When I Wasn't Watching (6 page)

They left the shop, swaggering with an affected casualness, as Mrs McKellar emerged to serve the man. She waved at Ricky as he left and he nodded at her, his face flaming. Tyler sneered at him again as soon as they were outside.

‘Likes you doesn't she? Maybe her husband ain't giving her any.'

Ricky dug him half-heartedly in the arm. Tyler was a nuisance, but as he was the new kid in the area and going to a different school, Ricky had taken to hanging around with him more over the past few days. Ever since the story on Terry Prince's release had broken. As of yet, Tyler didn't know who Ricky was, though it wouldn't be long before someone realised – especially with his mum in the papers – and brought it up and then it would be questions, questions, questions. Perhaps even taunts, though Ricky was confident he wasn't the type of kid that got bullied. His quick, bony little hands were pretty useful for self-defence too.

They flashed out instinctively, balled into fists, when a heavy hand descended on his shoulder. He landed a punch into the stranger's gut, which was firm and tensed as though the man was expecting it, and then found himself with his arm twisted up his back. Not really enough to hurt, but enough to render him helpless. The bottle of Bud rolled out from his jacket and smashed on the ground.

‘Forgot to pay for that, did we?' the man said conversationally, letting Ricky's arm free but keeping a grip on him.

‘What's it to you?' Tyler said even as he began to back away up the street. ‘You're not a cop. You should mind your own business before you get hurt.' Ricky winced at the lame threat.

The man cocked his head and smiled at Tyler, reaching into his jacket pocket with his free hand. Ricky felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. This wasn't going to be good, he just knew it.

‘Nice threat; it might actually be effective if you weren't obviously shitting yourself,' the man continued in his relaxed voice, flipping open the card in his hand as he did so, ‘but unfortunately for you, I am a cop.'

That was enough for Tyler, who turned and ran, disappearing into the nearest alley. The man – cop – pushed Ricky towards a smart silver Mercedes, shoving him into the passenger seat and central locking the car as he walked round to the driver's side, so that Ricky had no chance to run also. He slumped down into the seat as the man got in next to him.

‘What's your name?' he asked. His tone was sterner now, but Ricky was sure he could detect a note of amusement in it.

‘Wanker,' he muttered under his breath. The man laughed.

‘Nice. Well, Wanker, we've got two choices. I can drag you down to town and have you arrested, thrown into a cell and cautioned, and your parents will have to be informed anyway, and my day off will be more ruined, or I can take you home and have a quiet word with your mum and dad and leave it at that.'

‘Haven't got a dad,' Ricky said with a snarl, thinking immediately of Ethan, which always made him angry.

Next to him Matt sighed at the kid's words and rubbed his hand over his chin thoughtfully. He needed a shave. He was beginning to wish he hadn't bothered with the boy, petty theft wasn't his problem, but he had him in the car now and if he just let him go what kind of a deterrent was that? Looking at the kid he realised he looked familiar in a vague way; he also noticed the gleam of tears in his eyes that he was fighting to hold back.

‘Are you all right?' Matt asked softly, praying the boy wasn't going to unleash some awful tale of abuse and neglect. He was well dressed and it was a nice side of town but Matt from experience knew that meant nothing.

‘I don't want to give my mum any more grief. She's having a hard time.'

All the more reason her son needed to be kept from going off the rails, Matt thought. Not that he classed a bit of shoplifting as ‘going off the rails', more a teenage rite of passage, but there was clearly more than that going on here. Looking at the boy he again had the nagging feeling he had seen him somewhere before.

‘Just give me your address, son, and we'll get you home, okay?'

Ricky's head snapped up, the glint of tears gone. Matt wondered if he had imagined them.

‘I'm not your son,' he said in a raised voice, then slumped back, defeated, and mumbled his address. Matt shook his head as he pulled away. Another kid with an absent father and the world on his shoulders. He was probably headed for the police cells anyway, one way or the other.

They didn't speak on the brief journey to Ricky's house and the boy walked before him, his swagger replaced by a surly expression as Matt knocked the door, wondering what the mother would be like. A typical overworked single mother, no doubt. He prayed she wouldn't be a woman like his own mother, so wrapped up in her grief or whatever issues she had that she didn't know or care where her son was.

Matt remembered a time when, not long after his father's death, he had stayed out past midnight, hours after his curfew. He was just eleven.

One of his mates had stolen their older brother's cheap cider and even a bit of weed and a gang of them had sat in the field pretending that the cider wasn't making them feel sick and attempting to roll a joint. After five aborted attempts a roll-up the size of a tampon was passed around, inducing various coughing fits and, in the case of one boy, the emptying of his stomach all over his brand new Rockport shoes. Matt had been the last to leave; it was a mild night and after his friends had gone he had lain back on the grass, watching the stars and wondering if his Dad was up there. Was anywhere, other than six feet underground, withering away.

He must have dozed off because when he had looked at his watch it was nearly midnight. His first thought was that his Dad would kill him, and he had run home at a crazy speed, bursting through the front door with an instant ‘It wasn't my fault!' springing to his lips.

