Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The basement of Edinburgh Central Police Station smelled like wet stone, old coffee, and the ghost of failed ambition.

Carl Morck leaned back in his chair, one foot hooked under the battered desk, the other resting on the cracked radiator that hadn’t worked since... well, ever. 

He lobbed a tennis ball at the wall with slow, rhythmic precision. Thunk. Catch. Thunk. Catch.

Rose was pretending not to notice, which meant she’d hit her limit about twenty minutes ago.

Akram, ever composed, merely flipped open another cold case file and set it on the growing stack that Carl had already vetoed with the grace of a man swatting flies.

Thunk.

Catch.

“How about this one?” Rose said, clicking her pen with the suppressed violence of a woman who’d worked with Carl for too long. “Missing girl, 2004, left a voicemail saying she was scared someone was following her. No follow-up, no search effort. Just disappeared.”

Carl caught the ball, glanced at the file, and gave a noncommittal grunt. “No body, no trail, and absolutely no chance it’s not a shaggy dog story. Next.”

Rose raised an eyebrow. “Right. Of course. Because people always fake fear just for fun.”

Thunk.

Hardy didn’t even look up from his laptop. He was wrapped in a chunky scarf like some sort of sarcastic academic tortoise and sipping from a thermos that almost definitely contained something artisanal and possibly alcoholic.

“You’re still doing the ball thing?” he asked, voice as dry as printer paper. “Annoying. But… rhythmic. I suppose it has a calming effect. For you.”

“Don’t knock the process,” Carl said.

“It’s not a process. It’s a compulsion,” Hardy replied without missing a keystroke.

Thunk.

Akram laid a new file in the center of the desk with quiet deliberation. “This one.”

Carl arched an eyebrow. “Of course it’s this one. It’s always ‘this one’ with you.”

Akram didn’t rise to it. He never did. “Have I been wrong yet?”

Carl stopped throwing the ball and scowled in his general direction. 

Rose leaned forward. “What have we got?”

Akram flipped open the folder. “Missing woman. 2010. Anna Brodie. Disappeared after filing a harassment report that was dismissed. Texts suggest she was being stalked. She never named him, but—”

“Nope,” Carl said, tossing the ball again. “Stalker cases are dead ends unless there’s DNA. Or a body. Preferably both.”

Thunk.

Hardy gave a theatrical sigh and muttered, “God forbid we follow a lead on empathy.”

Carl ignored him. Or pretended to. It was the same thing.

“Okay, then.” Rose pulled a new file, brows tight with annoyance. “Here’s one from ‘98. Boy found dead in his own garden. Police ruled it a fall, but—”

“Tree root. Case was re-examined in 2002. Nothing stuck.” Carl caught the ball and pointed it at her like a lazy weapon. “You’re losing your touch.”

Before Rose could respond—and she was about to respond, Carl could tell from the way she clicked her pen with renewed vigour like it was a detonator—the elevator doors at the top of the basement stairs creaked open.

Boots on concrete. Echoing steps.

Carl didn’t have to look to know it was Moira Jacobson. No one else walked like they were daring someone to get in their way.

She descended like a storm cloud in a trench coat, her face set to ‘perpetually unimpressed.’

“Morck,” she said, by way of hello. “You bored enough to be useful?”

Carl tossed the tennis ball lazily up and caught it with one hand. “Depends. Do you have something worth my time?”

“Pest,” Moira muttered, already stepping toward his desk.

She dropped a plastic evidence bag onto it. It landed with a damp, satisfying thud. Inside was something dark—bound in worn leather, edges warped and water-stained. It looked like it had secrets. Heavy ones.

“That,” she said, “was found yesterday in a lockbox buried beside a reservoir in the Pentland Hills. A hiker found it. Got lucky the storm didn’t wash it into oblivion.”

Carl raised an eyebrow. “What is it, your memoirs?”

Moira gave him a deadpan look. “No, but yours are next. I’ll title it 'Grudgingly Employed: The Carl Morck Story.'”

Rose choked on a laugh. Akram didn’t outwardly react, but Carl caught the subtle upward twitch at the corner of his mouth. 

Carl turned the bag toward him. The diary inside glistened faintly under the harsh fluorescents.

“Belonged to Eliza Rane,” Moira said, voice cooling. “Ring a bell?”

That cut the room like a scalpel. 

Carl’s brow creased. “She’s the one whose brother went down for her murder, yeah?”

“Presumed murder,” Akram said quietly, already halfway to the filing cabinets.

“Right,” Carl muttered. “Because no body was ever found.”

He reached out and picked up the evidence bag, holding the diary like it might murmur something to him if he was quiet enough. The leather was stiff, warped with age, but whole. Whoever Eliza Rane had been, she’d written like her life depended on it. 

Maybe it had.

“Storms pulled up a lot of ground,” Moira said. “Lockbox must’ve been wedged deep. Diary’s intact. It’s legible. And it’s yours.”

She turned to go, but paused at the stairs, her hand on the railing.

“Oh, and Carl?”

Carl looked up, still holding the diary.

“If you mess this one up,” she said over her shoulder, “I’ll have you transferred to public relations. Permanently.”

Carl narrowed his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

Her smirk was all teeth. “Try me.”

And with that, she disappeared up the stairs, her coat flapping behind her like a war banner.

Carl turned back to the diary. Akram had already found what he was looking for. He pulled out a folder and slid it across the table.

Carl said nothing. Just tossed the tennis ball one last time and set it down.

The file Akram laid out wasn't thick, but worn at the edges, like it had been exhumed from a drawer nobody wanted to admit existed. The tab was yellowing. The writing on it read: RANE, ELIZA — 1997.

Akram opened it with quiet purpose.

A photograph slipped loose—blurry and sun-faded, but Eliza Rane stared out from it, a grin on her face and wind in her hair. She looked… sharp. Clever. A girl who knew how to make people listen, and wasn’t afraid to do it.

Carl glanced over, unimpressed. “Looks like every other tragic case file in this place.”

“That’s because it was treated like one,” Rose said, already flipping pages. “Girl goes missing. Brother blamed. No body, no witnesses, just a handful of ‘she was troubled’ comments and a detective who didn’t push too hard.”

Hardy leaned back in his chair and raised one eyebrow. “Oh, good. Another ‘unstable female narrative.’ I can’t wait.”

Carl muttered, “Don’t you ever get tired of playing devil’s advocate?”

“I’m not playing,” Hardy said cheerfully. “I’m winning.”

Rose squinted at the summary page. “Lead investigator was one DI Nolan. Retired in 2008.”

“Died in 2011,” Akram added. “Heart attack.”

Carl snorted. “Convenient.”

Rose flicked to the next page. “And messy. His notes are sparse. No interviews with Eliza’s classmates, barely any follow-up with her professors. Either he was phoning it in… or someone wanted it buried.”

Akram pulled out another page. “Callum Rane—her older brother. Arrested two days after she disappeared. Said he snapped. Claimed he had no memory of it. Convicted in less than a year.”

“Fast,” Rose said.

“Too fast,” Akram agreed. His brow furrowed as he skimmed the notes. “No body. Diary never entered into evidence. Witness testimonies not followed up. It reads like they wanted it over before it began.”

Carl leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, voice disinterested. “Maybe they did. Some cases don’t get better with age. People remember what they want to. Cold cases are cold for a reason.”

“You think that justifies not solving them?” Akram’s voice was quiet, but there was iron under it.

Carl’s gaze flicked to him. Not sharp—curious. Something in Akram’s expression gave him pause.

That look. Steady. Focused. Intense without needing to try.

“I think,” Carl said slowly, “that some people lie, and some people disappear, and sometimes the best you get is a theory and a half-empty coffee cup.”

“And sometimes,” Akram said, flipping the folder so Carl could see a scribbled post-it on one of the later pages, “you get this.”

Carl leaned forward despite himself.

It was a note, handwritten.

M. followed me to the reservoir. She saw us. God. I hope she doesn't tell Cal.

“Mhairi Rane,” Akram said. “Middle sibling. No one ever followed up on her report.”

Rose sat back, exhaling. “So she saw someone with Eliza before she vanished. And the cops never spoke to her?”

“No mention of it in the statements,” Akram said. “It’s possible she wasn’t considered credible.”

“Why?” Carl asked.

Akram glanced at him. “She’s deaf.”

A silence settled over the group.

Carl looked at the note again. “So she signs. And no one bothered to get an interpreter. Great.”

“They didn’t take her seriously,” Akram said. “They took a fast answer.”

Carl scratched at the back of his neck. He hated when the past came back with a better argument than he had.

Rose reached out and gently turned a few pages. “The writing’s good. Not hysterical. Focused. She didn’t want to vanish.”

Hardy glanced at the diary still resting between them. “Then maybe this is her voice coming back. A little late, but louder than ever.”

Carl stared at the file. Then the diary. Then Akram.

“Still think it’s nothing?” Akram asked, softly.

Carl didn’t answer.

He just reached for the evidence bag, picked up the tennis ball, and said, “Let’s see what else she wrote.”

Chapter Text

Diary Entry: January 12th, 1997

I stayed late today.

We were still talking about Kierkegaard long after the room emptied. Not because I wanted to impress him—well, maybe a little—but because he didn’t flinch when I got excited. He actually listened. Like every tangled theory I blurted out was something worth untangling.

I haven’t felt that in... maybe ever.

I think he sees me. Not just the clever bits I polish up for class. The parts I hide, too.

Mhairi would roll her eyes. Callum would lecture me.

So I won’t tell them.

Not yet.

Let me keep this for a little while longer. Just for me.

Department Q, 10:06 a.m.

The corkboard in the basement had seen better days.

It leaned slightly to the left, held together with determination, staples, and a bent paperclip someone had twisted into the shape of a cross. Half of a photo was pinned in the middle—Eliza Rane, smiling mid-laugh, hair caught in a gust. The rest of the board was chaos: maps, case notes, post-its, and Carl’s terrible handwriting.

Carl stood in front of it now, coffee in one hand, a thumbtack in the other, squinting at a copy of the lead detective’s report like it had personally offended him.

“It’s shit,” he said finally.

Rose didn’t look up. “That’s not analysis, Carl. That’s just your opinion.”

He stabbed the report into the board anyway. “It’s still shit.”

Akram was seated at the edge of his desk, flipping through Eliza’s diary again, scanning entries for names, dates, places. “There’s no physical evidence of a crime. No body. Just the brother’s confession.”

“Which he never retracted,” Hardy said from his corner, where he was still scrolling through digitised court records with a level of judgment only he could make feel academic.

“Maybe he tried,” Carl muttered. “He was stuck with a legal team that could barely spell ‘due process.’”

Hardy raised his mug as if to concede Carl's point. 

“Let’s talk location,” Rose said, sliding a printed map across the table. “Diary was found beside Baddinsgill Reservoir, southern edge of the Pentlands. Forty-minute drive from Edinburgh. Apparently, Eliza used to go there a lot. Callum mentioned it in an old statement—called it his sister’s ‘quiet place.’”

“Poetic,” Carl muttered. “Shame the original detective treated it like a bad script.”

Rose pinned the map beside Eliza’s photo. “The diary was in a lockbox. Who buries a lockbox by a reservoir unless they’re trying to hide something?”

“No fingerprints on it,” Akram said, not looking up. “Too much water damage. Same for the pages. But the ink held. And the tone shifts near the end. She was scared.”

“She knew she was in danger,” Hardy added. “But never names him. Classic trauma spiral. She doesn’t trust anyone. Not even herself.”

Carl stared at the board, silent. The timeline didn’t line up. The interviews contradicted each other. The evidence was circumstantial at best, and Eliza’s brother, Callum, had practically walked into the courtroom with a target painted on his back.

Lazy police work. Or something worse.

He turned to the others. “Alright. Two starting points. We need to talk to Mhairi Rane—get her version of events. All of it. No missed statements, no lost context. Full translation.”

“I can contact the Deaf Association,” Akram said. “They must've worked with the police before. She could still be in Edinburgh.”

Carl nodded. “Good. Then we visit Callum in prison. If he’s not guilty—and I’m not saying he isn’t yet—he’s the only other person who might’ve known what Eliza was afraid of.”

“Assuming he wants to talk,” Hardy said.

“He’ll talk,” Carl muttered. “Twenty-eight years is a long time to stay quiet.”

“And what about the diary?” Rose asked. “She left clues. People. Places. We need to cross-reference those.”

“Start compiling a name list,” Carl said. “Anyone mentioned more than once, I want background checks. University staff. Neighbours. Old friends. Anyone who had access to her. And pull her university records. If she was seeing someone, we’ll find them.”

The room went quiet.

Then, from the corner, Hardy said, “You know, for someone who wrote cases like this off half an hour ago, you’re very bossy about it now.”

Carl sipped his coffee. “Well, I hate being wrong.”

Akram glanced up from the diary, expression unreadable—but his voice was calm. “You weren’t wrong. You just weren’t finished.”

Carl looked at him. And for the first time that morning, didn’t argue.

* * *

The car was too quiet.

Akram sat in the passenger seat, flipping through a printed page from Eliza’s file, while Carl gripped the steering wheel just shy of too tight. Outside, Edinburgh blurred past in wet grey streaks—streets slick with late afternoon rain, clouds hanging low like bruises over the city.

Carl cleared his throat.

Akram didn’t look up.

“So,” Carl said casually, “you’re welcome.”

Akram turned to him, brows lifted. “For what?”

Carl gestured vaguely at the dash, as if the car were self-explanatory.

“This,” he said. “The leather seats. Heated, by the way. Ford Edge ST-Line. Bluetooth. Built-in satnav. This beauty doesn’t even squeak when you brake.”

Akram blinked. “You’re bragging about… brakes?”

“They’re excellent brakes,” Carl muttered, affronted. “And the suspension’s not crap either. Unlike the old piece of shit, which screamed every time it hit a pothole.”

“So this is why you blackmailed Stephen Burns,” Akram said, dry as dust. “Not for the cold cases. Not for the budget. Not for Merritt’s sake.”

“Hey,” Carl said mildly, one hand lifting from the wheel. “I also got you promoted.”

“That was your idea?” Akram asked, surprised.

Carl shrugged. “Figured if someone around here was going to be rewarded, it might as well be you. I didn’t see anyone else saving lives and solving murders with zero ego.”

Akram’s gaze lingered a little too long, a hint of something in his eyes. Not just gratitude, but something quieter. Warmer. Dangerous, if you weren’t ready for it.

Carl reached to adjust the volume on the radio, then thought better of it.

“I mean, unless you didn’t want it—”

“No,” Akram said, quickly. “I did. I do. It was just… unexpected.”

