put on his bed. He had a new bed now, a proper one without rails on the sides, although sometimes that meant he woke up and thought that Teddy was hiding, then found him fallen on the floor. But he liked his new bed because it made him feel like a big boy.
Mummy told him he was her big boy, but sometimes she called him her baby too, even though he had a big bed and wore proper pants now like Daddy, except at night times. And she let him play on the swing by himself sometimes when she was cleaning in the kitchen, because she could see him through the window. He knew that he had to stay where Mummy could see him.
There were bad people in the world, he knew that from the TV. They looked like monsters.
Chapter Three Thursday
City Councillor Hagard peered out of the ornate windows of the City Hall and immediately wished he hadn’t. The thick walls and heavy-paned windows drowned out the noise of the protesters quite effectively, and had he not looked, he could have simply imagined they weren’t there. Rows of people with home-made banners and placards, faces screwed up with varying degrees of outrage, betrayal and even excitement. Did they not have jobs to go to, or homes to run? Precisely what they expected him or anyone else at City Council to do about the situation he didn’t know.
He hadn’t made the decision to release Terry Prince from prison, and had been as in the dark about it as anyone else. In all honesty, he didn’t particularly care. With rising crime and youth unemployment, housing shortages and a recent influx of immigrants raising the usual complaints, he had more important things to deal with. Not to mention his wife putting him on a low-fat, no-alcohol diet that was fraying the edges of his temper.
Hagard came away from the window and sat down at his polished oak desk just as something heavy and soft hit the window with a muffled thump, and he heard an accompanying cheer from outside. Sighing, he lifted the phone receiver and dialled Little Park Street, the Central police station that was just over the way, a few blocks behind the angry faces and gaudy banners. Pressing the correct extension numbers, he got directly through to Dailey, who listened to his complaints and then said dismissively, ‘What do you want me to do? There’s a bunch of them outside here too. I can’t arrest them all. Freedom of speech and all that.’
‘But you’re the police,’ Hagard protested, in vain as he heard the phone being replaced and the buzz of the line telling him their brief conversation was over. Hagard got up, heaving his considerable bulk from behind his desk and walking purposefully out of his office and down the main stairs to the plush reception. From outside the revolving doors he could see the banners, distorted in the glass. The secretary looked up at him and then down again as if somehow responsible for the insults they could now hear through the entrance. Hagard had heard quite enough. He walked through the doors, waiting impatiently for them to revolve.
A sharp gust of wind blew at him as if it too was protesting, causing him to blink. He opened his eyes to something being waved in his face and for a moment thought it was a placard; then realised it was a microphone. A skinny redhead simpered before him, a steely look in her eyes at odds with the pretty smile.
‘How do you feel about the news that Terry Prince has been released, Councillor? Are your sympathies with the citizens of Coventry, and with the Randall family?’
Now what kind of loaded question was that? Hagard glared at the reporter, certain he had seen her before and noting the crow’s feet around those rather cold eyes. Yes, he was certain she had been here the first time around, pushing another microphone in his face, when the little boy had been murdered. It had been easier to express sympathy then of course, whereas anything he said now could be ill-advised. If he remembered rightly this woman wasn’t even from the local Telegraph or news station, or even the Birmingham Post, but a national tabloid. That was all the city needed.
Glaring again at the woman he turned on his heel and pushed his way back through the revolving doors. He was going straight to the over-priced staff eatery for a steak, chips, and fried onions, diet be damned.
Outside the red-headed reporter merely shrugged and tucked away her microphone into her handbag, jerking her head at the photographer who stood ever ready behind her. She had already got plenty of copy from members of the crowd but had thought to try her luck with Hagard when she spotted him lumbering through the doors looking ready to have a fit. His dismissal of her wasn’t a problem; she had her eyes on far more interesting prey.
Lucy peered through the nets, her stomach sinking. This was all she needed. Behind her Ricky grumbled to himself as he threw books into his bag, already late for school. Lucy had insisted on driving him, having sat him down to talk to him about the news. She knew how children – perhaps teenagers in particular – could be and could only imagine the stares and questions that Ricky would face today at school.
She was worried enough about him as it was; had caught the whiff of cigarette smoke and perhaps worse on his breath more than once in recent weeks. Typical boy behaviour, her own mother had shrugged, but not for the first time Lucy felt the lack of a father figure in her eldest son’s life. In spite of nearly a decade of bringing him up and letting Ricky call him ‘Dad’ Ethan had barely bothered with him since he had left. When Ricky had been having his ‘issues’, as they had referred to them after Jack’s death, Ethan had offered the boy no support at all.Now as she saw her ex-husband striding up her drive she bit her lip just in time to stop herself saying ‘Your father’s here’. Instead she dropped the net and took a deep breath before the door knocked.
‘It’s Ethan.’
‘What does he want?’ Ricky asked, his face folded with distaste. Lucy opened the door, not even bothering to check her reflection in the little mirror by the coat stand. In the last couple of years she had started to take a pride in her appearance again, but this morning she had woken with that heavy, lethargic feeling she remembered so well from the first years after Jack’s death. It had taken all of her willpower to drag herself out of bed and get dressed, even the fabric of her clothes feeling heavy on her skin.
‘Ethan.’
‘Lucy.’
They stared at each other for a moment, Lucy taking in his slightly rumpled appearance, his suit looking less than ironed and his jaw unshaven. It wasn’t like him, his appearance was usually immaculate. In a flash of compassion, Lucy realised he must be feeling as wretched as she did and opened the door, stepping back to let him in.
Ethan walked in and looked around his old home as if uncomfortable at being here again. He had only lived there a few months, had started his affair even before they had started making plans to move from their old home. Jack’s home.
Ethan’s eyes flitted round the room and then settled on Ricky, still standing at the kitchen table with his book bag.
‘Hey, kiddo.’
Ricky’s lip curled. He stared at Ethan until he dropped his eyes, then hoisted his bag onto his shoulder.
‘I said I’ll drive you,’ Lucy protested as he walked towards the door, but Ricky carried on, slamming it behind him. Shocked, Lucy went to go after him but Ethan laid a hand on her arm.
‘Let him go, Luce, he’s bound to be upset.’
Lucy bit back the retort that sprang to her lips at the cheek of him advising her on her eldest son, the child he had taken on as his and then walked out on. She didn’t want to open that particular can of worms.
‘Don’t call me Luce,’ she snapped
