Like This, for Ever

27




‘OH, MY LIFE, when did you get so big and ugly?’

Turquoise eyes blinked at her. ‘That’s no way to talk to my dad.’

At the door of Dana’s small office on the first floor of Lewisham nick, the older of the two Joesburys gave a muffled laugh, the younger kept a dead-pan face.

Dana felt her first smile in days pushing at the corners of her mouth. ‘If hugs are on the agenda, I’m willing,’ she said, getting to her feet.

‘If I must,’ grumbled Huck, who was already halfway across the room. They smelled of the outdoors, these two men, of dry mud and damp sports clothes, of petrol fumes and, God, how had she never realized how strong and warm and solid young boys’ bodies were? Huck’s hair smelled of apples, his skin was the softest thing she’d ever touched.

‘OK, you’re being weird now.’

She looked up, over Huck’s head, to see Mark with that crease between his brows that meant he was worried about her. She let Huck go, stepped back and tilted his chin up. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘you’re much better looking than your dad.’

‘He got his mother’s looks and my brains,’ said Joesbury. ‘I never tire of telling him how lucky he is.’

‘But my natural athleticism is all my own,’ said Huck, pulling back the sleeve of his rugby shirt. The bicep muscle looked as if someone had pushed a ping-pong ball under his skin.

‘Nearly ready?’ Mark asked Dana.

‘Yep,’ she said. ‘I’ve got my phone if they need me. Do you want to take a look downstairs first?’

‘Back in a sec,’ he told Huck. ‘You two decide where you want to eat.’

‘Are you going to the incident room?’ asked his son.

‘No, I’m going to ask the desk sergeant who he fancies in the 4.15 at Haydock.’

‘Can I come?’

The two squared up to each other. ‘Since when have you been interested in horse racing?’ asked the bigger of the two.

‘I mean to the incident room.’

Mark pulled the door open. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Your mother said to be sure I showed you lots of photographs of dismembered corpses.’

‘Mark!’

Quick as a rat, Huck had one foot in the corridor. ‘Cool, can I?’

‘No,’ said Dana firmly.

‘No,’ repeated Mark, ‘because I am not going to the incident room and the desk sergeant doesn’t approve of children gambling.’

Huck waited for the sound of his father’s footsteps to fade. He looked at Dana, then back at the door, then at Dana again. She waited.

‘While my dad’s in the incident room, can I ask you something?’ he said eventually, his bright-blue eyes wide and staring.

Dana sat down again. ‘Of course.’

Huck leaned against the back of the chair facing her. ‘Actually, three things. First, is it true that you’re looking for a vampire?’

‘No. And where on earth did you hear that rubbish?’

Huck started swinging the chair round in the usual manner of boys who can’t keep still for a second. ‘On the radio on the way over,’ he said. ‘The bloke said that in view of latest developments – I think that’s what he said – the investigation team would be bringing in Van Helsing to act as an advisor. My dad called him a Ducking Bat and switched the radio off.’

‘A Ducking Bat?’

Huck grinned. ‘No, he didn’t say that, just something that sounds a lot like it. He’s not supposed to swear in front of me, but I don’t tell on him because I know more swear words than anyone else in my class.’

‘You must be very proud.’

Huck’s eyes narrowed. ‘I know who Van Helsing is, though.’

‘Do you?’

‘He’s the black guy in Young Dracula. The one with the stupid hat who’s always trying to catch the vampires but never manages it. I don’t know why you’d want him on your team, he’s a twit with a different vowel sound.’

‘A what?’

‘Twit with a different vowel sound. You know, twit, twot, tw—’

Dana held up her hand. ‘Yeah, I get it. Well, there are no such things as vampires. I’m looking for an evil, but otherwise very ordinary, man or woman, and I will not be hiring anyone called Van Helsing. Now, what was your second question?’

Huck spun the chair right round and sat in it, then looked down at the desk and arranged the pencils into a square shape. His mouth twisted into a lopsided pout.

‘Auntie Dana,’ he began, without looking up.

He hardly ever called her that.

‘Yes, Huckleberry?’

He looked up, down, up again. ‘Are you still gay?’ he asked her.

Oh God, the last thing she’d expected. He’d been teased at school. This child, probably the closest she’d ever come to having one of her own, was embarrassed by her.

‘Yes, Huck,’ she said, watching his little face fall. Kids could never really hide what they were feeling. ‘Why, has someone said—’

‘No, I thought you probably would be. It’s just …’

She really didn’t want to be having this conversation right now. Except when these conversations arrived, there was no avoiding them. ‘Just what?’