“Well, enjoy it. Pay rise and all. You can buy me coffee sometime.”

“I buy you coffee all the time,” Akram said, amused.

Carl grunted. “I’ve already got a reputation for being difficult. Might as well earn it.”

Akram smiled faintly. “You’ve got a reputation of throwing yourself into difficult situations.”

Carl blinked, half-turning. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Akram raised his brows. “People. Cases. Loaded shotguns.”

Carl let out a breath that could’ve been a laugh if it weren’t so jagged. “Jesus, that again.”

“You jumped in front of a bullet for me.”

“Yeah, well,” Carl muttered, reaching into the glove box and pretending to search for something that wasn’t there, “you were standing there like an idiot.”

“I wouldn’t say—”

“The point is, it’s over,” Carl cut in sharply. “I didn’t die. You didn’t die. We moved on.”

Akram didn't say anything, but something in his expression softened anyway. Fond, frustratingly so.

And Carl looked away. Back to the rain. Because that look? That damn look?

It was too much.

So was the silence. 

“Can we focus on preparing to interrogate a grieving woman now,” Carl muttered, “or do you want to keep emotionally waterboarding me in a Ford?”

Akram’s smile widened just slightly. “You really are terrible with feelings.”

“And you’re terrifyingly good at them. We all have our flaws.”

Silence lapsed again—comfortable. The hum of the engine, the quiet drum of rain, and the soft crinkle of paper as Akram folded the file closed.

“We’re nearly there,” he said, checking the satnav. “Mhairi Rane’s flat is just off Bruntsfield. She requested we come after lunch, said she has duties in the morning.”

Carl nodded. “Right. We’re sure she’s the one referenced in that note?”

“Same initials. E.R. mentions her several times. She was the only one Eliza confided in consistently.”

Carl tapped the steering wheel with one finger. “And no one thought to interview her properly?”

“No interpreter, no priority, no respect,” Akram said quietly. “It happens more than it should.”

Carl exhaled through his nose. He didn’t like when Akram said things like that—mostly because he couldn’t argue.

“She’ll talk to us?”

“She said she would,” Akram replied, watching the weak sunlight flicker across the windscreen. “Said she’s been waiting twenty-eight years.”

Carl glanced over. “And you believe her?”

Akram met his gaze, calm and certain. “I believe she’s not done grieving.”

Carl didn’t reply. He just drove, the tires whispering over slick asphalt, the sky lowering around them like a held breath.

They pulled up to the flats just as the rain lightened into mist.

Carl eased the car to a stop in a narrow visitor space along the curb, windshield wipers dragging a final arc before coming to rest. The complex was modest—built in that grim, square-postcode style that screamed 1970s efficiency and 2000s budget cuts. Neatly kept, though. Potted plants lined a few windows. Someone had painted a rainbow on the outer stair rail in cheerful, if chipped, acrylic.

Carl turned off the engine. The silence that followed was oddly loud.

Akram glanced up from the case notes on his lap. “Ground floor, right side. Number twelve.”

Carl stayed in the driver’s seat a beat longer, looking out at the flat. “This the kind of place someone ends up after twenty-eight years of waiting?”

Akram shrugged, folding the file closed. “It’s the kind of place you live if no one ever gave you anything better.”

Carl grunted, reaching for the door handle. “Bleak.”

They stepped out into damp air and the smell of wet stone, gravel crunching beneath their boots. The building loomed above them in its quiet, grey stillness. A few birds rustled in the hedges nearby. Somewhere, a dog barked without conviction.

Carl stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Think she’s going to tell us anything we don’t already know?”

Akram didn’t answer right away. He looked up at the flat, gaze steady, unreadable.

“I think,” he said at last, “she’s been waiting for someone to ask the right way.”

Carl didn’t reply. He just nodded once and followed Akram toward the door.

It opened before they had a chance to knock.

Mhairi Rane was already waiting—framed by the soft gold of a hallway lamp and the pale, clean walls of a modest, ground-floor flat. She was smaller than Carl had imagined. Compact, composed, with sharp eyes that had no business being so steady after nearly three decades of being ignored.

She looked at them both, then pointed at her chest and signed.

Carl opened his mouth to say something—then glanced back, half-expecting someone else to appear.

“Is an interpreter from the association coming?”

Akram didn’t reply, he simply raised his hand in greeting and signed back.

Carl blinked. Stared.

Mhairi smiled faintly and moved aside, waving them in.

The flat was small but well-kept. A bookshelf lined one wall, full of well-worn novels and framed photographs. There was a mobility ramp leading from the sitting room to the back garden, and a kettle just beginning to hiss in the kitchen.

Carl followed Akram in, stunned into a rare silence.

“Since when do you know BSL?” he muttered, once they were out of earshot—though obviously, it didn’t matter.

Akram shrugged, casual as anything. “A while.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Akram glanced at him with a raised brow. “I knew it might be useful.”

Carl stared at him. “You’re a bloody Swiss army knife.”

Akram allowed himself a half-smile. “I try.”

Mhairi returned with a tray carrying three mugs of tea. She settled into a worn but well-cared-for armchair near the window, then gestured toward the sofa. 

Carl took the edge of the cushion like it might bite him, still watching Akram out of the corner of his eye like he’d just pulled off a magic trick.

Akram sat without hesitation, hands steady as he signed and simultaneously spoke aloud for Carl’s benefit. “We’re here about your sister Eliza.”

Mhairi’s jaw tightened, but she nodded.

Akram continued. “We’ve read the diary. The entry mentioning you. You saw someone near the reservoir. Someone with Eliza.”

Mhairi looked at him for a long time. Then she signed something complex.

Akram didn’t speak as he interpreted—he waited, watched her hands, absorbed it all.

Then, turning slightly toward Carl, he translated: “She says Eliza met someone out there often. Never named him. But Eliza talked about him like he was important. Powerful. Mhairi says he sounded dangerous in ways that didn’t always look like danger.”

Carl was already circling words in his head. “And the night she disappeared?”

Akram signed, and Mhairi signed back.

“She saw him. Just after sunset. She didn't recognise his face, he was too far away.”

Carl leaned in. “Can you describe him? Build? Body language? Anything?”

Mhairi paused. Then signed again, more slowly this time.

Akram’s brows pulled together slightly as he translated.

“She says—he wore a scarf. Dark coat. Always had a leather bag. He was tall. Walked like someone who thought the world owed him quiet.”

Mhairi sat back, signing one last time.

Akram nodded as he read her hands. “She’s been waiting for someone to ask her that question for twenty-eight years.”

Carl looked at her. Really looked. Then he said, not unkindly, “You waited too long to still be holding it that clearly.”

Mhairi eyed his lips, clearly reading them. And signed.

“I don’t let go of the things that matter.” Akram translated.

Carl’s throat felt dry.

He tapped his fingers against the edge of the couch arm, mind already racing ahead.

“We’ll need a list of Eliza’s professors,” he said. “Everyone she spent time with. Friends. Mentors. Anyone who fits that description.”

Akram relayed the message. Mhairi nodded and stood—moving slowly, but with purpose—and crossed to a filing cabinet.

“I imagine she kept everything,” Akram murmured. “Photos. Letters. Course lists. She might have more than the police ever collected.”

Carl watched him. “You know for a guy who doesn’t say much, you’re surprisingly loud when it matters.”

Akram’s smile deepened. “I learned to speak in ways people couldn’t ignore.”

Mhairi settled back into her armchair and signed something, her fingers crisp and deliberate.

Akram translated without pause. “She says she didn’t expect to still be here when someone finally came asking.”

Carl glanced at her. “Why’d you stay?”

Akram signed the question, and Mhairi’s face tightened—not with anger, but with something close to incredulity.

Carl watched her hands move as Akram relayed: “Because leaving meant giving up. And I wasn’t raised to give up on the people I love.”

Carl’s fingers tapped a restless rhythm again, as something in his chest shifted—just slightly.

“Tell us more about Eliza,” he said, voice low. “Not just what happened. What she was like.”

Akram relayed it.

Mhairi’s hands slowed, became more expressive. She painted Eliza not as a victim but a force—funny, maddening, brilliant, infuriating. Always late. Always messy. But fiercely protective. Always the one who defended someone smaller. Always the one who felt too much, and loved even more.

Akram’s voice softened as he interpreted. “She wanted to be a writer. Said the world had too many stories about men with guns and not enough about girls with notebooks.”

Carl’s lips twitched. “She wouldn’t have liked me, then.”

Mhairi signed something fast and sharp.

Akram chuckled. “She would’ve liked you fine. You just would’ve annoyed her.”

Carl nodded, almost smiling. “Fair.”

She smiled back.

“What about Callum?”

The pause was immediate. The mood shifted—subtle, like the drop in air pressure before a storm.

Mhairi’s hands stilled in her lap. Then, slowly, she signed—tighter now. Controlled. But trembling at the edges.

“She says he was their anchor,” Akram translated. “Their shadow. He drove them to school. Took her to every hospital appointment. Stayed with Eliza when she had nightmares. He could be gruff, but he adored them. He never would’ve hurt her.”

Carl nodded, but asked anyway—because he had to.

“Is there any chance he lost control? That maybe there was an argument that night? Something we missed?”

Akram signed his question. Mhairi’s response was instant and sharp. 

“She says no,” Akram said. “And if you keep asking that like it’s still a question, she’s going to throw your tea at you.”

Carl blinked.

Akram raised an eyebrow. “She’s not joking.”

Carl sipped his tea to prove a point. “Noted.”

After a long moment, Mhairi slid a faded green binder across the table toward Akram.

Eliza’s name was written across the front in smudged black marker.

“She says this is everything she kept,” Akram translated. “Eliza’s coursework. Letters. Old notebooks. And drawings.”

He opened the binder gently. Inside was a sketch: Eliza standing near the reservoir. A man’s shadow just visible beside her—half-cropped from the page. Tall. Dark coat. Leather bag at his feet.

No face.

Carl leaned in.

Akram did as well. He didn't say anything. But the look in his eyes said plenty.

Mhairi watched them for a moment, then signed something—simple, firm.

Akram translated softly. “She wants to know if you’re actually going to try.”

Carl looked up.

Met her eyes.

There was no sarcasm in him now. No flippancy. Just that raw, hard certainty—the one he wore like old armour.

“We’re damn well going to try,” he said. 

Mhairi nodded once. Just once. 

Akram gently closed the binder. Carl stood, stretching out the stiffness in his back. The air felt heavier than when they’d arrived.

As they walked to the door, Mhairi followed them just far enough to watch them put their coats back on.

Before they stepped outside, she tapped her fingers once against the doorframe and signed: her hand flat, fingertips touching her chin, then moving down and away from her face. 

Akram nodded with quiet warmth. “We’ll be in touch.”

Carl gave her a short, respectful nod. No words. But he meant it.

Outside, the sky had darkened further. Rain hung in the air like a breath that hadn’t been let out yet.

They climbed into the car—Akram tucking the binder onto his lap, Carl settling behind the wheel with a sigh.

The doors shut. The quiet folded around them. Rain tapped gently on the windshield. A lone cyclist passed through the puddles, jacket flapping behind him like a tired flag.

“She meant it,” Carl said after a moment. “About throwing the tea.”

“She did,” Akram agreed, calm. “Your lucky day.”

Carl exhaled slowly. “She’s still holding on to Eliza like she’s going to come back.”

“She’s holding on,” Akram said, “because no one else ever did.”

Carl looked over at him. “You’re good at this. The listening thing.”

“I practice.”

Carl huffed a quiet laugh. “Right. While I sharpen my people skills by being insufferable.”

Akram offered the barest smile. “It’s effective.”

A beat of silence passed between them.

Then Carl said, “Back in there... You didn’t miss a beat. With the signing. The tone. The space. You’re just...”

He trailed off.

Akram raised an eyebrow, amused. “Just what?”

Carl stared ahead.

“Capable,” he muttered begrudgingly.

Akram blinked, then looked out the window. “That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“Don’t make it weird.”

“Too late.”

They sat in the rain for another few seconds. Then Carl started the engine, wipers groaning into motion.

“Next stop,” he said. “HMP Shotts. Let’s see if Callum Rane still remembers how to talk.”

Akram nodded. “Or how to stay quiet in all the wrong ways.”

Carl glanced at him again. “You always this poetic?”

“Only when I have a good audience.”

Carl didn’t respond. But his grip on the wheel loosened—just a little.

* * *

The elevator had broken again.

Carl and Akram took the stairs, which were too narrow, too steep, and reeked of mildew and forgotten budget approvals. By the time they reached the bottom, Carl had decided that when he inevitably lost his mind and burned this place down, he’d start with the stairwell.

The fire exit door creaked open with a disturbing, reluctant wheeze. The familiar scent of old paper, coffee, and slow decay hit them like a welcome mat woven from dust.

Inside, Rose was half-standing on a chair, rearranging pins on their main corkboard. Hardy sat at the long table with his laptop open, typing with one hand and nursing a mug of tea with the other.

“Good,” Rose said, not looking away from the board. “You’re back. We were starting to think Mhairi had killed you and buried you under her begonias.”

“She would’ve,” Carl said, shrugging off his coat, “if she had begonias and I’d asked one more question about her brother.”

“Fair,” Rose said mildly.

Hardy looked up. “So? Anything useful?”

Carl tossed his notebook onto the table with a practiced flick of his wrist. It skidded to a stop just short of Hardy’s tea. “Depends how you define useful.”

“Chronologically,” Rose said, hopping off the chair. “Start from the top.”

Carl moved toward the coffee machine, mostly for something to do with his hands. “She’s sharp. Still grieving, but sharper than half the force.” 

“We have a binder,” Akram added. “Eliza’s coursework, notes, letters. And drawings.”

He opened the folder and slid the sketch out onto the table. Rose and Hardy leaned in. The image was pencil on paper, smudged but clear: Eliza, standing near the water. Just beside her—half-visible—was the shadow of a man. No face. But tall. Trench coat. Leather bag.

Hardy frowned. “That’s... unsettling.”

Rose narrowed her eyes at the page. “A professor?”

“Could be a librarian,” Hardy deadpanned. “They dress like that too.”

“A professor’s more likely,” Rose said. “In most of these entries, she talks about her days, and she spent those at Uni.”

Carl crossed his arms, eyes fixed on the sketch. “Either way, she kept going back to meet him. That much is clear. But Mhairi only saw him once. From a distance. Said she couldn’t make out his face.”

Akram nodded. “She thought he was older. The way he moved, how he dressed. But she never saw him again. Eliza never said his name.”

