When I Wasn't Watching (16 page)

They sat in silence for a while, Matt continuing to massage her palms and Lucy looking down at the movement of his hands as if detached from it, as if it were pieces of clay he was moulding rather than her own flesh. Watched the insistent, circular press of his fingers and thought about him doing the same thing to her hips, her breasts. The memory of it made her flush; she felt the heat staining her cheeks and pulled her hands gently away.

‘What are we doing here, Matt?'

‘Is this a philosophical question?' He tried to make light of it and Lucy smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.

‘Every time we've met up, we've both spoken about how we shouldn't be doing this. It's caused so much trouble already. Yet I still called you today. And you still came.'

Matt nodded, unsure how to respond to her statement or her previous question. He went for honesty.

‘I don't know, Lucy. All I know is I haven't felt like this before, and I don't mean that in some romance movie way. It just sort of feels inevitable.'

‘Because of Jack?' Her words dropped between them like stones.

‘Dailey – my senior officer – asked me that, you know, if we would even be seeing each other like this if it wasn't for Jack, and now Terry Prince getting parole.'

Lucy looked at him, at the strong lines of his face and the full lips that made her want to nibble them. ‘Do you think,' she asked slowly, ‘that we may be looking at this all wrong?'

Matt frowned.

‘What do you mean?'

‘Instead of bemoaning the fact that you were the officer on Jack's case, and wondering if it's right we should be together or if we're only attracted to each other for the wrong reasons, what if, like you said, it's all inevitable?'

‘You mean like fate?'

Lucy nodded. They stared at each other, both aware that a line had been crossed more surely than when they had had sex. They were talking in terms of ‘we' now. A ‘we' that, even though both of them would have professed not to believe in such things, was somehow already destined, an unforeseen consequence of the tragic events that had led them both here. For a moment Lucy felt a chill, a sudden icy breath that left raised skin on her forearms, then it was chased away by the hot crush of Matt's mouth on hers.

They were kissing. Ricky stepped back into the shadows of the alleyway, his heart like a stone in his chest.

It hadn't been easy to convince his nan to let him out for a couple of hours, given that he was suspended from school, grounded until his mum said otherwise and pretty much in everyone's bad books, not least his own. But he had managed to persuade her that he needed to tell Mitzi what had happened and why he wouldn't be able to see her for a while. ‘She's all I've got, Nan,' he had said, making more of his fledgling relationship than was really there. Nan, as he had expected, had agreed. Not only did she feel sorry for him but he had detected the note of disapproval in her voice when she spoke to her daughter and even though his nan wouldn't say it, he knew that she agreed with him on the subject of his mum and Matt. Although not perhaps in the words he had used.

Even though he had exaggerated about Mitzi's importance in his life, he had surprised himself by how much he really did want to see her. For all that she was pretty annoying, not to mention way too nosey about his family, he liked both the status that came with having a girlfriend and the feeling he got when she kissed him. It wasn't just about ‘getting into' her, as Tyler would put it, but about the way she made him feel, looking at him as if he was both important and special. Once she had stopped going on about Jack and that stupid Facebook page that was.

With his relationship with his mum changing in ways he didn't want to think about, it felt natural to seek Mitzi out as a source of comfort. That was one of the things girlfriends were supposed to do wasn't it? Be there for you. He even felt like he had gone one step further than Tyler. For all that Tyler bragged about how many girls he had done and the precise things he had indeed done with him, Ricky didn't see any girl wanting to be on Tyler's arm permanently. All the girls he went with were slags. Not like Mitzi.

So when he saw her, illuminated in the street lights that were just coming on as the spring evening faded into cold and dark, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He had spotted Tyler first, kissing one of his aforementioned girls, one hand down the back pocket of her jeans and the other hanging at his side holding what looked like a joint. The hair was too dark to be Shauna's and Ricky had smirked, wondering who Tyler was with now; a smirk that had frozen on his face midway, becoming a grimace as his brain tried to make sense of the information his eyes were relaying. That Tyler's latest ‘slag' was, in fact, Mitzi herself.

