When I Wasn't Watching (25 page)

‘Well, I'm kind of going out with Tyler now.'

Matt raised his eyebrows. Now that could be a plausible motive for a teenage boy to go walkabout.

‘I see. How did Ricky react to this?'

The girl just shrugged and started chewing on her hair. Matt looked at Tyler, who looked down at his shoes.

‘We haven't told him yet. Like I said, we haven't seen him.'

‘Do you go on Facebook?' Matt asked abruptly. Tyler looked confused again but the girl looked up at him guiltily.

‘You mean the page about his brother? I showed him it, last week, and he got angry. Like, really angry.'

Angry enough to seek revenge on his brother's killer? Perhaps Lucy was right. As much as the idea of a fourteen-year-old boy pouring lighter fuel over a grown man seemed ludicrous, it was no more far-fetched than his assumption that it had been Lucy herself.

‘Did he indicate that he was going to do anything about it?'

Mitzi shook her head, while Tyler looked interested.

‘What's he done? He's not just ran away has he? You think he's done something.'

‘I'm just trying to get an idea of how he might be feeling, so we can work out where he might be,' Matt lied. Tyler looked disappointed, obviously hoping for something juicier. Matt sighed. He had got all there was to get from these too.

‘Is there anywhere he might be?'

The two exchanged looks, then simultaneously shook their heads. For the first time Matt thought they might be lying.

‘If there's anything you think you know, you have to tell me.'

They stared at him, close-lipped.

‘Okay. Well if you hear from him, tell him his mum is very worried about him, okay?'

Mitzi looked like she was about to burst into tears.

‘I hope he's okay,' she sniffed. Tyler shuffled his feet.

‘I'll leave you my number.' Matt pulled out a card. ‘When your dad gets back, I want you to get him to ring me.'

‘He's at the pub. He'll be pissed when he gets in.' Tyler said it with indifference, but Matt sensed a hurt behind the words and felt sorry for the kid. There but for the grace of God and all that.

He paused before leaving and held out a hand to Tyler, palm up. The boy looked confused.

‘Pass me whatever you've been smoking, and I won't arrest you for it, okay?'

Tyler looked mutinous for a moment before giving in, rummaging in the pocket of his sweatpants and passing Matt a plastic baggie filled with marijuana without meeting his eye.

‘Thank you. Remember, if you think of anything else, call me.' How many times had he said that today?

A ring round of Ricky's school friends turned up nothing, and the address Lucy had given him for Ricky's paternal grandmother – ‘though he hasn't seen her for years' – now belonged to a young French couple. He would have to call it in. Chances were Ricky was wandering the streets somewhere – a significant number of teenagers reported missing were found doing just that – and at least night patrol officers could keep an eye out for him.

As he drove back to Lucy he took a small detour and drove past the Armstrong house. The lights were on in the lounge, curtains still open, and Matt could just see Mr Armstrong through the nets. Sitting alone.

He reached Lucy's and knocked lightly on the front door and Lucy opened it, nodded and turned, back to her mother who she was obviously in the middle of arguing with.

‘I can't believe you didn't check on him all day!'

‘Well,' Danielle responded as Matt stepped inside and closed the door, ‘he wouldn't have been at my house in the first place if it wasn't for you.'

Lucy looked crushed, and Matt found himself getting angry at Danielle.

‘Mrs Wyatt? I hardly think Lucy needs to hear that right now.' Danielle opened her mouth in indignation and then shut it again, clearly deciding it was better not to say whatever she had been about to. Matt turned to Lucy, whose face fell as she realised Matt had no news to give her.

‘There'll be someone from uniform out to take a statement, and we'll get extra officers and PCOs out on night patrol. It would help if we knew what he was wearing?'

Lucy looked at Danielle, who sighed.

‘I could go home and check his things.'

‘That would be helpful,' Matt nodded. Lucy looked relieved to see her mother leave.

Matt made himself scarce in the kitchen while a young WPC arrived to take Lucy's statement. She looked curiously at Matt as she was leaving.

