She dragged herself to her feet. She opened the fridge. She stared into its cold and heartless depths. There was sticky toffee sponge, she discovered, so she could check pudding off her menu list. And far in the back was an old minced beef and onion roll. This could do as a main course. Now for the starter…? Perhaps Pot Noodle? In the veg department, there had to be a tin of something…Chickpeas? Carrots and turnips? Bea wondered what she’d been thinking when she’d last done the shopping. Probably nothing, she decided. She’d likely been pushing the trolley along the aisles without an idea in her head as to what she might cook. The thought of proper nutrition for Pete had probably prompted a spontaneous visit to the market, but once there, she’d got distracted by something like a call on her mobile and the end result was…this.
She took out the sticky toffee sponge and decided to skip the starter, the entrée, and the veg altogether, getting right down to the pudding, which, after all, everyone knew was the best part of the meal and why should she deny herself that when she wanted cheering up and this had the best potential to do the job?
She was about to tuck into it when bim bim BIM boom BOOM sounded on her front door, followed by the scrape of Ray’s key in the lock. He came in talking. He was saying, “…spirit of compromise, mate,” to which Pete replied, “Pizza is a compromise, Dad, when one’s set on McDonald’s.”
“Don’t you dare buy him a Big Mac,” Bea called.
“You see?” Ray said. “Mum quite agrees.”
They came into the kitchen. They were wearing matching baseball caps, and Pete had his Arsenal sweatshirt on. Ray was in jeans and a paint-stained windcheater. Pete’s jeans had a great hole in the knee.
“Where’re the dogs?” Bea asked them.
“Back at home,” Ray said. “We’ve been?”
“Mum, Dad found this wicked paintball place,” Pete announced. “It was fantastic. Kapowee!” He mimicked shooting his father. “Blim! Blam! Bash! You put on these boiler suits and they load you up and off you go. I got him so good, didn’t I, Dad? I snuck round?”
“Sneaked,” Bea corrected patiently. She watched their son, and she didn’t resist the smile that came to her as he demonstrated the stealth whereby he’d managed to obliterate his father with paint. It was just the sort of game she’d always sworn to herself that her son wouldn’t play: a mimicry of war. And yet, in the end, wouldn’t boys always be just that?
“You didn’t think I’d be that good, did you?” Pete asked his father, playfully punching him in the arm.
Ray reached out, hooked his arm round Pete’s neck, and pulled him over. He planted a loud kiss on his son’s head and rubbed his knuckles through Pete’s thick hair. “Go get what you came for, Paintball Wizard,” he told him. “We’ve got dinner to attend to.”
“Pizza!”
“Curry or Chinese. That’s the best I’ll offer. Or we can have calves’ liver and onions at home. Served with sprouts and broad beans on the side.”
Pete laughed. He darted out of the room and they heard him dash up the stairs.
“He wanted his CD player,” Ray told Bea. He smiled as they listened to Pete crashing about his room. “Truth is, he wants an iPod and he thinks if he demonstrates how many CDs he’s got to carry round with him when he could be carrying this device the size of…what size are they? I can’t keep up with technology.”
“These days that’s what kids are for. When it comes to technology, I’m utterly out of the loop without Pete.”
Ray watched her for a moment as she spooned up a portion of sticky toffee sponge. She saluted him with it. He said, “Why do I think that’s your dinner, Beatrice?”
“Because you’re a cop.”
“So it is?”
“Hmm.”
“Are you on the fly?”
“Wish,” she said. “But that’s not the word I’d choose to describe where I am or where the case is.”
She decided to tell him. He was going to learn it all sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner and from her. She gave him all the details and waited for his reaction. “Damn,” he said. “That’s a real…” He seemed to look for a word.
“Cock-up?” she offered. “Generated by yours truly?”
“I wasn’t going to say that, exactly.”
“But you were thinking it.”