Inspector Rames

Chapter 28

Alex steered me to the nearest station café, where he pushed me into a seat and went to buy some water.

It was a small establishment, tucked away behind walls of its own so that the noise from the rest of the building was muted. Not many people were inside with us: two mothers and toddlers in one corner, a sulking teenager with a hot chocolate almost as big as her head in the other, and an elderly man with a cybernetic leg reading something on his tablet near the door. Deciding no one would pay me any attention, I laid my aching head down on the table.

Alex came back a minute later with two cold bottles of water. When I looked up, he reached into the pockets of his coat and produced a packet of painkillers. I took one tablet.

He sat down and stretched his long legs out, brushing against mine. "You know we're going to have to talk to Clyde?"

I nodded.

"We have three murders on our hands," he continued carefully, "and one attempted murder of a police officer. Clyde has displayed aggression towards Evan Archer and you. We'll have to treat him as a suspect."

Again, I nodded.

"That means his stalking and harassment may have to become part of this investigation. Including whatever he said to you when you found him outside your flat on Saturday."

Finally, I found my voice. "It has nothing to do with the investigation."

"It does now. Did he threaten you?"

I looked away.

In my peripheral vision, Alex's jaw tightened. "And you didn't tell me."

"It wasn't like that. It wasn't relevant."

"It's relevant to me."

I looked back, and guilt twisted in my gut when I saw his dark expression. Hell.

I reached under the table for my bag and found the photograph. A ten-year-old version of myself smiled at the camera alongside a dark-haired man. My face was crossed out in red pen.

Alex stared at it. "Clyde sent you this?"

"I think so. It's a long story." My voice sounded as weary as I felt.

"Is that your dad in the picture?"

"It's my uncle, Eric. Fifteen years ago, he was handed a prison sentence for GBH with intent."

Alex looked up. GBH stood for grievous bodily harm, the most severe kind of non-fatal assault.

"He had an argument with my dad." Even those simple words made me feel sick, and it took me a moment to go on. "My uncle was a drunk, and naturally hot-tempered. And he was both drunk and in a temper that day. He asked my dad for money, and my dad said no. He always asked for money and we never had any -- my parents had rent to pay and two children to feed. But this time, it was different. He was seriously wound up. I think he was afraid. He beat my dad and then stabbed him in the legs with a kitchen knife. I found him when I came home from school."

The trauma had never taken the memory from me. The eerie silence of the flat. All the blood...so much blood. The numb confusion I'd felt when I'd stepped into the kitchen and switched on the light.

And then the slow, harrowing understanding.

"Your dad...?" Alex asked softly.

"Paralysed from the waist down."

He took my hand under the table. I'd clenched it into a fist.

"My uncle should have been locked up for life, but he only got ten years. More fool the judge, because he's just been charged with the same thing in New London. Clyde's threatening to write an article about it that shines a big, ugly spotlight on my family relationships. We broke up over my uncle, by the way. Clyde found out who he was and how close I'd been with him. He was disgusted."