Fallen

Last night, Jack Kilvey did not sleep.  He did not know why.  It rained during the night, heavy, but not enough to keep him awake.  Beside him, Elizabeth slept soundly, her arms wrapped around him, her warmth pulled close to his skin.  He savoured her touch, her scent, her love.

At six thirty, and with reluctance, he slipped from her arms.  He showered and shaved while Laura Marling played on the stereo: delicious, barebones songs of lost love and loneliness.  Beautiful.  The sort of work that inspired him to pick up a guitar, pen lyrics, and then give up.  And she was young.  Nineteen, maybe younger.  That made him feel old.  Towelled dry, he studied himself in the mirror.  He looked okay.  Thirty-one, he told himself, you're not old – without acknowledging that in a few months thirty-one would bleed into thirty-two. 

Then the baby woke.  Kilvey didn’t know when the baby would stop being ‘the baby’.  Jessie was eighteen months old, nineteen nearly, beautiful, and the single greatest achievement of his life.  He looked at her and didn’t know how he could have contributed to something so perfect.  He was sure this was a feeling all parents had.  It scared him to think of her grown up, seeing the world fo the ugly place it really is.

Elizabeth came and scooped up the baby.  She stepped into the bathroom, kissed Kilvey.  By seven, he was dressed in a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt, and Jessie was dressed and they sat and watched CBeebies.  When Elizabeth came downstairs, her hair wet from the shower, the three of them sat together; the quiet was a blessed change.  Adidas trainers and a leather jacket, a decent cup of coffee inside him, he was out of the door before eight.

He drove the familiar city streets to the sound of the Guillemots.  The rain had cleared, the clouds dispersed.  He slipped on his aviators.

Kilvey had only worked with Paul Wade for a short time, but in that time they had become good friends.  He picked Wade up from outside his Marlborough Road flat.  Same routine for a week now.  Wade got into the car, pulled a face.  His Alpha was in the garage, and the prognosis was not good.  Kilvey hadn’t mentioned Wade’s car for days, and nor had Wade.  Kilvey drove sedately; it made him feel better when he get to work.

Work: South Wales Police, Swansea Central Police Station, Criminal Investigation Department.  Kilvey was a detective constable.  Wade was his sergeant.  When Kilvey had joined the police, he’d imagined it would be different to this.  He imagined some sort of satisfaction at the end of each case, each inquiry.  As it was, each investigation snowballed over the next from witness statements to court cases.  Only detailed notes kept any degree of separation.  Sometimes it got him down.

First thing, the DI called him into his office.  Michael Dark was a good man, about as fair a boss as anyone could hope for. Dark was forty-something, tall and fit, short-cut dark hair.  He wore his suits well.

'We've had a report of a vulnerable misper,' Dark said.

Kilvey nodded, kept his face level.  He'd seen it too many times: an elderly person suffering with dementia heads out, down to the river, and forgets to stop walking.  'What's the deal?'

Dark consulted a sheet of paper.  'Emma Ford.  Twenty-nine.  Didn't arrive this morning, as arranged, to pick up her daughter from her mother's house.

Kilvey felt something like relief.  'Maybe she got pissed up?'  He checked his watch.  'It's not even nine.'

Dark shrugged.  'The mother says Emma's never failed to turn up before.  Seven o'clock she's there, on the dot, every time the mother looks after the baby.  It's the deal.'

Kilvey nodded.  They had a similar deal with Elizabeth's mother.  Not that they entered into it that often, but if they did find chance for a night out they had to pick Jessie up before eight for Elizabeth's mother to head off to work.

'So what's the mother think?'

'There's an ex-boyfriend.  Fell to pieces, she says, when Emma left him.  Heroin addict.'

***