When I Wasn't Watching (8 page)

The girl looked happy again, whipping out a state of the art mobile that made Ricky embarrassed to have to pull out his mum's old Nokia. She rattled her number off to him, frowning when Ricky paused as he went to enter her name into his contacts.

‘It's Mitzi. Like the girl off the telly.'

‘I know that. My phone was just playing up.'

As Ricky walked away he wondered why he didn't feel any more pleased with himself. His first kiss and a girl's number and she was nice too, especially when she was away from that other one. But mention of his mother and Jack had annoyed him. It was everywhere he turned at the minute, he couldn't get away from it. Stirring up old memories of playing with a smiling, red-cheeked toddler who held his arms out to Ricky with an expression of absolute adoration. He had never been jealous of Jack, not when he had been alive anyway.

He was worried too about his mum, who had been in a strange and restless mood ever since the news that Terry Prince had walked free. There was a determined light in her eyes, a tension in her body as if she were waiting for something that unnerved Ricky and made him wonder what his mother would do next. He had the feeling something was about to happen, something even bigger than him scoring with a girl, and he wasn't sure he wanted to be around for the fall out.

When he reached his nan's she pursed her lips at him and Ricky hoped she couldn't smell either tobacco or weed on him, or see any difference in his eyes, but she only said, ‘You're late. I hope you got your homework done? You know your mum said you weren't to go out at all.'

‘Sorry, Nan.' He hurried off up to the spare room he always slept in when he was here, sitting on the bed and taking the phone out of his pocket to have a look again at Mitzi's number. Quickly, before he could change his mind, he texted her.

It's Ricky, this is my number
, he typed and then paused before he pressed send. He ought to put a kiss, but then kisses were for girls weren't they? He half wished Tyler were here to ask his advice, but he wouldn't want Tyler to know about his lack of experience with the opposite sex.

It was at least ten minutes before his phone buzzed in response and Ricky grabbed at it, eager to see if it was Mitzi. It was, but her response puzzled him.

Look on Facebook. I've just seen it
she had typed and Ricky's brow creased. He rarely even used Facebook, it was more for his mum's generation, and most of his mates used Pheed or Instagram now or just messaged each other on their BlackBerrys, which unfortunately with his ancient phone wasn't something he could join in with.

No internet here. What have you seen?
he typed and this time her answer came swiftly, words that Ricky sat and stared at for a long time, a knot of dread unravelling in his gut.

There's a page about your brother and the guy that killed him.

Ricky didn't reply but lay back on his pillows staring at the ceiling. It was to be expected, it had already been all over the news, yet here was what he dreaded most, that it would encroach on
his
life, his world, even colouring his meeting Mitzi. He felt like he didn't want to see her again at all now. Five minutes later his phone buzzed again.

Are you ok? I'm here if you want to talk.

Ricky turned his phone off.

While Ricky was navigating the uncharted waters of teenage dating, his mother had been preparing for her own date, the first in two years. Lucy was surprised at how her hand shook when she leaned over the mirror to apply her eyeliner, and at the way her stomach fizzed with excitement, making her hungry yet at the same time unable to eat. As much as she tried to tell herself that she was only doing this for the information she hoped to get out of Matt, part of her reacted to the prospect of seeing him again with an entirely different agenda.

She wondered if perhaps going to bed with him would help get rid of the jittery, on-edge feeling that had been with her constantly since the phone call. Four days. It felt like so much longer, and yet at the same time Lucy had the disconcerting feeling that time was not being measured in increments of how long had passed since that morning, but rather was counting down to something, some momentous event that the phone call from the Parole Board had triggered.

Her mother had looked at her quizzically when Lucy confessed she was meeting Matt at the Italian restaurant in town, but to Lucy's relief had voiced no disapproval, nor questioned Lucy's motives when she had revealed who Matt was, only passed comment on vaguely remembering how handsome the young cop had been. Ricky was staying at hers and was still grounded, though Lucy knew her son would attempt to talk her mother round if he could.

