Like This, for Ever

43




LACEY STAYED WHERE she was on the bank. The last thing she needed right now was to get into a scuffle with a kid around deep water. It was the right call. Barney, after a last glance at the hatch of the boat, began making his way towards her. Once off the yellow boat he moved quickly, as though eager to reach her. She almost told him to take it easy.

‘I’m not trespassing,’ he announced, when he’d joined her on the wall. ‘That’s my granddad’s boat.’

‘And is Granddad at home?’ Lacey asked him, looking back at the yellow-painted yacht with the green trim and wooden deck. It looked old, but cared for. A well-loved classic.

‘He’s dead,’ said Barney. ‘The boat’s empty. No one goes there now.’

The child stood next to her, looking awkward and uncomfortable. Lacey took a step back, further from the river, hoping he’d follow her. He did.

‘So you’re back again,’ said Lacey. ‘What keeps bringing you to Deptford Creek at this time of night?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

She nodded towards the boat she’d found him on. ‘Is your dad with you?’

‘No!’

Extraordinary reaction. She mentioned his father, he looked terrified. Why would the kid be scared of his dad?

‘Does he know you’re here?’

Shake of the head. ‘He’s working. Miles from here. Are you going to tell him?’

Definitely afraid of something. ‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘But I need you to come back with me now. It’s not safe for you to be here on your own this late.’

Barney didn’t argue. If anything he seemed eager to get out of the yard. They collected their bikes and wheeled them back towards the main road.

‘What were you doing there?’ Lacey tried again, after a few seconds.

Nothing for a while. Then, ‘I got curious,’ said Barney. ‘I saw on the news about how they’d found a body here and I just wanted to see the place for myself.’

She watched him, waiting for him to make eye contact. When he did, he looked at her steadily, without flinching. Young as he was, he was pretty unflappable.

‘I saw on Facebook that another boy has gone missing,’ said Barney, after they’d walked in silence for some minutes. ‘Is it true?’

Everywhere she went, people were determined to drag her into that case. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘If it is, it’ll be on the news when we get back.’

They walked on, the only sound being that of the bike wheels on the wet road.

‘Why does he do it?’ said Barney, in a small voice. ‘Why does he kill kids?’

The question the whole country was asking. Barney, still a child, would expect a grown-up, a detective, to know the answer. ‘There are lots of reasons why people kill,’ she said. ‘And usually those reasons make no sense to people like us.’

‘What do you mean?’

Lacey sighed. She was wet, cold, some way from home and this kid wanted a psychological profile. ‘There may be something wrong with his brain,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was injured in some way that stops him feeling compassion and pity. Or maybe he went through a terrible experience when he was a child, bad enough to damage him, even if not in a physical way.’

Barney had been watching her face rather than where he was going. He pushed his bike a little too close and almost knocked her off balance.

‘Steady!’

‘Sorry.’

They walked on, until, in a quiet voice, Barney asked, ‘Can he get better?’

‘Better, as in … ?’

‘Can he stop doing it? Is there a way of making him good again?’

They had to cross the main road at this point. Lacey waited for a gap in the traffic. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, when they’d reached the other side. ‘I think when people are as damaged as he is, the only thing you can really do is stop them hurting anyone in the future.’

‘You mean send him to prison?’

‘Well, it might be to a secure hospital, but it would still seem very much like a prison.’

‘What if he’s got …’

Lacey slowed down. Barney was no longer making eye contact. When she was looking straight ahead, his eyes never left her face, but the second she turned to him, he looked away. What was he hiding? ‘Got what?’ she asked him.

‘Nothing. Why does he kill kids, though? Why not grown-ups?’

Wow, he wasn’t holding back with the tricky questions.

‘Well, that’s probably a question only he could answer, but usually when killers go for one particular type of victim, it’s because those victims remind them of a person in real life. Maybe someone who’s hurt them. They can’t kill the one they really want to, so they choose – do you know the word surrogate?’

‘I think so. You mean he’s killing ten- and eleven-year-old boys because there’s one particular ten- or eleven-year-old he really wants to kill but can’t?’

‘Well, it probably won’t be quite as simple as that, but basically—Barney, what’s wrong?’

He was crying. The tough, defiant kid had tears gleaming in his eyes. Knowing she’d seen them, he brought his fists up to his face like a much younger child, to hide the tears and wipe them away at the same time.

Lacey looked up the street and spotted a café still open. With one hand on Barney’s shoulder, the other steering her bike, she led the child across the road towards it. When he asked for a Coke, she ordered two to save hassle and led him to a table next to the wall.

