minutes passed and I was busy veering a heavy saucepan onto a high shelf when he appeared with a clutch of dirty pint glasses. I made sure to lurch towards him, enough to make one of the glasses smash to the floor. We stared at the shattered fragments, glittering on the tile. I held my silence. He was the first to break away, in search of the dustpan and brush.
After that he left me to it and retreated upstairs. As soon as I finished tidying, I followed him. He was in the spare room. I hovered by the closed door for a moment, listening, and then went inside.
He was standing opposite the wall of Barney’s age-progression photos. I looked down. Spread out on the floor was a collage of colour photographs. Family snaps of Barney at various ages. Seeing the images positioned next to each other like this, it was easy to grasp the dislocation between the real, historical pictures of Barney on the carpet and the imagined work of the forensic artist on the wall. I watched as Jason shifted his gaze from the wall to the floor. Up and down. Back and forwards. Over and over. I could only guess at the chasm that must exist between the two sets of images and the other, third version of Barney that Jason carried around in his head. Was that what he was trying to do now, close the gap?
I slipped my arms around his waist and rested a cheek against his back. I felt him relax. He pulled me forward and hugged me into his side. I looked at the scatter of glossy photos arranged at his feet and with a start I realised he had muddled two of my Lauren pics in with his Barney collage. We kept our respective photo collections in shoeboxes on the same shelf. Both boxes were always close to overflowing. Some of my photos must have got mixed in with his.
The first imposter was a close-up of Lauren as a baby, no more than six months old, swaddled in a lemon bath towel; the other was of her as a toddler. Shot from behind, it captured her mid-air on a swing. I wanted to scoop them up immediately, to put them back with the others, but I couldn’t bring myself to point out his mistake.
He went to rest his head on my mine and as he turned I intercepted him halfway with a kiss. Close-lipped, he reciprocated, took my hand and led me out onto the landing, towards our bedroom. I dug in and tried to keep kissing him on the landing where we stood. He pulled away.
‘You don’t want to?’
I pulled him against the wall and kissed him some more.
‘Here?’ He looked down the stairs, at the front door, worried someone might see us through the frosted glass.
I turned around and, pushing myself up against the wall, arranged his hands on my body: one at the beginnings of my skirt, the other on my breast. But no sooner had I placed them there than he tried to turn me around to face him. I resisted and pushed myself back into his groin. He laughed.
‘OK, OK. But not here.’
Again he took my hand and, after kissing me gently, went to lead me away, towards our bedroom. This time I followed.
Chapter Fourteen
A few days later and an opportunity presented itself.
My diary was usually jammed with sales calls or meetings of one sort or another but, arriving at work, I discovered that two of the clients I’d scheduled for that afternoon had cancelled. That meant between 2.30 p.m. and an early client supper I had a window of free time. After much cajoling I’d managed to reschedule the meeting I’d missed with Mr McDonald from that day I was knocked over by the van. It was the perfect chance to return to the off-licence.
I knew Martin’s offer to help was probably nothing more than misguided pity; still, that aside, I was keen for a second look at the boy. Whether I could get the forensic artist a photo or not, I needed to be sure for myself and, more importantly, I need to be sure for Jason that I wasn’t seeing things that weren’t there.
Walking down the high street, I breathed in the mild autumnal air, enjoying the snick of my heels on the pavement. The sky was a high wide blue, flecked with cloud and, despite the season, most people were out without a