Read Online Like This, for Ever by Sharon Bolton - Free Book Online Page A

fair. Barney was the one who refused ever to have babysitters in the house, who’d kicked up a massive fuss on the few occasions, now years ago, when his dad had arranged one. Babysitters just never understood how things needed to be done. Babysitters moved things. Babysitters came into his room when he was working and asked nosy questions. Babysitters … yeah, his dad had finally got the message, and for years Barney’s dad just hadn’t gone out at all. Only in the last few months had he started to trust Barney on his own.
    ‘Don’t glare at me, Barney.’
    ‘I’m not,’ Barney said, although he knew he had been. Then the toast popped up and his dad began the process of buttering and spreading. While his dad’s attention was elsewhere, Barney reached for the remote control, turned down the volume and switched the channel.
    ‘You wouldn’t answer the door, would you?’ his dad said, as he handed him the toast. ‘If anyone knocked when I’m not here. You’d phone me.’
    ‘’Course,’ said Barney through a mouthful. On the TV, three men in swimming trunks, yellow beanie hats and goggles were getting into three bath-tubs. One had been filled with chicken curry, the second with soy sauce and the third, blackcurrant juice. It was an experiment to find Britain’s stainiest food.
    ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to organize someone to keep you company? We can find someone you like. Maybe an older boy? Jorge, perhaps?’
    The men on the TV screen were sponging themselves down. Just gross!
    ‘Barney!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Can we think again about a babysitter?’ said his dad in a voice that made it clear it wasn’t for the first time. ‘For Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I have to work late.’

13
    ‘MIKE, PLEASE.’
    The pathologist, Dr Michael Kaytes, turned round in surprise. He’d been about to switch on the iPlayer in the corner of the mortuary examination room. Whilst cutting open bodies and removing internal organs, Kaytes liked to listen to Beethoven. Dana was convinced he did it for effect. Usually it didn’t bother her. Usually.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Dana, knowing she looked anything but apologetic, and not caring. ‘I’m just not sure I can cope with the music. Not this time.’
    Kaytes nodded slowly. ‘As you wish.’ He walked back to the two gurneys in the centre of the room where Jason and Joshua Barlow’s bodies lay under blue plastic. Dana knew Stenning and Anderson were exchanging uncomfortable glances behind her back. Well, it was just tough. These were ten-year-old boys they were dealing with and if anyone could be blasé about that, she wasn’t sure she wanted them on her team.
    Jesus, she had to calm down.
    She watched, teeth clenched, as Kaytes and his young technician, Troy, peeled back the sheets. Kaytes was a tall man, barrel-chested and with a thatch of thick grey hair. His eyes were bright blue. Beside him, thin, small, colourless Troy looked like an undernourished teenager.
    The gurneys had been labelled, to make it obvious which twin was which. Those little faces would have been so cute, so cheeky in life.
    ‘We got straight on to it,’ said Kaytes. ‘I thought you’d want the facts as soon as possible.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Dana. ‘Is it the same killer?’
    Kaytes nodded. ‘Almost certainly,’ he said. ‘Same cause of death: extensive bleeding following the severance of the carotid artery. Neither boy was sexually abused, no evidence of prolonged physical brutality of any sort.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ asked Anderson.
    Kaytes nodded. ‘Hair missing around the wrists and ankles, consistent with strong packaging tape being wrapped around them,’ he went on. ‘Some bruises that would indicate struggling, the most recent of these along the left side of Joshua’s body.’
    Kaytes positioned himself on the far side of the gurney from the three police officers and reached over the body. He towered over the small, thin child. ‘Can you see?’ he said. ‘One