‘Going to tell me?’ she asked, when nothing but gulping sounds and sniffs had come from Barney for quite some time.

‘I’ve been trying to find my mum,’ he said, as though he’d only been waiting for her to ask.

‘I didn’t know you had a mum,’ she replied.

He looked up at her with eyes that were suddenly so much brighter than the grey they usually seemed. ‘Everyone’s got a mum.’

‘I know, sorry, I just assumed …’ She stopped. She hadn’t assumed anything, she hadn’t really given it any thought. ‘What happened to her?’ she asked.

‘She left,’ said Barney. ‘When I was little. I don’t remember her at all. I’ve got a picture, though, I know what she looks like.’

‘Does your dad know where she is?’

‘I don’t know. He never talks about her. All I can remember is him telling me she had to go away for a while. But that means she’s going to come back, doesn’t it? For a while means not for ever. Why would he tell me she’s gone for a while if he knew she wasn’t coming back?’

To soften the blow, of course, thought Lacey. Hoping you’d forget, just get used to her not being around. Oh Barney!

‘Have you never talked about this with your dad?’ she asked him.

‘Not for a long time. I think when I was little, I used to ask where she was and he always said the same thing. Mummy’s gone away for a while. After a bit, I just stopped asking. I’ve been looking for her myself though.’

Lacey listened, as the cappuccino machine hissed and spat, and while Barney told her about how he’d divided the whole city into zones, and researched the various newspapers and free-sheets in each area. That he was advertising in the classified columns, doing an area at a time, ticking them off when they were done and he’d got no response. He told her how he funded the cost of the advertisements from money he earned working at the newsagent’s, and about the secret email account that he checked every morning.

God love him, it would never work. Even if his mother was still in London – in itself quite unlikely – what were the chances of her combing the local newspapers on a regular basis?

‘It won’t work, will it?’ said Barney, as though he’d read her mind. ‘You think I’m mad.’

‘I think you’re brave and intelligent and resourceful,’ said Lacey. ‘But you’re right, I’m afraid. It won’t work.’

His face crumpled. They were facing each other across the table and all she could do was reach forward and pat his hand. She wondered how long it had been since a woman had hugged him. She sat there, feeling helpless and awkward, until he gave a massive sniff and looked up.

‘The police could find her, couldn’t they?’ he asked, and now his face had taken on a sly look. ‘They know how to find missing persons.’

‘The police have procedures for tracing missing persons,’ said Lacey cautiously, ‘but even they don’t always work. If people want to stay missing, they usually do.’

‘How do they do it?’ said Barney, leaning forward. ‘What do I have to do to find her?’

‘You know what a database is?’

He nodded.

‘Well, the first thing the police would do is search through the various databases,’ she said. ‘We’d probably start with the police national computer. I’m sure this wouldn’t be the case, but if your mum has ever been arrested or given a police caution, there’ll be a record of it. Assuming that didn’t trace her, we’d check the electoral roll – you know, the list of people who are eligible to vote; then the DVLA, the people who issue car licences; the Department for Work and Pensions; Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs; the various utility companies – phone companies, especially. Unless your mum has disappeared from sight completely, she’ll be on one, probably more, of those databases. They would give us a last known address and we’d take it from there.’

‘How long would it take?’

‘If you were in a real hurry, you could probably have it done in a few days.’

‘If I told them my mum was missing, would they look for her for me?’

Oh, the poor kid. ‘Your dad would have to report her missing,’ Lacey said. ‘But as she went such a long time ago, I doubt they’d consider it a good enough reason to look now.’

‘But she is missing, and if anything happens to my dad, I’ll have no one to look after me.’

He wanted Lacey to look for his mother. The unspoken question was shining out from his eyes. And she could, no doubt about it. How ethical it would be was another matter entirely.

‘Barney, if I could talk to your dad about it, I might be able to—’

He looked at his wristwatch. ‘I should get back now,’ he said. ‘My dad will be wondering where I am. Don’t say anything to him, please. I don’t want to worry him.’

Lacey stood and carried both Coke cans to the bin. ‘What’s your mum’s name?’ she asked.

‘Karen Roberts. Why?’ asked Barney, hope lighting up his face.

‘Do you know her maiden name? What she was called before she was married.’

‘My granddad was called Prince,’ said Barney. ‘Is that what you mean?’

‘Karen Roberts, née Prince. Barney, I’m making no promises, but I’ll have a think about it. Now, come on, let’s get you home.’