Like This, for Ever

mud were bathed in sweat.
    ‘I saw you flaying around like an upturned turtle, trying to get back on your feet,’ replied Lacey. ‘Very impressive.’
    ‘Is Lacey your girlfriend?’ Huck asked his dad.
    ‘Only in my dreams,’ Joesbury replied, without looking at his son.
    ‘Huck, I think we need bacon butties,’ said Helen. ‘Why don’t you and I go and join the queue?’
    Helen and an obviously reluctant Huck moved away towards the clubhouse. The child glanced back several times as they went. Then they were lost in the rush of people. Conscious of his eyes upon her, Lacey turned to see Joesbury watching her.
    ‘You look different,’ he told her. ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘Different good or different bad?’
    ‘Good, I think, although it’s hard to know for certain with you.’
    ‘I slept,’ said Lacey. ‘Which I don’t normally – not well, anyway. There’s something about being accused of multiple murder that seems to relax me.’
    Slept? It was almost an understatement. She’d wound a thin, clean tea-towel around the cut on her wrist and fallen into bed. The next thing she knew it had been nine-thirty in the morning. She hadn’t slept like that in years.
    ‘Dana’s having a hard time of it right now,’ said Joesbury. ‘There’s stuff you don’t know about. She took it out on you, which she shouldn’t have done, but we’re none of us perfect.’
    Except you,
she thought.
You look close to perfect to me right now.And that adorable child of yours. Two perfect men, who could be mine, if only …
    ‘And you do seem to have a knack of attracting trouble.’
    Possibly the two saddest words in the English language:
if only.
    ‘Is she at the post-mortem?’ asked Lacey.
    Joesbury nodded. ‘Just to warn you, she’ll be wanting to talk to you again. She can’t believe you have no idea who sent that text.’
    ‘She’s right. I know exactly who sent it.’
    Joesbury looked like she’d slapped him.
    ‘Don’t you start as well. I can’t prove anything,’ she told him.
    ‘Chat in two minutes, Mark,’ a large, older bloke who looked like a coach called to him as he jogged past. Joesbury nodded briefly. ‘For God’s sake, Lacey, don’t get yourself involved in anything …’
    ‘I need to handle it myself first. It’s about trust. And not scaring people. If you tell her I told you, I’ll deny it.’
    Joesbury looked exasperated. ‘What is this? A test? You’re trying to find out where my loyalties lie?’
    ‘How devious. I never thought of that. But I guess we will, won’t we?’
    He shook his head. ‘I didn’t have you down as manipulative.’
    ‘Liar, I bet there isn’t a negative adjective in the English language you haven’t applied to me at some point.’
    ‘Dad, do you want a bite of mine? Lacey, we got you one of your own.’
    Lacey looked at the ketchup-smeared, soft bread-roll, crammed with bacon, and realized she was genuinely hungry. Another first in a long time. Huck was holding it up to her expectantly, as though he couldn’t imagine anyone turning down a bacon sandwich. His own was more than half eaten. He had ketchup smears around his mouth and a dollop like clown’s make-up on his nose. Lacey reached out and wiped the ketchup from his nose with her index finger.
    ‘Huck,’ she said, ‘if your dad were even half as cute as you, I would definitely be his girlfriend.’
    Without thinking, she raised her ketchup-smeared finger to her lips. She was about to open her mouth when she remembered. The sight, the taste, the smell of fresh blood. Nausea washed over her.She had no right to be here, with these people, who were normal.
    ‘Excuse me,’ said Joesbury. ‘I need to go and break a few bones.’
    ‘Hi, Barney, enjoying the game?’
    Barney turned and looked at Lacey. He saw immediately that she was different. Her face was harder, her eyes colder. She knew. They both did.
So this is what it’s like,
he thought,
to have an enemy.
‘Yes, thanks,’ he replied. ‘Are you?’
    Her lips stretched sideways. If a snake could smile, that’s what it would look like. ‘Oh, I’ve always been a big rugby fan,’ she said. ‘Where I come from it’s impossible not to be.’
    The wind was messing up her hair. It stretched out in his direction, he could almost imagine it wrapping itself around him, pulling him closer, holding on tight.
    ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked her, noticing that the others were sidling further away down the touchline. Only