Like This, for Ever

shoulder. The pain across her collarbone almost made her give in to the darkness but she told herself to hold on, keep breathing, think about Huck, think about Barney.
    She was in a large, rectangular room at the back of the upper floor. A room that could have been the studio of an insane painter with access to only one bright colour. A room with so much blood it was making her head spin. The high, peaked ceiling had several areas where the arterial spray was concentrated. The boys who had died in here hadn’t been killed in the same spot. They’d been moved around, as though the killer wanted an individual and permanent memento of each on the walls. Nor had the boys’ killer bothered getting rid of the blood. The blood was all still here, she could smell it. The boards beneath her were slick with it. Lacey felt her ears start to buzz, her head to grow thick. She couldn’t faint.
    Only one door, the one she’d come in by. Three windows high in the rear wall looked out on to the night. Too high for jumping to be a safe escape option.
    As the dizziness faded, Lacey became aware that three pairs of eyes were watching her. Two belonged to the forms prone on the trestle tables, the third to the elf-like figure squatting on the ledge of the far window, clinging to a rope. The rope was attached to a pulley in the ceiling and secured to a cleat beneath the window, and the elfin creature had knocked her to the ground by swinging at her. It was poised to swing again if she moved.
    The killer was slim and strong, dressed in green. With spiked fair hair and eyes of an odd intensity. A malevolent sprite. Peter Pan.
    ‘My daughter-in-law’s out. She’s working.’
    ‘We’d like to talk to the boys, please. Jorge and Harvey.’
    ‘They’re both asleep.’
    Dana, Gayle Mizon and Susan Richmond stood at the door of the tall terraced house and faced the faded, elderly woman on the threshold. She smelled of gin, exotic cigarettes and cheap perfume.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Dana. ‘We wouldn’t dream of disturbing you at this hour if it wasn’t urgent.’
    ‘I don’t want them upsetting any more. Jorge’s already been out this evening, looking for Barney. Harvey cried himself to sleep.’
    ‘Mrs Soar, two children are missing and your grandsons know one of them very well. They may be able to give us some clue as to where they might be.’
    ‘You’d better come in. I’ll see if I can wake them up,’ the woman said.
    Dana and her two companions stepped into the hallway and closed the front door behind them. The elderly woman turned to walk away from them. The hallway was tall and narrow, in the manner of old houses. The cream walls were lined with photographs. Just ahead, Gayle Mizon stopped and nodded at one particular shot. Dana stepped closer. It was the original of the photograph they’d seen minutes earlier on the CNN website: Abbie and Rob Soar, receiving an award for news coverage in the Congo.
    The sound of a key turning in the lock made all three women start. They turned to see the front door open and the woman they’d just been discussing walk through.
    Slim, fair-haired, around thirteen or fourteen years old, Lacey figured, looking at the figure in green poised to swing down at her again. Just a kid. She’d been right about the kid. Just chosen the wrong one. And thanks to her, the MIT was following the wrong lead again. Thanks to her, Dana Tulloch and her team would be looking for Barney, tracking down places he might be hiding. They wouldn’t be looking for the older brother of his best friend. And yet, in spite of her growing despair, there was some element of relief in finally being able to give the killer a name.
    ‘Hello, Jorge,’ she said.
    ‘What’s going on? Are the boys alright?’ The woman with short blonde hair looked from one police officer to the next, then to the top of the stairs. ‘Sylvia, what’s happening?’
    The elderly woman seemed to sway. Both Richmond and Mizon took a step towards her. Dana fixed her attention on the new arrival.‘These people want to talk to the boys,’ she heard the grandmother say. ‘One of their friends is missing. I was just going to wake them up.’
    ‘I don’t want them disturbed.’ The younger woman’s eyes were darting around the hallway, doing anything other than meet Dana’s.
    ‘You recognized me the other night, didn’t you?’ Dana said. ‘You’re a reporter. I’ve seen you at press conferences.’
    The boys’ mother made a