Chapter Text
Lewis sat with Hathaway on a bench in the white and golden corridor of the Oxford Court House, waiting, waiting...
James bit his nails and stared at the floor. This was not at all like giving evidence as a policeman, however much he kept repeating to himself that it was, like a mantra: it’s the same, it’s the same, no difference, no difference... Of course it was different. Very different. The court had already heard the recent, contempory case involving Briony Graham, but this was Laxton’s case, and she was relying on him, for all the other victims she’d managed to find, his evidence was crucial, she trusted him not to fall apart, so ... the same, it’s the same, no difference, no difference...
Lewis put his hand on James’ shoulder to stop him rocking.
“Okay?”
“Nope.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Won’t.”
“You will. And I’ll be here for you – Oh hell!” Lewis swore as his phone buzzed angrily from his jacket pocket. He looked at it, holding it far as possible and frowned. “Have to answer this James. I’m on holiday cover for D. I. Bentley, out at Didcot C.I.D.” He stood and walked away, dialling, just as the usher appeared.
“Mr. James Hathaway.”
Lewis turned and caught James’ terrified gaze. No, it wasn’t the same, how much he’d told James it was, just the very fact he’d not been called by his rank spelled that out. He watched James stand and straighten his tie and set his face in a grim mask of emptiness, no emotion, no feelings, no fear... What did he say? Good luck seemed trite. “Call me as soon as, you know...” but he was interrupted by his call being answered. “Lewis. Your C.I.D called me.” Lewis listened to the sad tale of a mother returning her granddaughter to her daughter following a weekend staying over only to find her daughter dead at the bottom of the stairs. Drugs overdose, possibly not self-inflicted. As he did so he followed James retreating back with his gaze, trying not to think about what the boy was going to have to relive in court having studiously spent 20 years not thinking about it. But the case involving little Briony gave Mortmaigne 12 years, 7 with time off for good behaviour. These historic traces should keep him inside until the bastard died, which is how it should be. That amount of sick perversion and power should never have been allowed to fester unchecked for 40+ years.
*
“Where’s Hathaway?” Hobson looked up from the girl – for she was a girl, not yet twenty, lying at an awful angle at the foot of the stairs.
“Court. Crevecoeur,” Lewis said simply.
“Shit.”
“Looks like she fell – or was pushed? – from the top of the stairs, but they tell me this is drugs?”
“Heroin. Cut with something, possibly. Was affected as she was at the top of the stairs.”
A very young WPC pointed him out to the mother, who sat rocking her granddaughter, a girl of about 18 months to two, sitting on an old, battered red sofa in the one room apart from the kitchen. The stairs were opposite the front door. A badly, cheaply built two up two down 1990s semi. The constable walked up to Lewis, “She found her this morning, bringing back the girl. She had her this weekend so the girl could decorate, so she thought. Moved in a few weeks ago. Girl’s supposed to be clean, which is why she got her daughter and the house. There’s an ex boyfriend, Sir, known to us, a two bit dealer and user. Might not been such an ex. Someone was here this weekend, signs of sexual activity in bedroom.”
Lewis sighed. A sad, routine case. The flotsam and jetsam of society, forgotten, ignored, vilified by certain sections of the press.
“Mrs Andrews, I’m Inspector Lewis. I’m sorry for your loss. Do you feel up to talking?”
“Excuse me Sir, SOCOs have finished and pathologist wants to take the body?”
Lewis sighed. “Fine.”
“Time for PM straight away Robbie. Get back to you with the toxicology.”
“Thanks Laura. Sorry, Mrs Andrews. Perhaps if WPC...?”
“I know Nikki. We all do. She’s our local community officer,” Mrs Andrews said numbly.
“Nikki? Maybe you could take..?”
“Britney.”
“Britney outside.”
As soon as the young WPC tried to prize Britney from her grandmother she started to scream.
“Waiting for social services,” Nikki whispered to Lewis. “She had the kid when the victim was a user, so she’ll probably be allowed to take her home. Mr. Andrews is on his way from work, but he’s got to get back from Swindon.”
“Mrs. Andrews. We’ll talk when your husband arrives. Can I get you something? Another cup of tea?”
“That’s all you police have done since you got here, make me tea.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Andrews.” Lewis shrugged and wandered away, going upstairs to look at the bedrooms and bathroom. Yes, she’s had a man to stay, yes she’d had sex, and yes she’d jacked up, or someone had done it for her. Which? In the bedside cabinet he found a prescription for methadone. The stupid, stupid girl.
