‘You seem to be doing fine without any help from me.’
Jenny stopped the trolley. ‘Fraser, we’re not in competition here. The boy’s mother was murdered, for God’s sake!’
A middle-aged woman paused mid-reach and shot Jenny an alarmed look.
‘It’s probable the killer was a man,’ Jenny went on. ‘So it isn’t all that surprising that he’s a bit wary of you. Don’t take it so damned personally.’ The woman was transfixed by the extraordinary conversation and when Jenny asked her testily, ‘Is my trolley in your way?’ she took a packet of cooked meat at random and hurried on.
‘If I could postpone this, I would,’ Fraser said, ‘but it’s too important.’
Jenny stared at him. ‘What’s changed between this morning and now?’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t ask you to bring him home.’
Jenny looked at him a little longer, trying to fathom what it was that was making him so mean tempered, then she shook her head and they completed the rest of the shopping in a confused mood of resentfulness and regret, both fuming, both unwilling to break the silence.
‘It’s end of term,’ Jenny said, making a final plea as they made their way to the car. ‘You said yourself you’ve only two lessons to teach with all your year eleven and upper sixth kids gone. You said you’d take the day off.’
It was at times like this that Jenny was reminded just how much she had depended on her mother. When they had retired, her parents had sold up in Liverpool, bought a cottage on the coast, not far from Blackpool, but her father had died suddenly, two days after they had moved in, and it seemed to Jenny that the onset of her mother’s dementia could be dated to the funeral. They had tried taking her with them on holiday the previous year, but she became so distressed by the unfamiliar surroundings that Jenny had had to drive her back to the nursing home only days after they had set out.
‘You take the car,’ Fraser said. ‘I’ll get the bus.’
‘You take it,’ Jenny said. It was a cheap jibe, childish and spiteful, but Fraser’s reaction was unexpectedly emphatic.
‘What d’you mean by that? I can’t drive, you know I can’t drive.’
She knew it. They both did. It had been the subject of frequent discussions in the early years of their marriage. So why did he need to say it? She wanted to ask him, but he was already out of hailing distance, and instead she watched him until he turned the corner and was gone.
* * *
Who to follow? Him or her? The boy has always been with her. Except for this morning. Of course, that could be because there’s no therapy session on Friday, but she was there — together with the big fellow. Her husband? Must be — they seem to get on so well.
She’ll have to go home soon. She isn’t going to let a boot load of shopping spoil in the heat just because she had a row with her husband.
The grey Vauxhall followed Jenny out of the car park, leaving a hundred yards distance between them until they reached Penny Lane, then it closed the gap, sliding in with just one car between them.
It had followed her twice before. The first time, she had accelerated away as the lights at Queens Drive had changed, trapping the Vauxhall, losing it only five minutes from where it had started, at the hospital gates.
This time, I’m sticking to you like a leech to a bloody rag.
* * *
Jenny chatted with Phyllis as she unpacked the shopping and restocked the fridge and cupboards. ‘Not a flicker from him,’ Phyllis told her, while her own children played on the swing in the garden for a few minutes, fighting over whose turn it was, whining for arbitration. Alain stood several feet away from them, watching, wary of them. ‘He’s in his own little world. Wouldn’t talk to my two — and you know what Damon’s like, never shuts up.’
‘Didn’t he show any interest in anything?’ Jenny asked.
Phyllis fixed her with one of her meaningful looks. ‘Only if you count lingering over the railings and gates and locks of the enclosures. Fascinated by them, he was.’
She was so evidently relieved to relinquish her responsibility for Alain that Jenny hadn’t the heart to ask her to stick around while she broached the difficult subject of calling him by his real name. So she saw Phyllis and her children out and returned to the kitchen.
She asked Alain if he was hungry, used his name. He immediately ran to the kitchen table and dragged a chair, scrambling under the table and pulling the chair in front of him.
‘If you don’t want me to use your real name, I won’t,’ Jenny said. ‘You can come out. It’s all right. Really.’ Except it wasn’t. How could anything be all right when his mother was dead — murdered — and he had in all likelihood seen it happen?
