I'm an idiot as well as a murderer? I can't remember what I was doing at ten o'clock on Wednesday morning. I was probably having a smoke. If there was an appointment at ten it would've been in the book. But I was at work. I never left the place that morning, I'm sure of that. And I didn't kill Ange. What the hell do you people think? That I'm some kind of perv that gets his rocks off killing girls? It wasn't me, but someone killed her. And what are you lot doing? Are you out there looking for the sick bastard? No, you're in here, harassing the one person who cared for her. I looked after Angie. She was just a kid, that's all. How am I going to manage now?' It could have been a cry from the heart, or a calculated bid for sympathy. Either way, they weren't going to get any more out of him.
      'Is there anything else you can think of that might help us?' He shook his head. 'Thank you, Mr Drew. We'll be in touch.'
      'Damn right you will. I want to know who the fucking bastard is who did this to my girl. And if I ever get my hands on him, you'll have something on me all right.'
      As they reached the bottom of the concrete staircase and emerged, blinking, into the sunlight, the dark-haired girl from the flower shop darted past them up the stairs. Geraldine watched the top of her head as it bobbed along the balcony and stopped outside Johnny Drew's door.
      'I wonder what he does with all his money,' she muttered. 'He can't spend it all on this dump.' John Drew was dodgy, but Geraldine didn't believe he'd murdered Angela Waters. He hadn't felt comfortable expressing his grief, but he'd shown no signs of remorse, and although she wouldn't admit it out loud, he didn't fit the mental image she was forming of the killer. Intuition was useless without evidence, but Johnny Drew felt wrong. As far as Geraldine was concerned, the identity of the killer remained a mystery.
     
     
     
     

 
     
    8
     
     
    Chips
     
     
     
     
    Jim was frightened. He didn't know why. People stared at him or pretended he was invisible. A woman turned her head away as she passed him. She knew what he was thinking. Women could do that.
      'I done nothing to be ashamed of,' he muttered crossly.
      'I know you do your best,' Miss Elsie said. He smiled because she'd come back.
      'Miss Elsie!' He called softly, in case anyone was listening. A man glared at him and he walked more quickly.
      'Don't panic,' Miss Elsie said. He fumbled in his pocket for the key to his room and threw it down a dark glistening drain. That was clever because now they'd never find out where he lived. Then he frowned. It meant he couldn't go home. That was a shame because he liked his room. He had a picture of Miss Elsie there, hidden in a box on top of the wardrobe.
      'Put your thinking cap on,' Miss Elsie said, but that wasn't fair. He was hungry. He couldn't think when he was hungry.
      'Is that all you got?' the girl asked when he held out a twenty pound note. She was stupid. Twenty pounds was a lot of money. He was only buying