Thicker Than Water

‘He’s all right,’ she wailed, still on the same painful, rising note: her relief sounded very much like her grief. ‘Oh thank God, he’s all right.’

Speaking personally, I wouldn’t have gone that far. Bic had just tried to throw himself off the walkway in what seemed to be a full-blown trance state. He was back in that state now, with the possibility of a concussion to add spice to the mix.

‘Mrs Daniels,’ I said, still watching her husband for sudden moves. ‘Jean. I don’t think he’s all right at all. I think he’s very, very unwell.

She raised her head to look at me, her face tear-stained and hectic. ‘What do you mean?’ she demanded. ‘Tom, ask him what he means.’

‘Answer her,’ Tom Daniels ordered me belligerently. ‘What happened to our Billy? Where did you find him?’

I followed my instincts and went for the truth again. Lies hadn’t worked all that well on Jean the first time I’d met her. ‘Right outside,’ I said, nodding towards the window. ‘On the walkway. I’m thinking he must have walked in his sleep.

I was expecting another wail from Jean, but instead she gave a strangled sob and buried her face in Bic’s narrow chest, where there was scarcely room for it. Tom Daniels swore and shook his head, but then came back onto the attack.

‘Did anyone see all this?’ he demanded, glaring at me again.

‘Your other son and his friends came along right afterwards, ’ I said.

I stopped because John himself had come into the room - or at least, into the doorway. He stood there uncertainly, like a vampire who hasn’t been invited in yet and so can’t cross the threshold. I stared at him, slightly baffled. He was the same kid I’d met outside on the walkway, very obviously, but he was also different in some not-so-subtle ways. Calmer, for one thing, and with less of an edge to him: less of a narcotic turbo-tilt to the movements of his eyes.

‘Stevie Rawlings saw,’ he mumbled. ‘He was over by Sandford, on three, and he said . . . what this bloke said. Bic climbed up on the ledge, and he just stood there. Stevie shouted to him, but Bic didn’t answer or anything. Then he leaned forward, like he was gonna jump off, and this bloke caught him in the air, kind of thing. Pulled him back, before he could go over. That’s what Bic said, too, before he fainted.