Page 40 of Deadly Cry

Jasper stood in the kitchen and counted off the ingredients as he put them back in the cupboard. He found reassurance in numbers. They were firm and unyielding. They didn’t change. They were solid and dependable.

Not like cookie dough, he thought.

‘One flour. Two butter. Three eggs. Four raisins. Five sugar. Six baking powder. Seven chocolate bar,’ he said aloud as they all went back.

He hadn’t known what he was going to bake. He had been going to let Ozzy choose, seeing as Ozzy had been so keen for him to get back in the kitchen. He didn’t really feel like it, but Ozzy was being strong, so he had to be strong too.

He closed his eyes and listened as the theme tune toEastEndersplayed out. He put the telly on just to hear the sounds of the soaps. Some nights when a few of them had been on, his mum would just sit and swap channels, moving from one soap to the next while he and Ozzy baked in the kitchen. And then she would come in to make a cup of tea and talk about the characters as though they were real people. He would glance at Ozzy, who would wink and then mix up storylines deliberately.

‘But I thought Sharon was seeing Tommy and that Gail was married to a Mitchell brother.’

His mum would raise her hands in despair and explain how he was getting his soaps mixed up, and Jasper would try not to laugh as she patiently talked Ozzy through the plot lines until he had it straight. Until the next time.

He clapped his hands and laughed out loud at the memory. Ozzy was so funny. He always made him laugh.

His hand raised to his cheek and he was surprised to find it wet. He hadn’t even realised a tear had escaped. He brushed it away roughly.

He couldn’t cry. He was being strong for Ozzy.

He headed upstairs. It was eight o’clock and Billy would be on the Xbox. They could carry on playing the game they’d started last night.

He paused at the door to his mum’s bedroom. Everything still looked the same. They hadn’t moved anything when she was taken to the place that was like a hospital but different. They had both pretended that she was coming back. He didn’t think Ozzy had been in the room once since the funeral, but he came in every night before Ozzy came back from work.

He touched the reading glasses sitting on the bedside table. He stroked the cover of the last book she’d been reading before the pain got too bad. He could still see her lying there with the glasses on her nose and the book on her chest when she’d fallen asleep. He could still see her in his memories, but he wanted more.

He moved across the bedroom and opened her wardrobe door. The smell of his mum reached out to him immediately: a mixture of the lavender fabric conditioner and the summery perfume that she’d worn all year.

His vision blurred at the memories that played through his mind: the trips they’d taken; the games they’d played; the nights they’d spent watching his favourite films.

He leaned into the wardrobe, drinking in the familiar smells. He closed his eyes and imagined her nearby, asking about his day, leaning across and gently moving a lock of hair from around his eyes.

He opened his arms and enclosed them around a clump of her clothes. He took them from the rail and placed them on the bed.

He knew the tears were coming. He could feel them closing up his throat, but it was okay. Ozzy wasn’t here, so for just a little while he didn’t need to be strong.

He pulled the arm of one of her winter jackets across his torso, lay amongst her clothes and allowed the tears to run free.

Thirty-Five

‘You sure you’re not gonna tell me why we’re heading back to the morgue at ten o’clock at night?’ Bryant asked once they were in the car.

‘Are you scared of it in the dark?’ she asked as the conversation with Frost played over in her mind.

‘Place freaks me out any time of the day to be fair,’ he admitted.

‘Maybe I should partner with Penn. He sees the place as a fun day out.’

‘Ooh, guv, just the thought of you wanting to partner with someone else cuts me deeply. I could even think you don’t like me now you’ve made some new buddies at your EPT meeting,’ he offered in a deliberately whiney voice.

‘Yeah, cos they’re as much fun as a heart attack, so you ain’t got much competition.’

‘It’s okay. I’ll take it.’ He smirked. ‘But seriously, why are we going?’

Kim shrugged. ‘You know Keats likes to keep me in suspense until I get there.’

Probing after his summons to the morgue had prompted only that there was something she should see. Just as concerning to her right now was the conversation with Frost.

‘Hang on a minute,’ she said, taking out her phone.