“Honey, do I look fat in these jeans?”

Joseph winced. If he blurted it out immediately she’ll scowl; insist he’s lying. Too long and there’s no avoiding the thwack across the back of his head, even if the sales girl was watching (especially if the sales girl was watching).

His eyes flitted over her. A round glob of fat spilled over the waist of her jeans, resting over the start of her sausage-cased legs.

”You l-look nice.”

Her beady eyes watched him, forcing his gaze down to his lap. He waited for the slap and jolt of his head but it didn’t come. Instead, the curtains swooshed shut.

Joseph slumped in his seat; blew out his cheeks. It was a close one. He was getting used to her moods, but not quite. He promised himself he’d time it better next time.

He looked up, and his stomach fluttered. The curtain blanketed her from one end to the other. She wasn’t poking her head out; sneaking suspicious looks like last time.

He quickly snapped round to the sales woman but she was chatting with another lady. Joseph kept his bug eyes on her, willing her to look his way. When she did, she raised a brow and shrilled from across the sea of clothes, ”Are you alright?”

Joseph froze.

The curtain screeched against its rod.

She thundered out, eyes darting frantically between them.

”Sorry,” the sales woman said and pointed at Joseph. ”He looked ill.”

”Let’s go,” she spat, yanking him up from his shoulders.

So they did.

A few weeks later the police would look at this scene over and over again with teary eyes. They had worked plenty of murder cases, and while they were numbed to most of them, it never got easy seeing the last few moments of a ten-year-old’s life.