degree he was currently studying for. Matt couldn’t have been more proud. He had come into Ricky’s life nearly five years ago when the lad was a sullen, hostile boy, an ASBO waiting to happen, and seen him develop into a great kid. After an initial bout of defensiveness – no teenage boy wanted to see a man come into his mother’s life, least of all a copper – Ricky had quickly come to see Matt as a father figure. The feeling was reciprocated. Matt loved Ricky like his own, seeing in the boy an almost carbon copy of his own surly teenage self. Now older and with most of his surliness thankfully gone, he was a lot like his mother, Lucy, which pained Matt as much as it warmed him. Lucy was gone.
Not in the finite sense, of course; Lucy was still very much alive, recently married, newly pregnant and living in Kent with her wealthy and successful architect husband. She had given Matt three and a half years of her life and he didn’t regret a single one of them. Their parting had been amicable enough, although it had left him with a raw grief that still seemed no closer to healing. They had originally met twelve years ago when her young son had been murdered and Matt had worked the case, a fact that had both brought them together and ultimately driven them apart.
It had been the biggest case of Matt’s career thus far, and the one that had haunted his dreams for years after; not least because the killer had turned out to be little more than a child himself. There had been nothing between Matt and Lucy, not then, but eight years after her son Jack’s murder they had been reunited when the killer’s release coincided with her older son, Ricky, going off the rails. Events had thrown them together in such an intense fashion that Matt, never a man given to believing in such things, had felt that their relationship was, in some way, destined to happen.
Destined to end, also. Given a new chance at having a family, Lucy had wanted just that. When the fertility tests had come back with a big red finger pointing at Matt’s lack of virility, he had known then they were over, even though she had said nothing, given him no word or glance of accusation or bitterness. She hadn’t tried to talk him out of it when he suggested they split, hadn’t protested and said that she wanted him more than she wanted another child, and so the kindest thing he could do was let her go. It had left him bereft, and he had spent six months in a haze of self-pity until Ricky, who had been visiting every weekend anyway, had landed on his doorstep with his cases. His mother was moving to Kent with her new partner, and he didn’t want to change university, job and friends, so Lucy had thought the best thing would be for him to stay with Matt, which Ricky had pleaded to do when they had initially broken up. Matt was under no illusions that she had known it would be as good for him as for her son. The pit of despair he had been sliding into was as all-encompassing as it was uncharacteristic. Even now, a year after Lucy had moved away and Ricky moved in, he knew his feet were still dangling over the edge. The wave of depression had nearly cost him his job, or at the very least should have got him demoted to a desk job, but Chief Dailey, the only man Matt really admired, had believed in him enough to keep him in his role as DI, papering over the cracks when Matt turned up less than useless.
‘You should get some sleep,’ Ricky said, eyeing Matt with a concern that suddenly irritated him, if only because it reminded him how much he had let things slide the last year, so that his nineteen-year-old stepson was now the one doing the nurturing. The awareness of the change in his relationships with the males in his life was a painful one. Dailey, the man who had always pushed Matt on, encouraged him to take risks and believed in Matt’s skills as a detective even when Matt himself had questioned them, now spoke to him as he often spoke to the desk officers – as though he were past it. As much as he tried to tell himself it was all in his head, there was no denying that he had been given a lighter workload and that, most crushingly, he was no longer the old man’s go-to guy. As for Ricky, the way the boy kept a watchful eye on him broke Matt’s heart. His role as a surrogate father figure in the boy’s life had been one he was proud of. As much as Ricky tried to make him believe that he stayed with him because of the affection between them and practical reasons relating to his own life, Matt had to wonder just how far Ricky was motivated by the belief that, left to his own devices, Matt would fuck up again.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, his tone sharp, then shook his head in apology. ‘Sorry. Like I said, it’s been a rough night.’
Ricky just nodded and sipped at his coffee, looking thoughtful. He was as tall as Matt now, just over six foot, though not yet as broad. Although he had largely grown out of his teenage waywardness, pain having shaped him into a mature, sensitive young man, there was a depth to him Matt knew he would never be able to fully mine. He kept part of himself intact, separate from those around him, a quiet containment that Matt sometimes envied. Lucy had had the same quality about her, and he wondered if it was an inherent thing they both possessed or an aftermath of their shared grief. Not that Matt hadn’t had his fair share of grief. He had always been stoic himself about his parents’ death, but the loss of Lucy had floored him, had broken him in ways he was only now beginning to repair. Without making a conscious decision to do so, his eyes flitted towards the medicine cabinet in the kitchen. He saw Ricky’s gaze follow his, the boy’s eyes widen in concern, and he sighed again and placed his cup on the table with a sharp thud.
‘I’m going to bed. You should go back, too. Haven’t you got a lecture in the morning?’
Ricky nodded and watched him go up the stairs without a word, and Matt felt guilty at his brusqueness. He could hardly blame the kid for worrying. After splashing his face and brushing his teeth he fell into bed fully clothed, irritation giving way to exhaustion. For once he didn’t see Lucy’s face as he fell asleep, but Kitty’s, her dead blue eyes wide open, accusing even in their waxy, unfeeling gaze.
*****
Huddling under the covers, closing her eyes against the morning sun filtering its way through her blinds, Jenna wished it were the weekend again, and not the start of a new week. Another week of lessons and lectures from her parents, of sneaking out to see her boyfriend, who was so hot and so different he made her head go light just looking at him. That part of the week was good, but not the sneaking around part, and the worrying about getting caught and then grounded until she was, like, old. She didn’t like the keeping secrets part, either, but then she had been keeping secrets from such a young age it really shouldn’t bother her any more. It wasn’t like anyone cared, anyway; her parents treated her like she was a nuisance at the best of times. Unlike Rafi, who always listened to her and made her feel special. She loved hanging around with him, loved knowing that the other girls were jealous that she had an older, hot boyfriend. It had been a few months now, and Jenna was pretty sure she was in love with him.
She had met him at a party, and he hadn’t been rowdy and trying to grope the girls like most of the lads; he had kept himself a little separate, and looked at her with those dark eyes of his. She was the only girl he had spoken to, all night. That had meant something, she knew it, and she had only been half surprised when he had been waiting for her outside the school gates the following Monday. He was different to the boys in her class; more mature, more sure of himself. Jenna hoped he wouldn’t tire of her; even though he reassured her all the time that she was beautiful, and that he only had eyes for her, the thought of him leaving her, or getting with another girl, terrified her. He was her safe place. He had been a little distant this past week, however, and that had worried her, although she hadn’t said anything for fear of saying the wrong thing.
Jenna didn’t know what had caused her to open her mouth on Saturday night to the other girl. The prostitute. She shouldn’t have said anything, but then, who was the girl ever likely to tell? Perhaps that was why she had confided in her; that and the fact she had felt she would be believed. You didn’t end up walking the streets at that age unless you had been through some pretty bad stuff yourself. The girl had told Jenna a few secrets of her own, so no, she wasn’t going to tell anyone.
Even so, the knowledge that someone knew the things she should never have told anyone nagged at her all day, making her anxious and unable to concentrate.
Until
