LITMIR.BIZ

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up the street. ‘You’re not a cop. You should mind your own business before you get hurt.’ Ricky winced at the lame threat.

      The man cocked his head and smiled at Tyler, reaching into his jacket pocket with his free hand. Ricky felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. This wasn’t going to be good, he just knew it.

      ‘Nice threat; it might actually be effective if you weren’t obviously shitting yourself,’ the man continued in his relaxed voice, flipping open the card in his hand as he did so, ‘but unfortunately for you, I am a cop.’

      That was enough for Tyler, who turned and ran, disappearing into the nearest alley. The man – cop – pushed Ricky towards a smart silver Mercedes, shoving him into the passenger seat and central locking the car as he walked round to the driver’s side, so that Ricky had no chance to run also. He slumped down into the seat as the man got in next to him.

      ‘What’s your name?’ he asked. His tone was sterner now, but Ricky was sure he could detect a note of amusement in it.

      ‘Wanker,’ he muttered under his breath. The man laughed.

      ‘Nice. Well, Wanker, we’ve got two choices. I can drag you down to town and have you arrested, thrown into a cell and cautioned, and your parents will have to be informed anyway, and my day off will be more ruined, or I can take you home and have a quiet word with your mum and dad and leave it at that.’

      ‘Haven’t got a dad,’ Ricky said with a snarl, thinking immediately of Ethan, which always made him angry.

      Next to him Matt sighed at the kid’s words and rubbed his hand over his chin thoughtfully. He needed a shave. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t bothered with the boy, petty theft wasn’t his problem, but he had him in the car now and if he just let him go what kind of a deterrent was that? Looking at the kid he realised he looked familiar in a vague way; he also noticed the gleam of tears in his eyes that he was fighting to hold back.

      ‘Are you all right?’ Matt asked softly, praying the boy wasn’t going to unleash some awful tale of abuse and neglect. He was well dressed and it was a nice side of town but Matt from experience knew that meant nothing.

      ‘I don’t want to give my mum any more grief. She’s having a hard time.’

      All the more reason her son needed to be kept from going off the rails, Matt thought. Not that he classed a bit of shoplifting as ‘going off the rails’, more a teenage rite of passage, but there was clearly more than that going on here. Looking at the boy he again had the nagging feeling he had seen him somewhere before.

      ‘Just give me your address, son, and we’ll get you home, okay?’

      Ricky’s head snapped up, the glint of tears gone. Matt wondered if he had imagined them.

      ‘I’m not your son,’ he said in a raised voice, then slumped back, defeated, and mumbled his address. Matt shook his head as he pulled away. Another kid with an absent father and the world on his shoulders. He was probably headed for the police cells anyway, one way or the other.

      They didn’t speak on the brief journey to Ricky’s house and the boy walked before him, his swagger replaced by a surly expression as Matt knocked the door, wondering what the mother would be like. A typical overworked single mother, no doubt. He prayed she wouldn’t be a woman like his own mother, so wrapped up in her grief or whatever issues she had that she didn’t know or care where her son was.

      Matt remembered a time when, not long after his father’s death, he had stayed out past midnight, hours after his curfew. He was just eleven.

      One of his mates had stolen their older brother’s cheap cider and even a bit of weed and a gang of them had sat in the field pretending that the cider wasn’t making them feel sick and attempting to roll a joint. After five aborted attempts a roll-up the size of a tampon was passed around, inducing various coughing fits and, in the case of one boy, the emptying of his stomach all over his brand new Rockport shoes. Matt had been the last to leave; it was a mild night and after his friends had gone he had lain back on the grass, watching the stars and wondering if his Dad was up there. Was anywhere, other than six feet underground, withering away.

      He must have dozed off because when he had looked at his watch it was nearly midnight. His first thought was that his Dad would kill him, and he had run home at a crazy speed, bursting through the front door with an instant ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ springing to his lips.

      His mother, curled up on the sofa in her dressing gown and staring dead-eyed at the TV, had simply looked over her shoulder and smiled weakly at him. As Matt trudged up to bed he realised she hadn’t even known he was still out, hadn’t even looked at the time or checked his room. She was still on the sofa in the exact spot she had been sitting in when he had gone back out after school. Although he should have been relieved he had escaped a grounding, Matt had only felt a gnawing sense of emptiness, a feeling of the ground shifting as he realised there was no one at home worrying about him any more. No one to keep him safe. Now, sitting next to this surly boy, he had to wonder what he would find when he took him back to his own mother.

      The woman who opened the door was certainly not what he was expecting. He stared at her, recognition and then incredulity dawning as Ricky pushed his way inside and ran up the stairs.

      ‘What’s going on? Ricky?’ She turned back to Matt, a question in her eyes that gave way to recognition and then more confusion.

      ‘Inspector?’ It was evident from the tone of her voice that she had knew who he was.

      ‘Mrs Randall.’

      They stared at each other for a few moments before Lucy shook her head as if to clear it, breaking eye contact. She still had those beautiful eyes, hypnotic as whirlpools, and now wide with concern.

      ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘I'm afraid I caught Ricky shoplifting.’ He cleared his throat, self-conscious under her gaze.

      ‘Shoplifting? Ricky?’ She frowned as though trying to process what he was telling her, then sighed and opened the door further, ushering him in.

      With Ricky out of sight, no doubt hiding in his bedroom, Matt filled her in on what had happened at the shop, but at the last minute substituted a chocolate bar for the ill-fated bottle of Bud. Lucy looked as if she was at the end of her nerves, and once again Matt wished he had left well alone.

      Not least because he was attracted to her. Even in this, the most inappropriate situation, he felt the pull of her, wanted to take her in his arms and soothe her. Then he remembered Jack, and immediately berated himself. There was no denying the jolt of electricity that had raced through him when she had opened the door and their eyes met. But it was laced through with the same protective instinct he had felt in the pub two days before.

      ‘How is everything?’ he asked. ‘I had no idea who Ricky was, but perhaps it makes sense that he would be acting out. It must be a distressing time for you all.’

      ‘I never got to thank you,’ she said, ‘for catching him.’ There was no need to ask which him she referred to.

      ‘And now they’re letting him out,’ he said with a flat voice. He didn’t deserve her thanks.

      ‘That’s not your fault.’ Her tone was soft, compassionate even, and Matt wondered how at a time like this she could find it in her to care about anyone else’s feelings.

      ‘I know you did all you could.’

      She stepped forward, placing a hand on his arm, and a warm tingling ran through him that had nothing to do with comfort. Their eyes met again, and Matt swallowed hard. Then she swung away from him, an expression he couldn’t read on her face.

      ‘I should go,’ he said, making no move to go anywhere. 'I thought I could have a chat with Ricky, but under the circumstances…’

      Lucy shook her head.

      ‘Stay, if you want to? I was just boiling the kettle.’

      Matt

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