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explanations.
    Child sighed and pushed his glasses up the ramp of his nose.
    – Well you can do the paperwork then.
     
    Hawthorn went online. He looked up film titles, book titles. He tried to discover the history of the house on Nestor Lane, and of Nestor Lane itself. He looked at cars. At pictures of cars. He found some that seemed about right. He printed off the photographs of seven of them. He tried to put all the photographs on one page but couldn’t work the software.
    Child had gone home. Two men had been arrested in Bolton and were on their way back to London. No sign of the gun. They denied everything. They knew nothing about any shooting, they said. But Rivers had put them in separate vans with someone to talk to.
    Hawthorn asked Frank Lenton to show him the CCTV footage. Plume Road looked long; a strip of grey with white highlights and black shadows. It was still as a photograph. He watched the wrong junction the first time. Frank replayed it. A speck of something half bright crawled around the corner from Hampley Road. It looked low down to Hawthorn.
    – That’s it?
    The car hesitated and then turned north, away from the camera, its rear lights like pinprick stars that faded as soon as he looked at them. He wasn’t sure that they weren’t just reflections.
    – Yeah. They can zoom in on it.
    – Can you?
    – No. I don’t have the gear.
    They watched it a few times. Hawthorn squinted. He tried looking slightly to the side, to catch it out of the corner of his eye. He tried to stare at it directly. He tried to pretend he didn’t know it was coming. But every time he saw it, it looked like nothing. It was formless. He could imagine it into any shape he thought of. He could make it disappear by imagining that it wasn’t there at all – that he didn’t see it. The road was empty and was not a road. He found himself looking at the smudged screen.
    – Thank you, Frank.
     
    The city fell apart into silence and darkness and cold, and Hawthorn took a bus to Finsbury Park and then walked up to Crouch End and ate pasta in the Italian place by the green. It was quiet. He tried to take his time. He tried to wait before each mouthful. He couldn’t decide what to think about.
    He called his brother. They talked about the weekend. They talked about their father. They talked about Tess’s new computer. Hawthorn asked his brother what he knew about vintage cars.
    – What kind of vintage?
    – Pre-war. 1930s I think.
    – What about them?
    – Do you see many?
    – Nah, I don’t think so. If there’s an event maybe. The London to Brighton, you see them then. There’s a restored nineteen forty something cab I see around. I don’t know the cabbie. I used to have a regular fare from Chelsea to Ealing, was a vintage car dealer I think. Driving ban. Why?
    – Ealing?
    – Yeah. Ealing. Why?
    – Case.
    – Theft?
    – No, not really. I’ll tell you about it at the weekend.
    – You all right?
    – Yeah, I’m fine.
    He was on his second coffee. They were starting to close up.
    – How’s the thing?
    – What thing?
    – The crying.
    Hawthorn made a face and looked out of the window.
    – It’s fine. Do you remember the models? Dad’s models? Soldiers and cars and that?
    – Yeah, I do. I remember the soldiers. Lead things. Painted. They were Granddad’s, I think. Haven’t seen them in years.
    – There used to be cars too. Heavy. Solid. Were they lead?
    – Lead paint. Cast iron. Probably be worth something now. Did you not get into trouble about them?
    – Yeah. I broke a few. I used to crash them together. Chipped them. Knocked wheels off and that.
    – Violent little tyke, you were. You get a thrashing?
    – No, I got a talk.
    – Ah. A talk.
    – I still remember it. Made me feel like a bastard.
    – Which you were.
    – Which I was.
    – We should ask him about them. You going to come over on Saturday?
    – Yeah, that’s the plan.
    – All right. Tess says love, and the kids.
    – Love back.
    In the roads