He appeared a few minutes later, after Jenny had made a sandwich for each of them. He sat at the table and ate the sandwich, sipping the glass of milk she’d poured for him, avoiding her eye. She tried the name of his school, the names of his best friends at school. She mentioned Cannon Jones’s name, the headmaster’s — all of which she had committed to memory since the case review, so that she wouldn’t have to refer to notes in front of the boy. Finally — tentatively — she named the road where he lived. Nothing. Not the faintest glimmer. Alain had retreated from her. She had temporarily lost him.
The doorbell rang. Jenny hesitated, and it chimed out again, more insistently. The boy vanished, cowering under the table, and Jenny crouched down to him. ‘I’ll be back in two ticks,’ she said.
It was DC Douglas. ‘What the hell do you want?’ Jenny demanded.
‘I’d like a word with your husband,’ he said, peering past her.
‘He isn’t at home,’ she said, then, curious, ‘What’s it about?’
‘Where is he?’
Funny, Jenny thought, that policemen always expect an answer to their questions, but rarely feel under an obligation to answer questions themselves. She heard the scrape of a chair in the kitchen and glanced over her shoulder. Alain was standing in the doorway at the end of the hall.
‘This is a bad time,’ Jenny told Douglas. ‘Come back in a couple of hours. Or try him at work.’ She started to close the door, but Douglas caught it.
‘You’re sure he’s not here?’
Jenny looked over her shoulder again, as something crashed to the floor in the kitchen. The back door was open, and the boy was gone. ‘Paul!’ she yelled. Shit. ‘Alain!’ She ran to the kitchen and out into the garden, followed by Douglas. The boy was already at the back fence. He jumped, got one hand to the top and tried to scramble over. ‘Alain, it’s all right. It’s only a policeman.’
He ignored her and Jenny had to grab him and pull him away, kicking and biting. Douglas stood over them, unsure of what to do. He looked menacing even to Jenny, this great, ungainly bear of a man, moving from foot to foot — to the boy he must seem like a monstrous giant.
‘For God’s sake!’ she hissed. ‘Can’t you see you’re terrifying him?’
‘It’s all right, mate,’ Douglas said, reaching out. Alain started screaming. ‘Look. Look mate—’ He fished in his jacket pocket for his warrant card and the boy panicked, trying to climb over Jenny to get away from him.
‘Hey!’ Douglas said, ineffectually. ‘Hey . . .’
‘Laissez-moi tranquille!’ the boy screamed. ‘Laissez-moi tranquille!’
‘Douglas!’ Jenny said through gritted teeth.
‘All right,’ he said, evidently shocked by the boy’s reaction. ‘I’m going.’ He turned back at the door to the house. ‘D’you want me to send anyone round, like?’ he asked.
‘Just get out!’ Jenny said, still struggling with Alain, regretting her refusal of help when she heard Douglas’s car start, and she realized she was alone with the hysterical boy.
* * *
Shona came into the room and sat down at the switchboard, muttering to herself. Yvonne was taking a call, and having made the connection she asked Shona why she was back from lunch so early. Shona looked at her, through her, distracted, seemingly distraught. She
kept fiddling with the slide in her hair, until a frazzled knot gathered on one side of it.
They can’t help you. Shona looked over her shoulder, a prickle of sharp terror spiking her spine, half expecting to see him there. They can’t help you. Dr Greenberg’s voice echoed in her head. Pam, Angela, the others in her group — none of them could help. He wouldn’t let them.
Sometimes she saw Dr Greenberg as a vampire, a bloodsucker who needed a dark, musty room — his books and papers — where he could return to roost and rest. Sometimes he seemed more like a warlock who used his books of spells to mix his poisonous brew of science and statistics to make liars of people who had suffered.
Her hands jerked and twitched, the knuckles felt hot and they throbbed with a pain that shouted down everything but his voice. Pam had warned her about the flashbacks. She had seen the others, heard their accounts of what they saw . . . but nothing could have prepared her for this. She had covered the bruising with plasters, four on each hand. Of course, people had asked. She told them she’d trapped them in a door. They didn’t believe her, but she didn’t care. She could have had time off, got herself signed off sick, but it was worse at home. Bad dreams and, more horribly, sudden, vivid flashes. It was coming back to her with frightening intensity. She couldn’t sleep, didn’t dare to.