He didn't know what to do. Instead of rage he felt only a numb shock, and then a scattering of images as he replayed his recent meetings with both Mitzi and Tyler, looking for clues, hints that this was going to happen. He went to step forward, not really knowing what he was going to say to either of them, but then they broke apart as Tyler took a drag of his spliff and he heard Mitzi's voice, high and girlish and loud in the quiet street.

‘You're a great kisser. Much better than Ricky. He gropes at me like
uurggh.
You can tell he doesn't know what he's doing.'

Ricky felt physically sick, almost wounded, a literal reaction to words that were like a punch to the gut. Then a flush of shame came over him, washed over him much like the rage that had come over him when confronting Luke, except that had been a hot, fuzzy feeling and this was like worms crawling all over skin.

Tyler just grinned down at her, his face taking on the almost lop-sided look that he got when he was stoned, his voice thick like he had a mouthful of treacle.

‘Yeah, babe. You gonna give me a blowjob then?'

In answer Mitzi just giggled, then giggled some more when Tyler took one of her hands and pressed it to the crotch of his sweatpants. But she didn't pull it away, instead left it there while Tyler placed the spliff in her mouth and she inhaled. He watched her glossed mouth make a small ‘oh' around the end of it before Tyler took it back off her.

‘I suppose. If you want,' she agreed. As if it was a normal, everyday thing.

Ricky turned away, not wanting to see or hear any more. He wanted to disappear, to forget that he had seen them, but he knew he wouldn't forget. He moved back down the alleyway as quietly as he could, praying that they wouldn't see him. He should be confronting them, doing to Tyler what he had done to Luke earlier but instead he wanted to just run away. It wasn't just that he was physically more intimidated by Tyler than the other boy, but the shame of it. Of Mitzi and Tyler knowing he had heard her words, had heard them mocking him. He felt small, and stupid. That he had thought she really did like him. That Tyler was really his friend. Hearing Mitzi's laughter winging its way through the night, further away now, he picked up his pace and when he reached the end of the alleyway started running.

He was halfway home before he remembered he was staying at his nan's and had to turn and retrace his steps, wishing he had the balls to go and apologise to his mum. Mitzi was right, he was stupid. It was no wonder she liked Tyler more than him. Just as he had always known that Lucy, even if she would never admit it, had liked Jack more than him.

Lucy snuggled into Matt's chest, half wishing he didn't have to wake up and they would have to get up and go about their day, so that she could savour the feel and scent of having a man in her bed again. After they had made love the night before – and it had been making love this time, a tender exploration of each other's bodies rather than the frenzied passion of their first coupling – it had seemed natural for him to stay over. She knew when he was gone the house would seem achingly empty, even more so because Ricky was away.

It was a strange feeling, this new neediness she felt in her for Matt. His presence was a buffer from the outside world and, perhaps, from her own demons. When the shrill ringing of his phone cut through the morning silence, she knew the respite was over. Matt had to go, and the demons would be back.

Matt sat bolt upright, the phone to his ear before he had even opened his eyes.

‘DI Winston.'

He was silent, listening, and Lucy reached up and trailed her nails across his back, tracing the hard lines of his body, committing them to memory. Recalling how well their bodies fitted together.

Then he turned round and the look on his face froze her thoughts in place.

‘I've got to go.'

‘Work? What's happened?'

She felt almost resentful that someone had to have a crisis just as he was here in her bed. Then his words chased away any thoughts except a dawning horror.

‘A child has gone missing.'

Lucy felt a rushing in her ears, a familiar nausea.

‘Taken?'

Matt was up and pulling on his clothes, his face grim. He paused, and there was a haunted look on his face. Lucy felt cold and wrapped her arms around her nakedness.

‘We can't say for certain. Response have gone out to the parents; the mother said he was playing in the garden and she only took her eyes off him for a minute.'

