Like This, for Ever

leave hers.
    ‘I went to see your dad the very next day,’ she said, knowing that being less than honest now could be disastrous. ‘I told him about our conversation, what you’d asked me to do and what I’d found out. I’m sorry, I know you didn’t want me to, but when I found out what had happened to your mum, I had to get your dad involved. He had to be the one to tell you.’
    ‘He killed her!’
    For a second, Lacey thought the boy had struck her, the way he’d dived forward, the ugly twist on his face. She expected to feel thepain of the blow, but no, there had been no contact. It was just words.
    ‘Barney, we need to go and talk to him. Come on, I’ll come with you.’
    ‘He’s out. He’s always out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That’s when he does it.’
    Does what? What the hell was going on with these two and why, why, did they have to drag her into it? She wanted to stand in the rain, feel cold streams run down her body and watch the skin part, the red bubbles burst on the air …
    ‘He killed my mum. Now he’s killing
them
. He wants to kill me, but he can’t, so he kills them instead.’
    ‘Barney, she was very ill. She didn’t really know what she was doing. The coroner’s report said she had post-natal depression. Lots of women get ill after they …’ She stopped. How could she tell him his mother had become sick after she’d given birth to him and never truly got better again? He’d think it was his fault she’d died.
    ‘He killed her. That’s why he never told me about her. He’s frightened I’ll remember.’
    The room was so cold. Lacey couldn’t stop shivering. It was as though the walls had become permeable and the cold air outside was seeping through. And in front of her, an eleven-year-old boy was trying to remember the day his mother had died. His eyes were darting around, his breathing picking up pace, as he flicked through his store of early memories. She could almost see it herself. A small boy, alone and scared, hearing his parents arguing on the floor above. His mother screaming for help, wanting to get to her, trying to stop his dad. She could see the phantom memories forming, and knew he might never know whether they were real or not.
    ‘Barney, please stop doing that with your hands, you’ll hurt yourself. I know your dad should have told you, but he didn’t want you to be upset. He was trying to protect you.’
    ‘My dad is the murderer. The one they call the Twilight Killer. I’ve known for ages. I wasn’t going to say anything because if the police take him away I’ll have no one to look after me, but now I know he killed Mum I don’t care.’
    He was hurling accusations around, trying to hit out as he’d been hurt.
    ‘Barney, you’re upset, you’re not thinking properly.’
    ‘He knows all about vampires. He reads about them all the time on the computer. We have three copies of that Dracula book.’
    ‘Barney …’
    ‘He takes them to the boat. That one at Deptford Creek. He was there, that Saturday night I sent you the text. That’s why I wouldn’t admit it was me – I didn’t want you to find out he was there. He’s never home on Tuesdays and Thursdays but he brings sheets home to wash because they’ve got blood on them. There’s a drug in his bathroom. I can’t remember what it’s called but it makes blood clot. And I found a glove. A kid’s glove that wasn’t mine. He took it from one of the boys he killed.’
    ‘Barney, stop this now!’
    Lacey reached for the boy, hardly knowing what she was going to do except that she had to stop him pulling his hands apart and she had to try to calm him down somehow. Seeing her move, he struck out and caught her off balance. As she stumbled back, he pushed her again and shot to the front door. The chain was off, the lock turned and Barney was gone.
    Still barefoot, Lacey stepped outside. No Barney. She ran up the steps, cold and slippery beneath her feet, to the front door of the next house. Still no sign of Barney anywhere.
    Banging on the front door brought no response. She waited a few seconds and knocked again. Then she pushed open the letterbox and listened. No sounds at all from inside the house. Christ, it was nearly half past nine at night, a child of Barney’s age should not be running around on his own.
    Back in her own flat, she found the number of the university. The number rang and switched to other extensions several times before there was finally a