Sharon Bolton - Like This, for Ever

Weaver’s eyebrows had risen an inch. ‘How many hours are we talking about in total?’

‘A hundred and seventeen,’ said Dana.

Weaver sighed. ‘I don’t even want to think about how many cars would have been caught on camera in South London in a hundred and seventeen hours.’

‘Four hundred and twenty-one thousand and two hundred,’ said Dana. ‘We assumed one per second to be on the safe side. It’s going to take a while.’

Weaver nodded. The footage from the cameras could be sent away to a company that specialized in Automatic Number Plate Recognition. It wasn’t foolproof, because so much depended upon lighting conditions, speed of vehicles, angle of number plate, even the font used, but most of the systems offered a reasonably good rate of recognition. If the same vehicle were spotted en route to both Tower Bridge and Bermondsey on the nights in question, it would be one they’d be very interested in.

‘Start with the most likely routes,’ he said. ‘We could get lucky. In the meantime, I want to bring a profiler in. I know you don’t—’

‘Good idea,’ said Dana.

For once, Weaver let what he was feeling show on his face.

‘There’s something very odd about this one,’ said Dana. ‘It’ll be good to have a fresh perspective.’

‘Ma’am.’

Dana turned. One of the detectives on her team, a blonde woman in her early thirties called Gayle Mizon, was at her computer. ‘You might want to know that Peter Sweep posted on Facebook at 21.37 hours this evening,’ she said. ‘Announcing quite correctly that Jason and Joshua’s bodies had been found.’

Several members of the team moved closer to Mizon and peered over her shoulder at the screen. More than one helped themselves to an open jar of sweets on the desk. Mizon seemed to eat continually.

‘What’s this?’ asked Weaver, glancing over.

‘We’ve been monitoring social network sites, Sir,’ replied Mizon. ‘A hundred and sixty of them, to be precise. A couple of dozen mention the murders on a reasonably regular basis, mainly the London-based ones and the parents’ chat sites. They all seem pretty innocuous, but we are interested in a Facebook site called the Missing Boys.’

She paused to get her breath and Weaver nodded to show he was following.

‘Quite a few of the contributors seem to have known the boys personally,’ Mizon said. ‘Which is the main reason we’ve been taking an interest, in case one of them lets something slip that they wouldn’t necessarily say to us. Nothing so far, but this chap called Peter Sweep keeps popping up. He knows about developments in the case before anything’s been officially released.’

‘I assume we’ve tried to trace him,’ said Weaver.

‘Facebook have been quite helpful,’ replied Mizon. ‘They let us have the email addresses of the site’s main contributors. Then it was a question of getting in touch with the internet service providers to get the IP addresses and the Mac addresses. Most of them are coming from normal family computers in homes, occasionally schools. A lot of them are using their real names and they all check out. Peter, though, doesn’t. He uses computers in public buildings or a mobile phone. No profile, just a completely random picture of roses, and no personal information of any kind, which is just odd for young people on Facebook. They normally like to tell the world everything. And, to me, he just doesn’t sound like the other kids.’

‘Not a kid?’ asked Weaver.

Mizon shrugged.

‘So far, he’s not used the same building twice,’ said Dana. ‘If we could pin him down even to a few, we could put cameras in and catch him that way. All we know at the moment is that he probably lives in the same area of South London that most of the murdered boys did.’

‘Any number of people will know what we’re up to before official announcements are made,’ Weaver said. ‘On the other hand, his trying to conceal his identity is interesting in itself. It’s worth keeping an eye on.’

The door to the incident room opened and a woman in civilian clothes made eye contact with the superintendent. She tapped her watch and gestured towards the corridor.

‘Five minutes,’ Weaver told her. She left the room.

‘Press conference at eight,’ Weaver said to Dana. ‘Will that give you enough time?’

As Dana nodded, Weaver walked back to the incident board. He took his time, looking from one young face to the next. ‘We had to wait a week to find Ryan,’ he said. ‘Noah was missing for five days, and now Jason and Joshua turn up after only two.’

‘We know, Guv,’ said Dana. ‘Whoever he is, whatever he’s doing, he’s killing them faster.’

10

Friday 15 February

BARNEY WOKE IN darkness and knew something was different. He often woke at exactly four o’clock in the morning and then lay for what felt like ages staring up at the ceiling. Usually, though, his head wasn’t anything like this fuzzy. He turned and looked at the clock. Well, that explained it – only just gone midnight. He’d not been asleep much more than an hour and a half.

He sat up, wondering what had woken him. London was never quiet. There was always noise coming up from the street: traffic, sirens, older kids screeching, the occasional drunk. In the back gardens and alleyways, rubbish bins would clatter when cats or foxes got amongst them. He was used to all that, though. Normally, nothing woke him until four o’clock.

He got out of bed, crossed to the window and lifted the blind. If there’d been something in the garden the security lights would be on. They weren’t.

Years ago, Barney’s dad had hired a landscape designer to make the best of the long, narrow, shady plot behind their house. The young man came fresh out of college with grand ideas of Zen gardens and Japanese influences that had worked surprisingly well. From the back door of the house a mosaic path led in gently curving lines down to the very end of the space. The undulating beds on either side were filled with tall, architectural plants that kept their shape and foliage throughout the winter. Quirky sculptures lay amidst the shrubs like random surprises on a treasure hunt, whilst wind chimes and water features kept silence at bay. There were few flowers, even in spring, and no scent, but thanks to the presence of several small ponds, dragonflies, frogs, even newts could be seen and heard throughout the summer months.

Right at the very end of the garden, only just visible behind the bordering plants, was a tall mirror. It reflected the garden, the mosaic path being the predominant feature. From the house, it gave the impression that the winding, colourful path went on for ever.

As Barney looked out, the moon appeared, only fleetingly, but long enough to cast a soft, silver light across the garden. The mirror glowed and in its very centre a small, pale face looked back at Barney.

Barney stared back, more curious than alarmed, knowing that the pale face was his own reflection. And yet it seemed to have taken on a life of its own out there. As though there were two Barneys: the one he knew inside-out, the constant, the familiar; and then the other one, the one who was him and not him, the boy in the mirror who was both smaller and thinner than he, spectral pale and with a smile on his face that Barney was sure he never saw in the bathroom mirror. He almost expected to see the phantom Barney wave, turn and walk away.

The moon vanished and so did the other boy. Barney let the blind fall back into place then crossed to his bathroom and used the loo. He reached for the flush, then stopped. There was something about the flush of the cistern that always sounded so unnaturally loud at night. He found it a bit unnerving, if he was honest, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he hated to get up and see the mess the next day, he’d never flush the loo at night. Usually the forces of tidiness won, but tonight felt different.