Like This, for Ever

67




‘VERY APPROPRIATE,’ SAID Dana, sitting down beside Helen in the Peace Pagoda and looking out over the river.

‘How did it go?’ asked Helen.

Dana pulled the collar of her jacket up a little higher and moved closer to Helen. Since the rain had stopped, a cold front had hit London. The forecasters were even talking about snow.

‘I apologized; she said, Don’t mention it,’ replied Dana. ‘We talked about the weather for five minutes and then she got up to leave.’

Helen reached out and put a hand on her arm. ‘It’s a start,’ she said. ‘Lacey’s hardly the kiss-and-make-up type. Did you ask her whether she’s coming back to work?’

Helen could never bear the idea of someone bright and young leaving the service.

‘She’s put in a request for redeployment,’ Dana told her. ‘She’s going back into uniform.’

Helen was watching a flock of geese make their way upstream, flying low, almost skimming the water. ‘Wow,’ she said.

‘Says she needs an easy life for a while,’ said Dana. ‘As if Lacey Flint will be able to stay out of trouble for long.’

A young family were walking along the path towards them. Mum, dad, newborn twins in a double buggy, so wrapped up against the cold that only their noses could be seen. Dana sat up a little taller, her eyes fixed on the buggy. Babies. When had they become so completely fascinating?

Helen had spotted what she was up to. She took hold of Dana’s gloved hand. She did it slowly, as though half expecting it to be pulled away. ‘I wish you’d told me,’ she said.

‘I hardly knew myself,’ said Dana.

Silence.

‘But really, Mark Joesbury as a sperm donor? I can’t see it.’

For a second, her own body’s shaking scared her. Then Dana realized she was laughing, and it felt like a long time since she’d done that.

‘There are things we can do, you know,’ said Helen, after a moment.

Dana turned to face her. ‘There are?’

Her partner nodded. ‘Lots of women in our position have children. Where there’s a will.’

A couple of hundred yards away from them, the geese had landed on the riverbank. They were strutting, over-confident, noisy creatures.

‘Is there?’ said Dana, when she’d plucked up the courage. ‘Is there a will?’

Helen rocked her head, shrugged, pulled her face in a couple of different ways. She was thinking about it. Dana held her breath.

‘You’d have to do the pregnant thing,’ said Helen at last. ‘Not sure I’d be up to that.’

Dana’s hands shot to her face. She gulped. Tears filled her eyes. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Pregnant?’

Helen leaned back against the bench, hands laced behind her head. ‘It’s the usual prerequisite, from what I understand.’

‘Pregnant? Me?’ Dana was staring down at her stomach, as though just talking about it might have made it happen.

Helen shook her head. ‘And already it’s addling her brain. Come on. Let’s go and look at some websites.’

The two women got up. Arm in arm, they followed the newborn twins and their parents out of the park.

‘OK.’ The older of the two Joesburys looked at his watch as they crossed the narrow canal that ran through Regent’s Park zoo. ‘We’ve got an hour. So I suggest penguins, otters, meerkats, and I suppose you could talk me into the insect house. But not the butterflies. Butterflies scare me.’

Huck was looking at the map in the zoo guide they’d bought on their way in. ‘African hunting dogs, Komodo dragons, lions and tigers,’ he announced before looking up at his dad. ‘And finish with the gorillas. Did you know they ripped a woman’s head off last year?’

Joesbury shook his head. ‘Where do you hear such rubbish?’

‘Alex Welsh told me. She broke in at night and went into the gorilla cage and they ripped her head off and the keepers found them next morning using it as a football.’

‘What was the score?’

Huck gave him that you can take the piss if you want to, but I know what I know look and the two of them walked on. Joesbury had his hand on his son’s shoulder. He found it difficult these days not to be close enough to touch. And when he was close enough, next to impossible not to maintain some sort of physical contact, as though the reassurance of his eyes that his son was still there, still safe, just wasn’t enough.

They stopped in front of some monkeys. On a branch above their heads, a mother sat grooming her baby, running her hands over its fur, searching for lice, smoothing, scratching, petting. She bent and nibbled the baby’s ear, then ran one hand along the length of its tail. She, too, didn’t seem able to keep from touching her child. The young monkey, on the other hand, looked bored. It was watching the other monkeys, half wanting to run off and join them, half needing to stay close to its parent for just a bit longer.

‘I’d really like to see something cuddly,’ said Joesbury. ‘Isn’t there somewhere you can stroke goats and rabbits?’

There was a heavy sigh at his side. ‘Dad, I’m not traumatized. And will you please tell Mum I don’t want to see that counsellor any more? She smells of disinfectant.’

‘I’ll certainly pass on your thoughts.’

The baby monkey crawled away. The mother watched it go, not taking her eyes off it for a second. It had reached the end of the branch when two larger monkeys, like over-exuberant teenagers, came racing towards it. The baby scuttled back to its mother, climbing up her body as though it were an extension of the branch, clinging tight to her fur. She nipped his ear in an I told you so way.

‘Bats!’ said Huck. ‘I want to see the bats!’

