Lock Me In

The fog in my head cleared suddenly and the gentle Scots of Matt’s voice was in my ear saying you’ve reached Matt Corsham. I’m probably in my dungeon – the photo lab, in the hospital basement – leave a message. I hung up before the beep and dialled it again. Looked at the clock: 07:43. He was on earlies, started at eight, he should have been on his way to the hospital, on the 267. He should have his phone in his hand. I slumped onto the sofa. He should be texting me.

Mum sat beside me and took my face in her hands.

‘What do we do?’ she asked me gently. ‘Things get tough, what do we do?’

‘We deal with it,’ I told her in a whisper.

‘That’s exactly what we do. You and me.’ She sighed, took my good hand and peeled each finger from the phone, until I released it. It went on the table, out of reach, then she moved up next to me, pulling me close. I relented, sank my head against her chest.

‘Please don’t let this happen again, Mum.’

‘Shh. He’ll be OK, though. Probably just have worked late or started early or something.’ She gave me a gentle nudge. ‘Don’t worry. Just a bit of mud. Just some scrapes.’

Even then, neither one of us believed it.

2. (#u079d501d-f43d-5e2f-9341-37d3e850f369)

Mae (#u079d501d-f43d-5e2f-9341-37d3e850f369)

Detective Sergeant Ben Kwon Mae stopped at the lights. He raised his eyebrows in the rear-view mirror and the kicking to the back of his seat immediately ceased. Bear, his 8-year-old daughter who was suspiciously engrossed in the palm of her hand, slowly lifted her chin to meet his gaze.

‘What?’ Eyes all wide, butter-wouldn’t-melt incredulous. ‘It wasn’t me!’

He laughed. Thirty quid a pop, the drama lessons his ex-wife made him shell out for and look what it bought.

‘You’re a terrible actress, Bear. Really bad,’ he said, returning his attention to the school-run gridlock. Should have walked.

The kicking resumed, and he swung around. ‘Oi! Stop it!’

She laughed, but then he clocked the crisps all over her almost-freshly-laundered school sweater. Busted, she started to brush at them, scattering them into the footwell.

He blew out his cheeks. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t need to.

‘I’m hungry.’

‘But crisps, mate?’

He wanted to leave it, because the clock on the dash gave him eight minutes to get Bear to school and wasting one of those minutes complaining about her diet meant wasting them all. When the bell rang at 8.45 he’d be looking at a clear week and a half until he got her back. But Nadia had complained enough times about having to deal with what she called ‘the BMI situation’ on her own. It wasn’t fair on her for him to just ignore it.

He shook his head. ‘I did offer you a proper breakfast. I thought you loved scrambled eggs.’

‘Not since I was like three. I hate it.’ He could only see the top of her head now, but he was pretty sure she was holding back tears. ‘You never have any decent food in your stupid flat. I’m always hungry at school after I have to stay at yours.’

‘OK, well. I’ll stock up next time.’ The lights changed and he turned back to the road. ‘Just have to make healthy choices, that’s all I’m saying.’

‘All you’re saying is I’m fat and no one likes me.’ She stared angrily out of the window, nicking at the raw skin around her thumbnail with her teeth.

‘That’s absolutely not true.’ Nice one, Superdad. One guess what she’d remember about the visit with him now. In the mirror he saw her lean her head on the glass, and they finished the journey in silence. Could they bunk off for an hour? Take her to the park, make things okay between them so they’d part on good terms? No. Obviously not. Nadia would find out, for a start, and his approval rating was already on the floor. Things had eroded badly enough between them lately without him adding truancy to the list.

Only three minutes late, he swung into a space miraculously close to the school entrance. He got out and went round to open Bear’s child-locked door.

‘My tummy hurts,’ she whined.

‘OK. Well, let’s get some fresh air and see how you feel in a minute.’

‘But I’ve got a headache.’ Her voice was quieter. He followed her gaze out across the playground to where two boys, older, were in direct line of sight. They turned away as soon as he made eye contact. Bear sighed and looked at her feet.

He leaned across her to undo her seatbelt. ‘Friends of yours?’

‘No! Get off, Ben,’ she snapped, twisting away.

He made sure the sudden sag in his chest didn’t make it to his face.

‘It’s Dad,’ he told her, pulling her bag and reading folder out from the back seat. This Ben thing was new this visit. No way did she call Nadia by her first name. He hadn’t even heard her shorten it from Mummy yet. He wasn’t having it. ‘You call me Dad.’

‘Whatever.’ She squeezed past him and stumped off towards the gate. Catching her up, he reached for her shoulder but let his hand drop before it touched her. Best not push it.

‘Tell you what. If you don’t give me a cuddle, I’ll cave your head in with a fire extinguisher.’ A bit too hopeful, the way it came out, but she let him draw level. He coughed, dropped his voice a bit. ‘Gouge your eyes out with a soup spoon. I will. I’ve done it before. In Helmand.’

Which won him a very small smile. ‘You haven’t been to Helmand.’

‘Flipping have.’

‘And you’ve used that one before, too.’

‘Right, right. Sloppy.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets, thinking. ‘In that case I’ll just have to grate your nose off.’

‘Yeah? How?’

‘Cheese grater. Like I did in Operation Desert Knickers.’

A single sniff of a laugh, and she glanced at him. The shape of her eyes so almost-Caucasian, hardly a sniff of Korean about her. Like even his genes were being diluted, rinsed out of her life.

But her sideways smile was all his. She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll boil you alive and peel your skin off and sell it to the shoe shop so they can make shoes out of you.’

The realization that she’d planned that, rehearsed it, glowed like a coal in his belly.

‘Nice.’ He gave her a serious look and slow-nodded. ‘What’s the score? Seventeen-twelve?’

‘You wish,’ she said, appeased now. ‘Nineteen-twelve.’ She cheerfully swung her bag at him, obliviously but narrowly missing his bollocks.

Bear started to skip but stopped when she got to the gate. She was scanning the yard for those boys.

Mae crouched. ‘If there’s anything you need me to deal with—’

She shot him a serious look. ‘No. There’s nothing. There isn’t.’

‘Because if—’