way in through the front door with a battering ram, how they would disperse inside to secure the area, how Jason would follow behind and find Barney shivering and crying in the corner and how he would scoop him up into his arms and to safety.
But then it seemed like no sooner had Jason gone inside than the door was swinging open and he was back on the street, clutching a soft drink.
‘Well?’
‘Not Barney,’ he said, holding his free palm out flat in apology.
He went to head back to his car and I grabbed his elbow.
‘Wait. You don’t think there’s even a slight similarity?’
‘He looks nothing like the mock-ups. The bone structure, his nose. It goes against everything the forensic artists have always said.’
‘What about the bloke behind the counter?’ I asked, unwilling to give up quite that easily. ‘He seemed dodgy.’
‘There was no bloke. It was a woman. Maybe he’d finished his shift?’
I felt a tightening at the base of my skull. The beginnings of a headache. I’d thought that once I’d had his verdict I’d be able to put my mind at rest, but now I found that wasn’t the case.
‘Jason, please,’ I said, ‘take another look.’
He studied my face, as though searching for an answer. Unable to find what he was looking for, he sighed and, apparently deciding to humour me all the same, returned inside.
Again I waited. I pictured his eyes roaming over the child’s hair, build and facial features and held my breath, certain that this time, he would see it.
He seemed to be taking much longer. I let my heart race. Maybe he’d had a rethink. But as he exited the shop he shook his head.
The tightness at the base of my skull began to spread across the rest of my scalp.
‘I’m so sorry.’ I reached for him but he shrugged me away. ‘I thought it was him, truly.’
‘No harm done. You did the right thing.’ His voice was soft but I could tell he was upset. ‘And I know you meant well.’ He set his gaze forward, towards where our cars were parked. ‘But now I’m tired. Can we please go home?’
Chapter Four
‘Heidi, what are you doing?’ shouted Jason from across the landing.
‘I need to finish an email,’ I said, ‘then I’ll be right there.’
There was a splosh and I heard the squeak of the hot tap being turned on.
‘OK, but hurry up, the water’s getting cold.’
I smiled and turned back to the laptop, relieved things were returning to normal. As soon as we’d got home from the off-licence, he’d suggested an early bath together. His way of letting me know that he’d already drawn a line under today. But while I’d been grateful for the gesture, in truth, when it came to the boy, I wasn’t done.
While I knew that Jason must be right – if he couldn’t recognise the kid as his son then no one could – I was unable to forget him. The way I’d reacted to the child continued to niggle. And so, before joining Jason in the tub, I’d decided to see what I could find on the man who ran the off-licence.
The company I worked for was called Bullingdon’s. It supplied alcohol and soft drinks to pubs and restaurants. Bullingdon’s had a sister company called Yellow Arrow that did business with smaller-scale retail outlets – vending machines, newsagents, off-licences. Every employee in both companies was required to register any meetings or sales calls in a huge shared database. This meant that if anyone from our sister company had ever had anything to do with the shop we’d been in today it would be recorded on the system. It was a long shot, but I figured that a little research on the bloke behind the counter wouldn’t do any harm. If anything, it might serve to put my mind at rest.
Clicking on the client database icon, I typed in the name and location of the off-licence and pressed search. Nothing. Maybe I hadn’t put the address in right. The database was notoriously sensitive. I cross-checked the details with Google Maps. Wine City, 119 Coatesworth Road, Gateshead. I’d spelt it correctly, but it was easy to see how someone might get the name of the road slightly wrong. I tweaked the address, this time making sure to drop the ‘e’ from Coatesworth, and once more pressed search. Before long, the database yielded a potential hit. It was a match. Filed by a rep named Sharon Hannah, it detailed