Innocent Blood (10 page)

Sam stood in the corner of the room and shivered. It was his turn next. The other boys were all occupied so whoever came through that door would be his. Or rather, he’d be theirs. He stared fixedly at the handle, waiting for it to turn, silently begging it not to but knowing such thoughts were fanciful. It was only seven o’clock. The wash from the early commuter rush had peaked and flowed over the margins of the establishment and now it waited for the evening wave.

That Sam hadn’t been chosen was both good and bad. Good because it meant that he was still fresh, his mouth tasted of toothpaste, his skin was clean. Bad because in the few days he’d been in the house he had already learnt that it was never a good sign to be last. He sniffed, his nose raw from his recent addiction. Mucus was a constant problem and one of his frequent nightmares involved suffocation as he choked.

At least he still looked good. His skin was clear, hair glossy, body slim and smooth. Unlike some, his eyes remained bright, the whites shiny. The customers that came here liked his looks.

He shuddered again, thinking of the world outside that door and the way of life he’d touched during chilling nights hanging around King’s Cross station before William had found, fed, washed and clothed him. He’d been grateful at the time. Only later had he realised there was a price and what it was.

Despite the realities of life on the streets, Sam had run away twice on the first day. Once by breaking a fanlight in the upstairs bathroom, the second time by dashing through a punter’s legs before anyone could stop him. That seemed a long time ago, although it was hard to keep track of time in this place. He’d been behaving like a kid back then he told himself; he was smarter now. It didn’t pay to run away. William always found you and had ways of hurting you so that it never showed. He’d learnt his lesson the hard way, just as he had all the tricks of the trade after that; how to please, how to pretend to be pleased and, most importantly, how to sham pain before it became real.

Some of them really liked you to scream and, for a reason he didn’t understand, he seemed to appeal to men like that. William called it a speciality and made sure he was cared for especially well after sessions that went bad. They weren’t meant to leave marks on him, that was the rule and they had to pay extra if they did, but some of them couldn’t help themselves once they started. They were barred if they did it more than once, even if they offered to pay for the privilege, because William didn’t like his property damaged; it put you out of action for too long. Sam closed his eyes and hugged himself in an unconscious gesture.

Why hadn’t he been picked tonight? It was bad news. The last boy who’d ended up the regular tail-ender, as William called the last one standing, had been Jack. It was a while since he’d seen Jack around. Rumour was that he’d been pushed out. No one knew what happened to you when you were finished here, only that you didn’t come back.

‘Sam!’

He jumped as William’s hand landed heavily on his shoulder.

‘Stop huddling, you look like a whipped puppy.’

‘I’m cold, that’s all,’ Sam said and rubbed his bare arms briskly to prove it.

‘Here.’ William threw him a jumper. ‘No, don’t put it on, you daft twit, just wrap it round your shoulders. Not long to wait now. He said he’d be here at seven as long as his train was on time.’

Sam did a look. It was one of several he’d perfected since arriving that were meant to convey various permutations of innocence, cheekiness, arousal and curiosity. This was his innocent/curious look, which usually worked.

‘What?’

But not this time. William stared at him blankly.

‘You said “he”,’ he ventured timidly, aware that the question might cost him. William knew endless ways to inflict pain.

‘Oh.’ He shrugged indifferently and Sam relaxed. ‘The man we’re waiting for. I’ve promised you to him. He’s our most important customer so you’d better be on your best behaviour.’

‘Course!’ Relief flooded Sam. He wasn’t last, he’d been reserved.

A smile transformed his face and William nodded approvingly.

‘Good boy. You’re his type. Make sure you behave, not like that chump Jack. He really disappointed him last time.’

He reached over and squeezed Sam’s left cheek hard, leaving a pink impression on his white skin. Sam didn’t so much as blink.

‘Better even you up,’ William said and pinched the right side with his other hand. ‘He likes dark hair with a pale complexion.’ He bent down so that his nose was an inch from Sam’s. ‘You’re to tell him you’re new, got it? He won’t like it if he knows I’ve been keeping you a secret. And he’s very, very particular, so be nice.’

‘Promise,’ Sam said.

At that moment the door opened and William shot upright, his customer smile on his face.