Carl glanced down at the binder, his tone shifting—quieter. “She wrote about him in one of the last entries. Said he’d stopped laughing at her jokes. That he stopped looking at her like she mattered.”

A beat of silence followed.

Then Rose said, “That narrows it down. To, you know, every arrogant man in academia.”

Carl almost smiled. “Which is exactly where we start.”

Akram stepped beside the board and pinned the sketch up with a clean click of the thumbtack. “Professors. Lecturers. Supervisors. Anyone Eliza worked with, confided in, or took classes under. We dig.”

“I’ll go to the university,” Rose said. “See what’s still in their records. Class lists, staff rosters. If anyone still remembers her.”

“I’ll start digital,” Hardy offered, already tapping at his keyboard. “Personnel files, staff complaints, internal memos. See if anyone conveniently vanished around the time she did.”

Carl took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. “Still tastes like rot and existential despair.”

“Then stop making it,” Rose said. “And let someone with a palate handle the beans.”

Carl ignored her. 

“We’re also booked for a prison visit,” Rose went on. “Shotts. Tomorrow morning.”

Hardy raised an eyebrow. “Callum Rane?”

Rose nodded. “He agreed to talk. Well. Didn’t refuse. Which is as good as we get these days.”

Carl exhaled through his nose. “Akram and I will take it.”

“Romantic,” Hardy muttered.

Carl looked at him, brow raised. “You want in?”

Hardy blinked. “God, no. Just admiring the tragic aesthetic. Guilt, grief, long drives. Feels very Scandinavian.”

Akram stepped back from the board, surveying the threads already beginning to spiderweb out from Eliza’s name.

Carl stayed where he was, mug in hand, eyes fixed on the drawing. On the shadow beside her.

“What was it Merritt used to say?” he asked the room.

Rose looked up. Smiled faintly. “I firmly believe those who commit violent crime don’t ever truly get away with it.”

Hardy let out a low breath, and something in the room shifted. Sharpened.

Carl nodded once. 

“Then let’s prove her right.”

* * *

When Carl stepped into his flat, he was immediately accosted by the smell of garlic, cumin, and what could only be described as an alarming amount of turmeric.

And shouting.

Not distressed shouting—just the usual.

“You’re deliberately ignoring the nuance of the case,” Jasper was saying, pacing barefoot in the hallway, waving a wooden spoon like it was a sword. “He wasn’t killing for fun, he was exposing the failures of the justice system!”

“By stabbing four people in a Tesco car park?” came Martin’s voice from the kitchen. “Bit of an aggressive thesis.”

Carl shut the door behind him with more force than necessary. “If either of you poisoned the food, let me know now. I’ve had a long day and I’m not in the mood for organ failure.”

Jasper didn’t miss a beat. “We’re having a philosophical discussion.”

“About murder,” Martin added helpfully.

Carl kicked off his boots. “Of course you are.”

He followed the scent of spices into the kitchen, where Martin stood in a ghastly apron, stirring a pot on the stove like he was auditioning for a cooking show. A bottle of red wine was open on the counter, and jazz hummed softly from the Bluetooth speaker tucked near the toaster.

“Is that Coltrane?” Carl asked suspiciously.

Martin smiled without turning around. “I like to think it soothes the coriander.”

Carl squinted into the pot. “I don’t trust anything in that pan.”

“You don’t trust joy,” Martin replied dryly, still stirring.

Jasper appeared in the doorway, now holding three mismatched plates and a look of triumph. “We’re making curry. Vegan. Gluten-free. Martin’s trying to turn you into a well-adjusted adult.”

Carl made a face. “I’d rather be shot again.”

Martin, utterly unfazed, reached into the fridge and handed Carl a beer. “You already were. Didn’t seem to help.”

Carl took the bottle without thanks and opened it with a twist of the cap against the counter edge. He glanced around the kitchen. Clean. Warm. Lived-in. Full of things that weren’t just his and becoming distressingly familiar.

Jasper, setting the table, looked up with a sly grin. “Also, you’re uncultured.”

Carl blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You said that murder podcast was ‘bloody annoying.’ It’s art! It’s societal critique.”

“It’s two fuckwits talking out of their arses in expensive audio.”

“It has a BAFTA!”

“It’s a true crime show, not Succession.”

Jasper dropped into a chair dramatically. “God, you’re such a cop.”

Carl raised an eyebrow. “And yet you live here.”

Martin walked over, handing Carl a piece of warm naan like he was placating a very snarky stray cat. “You say that like it wasn’t your idea to move him in.”

Carl grumbled something unrepeatable and took a bite of naan. It was soft, buttery, impossibly good.

He didn’t compliment it, obviously.

They sat down around the kitchen table. Martin spooned curry into bowls, humming along to the saxophone. Jasper leaned across to pass Carl a fork without being asked.

Carl didn’t say it aloud, but he liked this.

The noise. The bickering. The shared space that wasn’t just his anymore.

Halfway through dinner, Jasper was launching into a monologue about vigilante motives when he said, casually, “If you ever do kill someone, I’ll help hide the body. No questions asked.”

Carl stilled, fork halfway to his mouth. “Do I even want to know how long you've been thinking about that?”

Jasper shrugged, unfazed. “Just basic risk assessment.”

Martin glanced at Carl, eyebrows raised. “Congratulations, you’ve raised yourself an accomplice.”

“Or a serial killer,” Carl muttered, chewing thoughtfully.

Jasper waved his fork. “I said hide, not commit. Very different skillset.”

“Glad we clarified,” Carl said dryly. “I feel so much safer now.”

“You’re welcome.” Jasper took another bite, entirely unrepentant. “Besides, it’s practical. You’d be terrible at hiding your own evidence.”

Carl shot him a flat look. “Would I?”

“Too impatient,” Jasper said sagely. “And you drive like you’re fleeing a bank robbery anyway. Suspicious.”

“Suspicious,” Martin repeated, nodding solemnly. “Can't argue with that.”

“I could literally arrest both of you right now,” Carl grumbled, half-smiling despite himself.

“See? Threatening arrest—classic suspicious move,” Jasper said, triumphant. “Case closed.”

Martin chuckled, spooning more curry onto Carl’s plate. “You’ve been profiled, Inspector.”

Carl narrowed his eyes. “Remind me why I let either of you live here.”

“Because your life would be joyless and grey without us,” Martin supplied cheerfully.

Jasper nodded in agreement. “And you'd starve without Martin.”

Carl snorted. “I've survived worse.”

Jasper shook his head sadly. “That’s not a flex.”

Martin cleared his throat gently, fighting laughter, and leaned forward. “So, Jaz—how was school? Any new scandals? Low-level uprisings?”

Jasper gave him a look. “Not everything is a teenage revolution.”

“Not with that attitude,” Martin said, unfazed. “Go on. Tell Carl what you did today.”

Jasper hesitated, suddenly very interested in rearranging the rice on his plate. “It’s not a big deal.”

Carl raised an eyebrow. “Did you finally punch that little shit who keeps throwing paper at you in math?”

“No,” Jasper said, annoyed. “That was last week.”

“Proud of you,” Carl said flatly.

Jasper rolled his eyes. “I joined the football club.”

There was a pause.

Carl blinked. “The actual football club? With balls and running and people?”

Jasper nodded, trying to sound bored. “Yeah. Figured I should do something that doesn’t involve arguing with teachers or hiding in the library.”

Martin smiled, folding his arms, clearly pleased. “They’re lucky to have you.”

Carl took a slow sip of his beer, then narrowed his eyes. “You any good?”

“Not really.”

“Perfect,” Carl said. “The less natural talent, the more character development.”

Jasper snorted. “Wow. Motivating.”

“I’m just saying,” Carl added, “if you get red-carded for violence, do it creatively. Headbutting is basic. Think big.”

Martin sighed, sliding the naan basket toward Carl like he was rewarding a feral animal. “Ignore him. I think it’s great.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Carl muttered. But he was smiling.

A real one. Small, brief, but there.

Jasper caught it and looked faintly smug.

“Coach says I’ve got good instincts,” he said. “Thinks I could be a decent midfielder.”

Carl shrugged. “He clearly hasn’t seen you try to parallel park your bike.”

“I was twelve.”

“I still have the CCTV footage.”

Martin laughed quietly, wiping his hands on a tea towel as he stood. “You two are exhausting.”

Carl leaned back in his chair, watching Jasper go back to eating with renewed energy, and Martin hum along to the jazz as he refilled everyone’s water glasses like the benevolent chaos god he was.

The warmth in the flat settled around them like another layer of spice. Not perfect. But alive. Real.

Carl didn’t say it out loud, but it was the closest thing to home he’d had in years.

Chapter Text

Diary Entry: February 6th, 1997

He told me dangerous minds deserve dangerous mentors.

He called me brilliant. Said my questions frightened him—in the best way.

I laughed. I don’t know why.

He said if I want to matter, I have to stop apologising for being sharp.

That the world fears women who write too much, ask too much, remember too much.

I think I want to be feared.

I think he wants me to be, too.

HMP Shotts, 09:00 a.m.

The prison looked like it had been designed by someone with a grudge against architecture and humanity.

Carl stared up at the brutalist concrete facade, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets. A bitter wind whipped across the car park, slicing through the layers of wool and sarcasm like it was nothing.

“Charming,” he muttered.

Akram glanced up from signing the logbook at the security gate. “You say that about every prison.”

“I mean it every time.”

They were escorted through two sets of locked gates, past a metal detector that beeped at Carl for no discernible reason, and into the visitor wing—a long, sterile corridor lined with plastic chairs and cheap strip lighting that flickered like it was trying to communicate in Morse code.

The prison officer gestured toward a booth near the back. “Rane’ll be brought in shortly. Try not to get blood on anything.”

Carl raised an eyebrow. “Planning ahead?”

“Just optimistic,” the officer said blandly, and walked off.

Carl took the seat on the right, facing the reinforced glass. Akram sat beside him, calm as always, flipping open the thin case file again. There wasn’t much in it—just a few grainy photos, the official charge sheet, and the original handwritten confession.

“He never recanted,” Akram said quietly. “Even after the diary turned up.”

Carl stared at the empty chair on the other side of the glass. “That’s not guilt. That’s punishment.”

The door opened with a buzz.

Callum Rane looked older than his age. Hardened, but not dangerous. He moved like someone who had taught himself not to expect anything from the world—not fairness, not comfort, not rescue.

He sat down across from them and picked up the phone slowly.

Carl mirrored the gesture. “Mr. Rane. I’m DCI Morck. This is DI Salim. We’re reopening your sister’s case.”

Callum stared at them. His fingers were pale where they gripped the receiver.

“I’ve told this story a thousand times,” he said, voice rough from disuse or maybe just disinterest. “No one’s ever listened.”

Akram spoke calmly. “We’re not here to prove you innocent.”

Callum blinked.

“We’re here to find who really did it,” Akram continued. “If that’s not you—then we need to know everything you didn’t say. Everything you couldn’t.”

Carl leaned forward slightly. “You confessed. Why?”

Callum’s jaw tightened. “Because they’d already decided. The papers. The police. Everyone. And Mhairi... she was falling apart. I thought if I gave them a villain, they’d stop digging. She’d be left alone.”

“You gave up twenty-eight years for that?” Carl said, disbelief bleeding into his tone.

Callum met his eyes. “Eliza was already gone. There was nothing left to save—except her name.”

Akram’s voice was soft. “You think you’ve protected her by disappearing. But her story’s still here. And we need to hear it.”

Callum looked between them. His expression cracked—just slightly.

“She changed,” he said finally. “That last year. She got secretive. Didn’t want me walking her to class anymore. Didn’t want Mhairi knowing where she was half the time. Said she was meeting someone... important.”

“Do you know who?” Akram asked.

Callum shook his head. “Never gave a name. Just said he made her feel like she mattered. Like her mind was something valuable.”

Carl muttered, “That’s how they always start.”

Callum huffed a mirthless laugh, then added, almost too quietly to hear: “She always was the smart one.”

Carl glanced up at that.

Callum didn’t look at him. Just kept talking like the words had waited too long to leave.

“Eliza could read a book in a day and argue with you about it in two languages. Mhairi... she had that fire. Determined. Sharp as hell. Me?”

A bitter half-smile ghosted across his face.

“I had to reread instructions just to figure out how to apply for a loan. Couldn’t keep up in school, no matter how hard I tried. I’d lose the thread halfway through a sentence and never find it again. Teachers thought I was lazy. But I wasn’t. I just... couldn’t hold the pieces in my head long enough to fit them together.”

He looked up finally. Met Carl’s gaze.

“And then Mum got sick,” Callum went on, quiet but steady. “Dad wasn’t around. So I did what you do. I stepped in. Groceries. Bills. Rides to the hospital. Made sure Mhairi ate something that wasn’t cereal. Made sure Eliza had space to study. Kept the lights on. That was me.”

He exhaled hard through his nose.

“She was everything. I mean, you could see it, even then. She’d walk into a room and people would turn toward her like she was a magnet. She was going to make something of herself. Get out. Be bigger than all this.”

A pause.

“And then she started pulling away. Just... slipping. I could see it, but every time I asked, she’d change the subject or brush me off. The more I pushed, the more she shut the door. I told her to be careful, and she just looked at me like I didn’t understand.”

He shrugged tightly. 

“Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I was too blunt. Too scared. Too loud about it. But I saw it happening, and I couldn’t stop it.”

Carl didn’t interrupt. Callum’s voice dropped as he leaned forward.

“I wasn’t the smart one. Or the brave one. I was the one who stayed in the house and fixed things. That’s all I knew how to do. And when it all went to hell... I thought, maybe I could still fix something.”

He looked directly at Carl now.

“So I gave them what they wanted. A confession. A villain. So they’d stop looking at Mhairi like she was next. So they’d stop twisting Eliza into something she wasn’t. I figured... if I couldn’t save her, maybe I could protect what was left.”

“Did she ever describe him?” Akram asked gently. “Even vaguely?”

“Not really.” Callum’s voice dropped. “But once, she said... when he touched her, it felt like being erased.”

Silence fell between the three of them.

Then Carl said, “Do you still want to protect her?”

Callum nodded.

“Then help us finish what she started.”

University of Edinburgh, 09:05 a.m.

The university buildings loomed like relics—worn sandstone streaked with ivy, windows tall and narrow as confessionals.

The wind sliced between the courtyards, cold enough to bite, and Rose pulled her coat tighter around her as she stepped off the pavement and onto the stone path leading toward the School of Political and Social Science.

Behind her, Hardy was muttering darkly at a patch of uneven cobblestones.

“If they wanted to discourage disabled visitors, they’ve bloody nailed it.”

