Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(93)

“Trevor Ruddock?” Barbara shouted over the din. “Could I have a word with you? CID. Police.” She managed to emphasise her identity in such a way as to get the attention of the boy on the bed. He saw her extended warrant card and, perhaps reading either her lips or the expression on her face, he reached for a knob on the boom box at the foot of his bed and lowered the volume.

“Hey Trev!” he shouted despite the sudden quelling of the boom box's noise. “Trev! The cops!”

The boy at the table stirred, turned in his chair, and saw Barbara. His glance dropped to her warrant card. Slowly, he raised his hands to his ears and began to unscrew from them a pair of wax earplugs.

As he did so, Barbara studied him in the dim light. He had National Front written all over him: from his bare scalp where the faintest shadow of dark hair merely stubbled the skin, to his heavy and unmistakably military boots. He was clean shaven: utterly, in fact. He was devoid of facial hair, even of eyebrows.

His movement had revealed what he'd been working on at the table. It appeared to be the model of a spider, from what Barbara could surmise from three spindly pipe cleaner legs that had been affixed to a black and white striped sponge body. It had two sets of eyes fashioned from black beads: two large and two small semi-circling the head like an ocular tiara.

Trevor flicked a look at his brother, who'd squirmed to the edge of the upper bunk and was swinging his legs and watching Barbara uneasily. “Clear out,” he said to Charlie.

“I won't say nothing.”

“Bugger off,” Trevor said.

“Trev.” Charlie offered what appeared to be the family's signature whine: He turned the first syllable of his brother's name into two.

“I said.” Trevor shot him a look. Charlie said, “Shit,” managing it monosyllabically, and hopped from the bed. Boom box under his arm, he passed Barbara and left the room. He shut the door behind him.

This gave Barbara the opportunity to see what had been pressing against the top of the door when she entered. It was indeed an old fishing net, but it had been crafted into an enormous web upon which a collection of arachnids cavorted. Like the spider being assembled on the table, these were not garden-variety bugs: brown, black, multi-legged, and suitable for devouring flies, ticks, and centipedes. They were exotic in both colour and shape, featuring bodies of red, yellow, and green, prickly legs with speckles, and ferocious eyes.

“Nice work,” Barbara said. “Studying entomology, are you?”

Trevor made no reply. Barbara crossed the room to the table. There was a second chair to one side of it, stacked with books, newspapers, and magazines. She set these on the floor and sat. She said, “Mind?” and casting a glance at the cigarettes in her hand, he shook his head. She offered the pack, and he took one. He lit it with a match from a book. He left her to see to her own.

With the absence of rap music, the other sounds in the house gained amplification. Coronation Street's nymphs continued their gossip at a pitch that would have served for calling the score at a football match, and Stella began shrieking about the theft of a necklace, apparently having been perpetrated by Charlie, whose name she was managing to wail in three syllables.

“I understand you got the sack from Malik's Mustards three weeks ago,” Barbara said.

Trevor inhaled, eyes narrowed and fastened on Barbara. His fingers, she noted, bore angry-looking hangnails.

“So what?”

“Want to tell me about it?”

He exhaled a snort of smoke. “Like I got the option, you mean?”

“What's your side of the story? I've heard theirs. You couldn't deny pilfering the goods, I understand. You were caught with them. Red-handed, as it were.”

He reached for one of the pipe-cleaners and wound it round his index finger, the cigarette between his lips and his glance directed at the half-assembled spider on the table. He reached for a pair of wire cutters and snipped a second pipe-cleaner in half. Each half became a leg of the spider. Glue served to hold the leg to the body, and he meticulously applied this from a tube.

“Malik's make it sound like grand larceny or something? Jeez, it was less than two boxes of the stuff. Thirty-six jars in a box. It's not like I broke the bank. And anyways, I didn't take straight mustard or jelly or sauce, did I, which might've cocked up some major punter's big order. I mixed it all up.”

“Creating a variety pack. I get it.”

He shot Barbara a black look before giving his attention back to the spider. It had an authentic-looking segmented body created out of differing sizes of sponge. Glancing at it, Barbara wondered idly how the body segments were attached to one another. With glue? With staples? Or had young Mr. Ruddock used wire? She looked for a spool of it on the table, but in addition to the spider paraphernalia, the surface was a jumble of insect books, unfolded newspapers, half-melted candles, and tool boxes. She couldn't see how he managed to locate anything on it.

“I was told that Mr. Querashi sacked you. Is that the story?”

“I guess it is if that's what you've heard.”

“D'you have a different version, then?” Barbara looked for an ashtray but didn't see one. Trevor shoved an empty custard carton in her direction. Its insides were gritty with ash. She added to this.

“Whatever,” he said.

“Were you sacked unfairly? Did Querashi act too quickly?”