His eyes were on his feet, his trainers kicking the leg of her desk, his hands tucked in his pockets. Then he looked up again.

‘I really think my dad needs a girlfriend,’ he said.

‘Oh? Why?’

‘Even Mum’s starting to say he does. He’s just in such a bad mood all the time. Always grumpy.’

The little face in front of her looked so sad.

‘Is he grumpy with you?’ she asked.

Huck shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘With little things. You know, when the traffic lights change at the last minute, or he spills some coffee on the worktop. Or if he forgets something. If you’re happy, you don’t get cross with little things, do you?’

‘No, I guess you don’t.’

Footsteps outside. The two of them exchanged a glance that was half guilt, half intrigue. ‘We’ll talk about this some more,’ said Dana. ‘In the meantime, what’s the third thing you want to ask me?’

‘Are you going to make us eat vegetarian muck again?’ said Huck as the door opened and his dad reappeared.

‘Matey, will you get me some water?’ he asked Huck, holding the door open. ‘Water fountain at the end of the corridor.’

‘OK,’ said Huck, getting up and sauntering out.

‘What?’ said Mark, when his son had gone.

‘Nothing. Anything strike you downstairs?’

‘Just the blood, for the moment. Lot of it to get rid of. It’s going to make a hell of a mess in a house. So, either he lives alone, in which case it doesn’t matter how much mess he makes …’

‘We’re pretty certain he doesn’t though,’ interrupted Dana. ‘Circumstances allow him a certain amount of freedom in the late afternoons, early evenings. Then he’s expected to be home.’

‘So he has somewhere else to work. An outbuilding, a lock-up, even a garden shed. Which tend not to be connected to the sewer system.’

‘I’m not following.’

Mark lowered himself into the chair Huck had just left, only he sat on it with the chair-back facing his chest. ‘If the blood is being poured down a domestic sink, it’ll go straight into the foul-water drain and join the municipal sewerage system. In this city, with hundreds of thousands of litres of sewerage being processed every day, it’ll soon get lost.’

‘Right.’

‘On the other hand, if it’s not getting into the sewerage system, it most likely is going into a storm drain.’

‘When did you become an expert on sewerage?’

‘Not sewerage, water pollution. You forget Adam and I spent most of our weekends when we were kids driving up and down the river with Granddad.’

She nodded. Mark’s maternal grandfather had worked for the marine policing unit. His uncle still did.

‘One of the things we’d get involved with was river-pollution incidents,’ Mark continued. ‘Strictly, it’s not the responsibility of the Marine Unit, but typically it’s their patrol boats that spot problems. And one thing I did learn was that if an unauthorized substance enters the river via a storm drain, it leaves some trace behind. I’ve watched these blokes from the Environment Agency find traces of oil, or chemicals, or raw sewerage at the points where the storm drains meet the river, then track it back up through the drains, right to the point of origin.’

‘So, if they spot blood, then they can—’

‘Track it back to where it was spilt in the first place.’

Dana pushed her chair back from her desk. ‘I had no idea,’ she said.

‘It’s a long-shot, sweetheart. A typical pollution incident is a lot bigger than a few litres of blood, but it’s worth a go. Talk to the Marine Unit, they’ll put you in touch with the Environment Agency, you can pinpoint the storm drains along the stretch of the South Bank between Tower Bridge and Deptford and then you can send a team out. Take a couple of days at most.’

‘I’ll get on to it tomorrow,’ said Dana, glancing at her watch. ‘Huck’s been a long time.’

‘Speak of the Devil,’ said Mark, as the small boy pushed open the door. ‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Having a word with David,’ said Huck. ‘On the next floor up.’

Mark raised one eyebrow at Dana.

‘David Weaver, the Detective Superintendent,’ explained Dana. ‘How was he?’

‘Good,’ said Huck. ‘Worried about the vampire. He didn’t mention it, but he had a copy of that book on his desk, the one that’s just gone into the top 50 on Amazon.’

‘So now even the Super is reading Bram Stoker,’ said Dana.

‘Did you give him my water?’ said Mark.

Huck gave his dad a withering look. ‘You didn’t want water,’ he said. ‘You wanted me out of the way so you could tell Dana what you thought of in the incident room.’

‘You see,’ Mark said to Dana. ‘Kid got my brains.’