“You’re doing great,” Rose said, adjusting her stride to match his. “Ten out of ten passive aggression.”

“Please. I’m being actively aggressive. There’s a difference.”

She grinned and opened the heavy wooden door. Warm air greeted them like a sigh—radiators ticking quietly, and the faint scent of old books, printer ink, and academic ego.

The reception desk was manned by a frazzled-looking woman in her fifties who had the energy of someone long past caring about bureaucracy but still married to it out of obligation.

Her nameplate read: Sandra Wilkes. 

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Rose smiled and showed her badge. “DC Rose Dickson, this is DI James Hardy. We’re following up on an old student matter. Eliza Rane. She was enrolled here, went missing in ’97.”

The woman blinked, visibly surprised. “Eliza Rane? Haven’t heard that name in a while.”

She pulled up a terminal behind the desk and began typing, her nails clacking like disapproving heels on tile. “She was in the School of Politics. Graduated posthumously. Her records are archived but not inaccessible.”

“Any staff from back then still around?” Rose asked.

“A few,” the woman said. “Let’s see… Dr. Cleugh—junior lecturer at the time, she’s now the department chair. Dr. Marr retired about ten years ago, but he still comes to the alumni dinners and tries to ruin the buffet. Dr. Quinn… he’s still active in the postgraduate programme. Teaches a seminar every spring. Lovely man. Very sharp. Still remembers all the students who passed through.”

Rose made a mental note of the name. “And what about campus staff? Groundskeepers, custodians?”

“George Lomax still works here. Groundskeeping. His shed’s by the old arboretum. Bit of a recluse, but harmless.”

“Harmless,” Hardy repeated under his breath. “My favourite red flag.”

The woman raised an eyebrow but said nothing, handing Rose a worn-looking folder. “This is Eliza’s academic record. Class schedules, thesis topic, supervisor notes. Be careful—some of it’s original print.”

“Thanks,” Rose said. “We’ll bring it back.”

They made their way outside again, heading toward the west quad where the arboretum stood like a crooked spine of green in the university’s grey belly. Hardy leaned on one crutch, the other tucked under his arm like it had personally offended him.

“Remind me why I agreed to come along again?” he grumbled.

“You said being cooped up makes you stabby.”

“Did I?” He squinted. “Sounded more poetic when I said it.”

“No, it didn’t.”

Out in the gardens, the shed appeared around the corner like it had grown out of the moss itself—small, rusted, and slightly listing to one side. The door creaked open before Rose could knock.

George Lomax stood in the doorway, wiping oil from his hands with an ancient rag. He looked like he’d been carved out of bark—thick-set, weathered, all elbows and scowls.

“You lost?” he asked.

“Detectives,” Rose said, holding up her badge. “We’re revisiting a case. Eliza Rane.”

His eyes narrowed, just slightly. “I remember her.”

“She used to walk near the arboretum?” Hardy asked, coming up slowly behind her. “Any particular routes? Any company?”

George shrugged. “She liked quiet places. Read a lot. Sometimes she’d be sittin’ out by the old sundial. Other times I’d see her headed toward the loch path.”

“And?” Rose prompted.

“One time,” he said slowly, “I saw her standing near the far gate. Talkin’ to someone. Tall man. Long coat. Leather bag. Couldn’t see his face.”

“Any idea who he was?” Hardy asked.

“Didn’t ask,” George said. “Didn’t get close. Just had a feeling I wasn’t meant to see.”

Rose exchanged a glance with Hardy.

“You’ve been here a while, haven’t you?” Rose ventured. “Late nineties at least?”

George huffed a quiet breath, amused and resigned all at once. “Longer than you’ve been alive, lass.”

Hardy raised an eyebrow, studying George closely. “You must’ve noticed professors around here—lecturers, researchers. Anyone back then strike you as... overly friendly with students?”

George barked a dry laugh, harsh enough to startle a nearby pigeon. “Have you met professors?” He shook his head, folding the rag into a careful square. “Back then, aye, they liked thinkin' themselves important. Some more than others. And some made it no secret they enjoyed the attention from the students.”

Rose leaned in slightly. “Anyone particular come to mind?”

He glanced sideways, thoughtful and careful. “There were whispers. Always whispers, weren’t there? Young women visiting offices at odd hours, coming back quiet and looking confused. Some men treated it like a perk of the job. And no one much talked about it openly—wasn't exactly encouraged, see.”

“Did Eliza seem like she was involved with anyone like that?” Hardy asked.

George’s brows drew together. “Hard to say. Like I told you—quiet girl. She always seemed smarter than most. Knew her own mind. But near the end… seemed distracted. Like her own thoughts were chasing her.” He paused. “If someone got close to her, it wouldn’t be because she was foolish.”

“She ever talk to you about anything personal?” Rose asked gently.

George’s expression shifted—barely. “She said hello to me every morning. Thanked me once for unlocking the side gate during a storm. Most students walk past me like I'm invisible. She didn’t.”

There was something sincere in that. A quiet thread of fondness.

Rose nodded. “If you remember anything else, even something that feels small—”

“I’ll let you know,” George said, but it sounded like a full stop.

As they walked back across the lawn, Hardy said, “There’s something about old men who speak like punctuation marks. You know they’re hiding entire chapters.”

Rose glanced back at the shed, the door now shut. “He remembers more than he’s letting on.”

“Probably,” Hardy said. “But he gave us more than most: a location, a shadow, a tone.”

“And that tone,” Rose murmured, “was worry.”

Hardy hummed, then added, “He saw something he couldn’t unsee.”

The wind rattled a branch overhead. A crow let out a hoarse cry in the distance.

Back inside the admin building, a student assistant had laid out several boxes of old debate society records and campus newsletters from the mid-90s.

Hardy settled into a chair with a grunt and opened one of the folders. “Ah, photocopied manifestos. The golden age of righteous nonsense.”

Rose scanned a student council flyer. “Eliza was Vice President of the Ethics and Civil Responsibility Society. President was… Benji Crosbie.”

“Name rings a bell,” Hardy muttered. “Didn’t he run a protest that got half the library windows smashed?”

“Sounds promising,” Rose said.

She stood, stretching, and caught sight of a wall-mounted photo in the hallway—faculty portraits, dated annually. One nameplate caught her eye:

Dr. Alastair Quinn – Senior Lecturer, Ethics & Philosophy.

“Hey,” she said, nodding toward it. “Recognise him?”

Hardy craned his neck. “Quinn?”

The admin from earlier poked her head in. “He’s in today. Office’s on the second floor. You’ll want to talk to him. He always had time for Eliza. Very fond of her, I think.”

Rose smiled politely. “Thanks.”

When the admin disappeared again, Rose turned to Hardy. “You ever notice how people say ‘fond of’ when they don’t want to say the word ‘obsessed’?”

Hardy grunted. “Or ‘inappropriate.’”

“He could’ve just been kind,” she said, but without conviction.

Hardy glanced at the photo again. “Kindness doesn’t usually come with its own sword-shaped letter opener.”

Rose huffed a quiet laugh as they climbed the stairs. “God, I hate when you're poetic.”

“I’m not poetic. I’m judgmental. It just sounds elegant because I went to a grammar school.”

Rose snorted. “Remind me to push you down these stairs after the interview.”

Hardy didn’t miss a beat. “At least if I died, I’d be free.”

Rose shot him a look. “Dramatic.”

“Disabled,” Hardy muttered.

Dr. Alastair Quinn’s office was the kind that told a story.

Warm wood bookshelves wrapped the room like a private library. Soft lighting pooled across an antique desk, where leather-bound volumes sat in tidy stacks beside a fountain pen and a brass letter opener shaped like a sword. The framed photos on the wall weren’t diplomas—they were family pictures: a smiling woman with silver hair and a gardening trowel, three young women of varying heights and hairstyles, all mid-laugh. A shelf in the corner held a dusty chess set, half-played.

It smelled like old paper and lemon oil. The kind of space you didn’t expect to find in a place built on critique and debate.

Quinn stood as they entered, his frame tall and spare, his movements unhurried.

“Detective Constable Dickson, Detective Inspector Hardy,” he said warmly. His voice was low and deliberate—calm without being haughty. “Sandra told me you were on your way up. Come in. Please. I’ve made coffee, but I won’t be offended if you refuse it. Academic coffee is something of a war crime.”

Rose smiled despite herself. “We’ll take our chances.”

Hardy gave the smallest grunt of approval as he lowered himself into the leather chair opposite the desk, leaning his crutches gingerly against the armrest.

Quinn poured two mugs without asking, adding a dash of milk to Hardy’s and sliding it across the desk like he already knew how they took it.

Rose accepted hers with a quiet nod of thanks. “We’re reviewing Eliza Rane’s case.”

“I heard something about that in the halls,” Quinn said, settling into his seat with the grace of someone who never fidgeted. “It’s been a long time, but I remember her clearly.”

“You taught her?” Hardy asked.

“I taught everyone,” Quinn said with a smile. “But yes. She took my Ethics and Power module in her second year. One of the brightest students I’ve had in years.”

Rose studied him. “Did you know her personally?”

“Not in any improper sense, if that’s what you’re implying.” The statement wasn’t defensive—just clear. Unoffended. “She came to office hours. Asked questions no one else dared to. She challenged me, often.”

“She admired you,” Rose summarised.

Quinn looked down at his mug for a moment, something like sadness creasing his brow.

“And I admired her. She was... aware. Of herself. Of the systems around her. That kind of consciousness at that age is rare. Most students are still learning to form opinions. Eliza already had a manifesto.”

Hardy scratched behind his ear. “Any idea who she was spending time with? She seemed to be keeping secrets, near the end.”

Quinn nodded slowly. “I noticed her withdrawing. She missed a few seminars. Looked tired. Distracted. I assumed she was in the depths of thesis prep—burnout’s not uncommon.”

Rose leaned forward slightly. “Do you know who her supervisor was?”

“Dr. Cleugh in that last year,” Quinn said without hesitation. “Ambitious. Brilliant. I imagine you’re planning to speak with her.”

“She and Eliza had a falling out?” Rose asked.

“They had... differences,” Quinn said diplomatically. “Eliza was challenging, and Dr. Cleugh isn’t one to be challenged without cause.”

Rose noticed the way he didn’t smile when he said it.

“Did Eliza mention any... relationships?” Hardy asked, careful.

Quinn hesitated. Not long—but just enough.

“She was private,” he said carefully. “But I got the sense there was someone. You could see it—the way she spoke, then the way she stopped speaking. That shift.”

“Any idea who it might’ve been?”

Quinn met her eyes. “If I had, I would’ve told someone. I’ve always regretted not seeing more. I had daughters of my own by then. I know what that kind of silence can mean.”

Rose glanced at the bookshelf, where a small silver frame held a photo of three girls around a Christmas tree.

“She was writing a thesis on state power and moral conflict,” Quinn said gently, pulling her attention back. “I remember she opened it with a quote from Rousseau—‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ That line stuck with me.”

Rose nodded. Eliza’s thesis had never been submitted. It wasn’t in the binder. Mhairi had never mentioned that quote.

She filed the observation away, silent.

Hardy asked, “Do you think she was afraid?”

Quinn was quiet for a moment.

“Yes,” he said finally. “But not in the way people imagine. Eliza wasn’t afraid of confrontation. She was afraid of vanishing. Of being forgotten. That was her real fear.”

Rose looked at him. “And yet she disappeared.”

Quinn’s smile was faint. “That’s what makes it unforgivable.”

There was a silence that lasted just long enough to grow roots.

Then Rose stood. “Thank you, Dr. Quinn. We may have more questions later.”

He stood with them, already reaching for a folder from the shelf. “Here—these are seminar rosters and lecture notes from her year. You’re welcome to take them. I’ve already flagged anything with her name on it.”

“How prepared of you,” Hardy said.

Quinn chuckled. “I’ve always suspected someone would come back for her. I just hoped it wouldn’t take this long.”

Out in the corridor, Rose glanced down at the folder in her hands. Neatly labelled. Corners sharp.

“Organised man,” she said under her breath.

Hardy gave a noncommittal grunt. “He pours the milk before asking and quotes Rousseau from memory. Feels rehearsed to me.”

Rose arched a brow. “You think he’s lying?”

“I think he’s practiced,” Hardy said. “Which is either the sign of a seasoned academic… or someone who’s had too much time to tidy the narrative.”

They turned the corner into the older wing, where the carpet thinned and the air got cooler.

“He might just be guilty of being theatrical,” Rose said.

Hardy smirked. “I’ll let you tell him that next time he pours you coffee like a Bond villain.”

The politics faculty offices were stacked like filing cabinets—narrow corridors lined with mismatched doors, nameplates half-peeled, a faint smell of printer toner and decades-old ambition lingering in the air.

Rose knocked twice on the one marked Dr. M. Cleugh – Chair of Political Ethics. The lettering was crisp and new. The wood beneath was older. Worn at the edges.

“Come in,” a voice snapped.

Inside, the office was chaos pretending to be order. Papers stacked like geological strata. Books half-shoved into shelves. A monitor flickering with too many tabs open. The blinds were drawn halfway, casting striped shadows over everything.

Dr. Marianne Cleugh didn’t rise. She barely looked up.

Mid-fifties, sharp-boned, with tired eyes and a mouth set in a line that suggested patience had been surgically removed years ago.

“You’re the police,” she said, as though confirming a bad weather forecast.

Rose nodded. “DC Dickson. This is DI Hardy.”

Hardy gave her a small nod, leaning heavier on his crutches.

Cleugh gestured at two chairs buried beneath a pile of file folders. “Make yourselves comfortable. Or not.”

Rose moved the files without comment and sat. Hardy followed.

“We’re reopening the case of Eliza Rane,” Rose said. “You were her thesis advisor?”

“I was,” Cleugh said. “Briefly. It didn’t go well.”

“Why not?”

“She didn’t want to be advised.” Cleugh rubbed her temple like the memory still gave her a headache. “She was smart, no one denies that. But she was also—how shall I put this—righteous. She believed deeply in her own ideas. Inconveniently so.”

Hardy tilted his head. “That sounds like something an ethics professor should appreciate.”

Cleugh narrowed her eyes. “Idealism without discipline is noise. Eliza didn’t want a conversation—she wanted a spotlight.”

Rose held her gaze. “Did you dislike her?”

Cleugh blinked. “I found her difficult. That’s not a crime.”

“No,” Rose said. “But we’re interested in who she was close to. And who she might have been afraid of.”

Cleugh paused. For a moment, something flitted across her face—uncertainty, or maybe calculation.

