Page 30 of Dream a Little Dream

Heather scrunched up her nose. “A fish? Why afish?”

“Because there aren’t any monsters in the sea. They all walk on land.”

Heather swallowed.

“Sorry.” He wasn’tthatsorry.

But the date ended there, as it inevitably would, and Kenny offered to share his Uber with her. He knew she’d invite him into her place, and when he walked her to the door of her terraced house at the other end of town, she gave him a tempting look over her shoulder whilst she put her key in the lock.

“Alice is with her dad tonight.”

Kenny had already known this would happen. She didn’t want them to make it to the bedroom. She wanted him to accost her in the kitchen whilst she made the coffee, as if he couldn’t wait to have her therenow. And if he went in, he’d oblige. He’d take her over the kitchen surface, hard and fast, make her scream. They’d laugh afterwards, half-dressed but fully fucked, remarking how they were like horny teenagers again. And it would be the best damn lay of her life. Because she’d feel desired again.

Kenny, though, would leave empty.

He had to learn how towantthat.

He kissed her, chaste, on the lips. “It’s a not a ‘no’ never,” he said. “Just a not tonight.”

To her, he’ll come across as chivalrous. She’d like him more for it. She’d ask him out again. He’d say ‘yes’, too. Because hehadto. Had to make something normalwork.

She swiped away some of his hair from his face to kiss him again. “Good night, Kenny.”

“Night, Heather.”

He saw her safely inside. Door clicked shut, lock turned, because he knew the people who lurked in the bushes, then rushed over to the waiting car and jumped in.

At home, he made himself a whisky, took it to his office and sat on his leather chair, poring over the box file he should have left on his office shelf. Or shredded. The papers inside were orderly, yet ominous. Witness statements, crime scene photos, reports and analysis all held together by a rusted paperclip.

He thumbed through each one, unfolding the arrest document with the dull thuds of his heart telling him to keeplooking. The words blurred into a narrative he knew, as if he’d written them himself, yet there was something missing. Something out of reach. Niggling at him. Refusing to let go. The Howell murders had terrorised this small, rural midlands community. Changed its very fabric. Until the final, fateful raid that had stopped their wicked deeds. He tracked every line, absorbing the details he could recite in his sleep.

Then there, amidst the procedural language and dry recounting of events, was the anomaly he’d been searching for. The silence in his office suffocated him. He couldn’t bear it.Idle minds.He dropped his glass on the floor, grabbed his mobile from the desk and scanned through the contacts. He stopped at Jack’s name, gut knotting. Closing his eyes, he hit call, quivering in the seat at having to do this. At dredging up the past. But this wasn’t about Jack. Wasn’t about what they had gone through. What had killed them.

“This number has been disconnected.”The automated message felt like the final nail on the coffin.

As it should be.

Nothing good ever came from opening old flesh wounds. From digging up corpses that should rest in peace. No more evidence needed to be gathered. It would only bring the past back to haunt him.

He opened his laptop and googled, anyway.

chapter eight

Soda

By Monday, Aaron found himself in the welfare office.

Archie, the prick, had grassed him up. What happened to a good old-fashioned beating? Plucked out from his morning lecture before Kenny had even started it, then frogmarched to the Student Centre, he was now sat on a fabric chair so close to the floor he couldn’t make a bolt for it. Across from him sat Drew Whitmore, according to his lanyard, the university’s counsellor, waiting for him to explain his actions.

“I’m sorry to pull you out of class,” Drew said, glasses tipping to the end of his nose.

He was an older bloke. Probably in his sixties. Looked like a religious one too, with all the church paraphernalia scattered around the office. And his notepad, resting on his too-thin legs, crossed and snaking around each other, kept slipping off his drab brown suit trousers paired with a yellow jumper. He looked exactly how Aaron would expect a bloke who had to listen to students piss and moan all day. Not an ounce of personality left, having had it sucked from him by poor-little-privileged-kids. Probably why he was so thin.

“But we have to ensure the safety of other students, and whether you’re able to continue your studies here.”

The sterile light leached all the colour from the room and Aaron drummed a staccato rhythm on his thigh with his fingers, peering at the leaflets and posters on mental and sexual health defacing the walls. He wondered if Heather had chlamydia. And if she did, had she given it to Kenny already?

“Can you talk me through what happened?”

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