‘Nathan!’ he boomed with ingratiating good humour. ‘Welcome, it’s been too long.’

‘What do you expect, Bill? You let me down last time. There are plenty of other places only too happy to please.’

‘A small misunderstanding. The boy concerned has been dealt with. Believe me, you won’t be disappointed this time.’

‘We’ll see. Where is he?’

Nathan sounded angry and Sam’s smile faltered. With a heroic effort he corrected his expression.

‘Just here. Samuel, come forward, my dear, and meet Nathan.’ He removed the jumper from around Sam’s shoulders with an irritable flick.

Sam shivered in his vest and stepped out of the shadow into the pool of light at the centre of the room, his smile firmly in place.

‘Hmm,’ was all Nathan said as he walked slowly around Sam, inspecting him. He reached out a finger and prodded one of his arms. ‘More muscle than I like.’ The finger lingered on him. ‘But the skin’s good. Bend,’ he instructed. Sam folded at the waist.

Nathan barked a laugh as frightening as any snarl.

‘No, I meant your head, boy; I want to see your neck. Bloody obedient, Bill – I like that.’

‘He’s the best,’ William said and Sam’s cheeks flushed.

He hung his head. The man’s fingers touched the back of his neck, slipped down his vertebrae slowly as if counting them. Without warning he gripped Sam’s throat fast as a snake, choking him hard.

William didn’t say a word. Sam’s eyes watered as he tried desperately not to moan and gasp for air. After a long moment Nathan let go and Sam gulped in oxygen, keeping his breathing as silent as possible.

‘Yes,’ said Nathan, ‘he’ll do.’

Sam put on his smile.

The house appeared deserted when Fenwick walked in. It was the end of another long day. His children had eaten their tea, watched as much television as his housekeeper would allow and must have been sent upstairs early to get ready for bed. Alice heard him close the front door and came to the top of the stairs, a pile of laundry on her arm. He could tell from her face that she’d had a tough day. With the children home from school for the holidays her workload more than doubled and he felt a twinge of guilt that he’d not managed to return at a decent hour at all in the past week. At least his mother would be coming to stay shortly to give Alice a well-deserved break.

‘I’m not sure where Bess is, in her bedroom I think. Chris is still in the bath; he just won’t come out and I’ve had enough of his moods for one day.’

‘I’ll go and have a word.’

He walked into the steamy bathroom to find Chris dive-bombing a plastic boat with a dinosaur. His son’s back was towards him. At eight he still had the soft skin of a baby. Inevitably, Fenwick thought of Malcolm Eagleton and Sam Bowyer. As his son and daughter grew from babies into small people he was finding crimes against children increasingly hard to deal with, though no one who worked with him would have guessed.

Across the force he was known for his self-control and his absolute views of right and wrong. They called him the Zebra behind his back because he was so black and white but he was also acknowledged to be rigidly fair.

He looked at Chris’s slender neck, the bones of his spine visible beneath the perfect brown skin, and shuddered. Such innocence. If anyone ever soiled his son’s simple beauty he felt that he would kill them. The unexpected depth of his emotion caught him off guard and he reacted with typical bluntness to compensate.

‘Boo!’

‘Dad! You made me jump.’ Chris flashed him one of his looks.

Fenwick removed his jacket and squatted beside the bath.

‘So, how are you?’

‘All right.’

Chris beat the water with his stegosaurus and splashes went everywhere. Fenwick ignored the spreading damp on his shirt sleeves and kissed the top of his son’s head.

‘How was your swimming lesson?’

‘Boring. I don’t like Mr Sells, he’s not nice.’

‘You’ll get used to him.’

‘He made my friend Nick cry.’

‘Oh dear,’ Fenwick ruffled Chris’s sticky wet hair, ‘how did that happen?’

‘He made us put our faces in the water and Nick doesn’t like that.’

‘But you didn’t mind?’

Something approaching pride flickered on Chris’s face.

‘I can swim underwater for three strokes now.’

‘That’s very good.’

Chris beamed at him and Fenwick bent forward to kiss his forehead again. It was so rare for Chris to excel at anything that it was a double delight when he did.

‘You’ll be better than your sister soon, even though she’s older than you.’