“I don’t know who she was involved with. She never said. But there were rumors. Staff gossip. She’d been seen with someone. Older.”

“Any names?” Hardy asked.

“No.” Her voice was too quick. “Nothing I’d be willing to hang a career on.”

“But you suspected someone.”

Cleugh looked directly at Rose, sharp as glass. “You’re young. So let me offer some free advice. Academia doesn’t run on justice. It runs on silence, tenure, and the ability to make your enemies look unreasonable.”

“I’ll stitch that on a pillow,” Hardy muttered.

Rose flipped open her notebook. “You said there were rumors. Did any of them involve Dr. Quinn?”

Cleugh sat back slowly, folding her hands in her lap.

“Quinn? No. Not really. People talk about him all the time, but not like that.”

“Why not?” Hardy asked, arms still folded.

“Because he’s the golden boy,” Cleugh said with a flat smile. “Always was. Students adored him. Colleagues worshipped him. Perfect lectures, perfect reputation. He’s the academic every donor wants to shake hands with.”

Rose tilted her head. “That bother you?”

Cleugh didn’t answer right away. Then: “I worked twice as hard to get half as far. So yes. A little.”

She leaned forward, voice low. “But if you're looking for someone with shadows—ask about Dr. Douglas Marr.”

Hardy’s brow lifted. “Marr?”

“Head of Political History, back then. Old-school type. Brilliant, but arrogant. Treated students like they were beneath him—especially the female ones.”

Rose glanced at Hardy, then back. “And Eliza?”

“She didn’t like him. That much I know. She said he made her feel... undermined. Interrupted her in lectures. Talked over her in seminars. Dismissed her ideas outright. It rattled her. She didn’t rattle easily.”

Rose flipped a page in her notebook. “Did she ever file a complaint?”

Cleugh snorted. “In 1997? Please. The system wasn’t built to protect students like Eliza. It was built to protect men like Marr.”

A silence stretched, tense and telling.

Then Cleugh added, more quietly, “She asked to switch thesis advisors three weeks before she disappeared. I asked why. She said she didn’t feel safe.”

Rose blinked. “Did she say from whom?”

Cleugh shook her head. “Just that she didn’t want to work in the same building anymore. I assumed it was about me. I thought she was being dramatic. But now...”

Her voice frayed. “Now I’m not sure.”

Hardy leaned forward. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Cleugh’s expression didn’t change. “Because no one would’ve listened. And frankly, I wasn’t willing to burn my career for a girl who didn’t trust me either.”

Rose snapped her notebook shut and stood. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Cleugh.”

Cleugh just nodded, like the conversation had cost her more than she’d expected. “If you find anything…” she hesitated, then waved a hand vaguely. “I don’t know. Just… find something. She deserved better.”

Hardy gave her a curt nod. “We’ll do our best.”

They stepped out into the hallway, the door clicking closed behind them. The overhead lights buzzed faintly, and the air smelled of old carpets and heavier truths.

For a few moments, neither of them spoke.

Then Hardy muttered, “She’s not all cold, that one.”

Rose gave a short laugh. “You think she’s telling the truth?”

“She’s telling her truth,” he said, shifting his weight to the slightly better leg. “Which means somewhere inside it is the truth she doesn’t want to admit.”

They walked down the stairs slowly, Hardy leaning on the rail.

“Marr,” Rose said.

“Yep.”

“She made it sound like he was untouchable.”

Hardy raised an eyebrow. “So was half the staff at that time. Reputation was armour.”

Rose pushed open the heavy front door. Cold air rushed in to meet them. She tucked her hands into her coat pockets and stepped outside. The sky was low and grey, the wind carrying a threat of rain.

Hardy followed, slower. “Still, if Eliza was asking to switch supervisors because she didn’t feel safe in the building... that’s not noise. That’s alarm bells.”

“We need to find him,” Rose said. “Marr. Before he hears we’re sniffing around and shuts the door himself.”

Hardy grunted. “You track him, I’ll prep the charming smile.”

“I’ll alert the media,” Rose deadpanned.

Hardy smirked. “I like this new version of you.”

“I’ve been hanging around Morck too long.”

As they walked toward the car, the cold stinging their cheeks, Rose felt the edges of something sharpening beneath her ribs. The feeling that the story was about to change shape.

Again.

Chapter Text

Diary Entry: March 20th, 1997

I shouldn’t write this down. If Mhairi finds it, she’ll scowl. If Callum finds it, he’ll lock me in my room forever. But I have to keep it somewhere.

He makes me feel seen. Not just heard—understood. Like I’m not speaking into a void.

Today he said my thoughts reminded him of a line in Simone Weil: “To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul.”

No one’s ever said that to me before. No one’s ever made me feel like my mind was something to respect, not tolerate.

And somehow that made me trust him more.

Department Q, 05:45 p.m.

The basement always felt different in the evening.

Quieter, yes—but not in a peaceful way. More like the building had exhaled everyone else and was now holding its breath, waiting to see what they'd do next.

Carl sat behind his desk, feet propped up, the binder from Mhairi open on his lap. He was flipping through Eliza’s coursework with a mechanical sort of attention, half-listening to the old radiator in the corner groan like a wounded animal.

Akram sat at the next desk, posture still impeccable, even after a twelve-hour day. His eyes scanned the case file for the third time, fingers resting lightly on the edge of the page like he could will it to give up more than it had.

“Callum Rane didn’t kill his sister,” Akram said, without looking up.

Carl grunted. “Bold of you to say when we’ve got a confession and twenty-eight years of silence.”

“He confessed to protect Mhairi and Eliza’s memory. Not to cover up a crime.”

Carl tossed a pen into the air and caught it. “Or he’s lying. Or delusional. Or he’s made peace with it and just wants out on a technicality.”

Akram looked over at him, amused. “You believe him.”

Carl didn’t answer. Just tossed the pen again. Higher this time. It hit the ceiling tile and fell behind the desk with a thud.

Akram didn’t smile, but he looked like he might’ve, internally.

Carl sighed and sat forward, raking a hand through his hair. “I believe he’s not the killer. Doesn’t mean he’s entirely innocent.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s guilty, either.”

Carl shot him a look. “If you start quoting the Syrian penal code, I’m leaving.”

Akram raised a brow, wheeling himself across the floor to the edge of Carl’s desk. “I was going to quote Euripides.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “Even worse.”

They fell into silence again. The binder lay open between them now, pages splayed like a wound. Eliza’s handwriting was precise, almost delicate. Each line carried the weight of someone trying very hard to be understood.

Akram tapped a page lightly. “This entry matches the timeline Callum gave. She mentions feeling watched. Paranoid. Like someone knew where she was going before she got there.”

Carl leaned in slightly. “She ever write about any professors?”

“No names. Just hints.” Akram flipped the page. “She talks often about a man who listened too well. Who made her feel valuable, and then small. Like being on a pedestal until you realise the whole thing’s on a trapdoor.”

Carl frowned. “She always that poetic?”

Akram’s gaze softened. “Only when she wasn’t scared.”

They sat with that for a moment. Just the hum of old lights and the distant cough of a vent kicking on.

Carl rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Callum said she was different. Toward the end. That she stopped wanting to be walked to class. Hid her whereabouts.”

Akram nodded. “Isolation. It’s what abusers do. Cut the subject off from the rest of the world so the only voice left is theirs.”

Carl picked at a corner of the desk, voice low. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

Akram didn’t say anything. But the silence shifted—like it had caught something Carl hadn’t meant to drop.

“You always frown when it’s personal.”

Carl looked up at him, caught off guard—not annoyed, just exposed.

“You notice that, do you?” Carl said dryly. 

Akram shrugged, like it was obvious. “I notice you.”

Carl blinked, then deflected, sharp as ever. “Well, try not to make a habit of it. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

A smile tugged at Akram’s mouth. “Bit late for that.”

Carl huffed. “Let’s not get carried away.”

Akram leaned back in his chair, glancing at the corkboard. The sketch from Mhairi’s binder was pinned there now, stark against the clutter—Eliza, beside the reservoir, a shadow at her side.

“She trusted him,” Akram said. 

Carl nodded. “Right up until she didn’t.”

He stood, stretched his back with a wince, and grabbed two mugs off the windowsill.

“You want a refill?” he asked.

Akram looked mildly alarmed. “Of what? That horror you call coffee?”

Carl shrugged. “Caffeine’s caffeine.”

Before Akram could respond, the elevator groaned to life. Heavy metal doors clanked open upstairs.

Footsteps. Two sets.

Carl raised a brow. “And here comes the cavalry.”

Moments later, Rose appeared at the top of the stairs, damp from the rain, her hair frizzed by wind and irritation.

“Guess who’s still alive and delightfully bitter?” she called down.

Hardy’s voice followed, dry as ever. “Us.”

Carl exchanged an amused look with Akram.

“Seriously,” Rose muttered, shaking out her coat, “this weather’s a hate crime.”

Carl raised his mug in salute. “Welcome back, sunshine.”

“Did you miss us?” she asked, voice bright.

“No,” Carl deadpanned. “And the silence was suspiciously productive.”

Hardy settled stiffly into his usual chair with a grunt of effort, tossing a folder onto the table.

“Douglas Marr,” he said. “Still alive. Still a bastard. Still very much uninterested in helping us.”

Akram leaned forward. “You spoke to him already?”

“No, no,” Rose said, pulling a bundle of notes and printed photos from her satchel. “This is just the vibes report. Actual interview’s tomorrow afternoon. But Cleugh gave us enough to raise eyebrows.”

Carl dropped into his seat, elbows on the arms, coffee resting on his knee. “Let’s back it up. We’ll give you our tragedy, you give us yours.”

“Callum Rane isn’t lying,” Akram said. “At least not in the way people think.”

Carl gestured vaguely. “He’s not the killer. Just the fall guy.”

Rose sobered. “He gave you something?”

“He gave us background,” Akram said. “Eliza was isolating. Afraid. But not of him. Of someone she wouldn’t name. Someone older. Respected.”

Carl tilted his mug toward the sketch pinned to the corkboard. “She met the same man more than once. Near the reservoir. Mhairi only saw him from a distance. But the diary suggests he made Eliza feel like her thoughts were rare and valuable—until he didn’t.”

Hardy rubbed a hand over his face. “That tracks with what Cleugh gave us. She said Eliza asked to switch thesis supervisors three weeks before she disappeared. Told her she didn’t feel safe in the building. No name.”

Rose nodded. “But she said Eliza had major issues with Marr—overbearing, dismissive, undermined her in seminars. She described him like a dinosaur who knew he was going extinct.”

Akram raised a brow. “And Cleugh herself?”

Rose paused. “Not exactly warm. But I think she regrets not doing more.”

Carl snorted. “Too little, too late.”

Rose turned to the stack she’d set down. “Oh—Dr. Quinn sends his regards. He gave me everything from his archive. Class lists, seminar notes, marked papers, even some essays Eliza wrote for his Power and Ethics module.”

Carl raised a brow. “That was generous.”

“Suspiciously generous,” Hardy muttered. “Man makes better coffee than most cafés. His office is practically a goddamn bookshop.”

Carl took the file Rose handed him and flipped through the neat stack of papers. Typed rosters, highlighted syllabi. One of the essays had been flagged with a sticky note: Brilliant argument. Needs expanding. —AQ

“He remembered her well,” Rose added. “Said she was one of the brightest minds he ever taught.”

Carl leaned back slowly. “And how many people did he say that to, I wonder?”

Akram glanced at him. “You don’t think—?”

“No,” Carl said. “I don’t think anything. Yet.”

They all went quiet for a moment. The buzz of the overhead lights seemed louder now. Somewhere behind the walls, pipes creaked like something was shifting in the dark.

Then Carl said, “So we’ve got a terrified student. A controlling older man. And a list of professors who either adored her, envied her, or ignored her.”

“And one who clearly hated her,” Rose added. “Marr.”

“Didn’t hate her,” Hardy corrected. “Just didn’t respect her. Which might be worse.”

Carl nodded toward the corkboard. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll go speak to him. Pin him down. Ask about Eliza, about her research. Ask what he thought of her thesis.”

Hardy raised a brow. “Think he read it?”

Carl smiled thinly. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll find out if he remembers it.”

Akram pulled the binder closer. “And if he doesn’t?”

Carl stood, tossing the dregs of his coffee into the bin. “Then we’ll remind him.”

* * *

The rain hadn’t stopped. It had only gotten worse—slamming sideways against the station windows and thundering on the concrete like it was trying to dig its way down to them.

Rose and Hardy were the first to leave.

Hardy gave a stiff little wave as he hobbled toward the stairs, Rose hovering just behind him like she was ready to catch him if he stumbled.

“Try not to have too much fun while we’re gone,” she said over her shoulder, and Carl responded by flipping her a lazy two-finger salute.

The elevator doors shuddered closed behind them, cutting off the outside world and leaving the basement still.

Carl stayed where he was, half-lit by the yellowing desk lamp, eyes scanning the corkboard. The sketch. The timeline. The folder of names Rose had handed over—Quinn’s tidy contributions—still sat unopened by the map.

Beside him, Akram was silent. Not too close. But just close enough that Carl felt it—like a shift in air pressure, or the moment before a match flares. Carl could hear the slight exhale when his gaze landed on something that didn’t sit right.

He didn’t need to turn around. He’d seen that look before—the one Akram wore when he was solving the shape of a thing rather than its facts. Focused, still. Like something was crystallising behind his eyes.

“You think Marr’s a red herring.” Carl said eventually.

“I think Marr’s self-important,” Akram said simply. “But he’s not clever enough to have pulled this off.”

Carl grunted. “Glad it’s not just me.”

They stood like that for a moment, staring at the board. Two silhouettes carved out in dim light and rain-shadow. The silence stretched.

Then Akram tilted his head slightly. “Are you planning to stare at it all night?”

“Thinking.”

“I know.” He paused. “You look less scary when you’re doing it.”

Carl smirked. “Don’t ruin the brand.”

Akram’s mouth quirked. Just the barest edge of a smile.

Carl stepped back from the board, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before the heating cuts out and we freeze to death.”

Akram reached for his coat, calm as always, movements smooth and practiced. Carl was halfway up the stairs when he paused, turned.

“You taking the bus?” he asked, like it didn’t matter.

Akram glanced up. “I usually do.”

Carl made a noncommittal grunt and jingled his keys. “I’ll drive you.”

Akram raised a brow. “Your place is east. I live west.”

Carl didn’t blink. “It's on the way.”

There was a beat of silence. Then a small smile tugged at Akram’s mouth—barely there, but entirely real. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Good thing I’m a better driver.”

Akram arched his brow. “You once reversed into a bollard and blamed the bollard.”

