Michelle Kelly - When I Wasn't Watching

‘I should be going.’

‘Did you see me in the paper?’ she cut in, and he looked properly at her. Her eyes were bright, but too bright, almost feverish. He pushed his cup towards her.

‘Make another of those perfect coffees, and you can tell me,’ he said, groaning to himself as his voice came out more flirtatious than intended. Lucy looked grateful, springing down from the side to grab his cup. She obviously wanted his company. Hell, right now with all she had to deal with she would probably welcome any company.

Lucy handed him a newspaper, and he started as he saw her on the front page, eyes blazing in anger. She looked more alive in the photo than he thought she ever had in real life, as if the camera captured the rage so obviously simmering in her and ignited it, lighting up her whole face. Matt sucked in his breath as he saw the headline.

Lucy slid into the chair opposite him.

‘I’m sorry if it stirs up trouble,’ she said, not sounding apologetic at all, ‘but I needed to speak out. You understand?’

Matt nodded, though as his eyes skimmed the article, he felt angry. Not at her, but at the press for turning one family’s pain into a media circus. For inciting the protesters who were still there now, waving their banners and calling for Terry Prince’s whereabouts to be made public. He was just glad it wasn’t Carla’s name on the article.

‘It won’t help,’ he said, pushing the paper back towards her, ‘but you might be able to organise something, a campaign perhaps.’ There were laws in America now that required the whereabouts of registered sex offenders to be made available to certain members of the public, but he didn’t think much of them. The exact names and addresses weren’t made public record, just the area, and what good was it knowing there was a paedophile in your midst if you didn’t know exactly who it was? That was only going to result in innocent people getting hurt.

Even here in Cov there had been a recent case of a local vigilante hunting sex offenders; more often than not his targets were innocent and the information the self-styled hero gave to the police turned out to be based on little but unfounded rumour. It was an incendiary subject.

Regardless of whether a more accessible register was a good idea or not, it was redundant in Terry Prince’s case. He was only a murderer after all, not a sex offender. The fact that there had been, as far as anyone could tell, no sexual element to the killing meant there were no laws anywhere that required his whereabouts to be disclosed to any but a select few. As if beating a two-year-old to death was somehow not as shocking as long as there had been no 'noncing' involved.

A familiar, sickened rage swept through Matt and he marvelled at Lucy. How could she live with this, every day, and still be sane?

‘Maybe I will,’ she was saying now, nodding her head decisively, ‘or maybe I’ll set up a charity or something. My mother is always on at me to do something like that, she thinks it might give me a purpose, help with the grief or something. But,’ her eyes glittered again, this time he thought with tears, ‘it doesn’t change anything, does it?’

Without thinking Matt reached over the table for her hand, squeezing it in his. It felt tiny and delicate. Fragile, yes. Yet a jolt of electricity shot up his arm the instant he touched her that was anything but. When he spoke his tongue felt thick in his mouth.

‘It’s always stayed with me, your son’s case. I can’t begin to know what you’re going through but I’ve been angry too, ever since I heard. It’s a travesty.’

It was a relief to finally say it, to admit how he was feeling, and although Lucy was the last person he should be talking to about it, she squeezed his hand back.

‘I heard that you attacked him you know. My friend knows a girl at the station.’

Matt winced. ‘I think “attack” was a bit strong.’ It wasn’t exactly his finest moment, it was something he was ashamed of in fact, even if on the other hand he wished he had given the boy exactly what he deserved.

Lucy smiled, but those expressive eyes of hers had gone cold and flat. The effect was unnerving.

‘I want to find him, inspector.’

Matt pulled his hand away, a sudden chill creeping up his arm. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to get into.

‘Lucy, I’m a police officer,’ he reminded her, though his tone was gentle.

He didn’t want to hear what she would do if she ever got her hands on him, didn’t want to be privy to her confessions. People did that sometimes, he had realised over the years; they were either suspiciously unforthcoming with the police, reluctant to divulge even what they had had for breakfast, or they had a sudden need to pour their hearts out. This was a job for the Family Liaison Officer, not a murder detective, and yet something in him responded to her, wanted her to confide in him not so much as an officer of the law, but as a man.

He cleared his throat, searching for something to say to lighten the sudden, strange tension in the room when a surly Ricky came down the stairs, glaring at both his mother and Matt.

‘Did you bring me home to teach me a lesson or to hit on my mum?’ he challenged Matt, puffing out his scrawny fifteen-year-old chest. Lucy got up quickly and went to him, laying a placating hand on his shoulder.

‘Ricky, this is the detective who handled your brother’s disappearance.’

Ricky grinned at Matt, such a change in attitude that Matt blinked as Ricky bounded over to him and shook his hand.

‘You’re the one who roughed Prince up in his cell, right?’

‘Er, I didn’t quite “rough him up”.’ Damn it, he was beginning to think that the whole city knew. But he returned Ricky’s handshake anyway, glad to have finally got a smile out of the boy. The shoplifting seemed irrelevant now, but even so he put on his best authoritative voice, then winced at how damn old he sounded.

‘I trust I won’t be seeing you again under these circumstances?’

Ricky just shrugged and then, at a furious glance from Lucy, shook his head with vehemence.

‘’Course not. Promise. Mum, can I go back out now?’

‘No. You can go back up to your room please. I’ll come and talk to you when the inspector has gone.’

Ricky glared at her but obeyed, the thump of his trainers on the stairs leaving no ambivalence as to exactly how he felt about his confinement. Matt set his cup down again, knowing this was his cue to leave but not wanting to go. He turned to her before he walked out of her front door, his eyes lingering on her full mouth just for a moment, but long enough that she noticed and a corner of that mouth turned up wryly.

‘Thank you, I’m glad you were there. I’ll have a word with him; it’s really not like him at all.’

‘He’s just a kid. Still, if you would like me to have a more thorough word with him, or if there’s anything I can do…’ he trailed off, feeling suddenly ridiculous. He had never been tongue-tied around a woman, but this was far from a usual situation. When Lucy disappeared behind the door he had to wonder if he had offended her, then she was back, pressing a piece of paper into his hand.

‘My phone number. In case you think of anything you can do.’

She was definitely flirting, there was no mistaking it. Matt smiled at her and pocketed the number before he walked back to his car, feeling unsettled again He looked back as he opened the driver’s door, expecting her to still be watching, but the door was closed.

***

When he first saw the man watching him playing in the garden, he wanted to go and talk to him, because he looked so sad. Maybe he wanted to play, but was too shy to ask, just like when he had gone to nursery and wanted to play in the sandpit with the bigger boys. But Mummy had told him not to talk to strangers so he didn’t, even though the man didn’t look like the bad men Mummy worried about, the ones like the baddies on TV. This man just looked sad.