He stopped as if he had only just realised what he had said. Lucy felt a cold hand twist her guts from the inside.

‘How old?'

‘Scott didn't say; but pre-school I think.'

Just like Jack
. Lucy was shaking.

‘It's him, isn't it? It's him?'

Matt couldn't answer her.

Part Two

When the child is born, the mother is also born
– Rajneesh

There's an innocence contained in you, but also an innocence in the process of being lost
– Bruce Springsteen

Chapter Nine
Wednesday Morning

Once he was at the station, Matt quickly took charge as the investigating officer on the case. In the case of a missing child – particularly one so young – the first five hours were crucial. As soon as Response officers had been sent out to the parents and ascertained that the child was indeed missing, notification was sent to the Missing Person's Bureau and Children Services, a national Child Rescue Alert issued, a Family Liaison Officer assigned and a press strategy put together. If the child didn't materialise within the next few hours, a press conference would be held and a televised appeal made by the parents.

It was all so similar to when Lucy's son had gone missing that Matt had a horrifying sense of
déjà vu
. Although he had dealt with the murders of children since Jack, they had all started with the crime scene, rather than a search. The case was so similar, the boy so near in age, and even in appearance judging by the picture the parents had passed to the Response officers, that he felt that earlier case hanging over this one like a bad omen. His first impulse had been to send a team to search the spot Jack had been found, before he had taken a deep breath and tried to focus on the matter in hand. There would come a time for that.

Because, although no one would voice it out loud just yet, only an hour in, the fact was that when children this young went missing, if they weren't found merely lost or playing outside their boundaries fairly quickly, the chances were high that either a fatal accident or something far more sinister had occurred. Young children, particularly pre-schoolers, didn't just run away as a teenager might. Already an Incident Room was on standby and a Manager assigned; waiting, as if it were already a known fact, for the body to be found. That was the reason the first five hours were so crucial – any longer and the likelihood of the boy being found alive began to fall dramatically.

The question that had been on Lucy's lips remained unspoken by the officers working under him, even Scott, but it was whirling around Matt's head. Lucy had asked him for Prince's whereabouts and he had been unable to help her; now that might be one question he could find the answer to, for himself at least.

Dailey had just put down the phone when Matt knocked and then walked straight in. He spoke before Matt had the chance to.

‘Prince is in the Midlands. East, rather than West, but it's still close enough – less than fifty miles – that it could have been him. A senior officer is on their way to question him now. Meanwhile,' he pushed a piece of paper over his desk towards the younger inspector, ‘there's a printout from the PNC of every known child abuser and sex offender in the area. Should we need to ask questions later.'

Matt frowned. In truth he was surprised that Dailey would think to track down Prince so swiftly, before there was even any indication of what had happened to the child. After all, the first finger of suspicion was usually pointed at the parents. Harsh, but not without reason. Again Matt flashed back to Jack, remembering how he had questioned Ethan until it had been proved Dr Randall had been in theatre at the time, with his scalpel buried in a patient's left ventricle. Funny, but he had never suspected Lucy.

‘Quick work, sir,' he said now. ‘Have East Midlands sent one of their own to question Prince?'

Dailey eyed him, and Matt knew his superior knew exactly what he was thinking, and that he had no chance of getting a positive reaction to that thought.

‘Yes, naturally. But if he should turn out to be a suspect then I'll be honest, Matt; I will have to consider taking you off this.'

Matt went to protest, but Dailey raised a hand and shook his head, a tiny yet final movement, and Matt swallowed his frustration.

‘You were lucky not to get a suspension last time, if not worse. I'm not putting you into an interview room with that boy again; if he complains it could jeopardise anything we may have on him, you know that.'

‘Sir.' His tone was deliberately neutral. The undoubted common sense of Dailey's words and his own commitment to his role didn't stop him from wishing that he could have just a few minutes alone in an interview room with Terry Prince. What if he had been released, only to do it again? Matt felt almost impotent with rage.