Like This, for Ever

the bridge. ‘Lacey, don’t you dare leave me like this.’
    ‘Please. I need to be on my own. Just for a while, just to think.’
    He was close. He grabbed her, held her tightly by the shoulders. He opened his mouth, but the yell came out of hers.
    ‘OK, this is it, Joesbury. Do you trust me or not? Because if you do, then you have to let me go.’
    He stared at her for a second. His hands fell away.
    ‘I’ll call you,’ she said, reaching for her bike. ‘Don’t go far and answer your phone.’
    He threw up his hands in exasperation. Or despair. ‘How?’ he demanded. ‘You haven’t got a frigging phone any more!’
    Shit, he was right. While she was thinking what to do, he pulled Huck’s new phone out of his pocket once more and held it out. ‘I’m saved in Favourites,’ he said. ‘You’ve got an hour. Then I’m coming after you.’
    Lacey turned her bike, pulled it on to the road and set off. She’d be home in under ten minutes. A couple of phone calls to make and one last piece of the jigsaw to put in place.
    … until I had to face the possibility that I might never watch him grow up.
    The boys who wouldn’t grow up. The Lost Boys. Spirited away to Neverland by Peter Sweep, aka Peter Pan. Peter Pan wouldn’t let his friends grow up. He wanted to keep them young for ever, like him. Peter Pan was a child.
    The killer they were looking for was a child.

64
    ‘HELLO.’
    The voice was sleepy, with just a hint of concern, the classic response to an unexpected late-night phone call.
    ‘Evi? This is Lacey Flint, from the Metropolitan Police.’
    Silence on the line. Just beyond the conservatory windows, rain was falling steadily. Already it was the wettest March on record and still it came: relentless, unforgiving rain – that might run scarlet with a small child’s blood before the night was out.
    ‘You called me Laura. Laura Farrow, remember? In Cambridge.’
    ‘Good lord, of course.’ A second’s pause, while Lacey imagined Evi looking at the clock, giving herself a little shake, telling herself to wake up. She’d met Dr Evi Oliver, a psychiatrist specializing in problems affecting young people and families, just weeks earlier in Cambridge, when Evi’s concern over an unprecedented number of student deaths had led to an undercover police operation. In only a few days, Lacey had come to trust Evi in a way she rarely trusted anyone. When they’d said goodbye, neither woman had expected to be in contact with the other again. Undercover police officers did the job and then disappeared. It had to be that way.
    ‘How are you?’ asked Evi, sounding wary but not unfriendly.
    ‘Not good at all. And I’ve no time to chat. Evi, I’m really sorry to do this to you, but I need advice. Can you help me?’
    No hesitation this time. ‘What do you need?’
    ‘So we’re no longer looking for Dracula, we’re looking for Peter Frigging Pan!’ Dana stopped pacing when the wall got in her way and turned to face the group, who were almost cowering before her. Mizon, Stenning, Richmond, Anderson and Barrett, the only members of the team she hadn’t been able to bully into going home. ‘Can I have a volunteer to explain that to the world’s media tomorrow morning, after my godson’s body has been washed up by the tide, because I really don’t think I’m—’
    ‘Dana!’
    Anderson was on his feet. ‘I am very close to going to the Super and requesting that you be removed from this case too,’ he said.
    As they stared at each other, Dana could almost hear the sharp gasps going on around them. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t believe what she was hearing.
    ‘Like DI Joesbury, you are just too close,’ Anderson went on. ‘The only reason I’m not doing so is that when you’re on form you’re the brightest police officer I’ve ever worked with. I happen to think the young lad needs you.’
    This wasn’t happening. Neil gave her unquestioning back-up. Always.
    ‘But he needs you at your best, not falling apart, so you’d better decide which you’re going to be and you’d better decide quick.’
    It was a disciplinary offence, talking to a senior officer this way. She had to nip this in the bud, right now.
    ‘Now, Gayle has been working on something all evening.’ Anderson turned briefly to Mizon and gave her a quick, encouraging smile. ‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed. And we are going to pay her the courtesy of listening to her.’ Attention back on Dana now. ‘Are you