His mother, curled up on the sofa in her dressing gown and staring dead-eyed at the TV, had simply looked over her shoulder and smiled weakly at him. As Matt trudged up to bed he realised she hadn't even known he was still out, hadn't even looked at the time or checked his room. She was still on the sofa in the exact spot she had been sitting in when he had gone back out after school. Although he should have been relieved he had escaped a grounding, Matt had only felt a gnawing sense of emptiness, a feeling of the ground shifting as he realised there was no one at home worrying about him any more. No one to keep him safe. Now, sitting next to this surly boy, he had to wonder what he would find when he took him back to his own mother.

The woman who opened the door was certainly not what he was expecting. He stared at her, recognition and then incredulity dawning as Ricky pushed his way inside and ran up the stairs.

‘What's going on? Ricky?' She turned back to Matt, a question in her eyes that gave way to recognition and then more confusion.

‘Inspector?' It was evident from the tone of her voice that she had knew who he was.

‘Mrs Randall.'

They stared at each other for a few moments before Lucy shook her head as if to clear it, breaking eye contact. She still had those beautiful eyes, hypnotic as whirlpools, and now wide with concern.

‘What's wrong?'

‘I'm afraid I caught Ricky shoplifting.' He cleared his throat, self-conscious under her gaze.

‘Shoplifting? Ricky?' She frowned as though trying to process what he was telling her, then sighed and opened the door further, ushering him in.

With Ricky out of sight, no doubt hiding in his bedroom, Matt filled her in on what had happened at the shop, but at the last minute substituted a chocolate bar for the ill-fated bottle of Bud. Lucy looked as if she was at the end of her nerves, and once again Matt wished he had left well alone.

Not least because he was attracted to her. Even in this, the most inappropriate situation, he felt the pull of her, wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her. Then he remembered Jack, and immediately berated himself. There was no denying the jolt of electric that had raced through him with she had opened the door and their eyes are met. But it was laced through with the same protective instinct he had felt in the pub two days before.

‘How is everything?' he asked. ‘I had no idea who Ricky was, but perhaps it makes sense that he would be acting out. It must be a distressing time for you all.'

‘I never got to thank you,' she said, ‘for catching him.' There was no need to ask which
him
she referred to.

‘And now they're letting him out,' he said with a flat voice. He didn't deserve her thanks.

‘That's not your fault.' Her tone was soft, compassionate even, and Matt wondered how at a time like this she could find it in her to care about anyone else's feelings.

‘I know you did all you could.'

She stepped forward, placing a hand on his arm, and a warm tingling ran through him that had nothing to do with comfort. Their eyes met again, and Matt swallowed hard. Then she swung away from him, an expression he couldn't read on her face.

‘I should go,' he said, making no move to go anywhere. 'I thought I could have a chat with Ricky, but under the circumstances…'

Lucy shook her head.

‘Stay, if you want to? I was just boiling the kettle.'

Matt caught a hint of vulnerability in the question, a need for adult companionship perhaps, and so he nodded, watching her move around the kitchen with unconscious grace. She truly was lovely, if fragile.Then he wondered why that word popped so immediately to mind. Fragile. It suited her slim, ethereal beauty, he supposed, and certainly she was slimmer and more ethereal-looking than the last time he had seen her, but then it had been eight years. Nearly a decade. But nothing in her tone or demeanour suggested she was at all frail; if anything she seemed to have coped admirably. It was his own preconceptions, his own knowledge of the horrors she had been through, that had made him attach that description to her. Just as most people no doubt looked at him and attached certain words, based on what they knew of him and his lifestyle choices. Words like
jaded now
, or once maybe
hot-head
. And what was it Carla had said?
Egotistical
.

He had to ask himself if it was egotistical to be looking at Lucy the way he was, with an uncomfortable mix of desire and admiration as much as sympathy. Perhaps he wanted to think of her as fragile so he could justify coming in and doing the whole alpha male thing.

Shaking his head clear of his thoughts his hands closed around the warm cup of coffee she placed in his hands.

‘Er, I take two sugars,' he said, certain he hadn't told her. Lucy smiled.

‘I remember.'

‘Good memory, ' he said, impressed, then wished he hadn't spoken as her blue eyes clouded over.

‘I remember everything from that time, inspector. Even the silliest of details. It's as vivid as if it was yesterday.' She visibly flinched, and he thought his assessment of her hadn't been so far off the mark after all. How, as a parent, did you even begin to go about coping with something like that, and still get up and go about your business every day?

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You say sorry a lot.'

She smiled, motioning him towards a chair. He sat, suddenly tired. Rather than sitting at the table next to him she pressed her hands against the kitchen counter and sprang her weight up, perching on the edge with her legs dangling, a girlish movement that unfortunately put her very nice legs at eye level. He looked away, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. Rebounding from Carla perhaps? But even back when he was investigating the boy's disappearance he had been aware of his attraction to this woman, however inappropriate the circumstances. It was a feeling that unnerved him then and continued to do so now, an attraction that went beyond the superficial and even the sexual. And those feelings were just as inappropriate now as they had been then, he reprimanded himself sharply. Matt drained his coffee quickly and made to stand.

‘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.