I See You(28)

‘Where’s Stu?’

‘Parents’ evening. I did my lot yesterday, thankfully. Right, you two: pyjamas. Go.’

‘But we want to play with Auntie Kelly!’ Alfie moaned. Kelly dropped to her knees and gave him a squeeze.

‘Tell you what: you two go and do your PJs and teeth double quick, and then we’ll have tickle time. Deal?’

‘Deal!’ The boys ran upstairs and Kelly grinned.

‘It’s a doddle, this parenting lark.’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d been here about half an hour ago. Melt-down central. Now, the boys have eaten, so I thought we could put them to bed then eat in peace once they’re asleep; I’ve done a mushroom risotto for us.’

‘Sounds perfect.’ Kelly’s phone beeped and she frowned at the screen.

‘Something wrong?’

‘Sorry, it’s work. I just need to reply to this.’ She tapped out a message then looked up to see Lexi’s disapproving face.

‘You’re welded to that thing. That’s the problem with smart phones – it’s like carrying your entire office in your pocket. You can’t ever switch off.’ Lexi refused to buy an iPhone, extolling instead the virtues of her brick-sized Nokia that went three days without a charge.

‘It’s not a nine-to-five job. Not like you lot, with your three p.m. finishes and all summer off.’ Lexi didn’t bite. Kelly read the incoming text message and fired off another reply. She’d been first on scene at a nasty fight on Liverpool Street concourse, tasked with gathering witness details once the trouble-makers had been nicked. An elderly woman had been caught up in the skirmish, and Kelly had subsequently been in touch with her daughter, who had wanted to update her mum on the case.

‘What she really wants is for me to tell her they’re locked up,’ Kelly said, once she’d explained the situation to Lexi. ‘Her daughter says she’s too frightened to go out in case she sees them again.’

‘And are they locked up?’

Kelly shook her head. ‘They’re kids with no form. They’ll get community service or a rap on the knuckles at best. They’re no danger to her, but she doesn’t see it like that.’

‘But surely it’s not your job to counsel her and her daughter? Aren’t there victim support people for this sort of thing?’

Kelly made herself take a deep breath. ‘I don’t tell you how to do your job, Lex …’ she started, and her sister held up both hands.

‘Okay, okay. I’ll keep out of it. But please, for once can you switch off your phone and be my sister, not a cop?’ She looked at Kelly, her eyes beseeching, and Kelly felt a stab of guilt.

‘Sure.’ She was about to put her phone away when the screen flashed with Cathy Tanning’s number. She looked at Lexi. ‘Sorry, it’s—’

‘Work. I get it.’

She didn’t, though, Kelly thought, as she walked into the living room to take Cathy’s call. She never did.





9


Cannon Street police station is just moments from where I work; I must have walked past it a thousand times or more and never noticed it. Never needed it. My headache hasn’t shifted, despite the painkillers I took this morning, and there’s an ache in my limbs that has nothing to do with a hangover. I’m coming down with something, and immediately I feel worse, not better, as though the acknowledgement alone gives the virus permission to settle.

My palms are clammy around the door handle, and I feel the irrational clutch of panic that law-abiding people feel when a police car drives past. Justin hasn’t put a foot wrong in years, but I remember that first phone call from the police with painful clarity.

I don’t know when Justin started stealing, but I do know that day he got nicked wasn’t his first time. You take something small, the first time, don’t you? A packet of sweets; a CD. You don’t take twenty-five packets of razor blades when you’re too young to shave. You don’t wear a coat with the lining carefully cut at the top, so contraband can be dropped neatly inside. Justin wouldn’t say a word about the others. Admitted the theft, but wouldn’t say who he was doing it for, what he’d have done with the razors. He got off with a caution, which he shrugged off as though it was a telling-off at school.

Matt was furious. ‘You’ll have that on your record for ever!’

‘Five years,’ I said, trying to remember what I’d been told in custody. ‘Then it’ll be spent and he’ll only have to declare it if asked directly by an employer.’ Melissa already knew, of course, just like she knew about the fights he used to get into, and the worry he caused me when I found a bag of grass in his room.

‘He’s a kid,’ I remember her saying, after pouring me a much-needed glass of wine. ‘He’ll grow out of it.’ And he did. Or he got better at not getting caught. Either way, the police haven’t knocked on our door since he turned nineteen. I think of him now, wearing one of Melissa’s smart aprons, making sandwiches and chatting to customers, and the image makes me smile.

The duty officer is sitting behind a glass barrier, like the type you see in the post office. He speaks through a gap big enough to pass through paperwork, or small bits of lost property.

‘Can I help you?’ he says, in such a way that it suggests helping me is the last thing he wants to do. My brain feels fuzzy behind my headache, and I grapple for the words.