‘Are you okay, sir? Still no word on the Armstrong boy?'

‘No.' His admission felt like a failure. He was becoming a bad luck charm, much as he had thought that morning when the Armstrongs had pulled away from him in horror. Now he was linked to yet another missing child. He inclined his head towards the lounge.

‘Don't let this be brushed to one side until tomorrow,' he said to the WPC, ‘there's reason to think the boy was very upset.' He didn't mention the Murray attack, or Prince, and wondered how long it would be before the young officer made the connection.

‘No, sir. I'll go and talk to the grandmother now. Are you staying with her?'

Matt nodded, looked over at Lucy who was sitting staring at nothing.

‘I don't think she should be left alone right now,' he said softly. The WPC nodded and made to leave, pausing to smile at Matt.

‘She's a lucky woman,' she said with a blush. Matt watched her go with a hollow smile. He didn't think Lucy was feeling very ‘lucky' right now.

Sitting down next to her he took her hand between his, finding her skin cold to the touch.

‘He'll turn up, Lucy; kids his age usually do.'

Lucy didn't answer him, but leaned against him a little, so that he could smell the trace of shampoo in her hair. Coconut, and something fruity perhaps.

‘I'm sorry I left that message today.'

‘Don't worry about that now,' he said, then added after a moment, ‘I understand why you did.'

‘It was too late anyway,' she said, her voice dull, ‘he's already gone.'

The way she said the word ‘gone' sounded so final that Matt reached for her face, tipping her jaw up to look at him fully, his hands gentle.

‘This isn't Jack. Odds are he'll turn up safe and sound.' His words sounded woefully inadequate. Teenagers going on the missing list for a few hours was hardly unusual, but in the wake of the day's events it didn't look good for Ricky right now.

‘Do you really think he would be capable of something like that?'

She paused, and he let go of her face and entwined his hands with hers. He had never been one for casual affection, but when he was near Lucy it felt somehow natural that they should be touching. She looked down at their linked fingers as she spoke.

‘Not really, but I just have this awful feeling he's in trouble. And why not? I wanted to go round there, you know, when I saw that address and thought it was Prince's. It was all I could do not to, even though I was worried about Ricky. It was all I could think about last week; finding out where that monster was living.'

‘I know. That's why you agreed to go out with me, remember?' His attempt at humour was rewarded with a weak smile and she snuggled closer to him. They sat in silence, Matt drinking in the smell of her and savouring the feeling of her body curving into his. He wondered what would happen to them when it was all over. If it could ever be all over.

‘Can I ask you something?'

‘Of course,' he said.

‘Do you believe in the death penalty?'

He hadn't been expecting that. But the look in her eyes was deadly serious, so Matt gave her question some thought before answering, choosing his words carefully.

‘I'm not sure. I deal with a murder case, a paedophile ring, and I think yes, kill the bastards. But I'm not sure it works as a deterrent. It's academic anyway, considering we don't have a death penalty here.' He had the awful feeling she was seeking reassurance for something. For what she had wanted to do? Or what she may have already done?

‘I never used to. I even wrote letters for Amnesty International once, when I was younger,' she confessed. ‘But now, I wish we had it here. Eight years isn't enough.'

‘I know.'

‘I can't help it, Matt. Whoever set fire to that man – well, it's awful – but mostly I'm upset that it wasn't Terry Prince.'

Matt squeezed her hands, unwilling to get into a conversation that could reveal things about her that he didn't want to know.

‘Lucy…' He meant it as a warning, but she looked up at him, their faces seeming very close and then she leaned towards him, her eyes on his mouth, and kissed him. The brush of her lips against his was light, tender even, and Matt couldn't help thinking it felt as though she was kissing him goodbye.

Ricky curled into a ball, waiting for a sleep that wouldn't come, staring at the shadows the darkness made, the half-formed shapes that echoed the fears that gnawed at his consciousness.

There was no going back from this, he knew that now. What he had done this day was unforgivable, and yet he had never really wanted to hurt anybody but only to make it better. To make the pain stop. Now he'd just messed it all up even more.

