Like This, for Ever

senior police officer of some kind, was sitting behind a table with three other people. As the next four raisins landed on the bran flakes, the cameras moved along the table to the parents. The bones of the father’s skull seemed to be pressing themselves out through his skin as he asked the viewers to help find their sons’ killer. The mother didn’t manage to articulate a single word. She was crying too much.
    At least Jason and Joshua had had a mother.
    As the last four of his sixteen raisins went into his cereal bowl, adark-skinned, dark-haired woman appeared on the screen. The name card on the desk in front of her said that she was Detective Inspector Dana Tulloch.
    ‘Someone knows who this killer is,’ she was saying. ‘This killer doesn’t appear from nowhere and then vanish again. He lives among us. If you have any information that you think could be helpful, however small, however unimportant it may seem, please get in touch.’
    The news moved on to the next story and Barney’s dad turned the volume down again.
    ‘Toast?’ he said, getting up.
    ‘Please,’ said Barney. ‘Can I have maple syrup and honey?’
    ‘No, because that would be disgusting.’
    ‘I mean honey on one half and maple syrup on the other.’
    With a heavy sigh and a resigned shake of the head, his dad reached up into the cupboard. ‘Barney, I’m not sure I want you going out in the mornings at the moment.’
    Instant panic. Barney looked from the TV over towards his dad. ‘Why not?’
    His dad turned to face him. ‘It’s too dark,’ he said. ‘Maybe when it gets lighter, in the summer.’
    ‘If I give my job up now, I won’t get it back again just because the working conditions become better,’ said Barney.
    His dad almost smiled and then caught the look on Barney’s face.
    ‘I just don’t feel comfortable about you being out on your own right now.’
    But he felt perfectly comfortable leaving him on his own two nights every week. OK, that was hardly fair. Barney was the one who refused ever to have babysitters in the house, who’d kicked up a massive fuss on the few occasions, now years ago, when his dad had arranged one. Babysitters just never understood how things needed to be done. Babysitters moved things. Babysitters came into his room when he was working and asked nosy questions. Babysitters … yeah, his dad had finally got the message, and for years Barney’s dad just hadn’t gone out at all. Only in the last few months had he started to trust Barney on his own.
    ‘Don’t glare at me, Barney.’
    ‘I’m not,’ Barney said, although he knew he had been. Then the toast popped up and his dad began the process of buttering and spreading. While his dad’s attention was elsewhere, Barney reached for the remote control, turned down the volume and switched the channel.
    ‘You wouldn’t answer the door, would you?’ his dad said, as he handed him the toast. ‘If anyone knocked when I’m not here. You’d phone me.’
    ‘’Course,’ said Barney through a mouthful. On the TV, three men in swimming trunks, yellow beanie hats and goggles were getting into three bath-tubs. One had been filled with chicken curry, the second with soy sauce and the third, blackcurrant juice. It was an experiment to find Britain’s stainiest food.
    ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to organize someone to keep you company? We can find someone you like. Maybe an older boy? Jorge, perhaps?’
    The men on the TV screen were sponging themselves down. Just gross!
    ‘Barney!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Can we think again about a babysitter?’ said his dad in a voice that made it clear it wasn’t for the first time. ‘For Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I have to work late.’

13
    ‘MIKE, PLEASE.’
    The pathologist, Dr Michael Kaytes, turned round in surprise. He’d been about to switch on the iPlayer in the corner of the mortuary examination room. Whilst cutting open bodies and removing internal organs, Kaytes liked to listen to Beethoven. Dana was convinced he did it for effect. Usually it didn’t bother her. Usually.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dana, knowing she looked anything but apologetic, and not caring. ‘I’m just not sure I can cope with the music. Not this time.’
    Kaytes nodded slowly. ‘As you wish.’ He walked back to the two gurneys in the centre of the room where Jason and Joshua Barlow’s bodies lay under blue plastic. Dana knew Stenning and Anderson were exchanging uncomfortable glances behind her back.