Work was a distraction, but it was hard to concentrate. Tiredness and sometimes a voice or the noise of a filing cabinet closing, and she would have to get out. Yvonne had found her one time, crying in the toilets. Yvonne knew — about the other time — how she’d tried to harm herself. But she hadn’t known then the reason — Shona herself hadn’t known — hadn’t remembered. Until now.
I saw you on Wednesday. He had seen her! But he was at the lecture on Wednesday. She had left an hour before it finished. How could he have seen her break into his house?
Oh, God! she thought. The note!
I don’t know your name yet, but I soon will.
The note — it was meant for me!
She pulled off her headset and scuttled out of the room.
‘Shona!’ Yvonne rolled her eyes at Raj, who was working the day shift with her.
‘D’you think you should go after her?’
‘What’s the point?’ Yvonne said. ‘She doesn’t listen. She never bloody listens.’
‘Well, someone should do something.’
Yvonne felt a stab of guilt. She was, after all, the senior member of the team, had trained Shona herself. She wasn’t a bad operator, either. Conscientious, willing to step up in an emergency — someone off sick or delayed. She would always do an extra stint to help out.
‘I’m not her mother,’ Yvonne said, resentment getting the better of her good nature. ‘Shona’s a big girl now. I can’t go poking my nose in where it’s not wanted.’
* * *
Carol Ewart’s face lit up when she saw Shona. As she came closer, Carol exclaimed, ‘What the hell’s up with you?’
Shona’s eyes darted about the waiting area of the records office. Too many people. She tried to control the panic welling up in her, but all those people, all those eyes . . .
‘Can we talk?’ she asked.
‘Sure.’ Talking was what they did, the two of them, in the canteen, sometimes over the phone. Something one or the other had heard or seen, a sneaked glimpse of some report. Shona had a knack for finding juicy gossip and was generous in passing it on. But Carol could see that Shona’s agitation was due to more than recently acquired information about who was sleeping with the new SHO.
She rang the bell to summon one of her colleagues to the serving hatch and slipped out of the side door.
‘Come on,’ she said, guiding Shona to the staff toilets at one corner of the foyer.
‘You look awful.’ It wasn’t very tactful, but it was true. Shona’s face was pale, almost grey in the harsh glare of the strip lights. The skin around her eyes was red and puffy, and she looked like she hadn’t slept for days.
‘You’ve got to help me, Carol.’
‘Okay.’
‘Someone’s after me.’
‘What? Who?’
‘Can you check my records? See if they’re still on the shelves?’
‘You were a patient here?’ This was news to Carol, she thought Shona told her everything, and this was a secret she had to know more about.
‘Please, Carol. Just check it!’
‘All right.’ Carol was flustered by her friend’s emotional state. ‘For God’s sake, calm down, will you? Go into the staff room and have a fag or a cup of tea, calm your nerves.’
Chapter 19
‘We’ve friggin’ had it now.’ Lee-Anne was channel hopping unhappily. BBC 1, Channel 4 and Granada were all showing pictures of Mrs Angeline Fournier, found murdered in her home in Mossley Hill. Immediately after, two photofit pictures. The one of Lobo was remarkably accurate.
‘. . . Police believe Mrs Fournier may have disturbed burglars and was subjected to what they describe as “a frenzied attack”.’ The shot cut to a detective inspector, but Lee-Anne turned off the television before he could open his mouth.
‘What’re we gonna do?’ she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears.
Lobo slumped lower in his chair and tried to slip his hands nonchalantly into the front pockets of his jeans, but they wouldn’t quite fit, so he ended up with four fingers of each hand jammed in up to the first knuckle, which made him feel foolish, and that made him bad tempered.
He scowled at Lee-Anne. ‘I don’t know, do I? Don’t ask me.’
Lee-Anne glared back at him with hate in her eyes. ‘Well it was your idea in the first place, so bleedin’ think of something, mastermind.’