“It was painted the exact same shade as the road.”

“It was yellow.”

Carl rolled his eyes and jingled his keys again. “Are you coming or not?”

“That a threat or a mercy killing?”

“Depends how many more bollard stories you’ve got,” Carl muttered, already turning toward the elevator.

Akram followed—still smiling—as thunder cracked above them.

Inside the car, the rain had softened to a steady percussion on the roof. The headlights cut clean slices through the dark as Carl navigated the slick roads, one hand on the wheel, the other on the heater dial.

They drove in silence for a while. Not awkward—just quiet. The kind that settles between people who've never filled space just for the sake of it.

Akram cracked the passenger window an inch. “You know this road takes you further from your place, right?”

Carl didn’t look over. “Maybe I just wanted to ruin my evening with traffic.”

“Mission accomplished.”

Carl snorted under his breath. The kind of sound he only made when his guard was down.

Another pause. Then—

“How are the kids?” he asked, almost casually. “They still pretending to like school?”

Akram gave him a look, equal parts amusement and fondness. “They’re overachieving out of spite.”

Carl huffed. “You say that like it's a bad thing.”

Akram shrugged. “Mina’s building a robot for her science club. Yasmin corrected her French teacher’s grammar and got extra credit instead of detention.”

Carl glanced over, deadpan. “So what I’m hearing is... they’re you. But smaller. And more terrifying.”

“Essentially.”

Carl grunted. “Meanwhile, mine just joined the football team and figured out how to microwave a burrito without setting the kitchen on fire. We’re calling it a win.”

Akram smiled. “He’s trying.”

“He’s trying something,” Carl muttered. “Mostly my patience.”

“Sounds like he’s a teenager.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “He’s a very opinionated raccoon. Curses a lot. Steals my socks.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Akram said mildly. 

Carl looked at him sidelong. “You say that now. Just wait until one of yours builds a drone with facial recognition and it starts targeting rude customers at Tesco.”

Akram considered. “Honestly? Might be public service.”

Carl let out a soft laugh—one of the real ones, deep in his chest.

At a red light, Carl’s phone buzzed in the cupholder. He glanced down. 

Jasper [18:45]

practice ran late can you pick me up pls

Carl started tapping a quick response.

Akram didn’t even turn. “That’s illegal.”

Carl looked up, deadpan. “We’re at a red.”

“Still illegal.”

“Are you arresting me?”

“Depends on whether you plan to reoffend.”

“We’re literally stopped.”

Akram smirked. “Still illegal.”

“Tattle.”

“Criminal.”

Carl rolled his eyes and dictated a voice reply instead. “Picking you up. Don’t make me wait. Or I’m leaving you at school until you graduate.”

He hit send. Akram chuckled softly.

“Parent of the year,” he said.

“You know it.”

“Things seem better with him,” Akram added, voice softer now. “That’s good.”

Carl didn’t respond right away. He kept his eyes ahead, idly watching traffic inch forward, a thousand small moments replaying quietly in his mind:

Quiet breakfasts when Jasper remembered he liked sugar in his coffee. Picking up Thai food without having to ask if Jasper wanted extra spring rolls. Late-night texts about homework that turned into arguments about Sherlock Holmes. Jasper leaving his shoes in the hall, as if to prove he belonged there.

Jasper was meeting him halfway—had been for a while. He wasn’t angry every second of the day anymore.

Maybe neither of them were.

Carl’s fingers flexed briefly on the wheel. “I’m trying.”

Akram nodded. “I'm sure he appreciates it.”

They pulled up outside Akram’s building a few minutes later. Carl didn’t say anything when Akram lingered with the door open for a beat longer than necessary.

“Thanks for the lift,” Akram said finally.

“You’re on the way,” Carl muttered.

Akram smiled knowingly as he stepped out. “See you tomorrow.”

Carl didn’t drive off immediately. 

He watched Akram walk the path toward his building—steady, deliberate—until the front light blinked on and the door creaked open.

A flash of movement: two figures darted out and threw themselves at him, all laughter and squeaky socks on wet stone. He shifted to scoop them both into a hug, his coat dark with rain, his face lit by something soft and entirely unguarded.

Carl stayed still, one hand resting on the gearstick.

And as Akram looked up—maybe by instinct, maybe by chance—their eyes met across the distance. Just for a second.

Carl offered nothing. No wave. No nod.

But he didn’t look away until the door closed behind them.

Then he shifted into gear and pulled into the night.

By the time Carl swung into the car park by the school with his window half down, the rain had started up again. Jasper was standing under the awning, soaked hoodie clinging to his lanky frame, football bag slung over one shoulder.

He darted into the passenger seat with all the flair of a drowning cat. “I swear the coach wants us all dead.”

Carl tossed him a towel from the back seat. “You’re lucky I’m not the coach. I’d have made you do laps until you begged for mercy.”

“You’d make us run drills for breathing too loud.”

“Exactly.”

Jasper scrubbed at his hair with the towel, then pulled a face. “Is this clean?”

“It was clean. In 2008.”

“Nice.”

Carl shrugged, pleased with himself. “So? You like it?”

“It’s alright. I’m not great. But it’s... something. Y’know. Mine.”

Carl didn’t say anything for a second. Then: “You don’t have to be great. Just stick with it. Show up.”

Jasper blinked. “Was that actual encouragement?”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

Jasper was grinning when his phone lit up in his lap. He tapped to answer. “Hey, Martin. You’re on speaker.”

Carl groaned. “Why.”

Martin’s voice crackled through the speaker with all the commanding authority of a man who’d once managed a food truck and never lost the attitude.

“Hi, Jaz,” Martin said sweetly. Then, with theatrical frost: “Carl.”

Carl rolled his eyes skyward. “What.”

“I need you to stop at the shop.”

Carl made a sharp left turn just to express his disapproval. “We’re nearly home.”

“Don’t lie, it’s unbecoming.”

“What do you need that couldn’t be planned hours ago like a normal—”

“Tomato sauce,” Martin cut in. “Basil, not garlic. We’re out. And if you want your pasta to have any flavour other than resentment, I suggest you cooperate.”

Jasper was nearly wheezing with laughter. Carl opened his mouth.

“Also,” Martin continued over him, “Jasper said you’re in a good mood, which I can only assume means alien abduction, so I thought I’d take advantage. Pick up some coriander while you’re at it. Fresh, not dried. Don’t get the sad bunches. Check for wilting.”

Carl shot Jasper an exasperated look, half-pleading, half-accusatory. Jasper just shook his head, shoulders trembling with silent laughter. Utter betrayal.

“I don’t even know what coriander looks like.”

“Ask someone,” Martin snapped. “Preferably not another emotionally stunted detective.”

“I hate both of you,” Carl said flatly.

Jasper was practically crying now. “Please stop, I can’t breathe—”

Carl jabbed the button to hang up. “He’s not cooking tonight.”

“He is,” Jasper said through his laugh. “And you love it.”

Carl didn’t answer, but he did flick on the turn signal, heading toward the corner shop with all the solemnity of a man resigned to his fate.

Jasper stretched his legs out, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Hey, Carl?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. For picking me up.”

Carl didn’t look at him. 

“Next time,” he said, “you’re getting the bus.”

Jasper grinned. “Sure.”

Carl’s heart did something strange and unspeakable.

He kept his eyes on the road.

Chapter Text

Diary Entry: May 20th, 1997

There are moments—small, golden ones—where it feels like I’ve stepped out of my own life and into someone else’s novel.

Today was one of those.

He quoted poetry at me. Not in a performative way, but like it was part of his bloodstream. Keats, I think? I should’ve written it down. I was too busy trying not to let my heart leap out of my chest.

We talked about justice. He said it like it meant something. Not just a word in lectures or on banners, but a thing that breathes. That needs protecting.

I know I should be careful. But it’s hard to feel afraid of someone who sees you like a page worth reading.

When he looks at me, I feel... possible.

St Bernard's Crescent, 02:30 p.m.

The sky had the colour and temperament of wet newspaper. Grey, heavy, full of headlines no one wanted to read.

Carl parked on a quiet street lined with ornamental hedges and aggressively tasteful townhouses. Big windows. Bigger egos.

“Of course he lives here,” Carl muttered.

Akram didn’t comment. Just got out of the car, coat collar turned up against the wind, eyes already scanning the address.

Dr. Douglas Marr’s house was the kind of place you didn’t knock on—you requested a damn audience. Stone steps. Brass knocker. And a plaque on the fence that still read Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh, even though he hadn’t held the title in over a decade.

Carl rang the bell with unnecessary force.

The door opened to a man who looked like he’d bitten into something sour in 1984 and never recovered.

Marr was tall, lean, and aging like a haunted candle. He wore a sweater that probably cost more than Carl’s car and held himself like someone who’d been called a genius too many times by people who wanted tenure.

He didn’t offer to shake hands.

“DCI Morck,” Carl said, flashing his ID. “This is DI Salim. We’d like to ask you a few questions about a former student. Eliza Rane.”

Marr’s mouth barely moved. “I’ve already spoken to the police. Several times.”

“And now you’re going to speak to us,” Carl replied, walking past him into the house without waiting for an invite.

Akram followed, wiping his shoes on the mat, polite to a fault.

The inside was all oak and ego. Bookshelves curated within an inch of their lives. Every surface gleamed. A signed photo of Marr and some politician Carl no doubt hated sat near the fireplace.

Marr motioned to a sitting room. “I’ll give you ten minutes.”

Carl smiled, all teeth. “We’ll take twenty.”

They sat.

Marr didn’t.

Carl got right to it. “You taught Eliza Rane.”

“Briefly. She was in my ethics seminar.” His tone made it sound like she’d been a dog that wandered in off the street.

“Do you recall any personal interactions with her?”

Marr bristled. “No.”

Carl steepled his fingers. “That’s strange. Because we have a dozen emails between the two of you. Discussing late-night meetings. Thesis drafts. Coffee appointments.”

Marr’s face didn’t twitch—but his hand flexed just once at his side.

“Academic correspondence,” he said coolly. “She was ambitious. Clingy, even. Always wanted more feedback. It’s not unusual.”

“Right,” Carl drawled. “And when she publicly challenged you at a campus forum on gender justice two months before she disappeared—what was that? Also academic?”

“She was hysterical.”

Akram’s gaze sharpened at the same time Carl’s smile vanished.

Marr went on, voice gaining heat. “Eliza Rane made enemies. She was confrontational, accusatory. She didn’t respect the hierarchy. She thought herself... untouchable.”

Carl leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Or maybe she just didn’t like being harassed.”

Marr scoffed. “She made wild claims about a toxic culture in the department. About older men preying on students. She never named names, because there were no names.”

Carl opened his mouth, but Akram beat him to it—voice calm, eyes razor-sharp.

“She tried to switch thesis advisors, didn’t she?”

Marr hesitated. “That didn't have anything to do with me.”

Carl narrowed his eyes. “But you made it your business.”

“She was unstable,” Marr snapped. “That’s why she disappeared. Girls like her—too much fire, not enough direction—they burn out. Or run off.”

There was a long silence. Carl’s jaw clenched.

Then Marr added, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world: “And if she was involved with someone it wasn’t anyone on campus.”

Carl stood slowly. “That sounds like a guilty man trying to clear himself.”

Marr laughed—a brittle, bitter sound. “You think I did it? I was the obvious target back then, too. Everyone wanted a villain. And I didn’t fit the ‘mentor of the year’ profile.”

Carl stepped closer. “You still don’t.”

Marr folded his arms, voice sliding into something cooler. More calculated. “You know what Eliza was? A textbook case. I taught The Ethics of Power Imbalance for twenty years. I’ve seen it before. Young women who misread attention for approval. Who become obsessed with academic father figures. Who spiral when the illusion collapses.”

He looked at them both, lips thin with satisfaction. “It’s called transference dependency. Look it up. You might learn something.”

Akram didn’t blink. “Transference dependency isn’t classified behaviourally. It’s a psychoanalytic term, and it was debunked in the 2000s. You’re referencing Pete Walker’s misapplication from his 1994 lecture series, not the updated clinical literature.”

A silence bloomed—sharp and immediate.

Carl didn’t even try to hide his smug brow raise.

Marr’s jaw twitched.

Akram’s voice remained perfectly level. “She wasn’t unstable. You just didn’t like that she outgrew your approval.”

Marr’s gaze flicked to Carl, then back to Akram. His voice dropped, oily. “You’ve brought along a diversity hire. Very progressive.”

Carl’s fist tightened before his brain caught up. 

Akram reached out and set a steady hand on his back before he could do something drastic. The contact was light. Precise. A pressure point without force.

“We’ll be in touch,” Akram said calmly. “Do keep yourself available.”

They walked out without another word.

Back in the car, Carl slammed the door with more force than necessary.

Akram didn’t say anything. Just sat for a moment, staring at the rain on the windshield.

Then: “He’s hiding something.”

Carl nodded once. “Yeah.”

“But not everything.”

“No. Which means we’re still missing someone.”

Akram didn’t comment.

He just sat in the passenger seat, rainwater beading on his coat, his gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance. The silence between them wasn’t awkward. Just weighted. Like a rope drawn tight.

Carl finally exhaled. “I should’ve hit him.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Akram said mildly.

“I mean—not hard. Just enough to adjust his worldview.”

Akram huffed something that might’ve been a laugh if you knew what to listen for.

Carl gripped the steering wheel. “I hate men like that. The ones who weaponise vocabulary and call it virtue. Like quoting old papers makes them better than the rest of us.”

“He’s not better,” Akram said, still looking out at the street. “He’s just louder.”

They sat with that for a moment. The windows began to fog.

Carl tapped a finger against the steering wheel, jaw ticking. “You didn’t even blink.”

“At what?”

“The ‘diversity hire’ remark.”

Akram glanced over, lips quirked up. “You did enough blinking for both of us.”

Carl frowned. “I’m serious.”

“So am I.” Akram’s voice stayed level, but it had the tone of a man who’d walked through fire so often he’d stopped naming the flames. “If I reacted to every microaggression, I’d never get anything done. Men like him thrive on reaction. Silence is what they can’t parse.”

Carl didn’t answer right away. He was looking at Akram again—really looking. There was something behind his stillness today. Something worn at the edges.

Carl opened his mouth—maybe to say something he didn’t have the language for yet, but his phone buzzed in the cupholder.

He glanced down.

Jasper – SCHOOL.

That was all the screen said. But it was enough. His stomach dropped.

He swiped to answer. “Yes?”

A woman’s voice on the other end—clipped, professional, and exactly the kind that made Carl’s blood pressure rise.