Joesbury sighed. The kid was winding him up. ‘There is no friggin’ way I’m going anywhere near bats.’

‘I’ll tell Mum you swore.’

He looked down. ‘I’ll tell her you fancy Kaycia Lowrie.’

Stalemate.

‘Come on then, let’s go and find the tigers. But if it’s feeding time, you’re on your own. Which reminds me, where do you want to eat tonight? TGI’s? Giraffe?’

‘We’re going to Trev’s,’ said Huck, as they set off along the path once more.

‘Oh, are we?’

‘I booked a table.’

The kid just got better. ‘And when did you do that, seeing as how you haven’t been out of my sight since I picked you up?’

‘I did it when you were in the toilet. You spend a long time in there, you know.’

Directly ahead of them, two teenage girls turned and stared at Joesbury.

‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ he told his son. ‘Am I allowed to know what time?’

‘Seven-thirty. Lacey couldn’t make it any earlier.’

Now that was just mean. When had his son turned mean? ‘I know you’re winding me up,’ he said. ‘You haven’t got Lacey’s number.’

The look on Huck’s face said there was no end to the pain he was expected to endure. ‘Dad! For someone who claims he works in IT, you know zilch about technology,’ he complained. ‘My new phone is linked to yours by your computer. All the information on yours is on mine.’

Joesbury stopped walking and narrowly avoided being run into by a double buggy. ‘You’ve got all my contact details on your phone?’

‘Yeah. Who’s Nobby McT—’

‘Give me that phone!’

Huck darted ahead, turned and did his nah-nah-nah-nah-nah dance in the middle of the path. He pulled his phone from his pocket and waved it around his head.

‘Oy, get back here! Now!’ Joesbury set off running. ‘OK, I’m serious. Huck!’ Great, his nine-year-old son could out-run him.

‘Someone stop that kid, he nicked my phone!’

Lacey watched Barney lock the cabin and slip the key into his pocket. ‘It’s a nice boat,’ she said. ‘A lot bigger than I expected. Thank you for showing it to me.’

A nice boat on which two young boys had died. Tyler King and Ryan Jackson had been taped to the fold-out table in the main cabin below and left alone and terrified for days, while a badly damaged child battled with his demons. Did that bother her? Should it?

‘Dad’s going to sell it this spring,’ said Barney. ‘I don’t think he’ll be able to come here again.’

‘Yes, he told me.’

Sensing Barney wasn’t ready to leave just yet, Lacey sat down in the cockpit facing the Creek. Barney mirrored her, keeping his back to the water. The tide was high and the boat rocked gently, soothingly, against its moorings. When it was out, the whole of the Theatre Arm would smell of mud. The boat would be grounded, skewed at an angle. No mains water, relying on a generator for electricity, Calor gas to cook. And that rubbish-strewn yard to negotiate several times a day. It would be the most impractical place in London to live.

‘Was there something you wanted to ask me?’ she said, after a moment. Earlier in the day, Barney had been almost too keen to show her around the boat. She’d suspected he wanted to talk to her away from the dad who never seemed to let him out of his sight these days.

‘Harvey and his mum and gran have moved away.’ His voice was trembling, the way voices did when they were trying to hold back tears. ‘No one knows where they’ve gone.’

‘That’s normal, I’m afraid,’ said Lacey. ‘It’s called protective custody. A lot of people will be very angry at Jorge. They might be tempted to take it out on his family and that wouldn’t be right.’

‘It wasn’t Harvey’s fault.’

‘No.’

Silence. There was more to come. Lacey pulled her jacket closer around her. In the time that they’d been here, the best of the afternoon had passed. The air coming off the water was very cold and shadows were lengthening.

‘Did you mean it?’ said Barney. ‘What you said in the house? About how you – you know?’

Lacey pulled up the sleeve of her jacket and showed Barney the bandage on her left wrist. The wound beneath it hadn’t been disturbed for nearly two weeks now. It was healing. In a little while, if she wasn’t tempted to slide backwards, she might start to wonder if maybe she was too.

‘I’ve been seeing a counsellor,’ she said. ‘Like you, like Huck. Only I’ve been seeing mine for a while now and I haven’t been honest with her. I didn’t tell her about things she could have helped me with. I’ve decided I’m going to tell her about this. Next time I see her.’

‘It’s weird,’ said Barney, staring at the bandage. ‘I thought I was weird, but—’

‘You’re not weird,’ said Lacey, tugging her sleeve back in place. ‘You’re different and interesting and quirky, but you’re not weird. And you’ve had a lot to deal with lately.’

Barney looked at the slatted wooden floor of the cockpit. ‘You mean thinking my dad was a serial killer?’ he said.

‘Well, don’t feel bad about that. I thought you were.’

He looked up again. His lips twitched. So did hers. Neither one of them was quite ready to smile about it yet. ‘What I meant was, you’ve lost your best friend and your mum,’ she went on. ‘At least, the hope of having your mum back one day. That’s a lot, by anybody’s standards.’

Silence.

