Like This, for Ever

in amongst them and admit, yet again, that there was no news.
    ‘Peter Sweep’s been on Facebook again,’ said Gayle. ‘Two minutes ago.’ Her eyes raised towards Huck’s family. ‘I haven’t said anything,’ she went on. ‘It’s not what they want to see.’
    It wasn’t going to be what Dana wanted to see either. Nevertheless, she looked over Gayle’s shoulder.
    Got my hook into a Huck. Slice and dice.
    ‘Same tactics as when Oliver went missing, I’m afraid, Ma’am. He’s posting from a smart phone, almost certainly bought secondhand, with a pay-as-you-go SIM card. He’s close to the same base station in Lambeth as last time.’
    ‘Have you seen this?’ Dana asked Anderson, who was at the next desk. He nodded.
    ‘We’ve had an absolute blackout on Huck’s disappearance,’ said Dana. ‘Peter Sweep must be the killer.’
    ‘We have, Boss,’ answered Anderson. ‘But his mum phoned everyone she could think of when he wasn’t waiting for her at the football ground. The news is out there and we can’t assume anything as far as Sweep is concerned.’
    Behind Dana the door opened and Detective Superintendent Weaver came into the room.
    ‘What do we know?’ he asked her in a low voice, as though worried anything he might say at normal volume would carry to the meeting room.
    ‘Huck went to football practice as usual at six thirty this evening,’ Dana told him. ‘His mum dropped him off. She went to pick him up at eight and he wasn’t there. Whatever happened to him, he left quickly, because when the register was taken at six thirty-five, Huck didn’t answer to his name. Twenty-eight boys were at training tonight and we’re contacting them all to see if anyone knows anything. As they all live in roughly the same area and as they all appear to be at home, it isn’t taking too long. Trouble is, most of them didn’t notice Huck at all tonight. Three did, but only in the first few minutes after he’d arrived.’
    ‘Nobody could have taken him out of a crowded changing room without being seen,’ said Anderson. ‘So we have to assume he was one of the last to leave the changing room and that he was waylaid on his way from the pavilion to the all-weather pitch.’
    ‘We’re very keen to talk to the head coach, a Daniel Green,’ said Dana. ‘He was at training tonight, but had to leave ten minutes before the end and no one knows where he is now, not even his wife. She says he typically goes to the gym after training, but he isn’t there.’
    ‘If he left ten minutes before the end, he was still there for eighty minutes when Huck wasn’t. He can’t be involved.’
    ‘Exactly, Sir. He’s Huck’s PE teacher, and DI Joesbury plays rugby with him. We’re not worried about him, we just want to talk to him.’
    They’d reached the meeting room and entered it together. Three pairs of eyes met Dana’s. Hope flickered for a second in each.
    ‘We’ve got the go-ahead for a TV appeal early tomorrow morning,’ said Weaver, after introducing himself to Carrie andher partner. ‘You’ll be OK for that, won’t you, Mrs Joesbury?’
    Carrie Joesbury, a tall, dark-haired woman in her late thirties who, over a decade ago, had asked Dana to be one of her bridesmaids, so determined had she been to appear relaxed around her fiancé’s female best friend, looked anything but OK. She straightened up in her chair and shook her head.
    ‘Now!’ she said. ‘We have to do it now.’
    Two hands reached across the table towards her. At the last second, Mark pulled back, leaving Alex to cover Carrie’s hand with his own. Alex was younger than Carrie, prettily handsome and rich, having worked in fund management since he left university. He and Mark couldn’t be more different.
    ‘We’re too late for the main evening news.’ Weaver was using his soothing voice. Dana wondered, for a moment, if it ever worked; it certainly wasn’t about to with these three. ‘If we do it in the morning, it will go out three times or more on the main news programmes. We’ll get far more exposure.’
    ‘It’s the sensible thing to do, Carrie,’ said Dana. ‘I’ll do it with you, of course, and perhaps Alex?’
    Carrie’s head shot round to her ex-husband. ‘Mark will do it,’ she said. ‘Won’t you?’
    Mark’s face seemed to have lost all its colour. ‘I can’t,’ he told the tabletop.
    For a second, Carrie looked as though she hadn’t quite heard him. Then, ‘You are kidding me!’
    Mark