Vickie lifted her head a bit more and gave it a shake. She looked again at Holden, her face tilted at a slight angle. ‘Really?’
‘Look, what’s this got to do with anything?’ It was Maureen cutting in again, a mother trying to protect, and maybe control too.
‘Just small talk,’ Holden replied, though her eyes were still on Vickie.
Maureen gave a snort. ‘You coppers don’t do small talk!’
Vickie looked at her mother, defiance in her eyes. ‘Actually,’ she said with exaggerated pause, ‘Mum did go spare.’
‘Did she?’ Holden, like Vickie, turned to look at Maureen.
‘Yeah, she had a right go at me.’
‘Did you, Maureen?’
‘Yes I blooming well did,’ she snapped back. ‘Not because of her going Goth in itself. Hell, we all do stupid things when we’re young. It was all to do with the timing. It was about respect, of rather her lack of it, for her grandmother. Nanette was very good to her, very good to us all, and I thought she could have had the decency to wait until after the funeral before she entered her Goth stage. She can be a Goth for all I care, but yesterday, while I was out in Reading buying myself a suitable outfit, she was spending money on black spiky hair and make-up. And she skipped school to do it! Jesus bloody wept!’
‘Only the afternoon,’ Vickie responded sharply. ‘One lesson was sport and Mr Ford was sick. It would only have been a crappy supply teacher.’
Holden turned to Fox, trying to get her head round all this new information. ‘Sergeant, when you called in here yesterday, Vickie was blonde, wasn’t she?’
‘That’s right, Guv.’
‘Yeah, that’s right!’ Vickie drawled, her confidence growing with every word she spoke. ‘I was nearly late for my appointment, because of him and that female with him. She insisted on going to the loo, and was ages in there, and I ended up having to run to the hairdresser.’
‘And this was when?’
‘Half past two.’
‘And you got home when?’
‘Just before five.’
‘Oi!’ Maureen had had enough. ‘Why all these questions? What has my daughter’s skipping school and getting her hair messed up got to do with anything?’
Holden ignored the question. ‘So Vickie, did you skip school in the morning too?’
‘No.’
‘But you came home at lunchtime.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And did you see your father?’
‘No. He wasn’t in.’
‘And you were out of the house between half past two and five o’clock.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And when did your mum get back from Reading?’
‘Maybe ten or fifteen minutes after I got back from the hairdresser.’
‘And did you go out again?’
‘No, she did not!’ Maureen was standing up and her eyes were flaring. ‘I grounded her. I got a text from the school. That’s what they do now. They send you a text telling you if your child has skived off. So I was hopping mad by the time I got home. I grounded her, and I stayed in all evening to make sure she stayed grounded.’