‘I think I knew about Mum,’ he said. ‘Deep down. I just didn’t want it to be true.’

Silence again. She nodded, wanted to reach out and take his hand, didn’t quite feel able to. But he needed someone who would. Before he grew up thinking there was no love, no warmth in the world. His father, with the best will in the world, was never going to be the demonstrative type.

‘Your dad said he’d told you about Mrs Green,’ said Lacey. ‘Does that feel a bit strange?’

‘He wants her to move in with us,’ said Barney. ‘Not yet. Not until I go to secondary school, but soon after that.’

‘Well, it will take some getting used to, but she seems quite nice to me.’

‘If they get married, she’ll be my stepmother.’

‘Are stepmothers always bad?’

He thought about it for a moment. ‘Guess not,’ he said. ‘She makes nice biscuits. And I expect she’ll help with homework.’

Lacey smiled, and for a second, the small, fair-skinned face in front of her had turquoise eyes and dark, spiky hair. ‘Biscuits and homework,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember that.’

Splash, splash.

‘What was that?’ Barney was on his feet, had turned to look out over the water, and taken a step closer to her.

‘Just the water banging against the hull,’ said Lacey, puzzled.

‘We should go.’ Already he was on the side deck, swinging his leg over the guard-rail.

‘Of course.’

She let Barney lead the way around the boats and on to the bank. Twice she had to ask him to slow down and be careful. The river was high enough for them to step off the nearest boat on to the yard. Barney walked several paces away from the edge before he turned.

Earlier in the day, when she’d met Dana Tulloch for coffee and peace talks, the DI had told her that none of the children at the Creek that night had wavered in their story that Tyler’s body had leaped out of the water at them.

‘What do you think happened?’ asked Barney, and she knew he was thinking about the same thing.

‘I think Jorge threw the body overboard, expecting it to be washed out to sea, and that somehow it got caught between two of the boats,’ said Lacey. ‘I think it stayed there for several weeks, and then one night, when there’d been a lot of rainwater and a high tide, it worked its way loose.’

‘Harvey saw someone swimming.’

The sun was getting low in the sky and had all but disappeared behind a tall building. The yard was taking on an eerie look in the half-light, the Creek beginning to shine black and dense.

‘I think Harvey saw Tyler’s body being washed around by the tide, and in the dim light it looked like it was moving independently,’ replied Lacey.

‘It jumped out of the water at us,’ said Barney in a small voice.

‘I believe many things,’ said Lacey, ‘but I don’t believe dead bodies can move. I think what happened was caused by a freak wave, or maybe even wash from a big boat out on the river.’

He nodded, looking far from convinced. Even she had to admit that, as explanations went, it was weak. Sometimes the easy answers just weren’t there.

‘I don’t think I’m going to come here again,’ he said. ‘Are you?’

‘Not sure,’ said Lacey, turning back to look at the yellow yacht, so much bigger and cosier below than she’d expected. She thought about curling up in front of the wood-burning stove, about gentle waves rocking her to sleep each night, gulls waking her in the morning. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I promised your dad I’d have you back before sundown.’

‘He said I had to ask you to come for supper,’ said Barney.

Since when did Lacey Flint have a social life? ‘Well, that’s very kind,’ she said. ‘And another time I’d love to, but I already have plans.’

Plans? What was she talking about? Beyond something to do that evening, she had no plans at all. For the following week. For the rest of her life. And yet, as she and Barney set off across the yard to where she’d parked her car, Lacey had a sense that something tightly coiled inside her had begun to unravel. And the feeling that had been growing for some time now was assuming a recognizable shape. It was starting to feel a lot like peace. She opened her car and the two of them climbed inside.

Splash, splash.





Acknowledgements


My sincere thanks to the Marine Policing Unit, particularly Chief Inspector Derek Caterer (who probably wouldn’t employ ‘Spiderman’), and the Tactical Team (who wouldn’t need to). Also to Adrian Summons, for continuing to open the right doors and steer me safely along the thin blue line.

For bringing Like This, For Ever to the shelves, I’m grateful to Anne Marie Doulton and Peter Buckman of the Ampersand Agency and to Rosie and Jessica of the Buckman Agency. At Transworld, I’d like to thank Lynsey Dalladay, Rachel Raynor, Kate Samano, Bill Scott-Kerr and Claire Ward; at St Martin’s Press, Elizabeth Lacks, Andrew Martin and Kelley Ragland; at Goldmann Verlag, Andrea Best.

Martin Summerhayes, once again, prevented me from making too much of a fool of myself over IT, whilst Eleanor Bailey had some scarily insightful comments and is a publishing star in the making.

Any mistakes are mine.





About the Author

S. J. Bolton is the author of five critically acclaimed novels. Like This, For Ever is her sixth novel and features DC Lacey Flint and DI Mark Joesbury.

She has been shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Crime Novel of the Year, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year and the CWA Dagger in the Library.

S. J. Bolton lives near Oxford with her husband and young son. For more information about the author and her books, or to check out her addictive blog, visit www.sjbolton.com.

You can also join her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SJBoltonCrime.