*
Two hours later Lewis was walking away from the house. People from the cul de sac were still milling around the incident tape. His phone bleeped. James.
“Crap. Feel like shit. Tried you 3 times. Gone to river. RING.”
Lewis looked up and caught sight of a women walking past, leaning on an old fashioned wooden walking cane, keeping her head down. Slim, small, short hair cut in an elfin design around her Aubrey Hepburn features, tortoiseshell wire rimmed old-fashioned glasses. He thought he knew her, but she was so far out of her comfort zone. Alien drug dealers, he thought, panicked.
“Counsellor!”
She looked up alarmed, then put her head down and scurried away, as fast as she could, leaning heavily on the stick...
“But it is, the Counsellor!”
She stopped and turned. “You are mistaken. It’s Anna. Professor Anna Smith-Masters now. I’m afraid the Counsellor of Lady Julian College is another person entirely.”
Lewis stood in front of her and grabbed her arm, laughing. “No it isn’t. It is you. You haven’t even regenerated. I was at your college a few weeks ago. I thought you’d gone home.”
“Not allowed. Imprisoned on this bloody planet for life, and I can tell you, it really does feel like prison these days,” she spat out.
“Do you remember me?”
“Sergeant Lewis. I’m not likely to forget, am I? I am forever in your debt.”
“It’s Inspector now.”
“Congratulations. I’m a parent now, and I’m on the way to her school. They’ve just excluded her... again, so if you could excuse me Inspector Lewis...”
“I’ll drive you.”
The Counsellor looked up into his eyes and he saw the shame and loneliness, the pain and embarrassment. He dropped it. “Well, it was wonderful to see you again.”
“What happened?” she nodded to the house.
“Overdose, maybe the boyfriend, or an accident.”
“Sad. Lots of sadness around here.”
“Yes.” He watched her walk away, apparently no longer in any need of the stick. He dialled James’ number. No reply.
*
As he got into his car Didcot called again, to tell him they had the boyfriend in custody. Lewis went straight there to interview him. A nasty, sad piece of work: shaven head, unwashed tracky bums and baggy tee shirt on a flabby, overweight body. Tattoos on the arms and neck, a thick neck to match the thick skull. Claimed to love the girl, but Lewis got the impression he liked her dependant on him, something that had stopped once she’d given up the smack. He claimed he’d gone round there once ‘the brat had got to her Nan’s’ and didn’t like Lewis pointing out she was his daughter too. Became quite aggressive.
Lewis gave up and had him thrown in the cells to cool off, charging him with possession and intent to supply. The boy seemed genuinely grief stricken under his warped and mangled emotions, and claimed to have left Sunday night after sex. He claimed she’d refused all hits, every time he’d smoked or jacked up, but Lewis wasn’t sure.
His phone had received eight missed calls and eleven texts, all but one call from James. The other was from Hobson. He called her and arranged to meet at the White Horse at the top of Headly Way.
“Accident,” said Hobson without preamble, “unless the heroin was forced in, but I can find no signs of a struggle. Methadone and heroin and anti depressants, a fatal accidental combination. Poor sausage.”
“Got her ex in custody, although not such an ex, he claims.”
“She’d certainly had sex several times in the last 48 hours of her life, all with the same man, all unprotected. Pregnant at 17, you’d think she’d learn.”
“She won’t now.”
“ Even if you can prove the boyfriend persuaded her to take it, it’s still an accident.”
“Yeah. The lad’s too thick to recognise his own reflection, he couldn’t figure out the prescribed stuff would react. So the smack wasn’t cut with something?"
“Absolutely not. Are you going to get that?”
“Oh hell! I don’t know how to...” The phone stopped ringing.
“What is it Robbie?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“To James?”
“Yes.” His phoned bleeped. He read the text. “Shit.” He showed Laura.
“If you like dead bodies better than me...” she read out, frowning, “then come and get me. What is this?”
“James.”
“Robbie. Go. You’ve been distracting yourself with a sad nothing, a statistic. Go find him.”
*
Robbie didn’t bother with a credit card, just kicked in the front door to James’ flat, running from door through the lounge to kitchen and back again and into the bedroom. James lay on his side, hugging his guitar. An almost empty bottle of wine was on the bedside table, another, empty, rolling on the floor. A – mercifully – almost full tab of his antidepressants he’d been on since the Crevecoeur case also on the bedside table. Worryingly, a kitchen knife covered with blood was on the bed, behind James, staining the white duvet cover.
