Like This, for Ever

the muffled voice from behind the visor.
    ‘Sorry, didn’t order one,’ said Barney. The face behind the visor looked white, surrounded by very dark hair.
    A heavy sigh of impatience. ‘Your name Roberts?’
    ‘I didn’t order a pizza.’
    ‘Well, maybe someone else did, kid. Look, it’s been paid for so you might as well have it.’
    ‘My dad’s in the shower.’
    ‘Do I look like I care? You having this, or not?’
    Take it, it could be a clue.
The man had taken off his heavy motorcycling gloves, there would be fingerprints on the box. Barney tentatively stuck his fingers out through the gap, ready to pull back at any time if the man looked as though he were going to grab him.
    The man gave another exaggerated sigh. Was this how he did itthen? Made the children feel guilty that they were being difficult? ‘You have to sign for it,’ he said. ‘I can’t get my machine through that gap.’
    There were voices in the street. A mother and two teenagers were walking along the opposite pavement. Witnesses. Nothing could happen while people were so close. Barney slipped the chain off the door and opened it. He took the pizza box, warm under his fingers, and tucked it beneath one arm. The man was holding out a small, rectangular box with a display screen on it. Barney had seen his dad sign them several times. He picked up the pen and scratched his name on the screen.
    ‘Thanks, mate,’ said the man, bending down to pick up his gloves. ‘Enjoy.’
    Barney watched him walk the few yards across the pavement to his bike, check that the box on the back was locked, and then kick it into life. A second later, he was gone.
    Pizza? His dad had made supper like he always did. He never ordered food to be delivered unless the two of them were at home together. What if the pizza-delivery man had been the killer, and that was how he got to the boys? Maybe he delivered the pizza and went away again to get their trust, then came back later saying something like he’d delivered the wrong one. OK, first things first, he had to phone his dad and make sure he hadn’t ordered it. He found his phone, but a text message came in before he could dial. From Harvey.
    Facebook. Now!
    ‘I am knackered, starving and if I drink any more coffee I’ll be tap-dancing naked on the ceiling,’ complained Tom Barrett from the middle of the incident room. ‘What time can we go home, Sarge?’
    ‘When I say so,’ answered Anderson, who’d been trawling his way through the door-to-door statements collected after the Barlow brothers had been found on the South Bank.
    Dana looked up from the corner desk where she and Susan Richmond had been re-reading witness statements. ‘If nothing’shappened by ten o’clock we can assume it’s a hoax and call it a night,’ she said.
    Barrett spun on the spot. ‘Sorry, Ma’am, didn’t see you there.’
    ‘Don’t mention it. I’d still like everyone to be ready for a call-out though. Staying off the booze might not be a bad idea.’
    ‘I can’t find anything, Boss,’ said Stenning, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his eyes. ‘Not a single official news website running with the story.’
    ‘Don’t tell me the media have actually had an attack of conscience,’ said Dana. ‘That will make me start thinking about Twilight Zones.’
    ‘What do you think about this Sweep character, Susan?’ asked Anderson. ‘Is he our man?’
    Richmond shook her head, but in a
who knows?
kind of way. ‘There’s a lot that doesn’t ring true,’ she said. ‘If you look back at his early posts, there’s nothing about vampires until that bright spark Hunt starts talking about Renfield’s Syndrome. Now it looks like this Peter’s trying to quote the entire novel at us.’
    ‘Jumping on the bandwagon,’ said Anderson.
    ‘Exactly. The real killer, to my mind, would be livid we’d misunderstood him. He’d be more likely to be trying to put us right.’
    ‘Or it’s a blind alley he’s very happy for us to go down,’ said Dana. ‘Don’t killers enjoy feeling the police are stupid?’
    ‘I think it’s safe to say he’s in a pretty good mood right now,’ said Anderson. ‘How you getting on, Gayle? Can you give us a status update?’
    ‘Yeah, very funny, Sarge.’ Mizon was as pale-faced and sore-eyed as anyone. She’d spent the day monitoring the social media sites but, as she complained, given how quickly they were updated at times it was quite easy to miss something. ‘Nothing yet.