Sharon Bolton - Like This, for Ever

‘The streetlights are shining through the cars,’ he went on. ‘The light comes straight through most of them, but in the green one there’s something that gets in its way. A dark, solid shape, which can only be a largeish head and shoulders. A man, sitting inside a green car. It’s obvious.’

‘I think we need to get you working for the Met,’ said Lacey.

His face softened. ‘I’ve always been good at finding things,’ he said. ‘When I was a kid, I used to find four-leaf clovers in the grass. My mum collected them in a box for me. I’ve still got them. If you lose anything – you know, jewellery and stuff – just give me a ring. I’ll probably find it.’

‘I have very little jewellery,’ said Lacey. ‘But I could use a four-leaf clover, next time you find one.’

‘I don’t really see them any more,’ he said, taking her seriously. ‘I grew out of that. I see other things now. Lost things.’

They crossed the road and stopped at Barney’s front door. Neither of them had looked back at the green car but Barney’s eyes couldn’t settle. ‘Are you worried about him?’ he asked her.

She shook her head. ‘No, we sort of work together. Actually, he’s more of a friend.’

A look altogether too mature for an eleven-year-old appeared on his face. A friend? Who hung around outside her flat, banging on the door because she wouldn’t answer his telephone calls?

‘He’s worried about me,’ she went on. ‘I’ve been ill, you see. I just don’t want to talk to anyone right now.’

The too-grown-up look disappeared, to be replaced by one that was all kid. ‘Except me,’ he said, smiling at her.

It was surprisingly easy to smile back. ‘Yeah, except you.’

Lacey was about to wish Barney goodnight when she thought to glance up at the house. All the windows were in darkness. There wasn’t even a light in the hallway.

‘Is your dad home?’ she asked him. It was after half nine. Kids of his age, mature or not, shouldn’t be on their own that late. If someone reported it to her at the station, she’d be duty bound to check it out.

‘Probably,’ said Barney. ‘He may have nipped out. Or he could be in his study. It’s at the back of the house, so you wouldn’t see a light.’

He couldn’t make eye contact any more. He was lying. He knew perfectly well his father wasn’t in the house.

‘Do you want me to come and sit with you till he gets back?’ she asked, knowing it would keep the occupant of the green car at bay a little longer. Maybe he’d even give up and go home.

Barney shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine,’ he said. ‘He’s probably in. I’m just going to go to bed.’

‘Do you have a phone?’

He pulled it from his pocket and held it out. ‘Have you cut yourself ?’ she asked him, holding back from taking it.

A look of panic, as sharp and unexpected as a slap, crossed his face. He looked down quickly, as though noticing for the first time that his fingers were smeared with something that looked a lot like blood.

‘Yuck!’ He wiped his hands backwards and forwards on his jacket, a look of extreme distaste on his face. Then he shuddered. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just something I must have touched.’

Lacey smiled, took the phone and tapped both her mobile and landline numbers into his contacts list. ‘Just in case you need me,’ she told him. He nodded, unlocked his front door and turned to say goodnight.

‘Wash your hands before you eat anything,’ she called. He was looking over her shoulder, at the line of parked cars in the road.

‘I expect he’ll be knocking soon,’ he said, before disappearing inside.

6

THE HOUSE WAS a mess as usual. Barney looked round at the supper remains all over the granite worktop, the skewed window blind, his dad’s sweater abandoned on a stool, two drawers not quite shut, one cupboard door wide open. Somehow, the rule that said grown-ups were supposed to tidy up after their kids had skipped the Roberts’ house.

He turned on the hot tap and ran it over his hands. He hadn’t cut himself, he was pretty certain he hadn’t, but that icky stuff on his hands had looked, for a second, like blood. He soaped and rinsed them several times before getting to work on the kitchen. Tidiness had been important to his mum; it was one of the few things he could remember about her.

At the kitchen sink, Barney raised the blind to straighten it. Light in the garden next door told him that Lacey was in her conservatory at the back of her small flat.

Lacey could help him find his mum.

The dishes done, Barney let the water drain away. He couldn’t understand why he hadn’t thought of it before. The police tracked down missing people all the time. But if he told anyone what he was doing, he’d jinx it and it would fail. Somehow he knew that. He couldn’t tell anyone. And what if she told his dad?

When everything had been put away and all the surfaces were clean again, Barney went up two flights of stairs to the top floor. On the way, he switched off the divert that sent all incoming calls to his mobile. He wasn’t supposed to go out when his dad wasn’t home.

On the second floor of their house were Barney’s bedroom, bathroom and his den. On one wall of his den was a giant poster of the solar system, on the other a large artist’s impression of a black hole. He wasn’t particularly interested in astronomy, the two posters had just been the biggest he could find on Amazon. He pulled out the eight map pins that held them to the wall and rolled them up. Underneath were his investigations. The first was about the boys who’d been killed. Their photographs, taken from news sites, ran along the top. Beneath them, he’d fastened a map of the river with tiny coloured stickers marking the spots where the bodies had been found. Barney didn’t think there was much chance of his dad finding his investigations, he hardly ever came into his den, but he had a plan just in case. He would say they were for a school project about the work of the Metropolitan Police.

He ran his finger along the course of the river, starting way downstream in Deptford where the first body had been found. The killer was working his way up-river, getting closer. Barney’s finger hovered near Tower Bridge.

On the wall opposite was another large map, this time of all the London boroughs. Right now, he was doing Haringey. The envelopes he’d posted earlier each contained a classified ad to go into the Haringey Independent and the Haringey Advertiser . BARNEY RUBBLE was the bold heading at the top, because that had been his mum’s name for him when he was little. Barney Rubble, after the Flintstones character. That was the attention-grabber. The message below he changed often, because he still hadn’t decided which would work the best. Sometimes it just said: MISSING YOU. Other times it was chatty, quite informal: WOULD LOVE TO CATCH UP SOME TIME. Once, he’d even tried: DIES A LITTLE EVERY DAY WITHOUT YOU, but he’d regretted that the moment he’d posted it. It just wasn’t the sort of thing you said in a newspaper, even if it was anonymous. Even if it was true.

The ads always ended with an email address, the one he’d set up in secret, which only he knew about. The one he checked every morning of his life because this could be the day his mum finally got in touch.

Next month he’d move on to Islington. By the time he was thirteen he’d have done the whole of Greater London and it would be time to move on to the Home Counties.

It didn’t matter really, if his dad found this map. He would never guess what it was all about. It was just important, somehow, to keep it to himself.

Replacing both astronomy posters, Barney crossed the room to his desktop computer. In his in-box were a couple of emails from friends at school, one from his PE teacher, Mr Green, about a fixture that weekend, and a long list of notifications telling him people had replied to a comment stream he’d contributed to on Facebook. Strictly, Barney wasn’t old enough to be on Facebook, but most of his class had their own pages. They just lied about their year of birth. He looked at the time; he had a few minutes before he was supposed to go to bed.