“James?” Robbie sat down and grabbed him, pulling him around to lie on his back to face him. James yelled, but only in pain, a sharp pain as his cut left wrist scraped the guitar. Robbie grabbed his arm at the elbow, examining the cuts, none too deep. “You stupid, stupid... didn’t you get my texts? I told you...” James just stared at him, blankly. Robbie, freaked out and scared, shook James hard. “You’ve got blood on your guitar. You stupid, stupid boy. Why did you have to..?”
“Where were you? Where have you been? Fucking defence lawyer picking me apart, quotes from the expert psychologist from the prosecution, talking over me like I was some piece of meat and Augustus. Oh God! Augustus in the dock, smiling at me! Defence claimed I was a liar, and then some kind of precocious child slag! Where were you?” James screamed up at him, struggling to get away, but found Robbie was holding his arms far too tightly. “Let go of me.”
Robbie did so, but only to belt James round the side of the head. He’d meant it to be a slap on the face, a gentle kind of slap to bring him out of hysterics, but the anger at receiving a suicide threat by text and the shock at finding James self harming somehow threw itself into the force of his swinging arm, balling his open palm into a fist. He was lucky not to have blacked his eye. He leapt back, horrified at himself.
“Shit, I’m sorry James, I...”
“You fucking bastard!” James yelled and went for him, but without thinking Robbie reacted instinctively, intercepting James’ arm as he tried to punch, twisted his arm behind his back, flipping him over and throwing himself on top of James’ back. James’ blood was spreading everywhere. Immediately Robbie let go of James’ arm, but stayed, laying on top of him, shifting himself to spread his weight more evenly, pushing James’ legs apart with his knees, aware his was hard, even more aware James knew it. “Bastard,” James said again, but quietly.
“Are you going to stay calm?”
“Where were you? I thought you and I...” James began to cry, softly, into the duvet.
Robbie rolled off James to lie by his side and pulled him into a hug. James was shaking and the four slices on his wrist were still oozing blood.
“Sorry.”
“I’m sorry. The truth is I didn’t know what to say, I let some two bit drugs overdose distract me. God, it was tragic. Makes you think, you know, about your own kids, how lucky Val and I were.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Doesn’t matter.” Robbie sat up and ripped a clean strip off the bloody duvet and started to bandage James’ wrist. “You need this cleaned up probably.”
“Knife was straight out of the dishwasher.”
“How careful of you,” Lewis sniped. “You’re back at work tomorrow. How were you going to explain it?”
“No-one notices. As long as I keep my sleeves down, no-one ever notices.”
“I’ve noticed scars, James, old scars. How long have you been doing this again?”
“Today was the first day, although I held the knife all last night.”
“Shit. You should have called.”
“I’m not spending the night with you!” snapped James.
“God, I’ve noticed.”
“What?”
“What do you think? Every bloody night you come round and as soon as...”
“What? Go on! Say it! I’ve heard it before, at Cambridge, so say it. Don’t think it’ll hurt, because it won’t!” James spat out.
“Yes it will, I know it will. You’re already hurting.”
“My stupid fault. You said so, I’m stupid.”
“You are far from stupid.”
“Don’t think I don’t know the gossip, stupid gay D.S. lets some bastard spike his drink and gets gang raped, same stupid gay D.S who got himself drugged and nearly killed by a transsexual psycho, same stupid kid who should know how to say no...”
“Nobody is saying anything,” Robbie snapped, despairing.
“Same stupid gay D.S. in love with his D.I.”
“Well, aye, that is stupid. I’m nothing to look at, twice your age,” Robbie began, with a smile in his voice, before looking down and kissing James lightly.
“Don’t.” James started to shake violently.
“What do you want, James?”
“To not be so screwed up about this. Layers and layers of Catholic guilt and trauma so piled up I don’t know how to feel. I know what you want!”
Robbie put his hand on James’ cheek. “Come on, pet. We’ll work it out some day. In the meantime, get yourself cleaned up and dressed. I’ll clean your guitar and sort your room. Then I’ll fix your front door.”
“And then?”
“Then we go to mine, so I can get out of these bloody clothes, and then, I’m taking you out for a meal, and after that it’s up to you, and only you.”