The friendly old woman in number eleven often found time to stop and chat.
She thought he was a nice lad and often had sweets ready for him on his way home from school. They would talk for a while before he went in for tea. She liked to talk about her daughter, who was a nurse, and she was always willing to hear the latest about his family. Their friendship had grown stronger throughout the year. Then, for several days she wasn’t at her front gate and he wondered if she was all right.
It was a couple of nights later that the drug squad came banging on the door, well after he had gone to bed. There was a hell of a commotion, with squad members going from room to room. The family was herded into the front room after it had been searched, while they carried out their raid through the rest of the house.
After a lot of tramping around and noisy searching, there were shouts from the garage and several men started carrying boxes out from his father’s van. Out in the street, under the light from the lamppost, they were loading them into a truck. His mother was crying, and it got worse when the handcuffs went on his dad. He was led out to a police car.
By this time, most of the people that lived in the street had come out to see what was happening. The big truck took off first, followed by a van with the rest of the police officers, and finally, the car with his dad sitting in the back, staring out at his wife and son.
The spectators began returning to their homes and the street fell quiet again. His mother had run in crying, leaving him to watch the tail lights disappear down the street. Eventually, he turned to go in, seeing the old woman closing her front curtains as he did.
He felt sure he saw her grinning.
