6

Rachel Corless kept her eyes on the roundabout as one of her two sons helped spin the other around with a little too much relish. ‘Marcus,’ she shouted but the boy either didn’t hear or, more likely, didn’t want to. ‘Marcus,’ she tried again before a final, ‘Marcus!’

Finally the boy stopped pushing on the metal bars, turning to face his mother. ‘What?’ he called back.

‘Stop pushing your brother so hard.’

Marcus turned around and gave the roundabout another shove which his mother had to admit was at least slightly gentler than the previous ones had been.

Rachel turned to the woman sitting on the bench next to her. ‘How come your two just play happily on the swings while mine seem intent on spinning each other around until they’re sick?’

Diane Briggs laughed. ‘You should see them when they’re back at home. Last night they were doing wrestling moves on each other. I was in the living room and heard a massive bump on the floor. I rushed upstairs and it turned out one of them was leaping off the top of the bunk beds onto the other.’

Rachel grinned. ‘I’d settle for that. Two weeks ago, I heard them shouting in their bedroom. I went up and Lloyd was in the process of taking a run-up to punch his brother in the shoulder.’

‘My two are always fighting.’

‘No, they weren’t fighting. Marcus was standing there sideways waiting for it. I asked them what was going on and they were having a competition to see who could give the other the biggest bruise.’

‘I once caught Andrew hanging over the end of his bed with his head drooping down and Matthew flicking his ears. They said they’d heard that you lost all feeling if you hang upside down. He couldn’t understand why he could still feel the pain in his ears.’

‘Surely it’s the other way around? If you hold your arm up and the blood flows down, then you lose feeling?’

‘I didn’t tell them that. I guessed they’d figure it out sooner or later. Either that or one of them would lose an ear.’

The two women laughed together. ‘Boys.’

Diane took out a flask from a canvas bag and held it up. ‘Do you want some tea?’

‘No, I’m all right, it’s not that cold actually. Maybe we’ll have another mild winter?’

The other woman unscrewed the cup, pouring the steaming liquid into it before reattaching the stopper to the flask. ‘I’d take less rain and more cold. And it’s dark by four.’

Rachel looked up to the sky, which had barely changed from a light murky grey all day. ‘What have you got them for Christmas?’ she asked.

‘Andrew wants some computer games which we’ve half-sorted, although one of them apparently isn’t out yet. His dad knows what’s going on with those. Matthew wants a new bike.’

‘What happened to his old one?’

‘Don’t ask.’

Rachel smiled, knowing from experience that the answer could be anything.

‘What about yours?’ Diane added.

‘Marcus has decided he’s too old for toys and bikes now he’s a teenager. He only turned thirteen last month. He said he wanted cash but I told him I’d give him vouchers instead.’

Diane laughed, cradling the plastic cup from the flask. ‘You know what that means, don’t you?’

‘What?’

‘Girls.’

Rachel grinned. ‘I think he’d run a mile if a girl even tried to speak to him.’

She was still keeping an eye on her two sons playing on the roundabout. They had swapped positions and Lloyd was now pushing Marcus. She wondered how much longer they would play together openly before one or both of them started to barricade themselves in their bedroom in between temper tantrums. It couldn’t be longer than a few months at most and, from what some of her friends talked about, she was privileged her thirteen-year-old son even acknowledged her existence. She quite liked the fact he was a bit immature and could still be amused by a trip to the park.

Diane finished drinking her tea and screwed the cup back onto the flask. ‘What have you got for Lloyd?’

‘Oh, he’s definitely still into toys, he’s only eleven. I’ve got him some robot thing, which he’ll probably break within an hour, then some football stuff.’

‘Are they staying with you or their dad on Christmas Day?’

‘Me for Christmas Eve and Day, then they’re off with Adrian for three days.’

The four boys were now passing a football around as a street light slowly started to flicker above the bench where the two women were sitting, as if considering whether it was dark enough to come on.

Rachel looked at her watch. ‘We should probably head back but it’s been good catching up. It’s just a shame we’re both so busy all the time plus, give it a week, and it’ll be dark at this time so no more park after school.’

Although it was time to leave, neither of the women moved as they watched their children contently kicking the ball around. Aside from some older teenagers standing around smoking at the far end of the grass, the park was deserted, the boys’ laughs echoing around.

‘Right, it really is time to go,’ Rachel said, getting up. She shouted to the boys: ‘Marcus, Lloyd, come on now.’ The younger son turned but, as he did, his brother was in the process of kicking the ball to him. It skimmed through the air, smashing into Lloyd’s face as he spun back, sending him falling.

Rachel saw the incident unfold in slow motion and dashed towards her youngest. He was sitting on the muddy grass holding his nose, his eyes wide, his face a mixture of blood and soil. Marcus dashed across. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’ Rachel felt a little in shock herself as the other boys and Diane joined them.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked. For a moment it looked as if Lloyd was about to cry but then he took his hands away from his face and smiled widely, blood dripping from his top lip to the bottom.

‘Quick, get a photo on your phone,’ he said to his mother. ‘This is well cool.’

Rachel looked back at him with a mixture of puzzlement and sympathy. ‘Doesn’t it hurt?’

‘Yeah, but get a picture first, I want to show everyone at school. David Baker reckons he fell off a rollercoaster once and landed on his head. He reckoned there was blood everywhere but I think he’s making it up. I bet this looks well good.’

As the boy’s mother reluctantly took her phone out of her bag she failed to notice the silhouetted figure standing close to the park gates.

The person squinted into the distance wondering what exactly had happened to Lloyd Corless to make everyone run over to him. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be long before he and his mother were parted.

7

Jessica tilted her head to a slightly downward angle and tried not to launch into a volley of swear words. She had recently become a lot better at holding her tongue and was making a conscious effort not to lose her temper as often. As she tried to smile, she thought that if there was one person who deserved to be greeted by a string of bad language, it was the photographer standing in front of her who wouldn’t stop saying ‘smile’.

Jessica knew that anything to do with making the force look good was taken very seriously by people working for the police who weren’t actually officers. As such it shouldn’t really have been a surprise that the press office had hired a professional photographer to take new pictures for the website relaunch. But it would have been a surprise to the photographer and on-looking chief press officer if Jessica had picked up the man’s tripod and found a creative way to shut him up. A few potential methods had certainly occurred to her.