Like This, for Ever

56




Thursday 13 March

SIX CHILDREN SAT huddled beneath the corrugated-metal roof at the top of the skateboard ramp. Raindrops bounced from rooftop to ramp and caught the gang in the backsplash, but damp clothes and stiff bodies seemed a small price to pay for a few more minutes of freedom from adult control.

‘It’s five to nine,’ said Lloyd. ‘I need to go.’

‘We’ll all go together,’ replied Jorge. ‘At nine o’clock.’

Barney, at the edge of the group, was watching the reflections of the streetlights on the rain-drenched ramp. One reflection, from the light immediately behind them, shone directly across the playground to the mural on the opposite wall. The large green crocodile with the alarm clock rammed between his teeth looked set to leave the brick wall and waddle along the orange path towards them. There was something rather menacing about that crocodile.

A flickering streetlight caught his eye. It was just outside the old municipal building on the next street along. From the top of the ramp, Barney could see the second and third floors of the abandoned building. It was dark red, like the community centre, with ornate brickwork around the flat roof. Funny – two of the windows on the second floor were boarded up. He was pretty sure three of them had been the last time he’d looked.

‘Planet Earth to Barney. Come in, Barney.’

Barney turned back to the others. He’d done it again, gone off into his own little world. He was tempted to ask how long he’d been zoned out, but didn’t really want to draw attention to the problem.

‘So what do you think, Barney Boy? Has he stopped or will he kill again?’

‘It’s been three weeks now,’ said Barney.

Of the group, only Jorge openly registered that that wasn’t anything like an answer to the question. Had he stopped, or would he kill again? It was a question Barney asked himself several times a day. Since Oliver Kennedy had been found alive and well, he’d allowed himself to hope. Twenty-two days had gone by and nothing.

Oliver Kennedy had been nowhere near his granddad’s boat. And if the boys weren’t being killed on the boat, what difference did it make that his dad had been there on the Saturday night they’d found Tyler’s body or on the Tuesday that Oliver had disappeared?

Was it a coincidence, though, that in the last twenty-two days, when there had been no disappearances and no bodies dumped on the banks of London’s rivers, his dad had stopped leaving the house on Tuesday and Thursday evenings?

‘I can’t sleep with the light off any more,’ said Hatty. She was the only one who ever talked about the night they’d found the body. None of them ever mentioned it, unless Hatty did first, but equally, no one seemed to mind when she did. They’d nod understandingly, as though grateful to her for articulating what they all felt. ‘I keep seeing his face,’ she went on.

‘It was just decomposing tissue,’ said Lloyd. ‘If you see a dead fox or cat in the road, chances are it’ll be covered in maggots. It’s horrible, but it’s not scary. So why should a dead human be any scarier?’

None of the others looked convinced.

‘I think he’s stopped,’ said Barney, and his right hand, tucked deep inside his coat pocket, had its fingers crossed. ‘We may never know why exactly, but just as there was a trigger that made him start, there was another that made him stop.’

‘He hasn’t stopped,’ said Jorge. ‘He’s just biding his time. He probably already knows who he’s going for next, he’s just waiting for the right moment.’

Silence, and then Hatty gave a theatrical little shudder. ‘I’m so glad I’m a girl,’ she said.

‘Yeah, but in dim light, that’s not always obvious,’ retorted Jorge.

There was a moment of scuffling, of good-natured complaint, as Hatty hit out at Jorge and he dodged out of her way, pushing Lloyd out into the rain.

‘So why has he done nothing for nearly three weeks?’ Barney asked.

‘People got too careful,’ Jorge replied. ‘No one was letting their kids out any more. Dads were coming home from work early to meet their kids at school. Cops were going to every school in the area, warning people, telling them to stay in groups, not to trust anyone they didn’t know very well. It got to the point where kids wouldn’t even answer their own front doors.’

‘So you think he’ll move on?’ asked Sam. ‘Go to another part of London, maybe another city?’

‘Nah! No need. People will have forgotten all about it in a couple more weeks.’

‘No, they won’t,’ said Barney, more quickly than he’d meant to.

‘Well, not forgotten exactly, they’ll just get more relaxed again. You can’t live in a state of red-alert for ever. Know what this guy’s biggest weapon is?’

‘Fangs,’ suggested Harvey.

‘Complacency,’ said Jorge.

There was a short pause. Several of the group were wondering what, exactly, complacency meant.

‘Nobody ever thinks it’s going to happen to them,’ said Barney.

‘Exactly. Even here, in the midst of it all, everyone thinks it’s going to happen to someone else. Even us. We found one of the bodies, but I bet all of us, if we’re honest, think we’re going to make it home safely. Don’t we?’

‘Stop it,’ said Hatty, only half giggling.

Barney stood up. ‘My dad is pretty serious about nine o’clock being the latest I’m allowed out and it’s gone that already. I’m going to have to skate like crazy.’

‘No you don’t, Barney Boy.’ Jorge got to his feet, too. ‘Come on, you lot, we all go together.’

Jorge, Harvey and Hatty left Barney at the end of his road, just a hundred yards from his house. On blades, Barney was at his front door in seconds.

As he searched for his key, he realized he hadn’t seen the green Audi for a while. Huck Joesbury’s dad must have got tired of stalking Lacey Flint. Just as well, really, given that she had a new stalker. Him!

There was light shining behind the curtains of Lacey’s basement flat. She was at home and, for a second, Barney thought about running down the steps in his socks and knocking on the door. He hadn’t seen her since he’d asked her to look for his mum. She didn’t go out running at the usual time any more. When he’d seen her in the garden she’d kept her head down, as though determined not to look up to his bedroom window, not to make eye contact. He’d even knocked on her door a couple of times, but she never answered. She was avoiding him. Either she hadn’t looked for his mum yet, or she had looked and hadn’t found her. Either way, she didn’t want to let him down.

Barney opened the front door. The hall light was on but the house beyond was in darkness. For the first time in nearly three weeks, his dad was out on a Thursday.

Barney didn’t bother with the lights. In his socks, he padded lightly down the hall and into the kitchen. There was a note on the table.

Had to work late, unexpectedly. Call me when you get in.

Barney found his phone and walked to the window. He couldn’t see into Lacey’s garden, but the amount of light coming from it told him not only that the shed lights were on, but that the door was open. She never left the shed unlocked if she wasn’t in it. Barney put down the phone and opened the back door.