“Mr. Morck? This is Louise Eldridge. Jasper's headteacher. I’m afraid there’s been an incident involving your son.”

Carl sat up straighter. “What kind of incident?”

“There was a physical altercation on school grounds. Jasper is alright—minor injuries—but we’d like you to come in.”

“Christ, is he—”

“He’s not in trouble,” she added quickly. “But we do need to speak with you.”

Carl’s hand clenched around the phone. “I’m on my way.”

He hung up.

Akram was already turning toward him. “What happened?”

“Jasper got into a fight.”

Akram blinked once. “Is he alright?”

“Apparently.”

“Then we should go,” Akram said.

Not you. We.

Carl didn’t argue. He just threw the car into gear and peeled away from the curb, rain streaking across the windshield like the sky had something to mourn.

The school smelled like old carpet and false optimism.

Carl stormed through the front doors with Akram right behind him, water still clinging to their coats like smoke. A polite-looking receptionist tried to intercept them. Carl ignored her.

“Head’s office,” he snapped. 

“Please,” Akram added politely.

The woman blinked, clearly debating whether to challenge the man who looked like he’d been carved out of pure scowl. She didn’t. She simply pointed to the stairs.

Upstairs, the hallway was bright and too warm. A diffuser hummed from the corner like it could cleanse the air of tension. It wasn’t working.

Carl barely knocked before pushing the door to Eldridge's office open.

Jasper was sitting stiffly in a chair near the window, arms folded tight across his chest. His school shirt was rumpled, his lower lip split and puffed, and a dark bruise bloomed beneath one eye. He didn’t look at Carl. Just kept his eyes fixed on the floor like he was waiting to be yelled at.

Carl’s entire spine locked.

Not in anger. In something sharper. 

He crossed the room in three steps.

“You alright?” he asked, voice low.

Jasper looked up at him, surprised. “...Been worse.”

Carl crouched, gently tilting his chin up to inspect the damage.

Akram lingered in the doorway, quiet but present. 

The headteacher, Louise Eldridge, mid-forties and perfectly ironed, cleared her throat from behind her desk. “Mr. Morck, thank you for coming. We’ve had... an incident.”

“Yeah,” Carl said, not looking away from Jasper. “I noticed.”

She hesitated. “Two students were harassing another pupil. Your son intervened. There was a fight.”

Carl finally stood, fixing her with a stare that could peel paint.

“And the other two?” he demanded.

“They’ve been suspended. Sent home.”

“And Jasper?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “He’ll need to go home for the rest of the day. We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to violence, regardless of intention.”

Carl’s jaw ticked. “So he steps in to stop someone else getting bullied, and he gets punished.”

“Not punished,” she said. “But consequences have to be consistent.”

Carl scoffed. “Consistent with what? Moral failure? What lesson are we teaching? ‘Don’t get involved’? ‘Look away’?”

Eldridge blinked. “Mr. Morck, it’s not that simple.”

Carl opened his mouth—probably to unleash the full Morck arsenal of verbal napalm—but Jasper cut in.

“It’s fine,” he muttered. “Just let it go.”

Carl turned to look at him.

Jasper stood slowly, gathering his bag with a wince. “Let’s just go. Please.”

Eldridge cleared her throat again. “For what it’s worth, we understand why he stepped in.”

Carl looked up, sharp.

“The girl involved gave a statement,” she continued. “She was very clear—Jasper defended her. He didn’t start the fight.”

She paused, choosing her next words carefully.

“He’s been... making progress. We’ve seen that. His coursework. His attitude. It hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

She met Carl’s eyes. “This isn’t about punishment. It’s about policy. But I want you both to know... we’re paying attention.”

Carl didn’t answer. Just gave a short nod.

Akram stepped forward then, calm and professional. “Is there anything further required of Mr. Morck or Jasper today?”

Eldridge shook her head. “No. We’ll be in touch if any follow-up is needed.”

Akram nodded and opened the door for them. 

As they left the office, Jasper walked stiffly between them, silent. But Carl didn’t miss the way he kept brushing at the corner of his eye with his sleeve. Not crying. Just—sore.

Halfway down the stairs, Carl muttered, “You hit them back?”

Jasper gave a one-shoulder shrug. “They were cornering her behind the bike sheds. Took her bag. One of them dumped out all her stuff. She kept asking them to stop, and they just laughed and trashed her shit.”

“You throw first?”

“I told them to back off,” Jasper said. “They didn’t. So I finished it.”

Carl’s mouth twitched. “Atta boy.”

Akram cleared his throat, but it sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

At the flat, Carl kicked open the front door with his foot. 

“In. Shoes off. Bleed on the mat and you're cleaning it up.”

Jasper made a noise halfway between a grunt and a groan as he wandered inside, tossing his bag somewhere vaguely near the coat rack. Akram followed, taking in the space with the polite curiosity of someone trying not to stare.

The flat was warm, cluttered, lived-in—papers on the sideboard, mail on the kitchen table, a stack of old takeaway containers that Carl swore he’d clean up eventually. Probably. Maybe.

“It’s tidier than I expected,” Akram said, shrugging off his coat.

Carl gave him a dry look. “What, you expected a murder dungeon?”

Akram didn’t miss a beat. “No. Just fewer tea towels.”

Jasper snorted and flopped onto the sofa, wincing as he touched his lip. Carl disappeared into the hallway, rummaging in the bathroom cabinet with muttered curses and clattering plastic. He returned with the first aid kit under one arm and a half-empty packet of ibuprofen in the other.

“Sit up,” he barked.

“I am sitting,” Jasper said, squinting up at him. “Technically.”

Carl ignored him, setting the kit down with a thud. He opened it and then inspected Jasper’s face like a mechanic about to poke at a dented bumper.

“Split lip’s shallow. Bruise’ll be a bastard, but your eye’s not swelling up more. Lucky.”

Jasper flinched as Carl dabbed antiseptic along the edge of the cut.

“Stop wriggling.”

“You’re not exactly gentle.”

“I’m not exactly a nurse.”

Akram sank into the armchair in the corner, watching the scene unfold with quiet amusement. The low lamp cast warm gold across the room, and for a moment, it felt like something approaching peace.

“You throw a decent punch?” Carl asked, lifting Jasper’s hand to check his knuckles.

Jasper shrugged. “Not really.”

Carl grunted. “Bone’s fine. Barely any swelling.”

Akram leaned forward slightly, studying the bruising. “You hit with your first two knuckles. That’s good technique.”

Jasper perked up. “I’ve been doing Tai Chi.”

Carl leaned back with a grimace. “What.”

“Tai Chi,” Jasper repeated, defiant now. “Martin’s really good at it, you know.”

Carl blinked.

“A lot of martial arts training incorporates Tai Chi for control and form,” Akram said mildly.

Carl turned to him like he’d been betrayed. “You’re siding with him?”

Akram gestured to Jasper’s bruises. “The evidence speaks for itself.”

Carl looked back at Jasper, narrowing his eyes. “You’re still doing Tai Chi and didn’t tell me?”

“You’d have made fun of me,” Jasper grumbled.

“I’m making fun of you now.”

“Exactly.”

Carl opened his mouth, then closed it again. “...Fine. But if you start doing yoga, I’m burning your trainers.”

Jasper grinned. “You can try.”

Akram sat back, smile ghosting at the edges of his mouth. The domestic chaos clearly didn’t bother him—in fact, he looked like he might be enjoying it.

Carl wrapped Jasper’s knuckles in gauze and reached for the painkillers. “Two of these.”

Jasper obeyed, still beaming, and Carl caught Akram’s eye across the room.

Something passed between them. Unspoken. Something Carl didn’t have a name for yet. But it settled there like a secret folded into the air.

Carl was halfway through pretending not to care when the front door banged open again.

He tensed on instinct—some leftover detective reflex—but relaxed the second Martin’s voice came careening in ahead of him.

“I swear to God, if we don’t have turmeric in this house, I’m declaring war.”

Jasper perked up immediately. “Martin’s home.”

“No shit,” Carl muttered.

Martin breezed into the living room like a man on a mission: two bulging grocery bags in hand, glasses fogged from the rain, cheeks pink from wind.

Then he froze. Spotted Jasper’s face.

“What—”

“It’s fine,” Jasper said quickly. “It looks worse than it is.”

Martin set the bags down with a thunk. “Carl, what the hell—”

“I didn’t punch him!” Carl hissed, affronted. “What the fuck—”

“You probably inspired it!”

“He used Tai Chi,” Carl snapped defensively. “So this is your fault!”

Martin blinked. “He what?”

Akram, still seated in the armchair with perfect posture, smiled faintly. “It worked. Impressive technique, actually.”

Martin turned, clocking the stranger in the room for the first time. “Oh. Sorry. Didn’t realise Carl had friends.”

Carl made a strangled noise. “He’s not—”

“Akram Salim,” Akram said, rising to his feet and offering a hand.

Martin shook it warmly. “Martin Fleming. I do most of the parenting around here.”

“Fuck off and die,” Carl muttered.

Martin ignored him. “You’re staying for dinner, I hope.”

Akram smiled, polite as ever. “Thank you, but I should head home. My daughters will be waiting. If I don’t feed them soon, they’ll stage a coup.”

Martin lit up. “Daughters? How many?”

“Two.”

“Well then, next time—bring them. Jasper can be their duelling partner.”

Carl looked physically ill.

Martin clapped Akram on the arm like they’d known each other twenty years and this was his fucking flat. “You’re always welcome here.”

Akram nodded once with a smile, then looked at Carl. “I should get going.”

Carl jerked his head toward the door. “I’ll walk you out.”

The hallway was quiet except for the rain.

Carl hovered awkwardly by the door, one hand on the frame, like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

“Thanks,” he said finally. “For coming to the school.”

“You didn’t have to walk me out just to say that,” Akram said, amused.

Carl shrugged. “Didn’t have to punch Marr either. But I wanted to.”

Akram’s smile tugged just a little wider. “Well. Good thing you didn’t.”

Akram stepped forward—just close enough that Carl shifted back half a step out of instinct.

Then he reached past him, one hand bracing lightly on the door handle just beside Carl’s arm.

Carl didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched the line of Akram’s shoulder, felt the heat of proximity like static under his skin.

“See you tomorrow,” Akram said, low and even, opening the door with a quiet click.

He didn’t wait for a reply. Just walked into the dark without a glance back.

Carl stood there for a second longer than necessary before shutting the door like it had asked him a question he didn’t know how to answer.

“Methinks the gentleman doth blush too much.”

He turned sharply. Jasper and Martin were both half-hidden around the hallway corner, peeking like stagehands in a school play.

“I swear to Christ—”

Martin raised a finger. “Don’t threaten me unless you’re prepared to cook.”

Carl stormed past them. “I hope you both choke on the turmeric.”

“O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!” Jasper recited in a terrible dramatic accent, following him down the corridor.

“I swear, one more sonnet and I’m changing the locks.”

Chapter Text

Diary Entry: September 19th, 1997

He was different today.

Not unkind. Just... colder.

He corrected me in front of the seminar group—sharp, efficient, like trimming a thread. And I know I was wrong about the source, but I still felt—small. Like a clever pet that got too loud.

Afterward, he told me I needed to “temper my enthusiasm.” That I come across as a little too eager. That it makes people take me less seriously.

I laughed. I always laugh when I feel like crying.

He said he was trying to help. Maybe he is. Maybe I’m just tired.

I haven’t told Mhairi or Callum. I don’t know how to explain this without sounding like I’ve made a mistake.

University of Edinburgh, 10:05 a.m.

Carl hated universities.

Not because he was anti-intellectual—he read more than most of the academics currently hiding behind oak doors and polished egos—but because of what the places represented: too many people pretending to know things and not enough people admitting what they didn’t.

The courtyard was buzzing with that particular brand of student energy: half boredom, half rebellion, all caffeine. Flyers littered the benches. A portable PA system buzzed with feedback.

And there, standing on a cracked stone planter like he was delivering the Sermon on the Mount, was Benji Crosbie.

“—and if we pretend that justice can come from institutions built on silence, then we are part of the silence!”

He wore a long brown trench coat. Scuffed leather boots. A satchel that looked older than he was. He gestured with it when he spoke, like a lawyer trying to win a jury with pure charisma.

Carl leaned slightly toward Akram. “You ever seen someone take themselves this seriously?”

Akram’s gaze didn’t waver. “Other than you?”

Carl shot him a dry look.

Benji hopped down as a smattering of applause followed. He didn’t acknowledge it. Just shouldered the satchel like he was too burdened by truth to care.

Carl approached, flashing his badge. “Benji Crosbie?”

Benji turned, studied them both. His eyes were sharp. Too sharp for someone playing at being a revolutionary.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Do I know you?”

“DCI Morck. DI Salim.” Carl held the badge up like it was a shield. “We’re looking into the Eliza Rane case. You knew her.”

Benji’s face shifted. Not grief. Something else. Ownership, maybe.

“She was light,” he said. “And the world tried to snuff her out.”

Akram nodded politely. “You were close?”

“She confided in me,” Benji said. “I understood her. I was the only one who did.”

Carl tilted his head. “She mention that?”

Benji blinked, almost offended. “She didn’t need to. You don’t always need words to recognise connection.”

Carl didn’t roll his eyes. But it was a near thing. “Right. What do you remember about her final weeks?”

Benji hesitated. “She was scared. That’s what no one ever said. Everyone talks about her brilliance. Her beauty. But she was terrified and no one listened.”

Akram’s voice was steady. “Terrified of what?”

“Someone at the university,” Benji said, the duh implied. “Someone powerful. She never said who. But she stopped walking home alone. She started sitting near doors.”

Carl watched him closely. “Did she ever mention a man in a trench coat? Leather bag?”

Benji glanced down at his own coat, then laughed—too loud. “You think I was the one?”

Carl didn’t answer.

“She was my friend,” Benji snapped. “That was all. We had long talks. I lent her books. We marched together.”

Akram’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You told Dr. Cleugh she called you her safe place.”

Benji’s jaw worked. “She did.”

“Or maybe,” Carl said, “that’s what you wanted her to say.”

Benji bristled. “She was used by this place. The professors. The structures. They wanted her brain but not her soul.”

“And you wanted her soul, did you?” Carl asked dryly. “How positively demonic of you.”

Silence.

Benji took a breath. Straightened his satchel. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

Carl nodded. “Funny. That’s what guilty people say when they’re running out of answers.”

Benji stepped closer—not enough to be a threat, but enough to prove a point. His voice dropped.

“If you want to question me again,” he said, “I suggest you do it through my lawyer. Otherwise, we’re done here.”