Chris nodded decisively and returned his attention to making his giant lizard do things that no palaeontologist would have believed possible.

‘What else was good about today?’

Chris had to think hard.

‘We had sausages for lunch and I went round to Gary’s ’cos he got a new computer for his birthday.’

‘He’s only eight.’

‘Nine. Can I have one for mine, Dad? I’ll be nine soon.’

‘We’ll see. Now, about your birthday, we haven’t got long to organise something. What would you like to do?’

In previous years his withdrawn son had refused to have a party and they’d gone to McDonald’s as a family instead. Chris’s face scrunched up in thought.

‘I’d like a party,’ he said eventually, to his father’s delight. It meant that he was making friends at last.

‘That’s great…’

‘…As long as it’s better than Tony Easter’s. He’s always going on about how much money his dad has, and about their holidays, and his mum always makes brilliant costumes for school.’ Chris’s face twisted with dislike. ‘He’s a real show-off.’

Fenwick was shocked at his son’s naked envy and disappointed by the desire to show off that was behind his wish for a party.

‘What sort of party did Tony have?’

‘It was awesome! He had a bouncy castle, a clown that’d been on TV and we got brilliant presents at the end.’

Chris pulled a plastic basket of toys from the side of the bath into the scummy water and began to sink them as Fenwick’s mental image of a picnic on the lawn followed by games of hide and seek and blind man’s bluff faded. He didn’t want to let his son down but he refused to pander to one-upmanship. He blamed the parents; look at what it must be doing to their children’s sense of values. Heaven help them when they discovered real materialism as teenagers.

‘What if we had a party, a nice one, but without a bouncy castle?’

Chris shook his head savagely and drowned a pterodactyl under a doll that Fenwick realised belatedly belonged to Bess.

‘Hey! That’s not your toy. I’ve told you before about taking Bess’s dolls; you know she gets upset when you spoil them.’

He pulled the sodden Barbie, complete with drooping bridal veil, wedding dress and disintegrating bouquet, from under the water. His son’s ears went bright red, a sure sign that he was about to make a fuss. Fenwick bit the inside of his lip in frustration. He should have known better than confront Chris directly as it brought on his worst behaviour.

‘Look, if you promise not to do it ever again, I’ll dry Barbie off in the airing cupboard and hopefully Bess won’t even notice.’

Chris refused to look at him. As he grew older, whenever he was caught doing something wrong, his defence was to become angry. His teacher had taken Fenwick to one side at a parents’ evening to suggest that Chris was a confused and sad little boy, still deeply affected by his mother’s death. She thought the anger that was starting to replace his moody silences was really directed inwardly against himself and had suggested family counselling. Fenwick had told her bluntly that her well-intentioned remarks were unnecessary and that he could take care of his own children, thank you. He’d then avoided her for the rest of the evening.

Looking at his son now he wondered for the first time whether she’d been right. Was his determination to raise his children without help born out of protectiveness and his own insecurity rather than what he’d thought was plain common sense? Love for his son rushed through him and he reached out and gave him a hug, ignoring the water that stained his tie.

‘Come on, you’re starting to wrinkle. Let me dry you and then we can have a hot chocolate together while I read you a story.’

Chocolate of any kind was a treat as Alice didn’t believe in sweets. Chris remained silent as Fenwick lifted him up but when he draped a towel around him and started to tickle him dry, the wriggles became giggles and he was back to his normal self by the time they went down to the kitchen.

Bess was sitting in her dressing gown at the large deal table in the middle of the family room. He noticed that her feet no longer swung above the tiled floor. When had her legs grown so long?

‘I thought you were in bed, young lady.’

‘Daddy!’ She leapt up from the table and gave him a hug. ‘Urgh, you’re all wet.’ She pulled herself away quickly and sat down again.

‘Thanks to your brother. Do you want some hot chocolate? I’m making some.’

‘With foamy milk?’

‘Of course.’

He pulled the mugs from the cupboard and measured chocolate powder into them with only the tiniest sprinkling of sugar for Chris. Then he steamed and frothed the milk using the cappuccino machine.

‘What’s that you’re doing?’ he asked Bess.

‘A project.’