Fully English

CHAPTER 19

"We should take a break," Damon insists. I can see that his eyes are red with tiredness but I personally can't stand the thought of sleeping. My nightmares had quelled but I'm not sure if my sleeps were peaceful enough to chance falling asleep in Damon's bed – there was still a great chance I'd wake up writhing and sweating in terror. Night terrors were child's play and we were both adults.

"I'm an insomniac," I lie. "You can take a break, I'll stay up."

"We should take a break," he repeats authoritatively.

"Just because you repeat something doesn't mean I'm going to obey," I respond firmly.

"You're tired."

"I'm not."

I had been coming to Damon's apartment three times a week since coaxing Prudence to resume analysing the case and we'd developed a weird bond overtime. Aggressive with one another but not in a play-fighting manner. Consistently, he'd say something I didn't like, I'd physically hurt him and then he'd restrain me and then the cycle would repeat on my next visit like clockwork. It had become a routinely dysfunctional relationship that none of us seemed keen on repairing.

This was the first time I'd stayed this late though: even I knew staying overnight was off-limits. Fortunately, we were almost done with our case load and were getting closer to an answer. In the time we'd amassed investigating Damon's dad's murder, it was clearly not the open and shut gang-related killing as reported by the media. Prudence's group of upcoming lawyers aka the pro-bono team had dedicated a few hours going through the case with a fine-tooth comb: accessing both public and private documents that included the original transcript, case summaries, reports in the media and related previous judgements. The initial theory that my father had organised a hit on Benedict for a deal gone bad was squashed but the reality seemed much more nuanced.

According to Prudence, it was possible Damon's dad was a police informant, or in lay terms, 'a snitch.' I didn't believe it at first but reading a few extracts from his diary I saw how she came to this conclusion. There were consistencies between an event Benedict wrote about in his diary and the testimony of an unknown witness in one of my dad's many drug-related trials. My main issue was what Benedict had to gain from telling on my dad since he seemed to have a pretty minor rap sheet of crime and didn't need any favours from the police. Nonetheless, one common problem that I know many immigrant families face when moving abroad sprung to mind.

"Did your dad have British citizenship?"

"He had a stay." Damon considers almost immediately. The lack of a comeback suggests to me he had already considered this presumption and defeated it with contrary evidence. "Deportation wasn't an issue."

I think back to the police documents we'd rifled through earlier: the tally of common assault charges Benedict had gathered in his years after graduating as an international student from one of London's universities. In his formative years, he wrote his woes about the Home Office and being deported back to Haiti in his diary. I know that if he didn't have proof of British citizenship and was getting in trouble with the police – those were grounds for removal. Still I consider Damon's assurance for a moment – he knew his father longer than I. If he had stable enjoyment and could prove he was an upstanding, valuable resident of the UK – there'd be no grounds to kick him out. But that in itself was hard to prove when there were no records of employment. Plus he only ranted about his immigration status in the earlier diary entries – after a while they stopped, so there was a possibility the issue had resolved itself.

"What did your dad do for work?"

"Odd jobs," he answers. "Why?"

I don't want to restate my theory in case it offends.