Page 73 of Little Children

Clare closed her eyes against the pain of that knowledge. ‘He’s suffered, hasn’t he?’

Kim nodded. How much wouldn’t be clear until Keats had had a better chat with him.

‘If only I hadn’t been late. If only the gym hadn’t had that fire,’ Clare said, again burying her head in her hands.

Kim wished she could offer some kind of comfort to the grieving mother, but all she could do was try and find the people responsible for her son’s death.

And one of the ‘if onlys’ that Clare had mentioned definitely needed a closer look.

Forty-Five

After explaining to the owner of the kebab shop what she was doing, Stacey finally found the footage she was seeking.

The camera had a great view of the first row of cars in the car park and specifically the eight-year-old Porsche she assumed belonged to the owner of the kebab shop. As a consequence, she could see the second row of parked vehicles and the gap in between.

Determined not to miss anything, she watched the footage for fifteen minutes before the time Lewis sauntered into the car park.

In that time, none of the cars parked on the front row moved. On the row behind, some type of estate car reversed out and left. Three minutes later, the space was filled by a dark-coloured transit van.

Seven minutes later, Lewis appeared in the top left of the screen, walking between the two rows of cars.

A figure appeared and stopped him.

The person was dressed in dark trousers and a long dark jacket, wearing a hoody beneath the coat.

From this angle, Stacey could see the nuances in Lewis’s body language that were unavailable from the arcade’s footage.

Initially, Lewis seemed startled. His reaction didn’t have any sense of familiarity. His limbs were still and rigid. He was listening to what the figure was saying, but there was no easy movement, no looseness in his joints.

The figure talked animatedly. Lewis shook his head.

The figure held out something.

Stacey couldn’t see what it was, but Lewis stared down, shook his head and took a step to the side.

The figure blocked him from moving forward, and Lewis stiffened. He glanced around him, and Stacey could see that he was looking to see if there was anyone else nearby.

There wasn’t.

He shook his head again and stepped around the figure.

From the distant camera of the arcade, this had looked like a harmless exchange, like he was being asked for directions, or for the location of a particular attraction, but on closer inspection it wasn’t that at all. It looked more like he was being propositioned for something and he was turning it down.

Stacey felt unease begin in her stomach. It was far too coincidental that this meeting had taken place the night the boy disappeared.

She continued to stare at the van as the minutes ticked along. She already knew what Lewis had been doing. She’d tracked his every move inside the arcade, but now she was interested in this vehicle. The figure had got back into the driver’s seat, and the van remained stationary.

Why? she wondered as the minutes ticked along. Any reason that made sense to her disappeared the longer the van remained immobile. A couple of cars came and left, but nothing else happened until 8.37 p.m., two minutes after Lewis left Coral Island, undoubtedly to head home.

She could picture him entering the car park to take the shortcut through.

The rear lights on the vehicle switched on, indicating the engine had been started. The figure got out of the driver’s side just as Lewis came into view again.

Stacey’s heart began to pound as three things happened at once.

Lewis tried to sidestep the figure.

They grabbed Lewis by the arm.