Like This, for Ever

58




‘MA’AM.’

Dana stopped at Gayle Mizon’s desk, grateful for the delay, even if it would only last a couple of minutes. In a glass-walled meeting room, Mark, his ex-wife Carrie and her new partner Alex were waiting for her. The last thing she wanted to do was go back in amongst them and admit, yet again, that there was no news.

‘Peter Sweep’s been on Facebook again,’ said Gayle. ‘Two minutes ago.’ Her eyes raised towards Huck’s family. ‘I haven’t said anything,’ she went on. ‘It’s not what they want to see.’

It wasn’t going to be what Dana wanted to see either. Nevertheless, she looked over Gayle’s shoulder.

Got my hook into a Huck. Slice and dice.

‘Same tactics as when Oliver went missing, I’m afraid, Ma’am. He’s posting from a smart phone, almost certainly bought secondhand, with a pay-as-you-go SIM card. He’s close to the same base station in Lambeth as last time.’

‘Have you seen this?’ Dana asked Anderson, who was at the next desk. He nodded.

‘We’ve had an absolute blackout on Huck’s disappearance,’ said Dana. ‘Peter Sweep must be the killer.’

‘We have, Boss,’ answered Anderson. ‘But his mum phoned everyone she could think of when he wasn’t waiting for her at the football ground. The news is out there and we can’t assume anything as far as Sweep is concerned.’

Behind Dana the door opened and Detective Superintendent Weaver came into the room.

‘What do we know?’ he asked her in a low voice, as though worried anything he might say at normal volume would carry to the meeting room.

‘Huck went to football practice as usual at six thirty this evening,’ Dana told him. ‘His mum dropped him off. She went to pick him up at eight and he wasn’t there. Whatever happened to him, he left quickly, because when the register was taken at six thirty-five, Huck didn’t answer to his name. Twenty-eight boys were at training tonight and we’re contacting them all to see if anyone knows anything. As they all live in roughly the same area and as they all appear to be at home, it isn’t taking too long. Trouble is, most of them didn’t notice Huck at all tonight. Three did, but only in the first few minutes after he’d arrived.’

‘Nobody could have taken him out of a crowded changing room without being seen,’ said Anderson. ‘So we have to assume he was one of the last to leave the changing room and that he was waylaid on his way from the pavilion to the all-weather pitch.’

‘We’re very keen to talk to the head coach, a Daniel Green,’ said Dana. ‘He was at training tonight, but had to leave ten minutes before the end and no one knows where he is now, not even his wife. She says he typically goes to the gym after training, but he isn’t there.’

‘If he left ten minutes before the end, he was still there for eighty minutes when Huck wasn’t. He can’t be involved.’

‘Exactly, Sir. He’s Huck’s PE teacher, and DI Joesbury plays rugby with him. We’re not worried about him, we just want to talk to him.’

They’d reached the meeting room and entered it together. Three pairs of eyes met Dana’s. Hope flickered for a second in each.

‘We’ve got the go-ahead for a TV appeal early tomorrow morning,’ said Weaver, after introducing himself to Carrie and her partner. ‘You’ll be OK for that, won’t you, Mrs Joesbury?’

Carrie Joesbury, a tall, dark-haired woman in her late thirties who, over a decade ago, had asked Dana to be one of her bridesmaids, so determined had she been to appear relaxed around her fiancé’s female best friend, looked anything but OK. She straightened up in her chair and shook her head.

‘Now!’ she said. ‘We have to do it now.’

Two hands reached across the table towards her. At the last second, Mark pulled back, leaving Alex to cover Carrie’s hand with his own. Alex was younger than Carrie, prettily handsome and rich, having worked in fund management since he left university. He and Mark couldn’t be more different.

‘We’re too late for the main evening news.’ Weaver was using his soothing voice. Dana wondered, for a moment, if it ever worked; it certainly wasn’t about to with these three. ‘If we do it in the morning, it will go out three times or more on the main news programmes. We’ll get far more exposure.’

‘It’s the sensible thing to do, Carrie,’ said Dana. ‘I’ll do it with you, of course, and perhaps Alex?’

Carrie’s head shot round to her ex-husband. ‘Mark will do it,’ she said. ‘Won’t you?’

Mark’s face seemed to have lost all its colour. ‘I can’t,’ he told the tabletop.

For a second, Carrie looked as though she hadn’t quite heard him. Then, ‘You are kidding me!’

Mark flinched, his eyes stayed down.

‘Is this about cover? You’ll put your precious frigging cover over our son’s life?’

Weaver glanced round nervously. Beyond the glass partition, people were trying hard to look as though they weren’t listening, but Carrie’s voice was too loud.

‘This is all your fault,’ Carrie spat at the side of Mark’s head. He might not even have heard, for all the reaction she got. ‘You should have been with us. Looking after him. He’s your responsibility, but you could never get that, could you?’

Dana pulled out a chair and leaned across the table towards Carrie, trying to catch her eye.

‘Mark can’t appear on television,’ she told the terrified woman. ‘And that’s about protecting Huck – not himself or his job. If he’s recognized, if word gets out that Huck’s father is a senior police officer, especially one who’s been involved in the sort of operations Mark has, then whoever has Huck could panic. It will put him in more danger.’

‘We’ve got thirty officers conducting a search of the area,’ said Weaver, after a second. ‘And we’re about to make the news public. Officially. We’ll be asking householders to check their garages, garden sheds, anywhere they think a small boy could possibly be hidden away.’

Silence in the room, while everyone tried to think of something to say.

‘Carrie, you need to go home now,’ said Dana. ‘There’s nothing else you can do here and you need to be at home in case Huck manages to come back by himself. I’ll be sending someone with you.’

Carrie didn’t move. After a few seconds Alex got to his feet. ‘Come on, babe,’ he told her. ‘They’ll let us know the minute they hear anything.’ He looked at Dana for confirmation.

‘The second,’ she told him.

‘What about the boys who were with him at football training?’ said Mark, as Carrie and Alex moved towards the door. ‘I want to talk to them. Can you let me have a list?’

Dana took a deep breath. ‘Mark, you’re going home too.’

‘What?’

She couldn’t back down. ‘You know the score. You’re not capable of functioning properly, and your being here will jeopardize the work the rest of us have to do.’

How could her best friend look at her like he hated her? Didn’t he realize how much she was hurting too?

‘You are not sending me home.’

She stood up. ‘While you keep me here arguing, I’m not looking for Huck.’

For a second she thought he was going to hit her. Nor was she alone. Weaver took a step towards her. Then Mark stood up, pushing his chair back. He raised his fist and hit out. The glass wall of the meeting room cracked around his hand but the pieces held. He pushed past Alex, pulled the door open and strode out through the incident room. If he saw the young woman standing just inside the door, he made no sign.

He was gone, and the air of the room seemed thick with his pain.