Matt had phoned her that morning, as she had somehow known he would, to ask how things were with Ricky. Lucy had found herself steering the conversation around to him asking her for a meal. There was an unspoken connection between them somehow; both having been brought together yet again by his involvement with her children. Not the most romantic situation perhaps, but it could prove to be a fateful one. To make their ‘date' for that very night was her own idea, perhaps in fear that if she gave herself too long to think about it she might change her mind.

Lucy knew that Detective Inspector Winston was attracted to her; although he had never been anything but polite she could read it clear as day in his eyes and the way he had so very deliberately
not
looked at her bare legs when she had been perched on the counter. She had noticed at the edge of her awareness even back
then
, but it had barely registered, all information unrelated to Jack coming to her as if through a fog, the same fog that had followed her for years, always threatening to envelop her. Somehow, since the news of Prince's release, that fog had gradually cleared after the initial shock, leaving behind a sharp anger yes, but also the feeling that she was fully alive again.

The look Matt gave her when she opened the door to him was confirmation of her renewed state. His eyes drank her in, clearly appreciating the effort she had made with her hair, her make-up, her dress. Lucy found herself giving him a sultry smile.

‘You look lovely,' he said, looking down at himself self-consciously, although he looked just as delectable himself, she thought with a half-smile. When they walked into
Marco's
after a somewhat awkward car drive, Lucy saw the heated glances other women gave the man at her side and felt as giddy as a teenager at the school disco who had somehow managed to bag herself the hottest guy in school. Much as she had once felt with Ethan, yet back then she had been very much aware of being in his shadow. Somehow being next to Matt made her feel more secure, not less.

She ordered wine in an attempt to calm the fizzing in her gut, even though Matt was of course not drinking. He watched her as she sipped at it, his expression unreadable.

‘So, things are okay at home?' They had already spoken about Ricky, who had been very much subdued after his run-in with Matt, so Lucy knew what he was referring to. She took another sip of wine before looking straight at him.

‘As good as can be expected. I still intend to do something, I just don't quite know what yet.'

‘Maybe no more tabloid interviews,' Matt suggested, and although his tone was light Lucy wondered if he meant it as a reprimand. She had seen the protesters on the news, pacing the town square that lay between the City Hall and the main station, no doubt causing the officers some extra work. Although she had applauded their efforts Lucy thought it strange that in the angry crowd of faces, all of them there because of her child – she had even spotted a home-made banner calling for ‘Justice for Jack' – there hadn't been one she recognised. No one who had ever even met either her or Jack.

Lucy smiled and opened her mouth to say something upbeat, but Matt reached over the table and closed a hand over hers.

‘Lucy, you don't need to put a face on, not with me.'

As sudden tears stung at her eyes Lucy pulled her hand away, more sharply than she meant to, nearly knocking the bottle of wine over until Matt caught it with a deft flick of his wrist. Lucy was impressed.

‘Good reflexes.'

‘I used to box.'

Lucy looked at his broad shoulders and defined arms that his shirt couldn't fail to highlight.

‘That fits. You look like a boxer, rather than a cop.'

Matt laughed.

‘Should I take that as a compliment?'

‘Maybe.' She was flirting with him again, she realised, except this time it was natural rather than a contrived effort on her part. Aware of the attraction he felt for her, for the first time she felt the stirrings of desire on her own part, completely independent of who he was and how they were involved.

Although the question she needed to ask him still waited on her lips, it occurred to her that she could allow herself this at least; to sit opposite an attractive man and feel like a young woman again, with all the needs and desires of a young woman, that had been lying dormant under the weight of her grief.

Her leg brushed his under the table. It was an accident, or at least an unconscious movement, but when Matt didn't move his leg away, only looked at her with a smile playing around the corners of his mouth, she realised he thought she had done it on purpose and felt her cheeks heat up.

‘Shall we order?'