His mum was going to hate him. Again.

Ricky lay on the floor on his coat, watching the lights of the street lamps twinkling in the window like stars, and wished he was somewhere else. At home would be good.

He looked away from the lights and smiled as he saw a pair of blue eyes regarding him serenely from the corner of the room. A small hand stretched out to brush his cheek. Jack.

‘You're back,' Ricky said, feeling a sudden rush of hope. Maybe things would be all right after all.

Lucy explored Matt's mouth slowly with her own, flinching away when he reached for her, holding back just enough that she could stay in control of the kiss and of her own reactions to him. She needed this, needed a way to pull herself back together, but she needed also to be in control. God knew she was in control of little else right now.

Her tongue danced with his and again he tried to reach for her but she pressed his hands back into his lap with her own, brushing her fingertips over his groin as she did so and feeling him already hard for her, already wanting. The knowledge made her stomach tighten and she kissed him harder, gripping his hands tight in hers, pushing him back against the cushions. An image of Ethan, earlier, on this very couch came to mind and she jumped back from Matt as if his mouth had burned hers. He blinked, confused, then looked contrite, as if he had been the one to make the moves on her.

‘I kissed Ethan earlier,' she said, not realising she was going to confess that until she did. Matt blinked, and a fleeting expression of anger crossed his features before he schooled them into submission and gave her his impassive ‘cop face'.

‘You never cease to surprise me,' he said drily. When Lucy reached for his hand again he didn't pull his away but he didn't react either. Just looked at her, waiting for her to talk.

‘It was a mistake,' she said. ‘And I pushed him away. I don't know what came over me really.'

Matt's expression didn't change, and she thought he must be angry, or at least disappointed, but then the corner of his mouth quirked up.

‘You didn't hit him again did you?'

Lucy barked a surprised laugh.

‘No! No, but he was annoyed. He left pretty quickly.'

‘So why are you telling me this?' His expression had gone blank again but Lucy sensed he was hurt. After all, not an hour after she had left him a message telling him she couldn't see him again she was rolling around with her ex-husband. Classy.

‘I just thought you should know, before we go any further.'

Matt nodded and angled himself so their mouths were again nearly touching.

‘We could stop.'

‘We could.'

She kissed him again, more urgently, but could feel him hesitating this time. He broke the kiss and stood up, then held a hand out before she could protest.

‘Shall we go upstairs?'

Her breath caught in her throat.

‘Do you want to?'

He raised an eyebrow at her.

‘Apart from the fact that this sofa has clearly seen more than enough action for one day, if your mother – or Ricky – come bursting through the door, it might be a good idea if we're not making out like teenagers on the settee.'

She took his hand and stood up, kissing him again. She led him upstairs slowly, holding her breath again. Caught in time. She was hungry for the feel of his skin on hers, for the way he drove his body into her, joining them, so that for just a moment, just a brief pause, everything else would fall away. She would feel guilty afterwards no doubt, but she felt as if she didn't do something, anything, to release the tension inside her she would go mad with it.

In spite of his words once they reached the bedroom and came together there was nothing teenager-like about it. No awkward fumbling or clumsy mouths or even the fevered urgency of the first time. He undressed her slowly, running his hands down the lines of her body and for the first time really looking at her, almost into her. When his arms went around her she let out a small moan, tipping her head back so the ends of her hair tickled her skin as his mouth reached her breasts. The intensity that ran through her body at his touch was as sharp as it was sweet, and when he came back up to kiss her mouth there were tears on her cheeks. She crushed her mouth to his before he could break the moment to ask her why she cried. Lucy didn't even know herself.

They lay down on the bed together, side by side, Matt running his hands down her body almost at leisure, as if they had an endless amount of time and there were no other concerns pressing on them. His fingers traced the single silver line of stretched skin over one hip that stood testimony to Jack's birth. Then he bent to kiss it, flicking his tongue over it, then moving down and easing her thighs apart.