Lobo stood up, pulling his hands from his pockets, and switched on the sound system. He liked that — sound system — much better than radio or music centre. It had a professional quality to it, like it meant business. The news was on.
‘. . . trying to trace a young couple, seen knocking on doors in the area last Friday evening. Police believe the dead woman is the mother of a boy found wandering the streets of the Garston area of Liverpool early last Saturday morning.’
‘Turn it off, will you?’
‘The boy is in a state of shock, and, as yet, has been unable to give police details of the attack, but a team of trained specialists is working with him, to try and coax—’
Lee-Anne put her hands over her ears and screamed.
‘What?’ Lobo yelled.
‘It’s doin’ me head in! Turn it off!’
Lobo turned up the volume and she screamed again, then, seeing that this was having no effect, she took off a shoe and threw it at the stereo. It bounced off the wall and Lobo caught it before it did any damage.
‘’Ey!’ he yelled. ‘You mad cow!’ He threw the shoe back at her. His aim was better and it struck her full in the mouth.
Momentarily, they both froze, then Lee-Anne was out of her chair and lunging at him, hands clawed and teeth bared. He caught one arm, but the other flailed at him and her nails scraped the side of his head, drawing blood. He grabbed her free hand, but she threw herself forward, head-butting him, missing his forehead but splitting his lower lip. Lobo hated the taste of blood.
He threw Lee-Anne onto the settee and gave her an open-handed slap. She put a hand to her face, shocked. ‘You hit me, you bastard!’ Tears welled up again.
Lobo pulled up his trousers and smoothed his hair. ‘You started it,’ he said. Then, realizing that he sounded like a sulky kid, he added, ‘There’s more where that come from.’
Abruptly, Lee-Anne stopped crying and stared back at him, round eyed and furious. ‘You what?’
Derek Spencer — his real name — had been called thick all his life, but he wasn’t stupid and he certainly wasn’t suicidal. He hitched up his trousers again, turned away and started fiddling with the volume control of the sound system. He even turned it down a little.
Lee-Anne was staring at his back, he could feel it, and his shoulders twitched
feeling the burning hatred of that look. He turned to face her and saw triumph in her eyes. Satisfied that she had won the round, she took a tissue from the sleeve of her blouse and dabbed her mouth, checking for blood. Then she held out her hand. ‘Giz them.’
Lobo hunched his shoulders.
‘I said, giz them,’ Lee-Anne repeated.
He sucked his teeth.
‘Giz the cards, Lobo.’
‘Why?’ he said. Then, ‘I won’t.’
‘I won’t,’ she mimicked. ‘I won’t. Why don’t you make me, hey? You’re just like a bleedin’ kid — “I won’t.”’
He turned now, grinning.
‘Like a kid, am I?’
Lee-Anne took a step back but recovered quickly. ‘You can’t use the friggin’ things,’ she began, taking a reasonable stance. ‘They’ll get you. They know the cards’ve been nicked now. They’ll be looking for them. Giz them and we’ll cut them up together. It was nice while it lasted. We got some boss stuff out of it, but it’s over.’
Lobo lowered his head, still grinning.
‘Over?’ he said, disbelievingly. ‘I haven’t even started yet, girl.’
She took swipe at him as he made for the door, but he shook her off and she didn’t try again. Just as well.
She tried wheedling. ‘Lobo, you’ll get yourself locked up!’
He shoved his face up close to hers, grinning.
‘Ahhh,’ he breathed, tilting his head, knowing it gave him the look of a crazed clown. ‘Worried about me, are you?’
That look had served him well through school. No one messed with him when he had that look on him.
She tried faking, of course, like she didn’t care. But they’d known each other since school. His nickname — short for lobotomy but pronounced Lowbow, as in the wolf — was given to him after a particularly bloody playground brawl with a year-eleven twice his size. Lobo was still only in year eight. Lee-Anne had seen blood on Lobo’s teeth that day and knew it wasn’t his.
‘I’m worried about both of us, Lobo,’ she said. ‘We’ve got everything nice. We’ve even got some spare cash for once. But if they catch us, we’ve had it — the woman’s dead!’
THE LOST BOY an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists Page 15