She nodded and grabbed the menu, glad he had broken the loaded silence, and looked at the menu without seeing it, the words swimming in front of her eyes.

‘I'm having Bolognese,' Matt told her, ‘not very original I know, but I don't know what half of the things on that menu are. Why can't they just write them in English?'

Lucy laughed.

‘That's not very cosmopolitan, inspector.'

‘Will you please call me Matt? You're making me feel old. But yeah, I'm a pie and potatoes man to be honest.'

‘Not steak and raw eggs? Isn't that what you testosterone-fuelled boxer types eat?'

‘I think that's bodybuilders,' Matt laughed, ‘but what are you having? Salad?'

‘God no. I'll have the Bolognese as well.'

They smiled at each other as Lucy took another sip of her wine. There was a pleasant warmth in her belly now that was as much due to laughter as alcohol.

‘You know, you're surprisingly easy to be around. Even yesterday, when you brought Ricky back, it was nice to talk to you. I've been isolated lately.'
For a long time
, she added to herself.

‘I can imagine,' he said, leaning over as if he would say something more, but paused when the waitress came over to take their order. The girl's eyes lingered on Matt as he ordered for them and Lucy felt a simultaneous stab of jealousy – the waitress was young, pretty and wearing a ridiculous tight uniform that showed every inch of her to full effect – and a
frisson
of pride that he was sitting with her. Always with Ethan she had felt out of her league, wondering if the young women who flirted with the handsome surgeon looked at her with disdain.
What is he doing with her?
She didn't feel like that with Matt, and wondered if it was a confidence that came with age, or more to do with Matt himself. The fact that he showed no sign of noticing the younger woman's appraisal helped. Matt seemed refreshingly blasé about his own good looks.

‘So have you been on your own since you parted ways with your husband?' he asked her, the words sounding over-formal from his mouth.
Parted ways
. Like the Red Sea, or two paths branching out where there had previously only been one. Lucy nodded.

‘Since he left me for a younger woman you mean? You can say it, it doesn't bother me any more,' and sitting here with Matt she realised that statement was now true ‘But yes, I suppose I have. A few dates here and there, but I've just never felt ready since; it's been too painful.'

‘I suppose a divorce would make you wary.'

‘I meant since Jack was killed,' she said bluntly.

There it was, the subject they would both have spent the night dancing around until one of them had mentioned it. It had been easier to sit in her kitchen talking after he had brought Ricky home, when he had still been there in his role as police officer, albeit off duty, than to mention such an emotive topic in the middle of a date.

For a horrible moment Lucy wondered if he had only invited her out of morbid curiosity or even worse, pity, and she had imagined the interest she had thought she saw in his eyes. But Matt took her comment in stride and she chided herself for the uncharitable thought, born only out of her own insecurities.

‘It must affect you on every level, grief like that. But you still deserve to be happy, Lucy. Let's face it, it didn't stop your husband did it?'

Lucy laughed, both surprised and pleased at his brusqueness.

‘No I guess it didn't. But you know, people react to grief in funny ways.'

Matt nodded.

‘You think maybe if that hadn't happened, you would still be together?'

How many times had she asked herself that question? Excusing Ethan's actions, even telling herself it was to be expected given her withdrawal into her own private pain that even as Jack's father she just didn't see him as part of. Now though, Lucy thought that maybe it had nothing to do with it at all.

‘No. I think he was just an unfaithful bastard.' She laughed without bitterness, feeling a weight lifting from her that she hadn't been fully aware of carrying. Matt laughed with her, though his voice was serious when he said, ‘He must have been crazy if he didn't appreciate what he already had. I've never understood men like that.'

‘Thank you.'

She looked at him over the rim of her glass as she took another sip. Exes were supposed to be a no-go topic of conversation on a date, but given the circumstances they had met under there were worse topics, and she liked talking to him. It felt good, to so casually dismiss Ethan's actions, as if it meant nothing. Which she supposed they didn't, not now.