Carl’s expression didn’t flicker. “You practice that line in the mirror?”

Benji’s eyes were cold. “No. I just meet a lot of men who don’t like being told they’re wrong.”

Akram gently touched Carl’s elbow. “We should go.”

Carl gave Benji a long, flat look—then turned, coat catching the wind.

As they walked across the courtyard, Carl muttered, “If I had to rank suspects by level of performative poetry, he’d be top of the list.”

Akram’s mouth twitched. “You’re just annoyed he used the word ‘soul’ in a sentence without irony.”

Carl snorted. “I’m annoyed he’s wasting trench coat potential on bad slam poetry.”

They rounded the stone path toward the admin building—and nearly collided with a man holding a paper cup and a stack of worn books.

“Ah—pardon me,” the man said, steadying the books with one hand as he stepped back. “Didn’t see you coming.”

Carl automatically shifted sideways, catching details as if on instinct: tweed coat. Wire-rimmed glasses. Paper cup from the café tucked in the library courtyard. One grey curl flattened against his temple by the rain. Academic. Calm.

The man’s eyes flicked—just briefly—to the police lanyards hanging from their necks.

“You’re with the police?” he asked, tone light.

“We are,” Akram said, already professional. “DI Salim. DCI Morck.”

The man adjusted his grip on the books and extended a hand. “Dr. Alistair Quinn. I met two of your colleagues the other day—they were asking about Eliza Rane.”

Carl’s brain paused for half a beat.
Of course, he thought. It’s him.

“Bit of a campus celebrity, aren’t you?” Carl said, his voice dry.

“Only among those of us who still believe in first editions,” Quinn said with a faint smile. “If you need to follow up on anything, I’m usually in my office around this time. Second floor, end of the hall. You’re welcome anytime.”

Carl tilted his head. “Why not right now, then?”

A brief flicker passed behind Quinn’s eyes—surprise, maybe. Or calculation.

Then the smile returned. “Of course.”

He shifted his grip on the stack of books and gestured toward the building. “This way.”

Carl had expected more from Quinn’s office. More arrogance. More ego.

Instead, it was warm. Bookshelves lined the walls in well-thumbed symmetry. A half-empty cafetière sat beside a stack of marked papers. A jazz record hummed from a player in the corner—Miles Davis, maybe. Or someone trying to be.

No awards. Just too many framed family pictures and a quiet desk and the man behind it, smiling like he had all the time in the world.

“Please, sit,” Quinn offered, gesturing to the two chairs across from him. 

Carl sat down slowly, watching him. Akram settled beside him, calm and quiet. 

Quinn clasped his hands on the desk. “So. Eliza Rane.”

Carl raised an eyebrow. “She was one of yours?”

“She was one of ours,” Quinn corrected. “Brilliant. Unafraid. In a faculty full of career-minded box-checkers, Eliza wanted to change things.”

“She was twenty,” Carl said. “That’s what twenty-year-olds do. Try to set the world on fire.”

Quinn smiled, a little sad. “Yes. But she had the spark to do it.”

Carl said nothing, letting silence stretch. Akram filled it.

“She challenged people?”

“Constantly,” Quinn said. “She pushed her peers. Her tutors. Me. I admired it. She didn’t want permission to be exceptional—she just was.”

Carl tilted his head. “You sound like someone who knew her well.”

“I was her academic supervisor for her first year,” Quinn said, with a hint of pride. “She brought me her thesis drafts. Her questions. Her restlessness. She always planned ahead. I tried to be an anchor where I could.”

Akram’s tone was light. “Do you remember when you last saw her?”

Quinn’s brows furrowed. “Two days before she disappeared, I think. She’d skipped two meetings, which wasn’t like her. I sent her an email, and she replied late at night. Apologised. Said she’d been unwell.”

Carl frowned. “We’ve seen her emails. That one wasn’t in the case file.”

Quinn shrugged. “She may have deleted it. I'm happy to track it down in my inbox. My email hasn't changed in God knows how long.”

Carl filed that away. 

Akram glanced toward a corkboard above the desk. Pinned to it were quotes. Printed and underlined. One of them caught Carl’s eye.

‘It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.’ — J. Krishnamurti

He took that in. Then asked, “Were you aware Eliza asked to change thesis advisors?”

Quinn nodded. “Yes. That came through Dr. Cleugh. She didn’t tell me why.”

“Would you have approved it, had that supervisor been you?”

“I would have supported her in whatever choice made her feel safe,” Quinn said. “But I didn’t get the chance.”

Carl studied him carefully. “So she never mentioned anyone bothering her? Any relationship she was in?”

“No,” Quinn said smoothly. “She wasn’t the kind to mix personal and academic lines. If she had a partner, she kept it to herself. Though I did always worry about Crosbie. Far too intense. Obsessed, if I’m being honest.”

“And Dr. Marr?” Akram asked. “They clashed?”

Quinn gave a tired smile. “Marr clashed with everyone. He didn’t agree with women who didn’t defer to him.”

“And you?” Carl asked. “Did she defer to you?”

“No,” Quinn said. “And I respected her more for it.”

Carl’s eyes didn’t waver. “Where were you the night she went missing?”

There was no flicker of surprise. Quinn answered like he’d been waiting for the question.

“With my wife,” he said. “We were attending a fundraising gala for the Edinburgh Literacy Trust. A black-tie thing. Dreadfully dull. But well-attended—photos, tickets, seating charts. You’re welcome to check.”

Carl logged every word, fighting the sudden and wild urge to toss his coffee in Quinn’s serene face.

“Didn’t leave early?” he asked, casually.

Quinn smiled. “Stayed to the bitter end. I gave a small speech. Even got roped into the raffle. Won a bottle of whiskey I didn’t need.”

Akram didn’t react, but Carl felt the faintest shift in the air beside him. Curiosity. Something had piqued Akram’s interest. Carl wanted to roll his eyes. Man was like a goddamn bloodhound sometimes. 

Quinn leaned back in his chair, folding his arms lightly. “Is her case officially reopened?”

“Yes,” Akram said. “We’re reviewing all known associations. Trying to build a clearer picture.”

Quinn nodded. “I kept a copy of her early thesis proposal drafts. If it helps.”

He stood and crossed to a filing cabinet. Unlocked it. Retrieved a slim folder. Passed it across.

Carl opened it. On the title page: 

‘Reimagining Justice: Gender, Class, and Power in the Scottish Legal System’ – Eliza Rane, 1996

Tidy handwriting. Neat margins. Still brilliant. Still alive on the page.

“She once told me,” Quinn said softly, “that she wanted justice to feel like belonging. Not just punishment.”

Carl looked up sharply. That line—belonging, not punishment—had been in her diary. A private thought. Unpublished.

Quinn smiled, oblivious. “She said that to me during a tutorial once. Stuck with me all this time.”

Carl held his gaze for a moment longer than was polite. “She say anything else that stuck with you?”

Quinn tapped a finger thoughtfully on the side of the desk. “Too many things to count. She had a way of seeing systems from the outside in. Not just what they were, but what they made people become.”

He paused, then added, “That kind of mind... it doesn’t come around often.”

Carl didn’t blink. Just closed the file. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Quinn.”

“Please,” Quinn said, walking them to the door. “If there’s anything else I can do—anything at all—you’ll let me know?”

“We will,” Akram said politely.

Quinn smiled again. Warm. “Good. I’ve waited a long time for someone to care again.”

Carl walked away without responding.

Akram glanced at him. “Well?”

Carl didn’t answer. Didn’t need to. Because something was whispering at the back of his mind.

A phrase. A feeling. Something that didn’t fit.

They walked side by side in silence, their footsteps echoing against the wet stone path. The drizzle had picked up again—sharp and steady. Like the weather had given up on pretending it wasn’t a miserable bastard.

Neither of them said anything until they’d reached the car and Carl clicked the fob to unlock it. The lights flashed. He didn’t open the door.

Akram leaned against the passenger side. “That was a clean alibi.”

“Too clean,” Carl muttered. “Raffle tickets and a goddamn whiskey bottle.”

Akram tilted his head. “You don’t believe him?”

“I believe he knows how to look believable.” Carl dragged a hand through his rain-damp hair. “Benji’s a creep with a trench coat fetish. Marr’s a misogynist who couldn’t lie straight in a coffin. And Cleugh’s more bitter than black coffee—but none of them feel right.”

“They all had motive,” Akram said. “But not opportunity.”

Carl sighed. “She vanished without a trace. Twenty-eight years ago. No body. No crime scene. Just a diary in a lockbox and a brother rotting in a cell.”

Akram sighed through his nose, brows drawn. “It doesn’t add up.”

They slid into the car. 

Carl’s phone buzzed. He pulled it from his coat and answered without checking.

“Yeah?”

“Speaker,” Rose said immediately.

Carl hit the button and tossed the phone on the dashboard.

“We’ve gone through all of it,” she said. “Crosbie had an alibi—he was in Glasgow, giving a poetry reading. There’s footage. Marr was at a conference, his wife confirmed it and so did his itinerary.”

“Someone married him?” Carl said, disgusted. 

“Cleugh?” Akram asked, before the conversation could derail.

“On medical leave. Recovering from knee surgery. Inpatient rehab. Signed in, signed out. Covered.”

Carl gritted his teeth.

“I even double-checked the gala,” Rose continued. “Quinn’s wife posted photos. He’s in all of them. Speech recorded. Guests confirmed.”

Silence.

Then Hardy’s voice filtered in faintly through Rose’s end. “So what we’re saying is: everyone’s suspicious, but no one could’ve done it.”

“We came to the same conclusion.” Akram said.

Carl stared out at the rain-slicked quad. It was nearly empty. Just puddles and old brick. One student sprinted past under a newspaper, soaked anyway.

“No,” he muttered. “Someone did it. Someone always does.”

He reached over, ended the call. Tossed the phone into the cupholder like it had insulted him.

Akram waited a beat. “You think we’re missing something.”

Carl nodded slowly. “I think we’re missing everything.”

He finally slammed the door shut.

The rain kept falling.

Darkness creeping in.

And somewhere—buried under twenty-eight years of silence—Eliza Rane was still waiting to be found.

Chapter Text

Diary Entry: August 7th, 1997

I think he knows I’m writing this.

The window was open when I left. I remember—because I sat beside it for hours, staring out at the rain, trying to decide if I had the courage to say something. To anyone.
When I came back, it was closed.

Nothing was missing. Nothing was broken. But it felt wrong.
My notebooks weren’t stacked the way I left them. My scarf wasn’t on the chair—it was folded on the bed.

I told myself maybe Mhairi had come in. Maybe she was tidying. But I asked her, and she said no.

Maybe I am paranoid.

I keep remembering how I used to feel after talking to him—lit up, full of ideas.

Now I just feel... hollow. 

Like I got the answer wrong and don’t know why.

Department Q, 07:30 p.m.

The rain hadn’t stopped.

It hammered the station roof like it was trying to dig its way through, a steady percussion above their little basement purgatory. The overhead lights buzzed. The heating clicked like it was dying. Somewhere in the back corner, Rose had a Spotify playlist on too low for Carl to make out, but he’d been hearing the same cello-heavy instrumental for the past fifteen minutes and it was making him feel vaguely haunted.

He sat at his desk, half-heartedly pretending to reorganise the cork board in his mind. The Eliza Rane case stared back at him: photos, scribbled notes, string that Rose had added like she was assembling a conspiracy theory.

Akram leaned one hip against the edge of Carl’s desk, arms crossed, eyes scanning the board. Too close. Not close enough. Carl tried not to look at him.

“You’re brooding,” Akram said.

“I’m thinking,” Carl corrected.

“Same thing, in your case.”

Carl glanced up at him. “I’d throw something at you, but I don’t have the energy.”

A light knock rattled the basement wall, drawing the attention of the room. The elevator descending. 

Carl frowned. “We expecting ghosts now?”

Akram was already on his feet, no reply, just that calm, purposeful stride. The elevator doors opened to reveal a girl—thirteen, maybe younger—with sharp, observant eyes and hair tucked neatly beneath a slate-grey headscarf. She wore a rain-spotted coat over her school uniform and carried two brown paper bags like they weighed nothing, even though the scent pouring from them smelled like heaven itself had been slow-cooked in cumin.

He blinked. “And you are?”

The girl stepped inside with the confidence of someone who knew she was bringing a gift no one could refuse.

“I’m Yasmin,” she said, matter-of-factly. “Baba’s daughter. And the superior cook in our house.”

Akram shot her a look that was all dry amusement. “Your sister made the lamb.”

“I plated it,” Yasmin said with a little jut of her chin.

Carl stared. 

Akram smiled, reaching to take the bags. “Did you remember your piano book this time?”

Yasmin rolled her eyes with theatrical exasperation. “Yes, Baba. It’s in my bag. Along with the snack pack, the water bottle, and the emergency cereal bar you snuck in.”

Carl turned to Akram. “You carry emergency cereal bars?”

“For her. She forgets to eat when she’s nervous before recitals.”

Yasmin gave Carl a knowing glance. “He pretends he’s not a softy, but he is.”

Carl snorted. “You poor kid.”

Yasmin smiled sweetly. “You’re Carl, right? Baba said you don’t know what real coffee tastes like.”

Carl shot Akram a deadpan look. “Seriously?”

Akram shrugged, utterly unrepentant.

At the back of the room, Rose perked up. “Hi, Yasmin!”

Yasmin lit up. “Hi, Rose!”

Hardy, still fiddling with the speaker cable like it had insulted his ancestors, lifted a hand. “Evening, champ.”

Carl opened his mouth. Closed it again. Everyone apparently knew Akram’s daughter already. Even Hardy. How the hell had that happened? When the hell had that happened?

She’d been here all of two minutes and she’d greeted them like they were old friends.

Carl hadn’t even seen pictures of Akram’s kids yet. And now here was this pint-sized version of him, confidently roasting Carl in his own basement like she owned the lease.

“Hi, James,” Yasmin said pleasantly. Then, to Carl, “I brought extra fatayer. Don’t spill. Baba says you have that energy.”

Carl folded his arms. “What energy, exactly?”

“You’ll figure it out,” Yasmin said mysteriously, turning toward the stairs. “I’ve got to run—Mr. Lane hates late arrivals and sharp nails.”

Akram leaned down and kissed the top of her head before she could duck away. “Text when you get there.”

Yasmin groaned but smiled anyway. “Yes, yes, I’ll text.”

She paused at the top of the stairs. “Nice to meet you, Carl. Enjoy the coffee. Try not to cry.”

Then she was gone—rain and cold trailing in her wake like the tail end of a song.

Carl stared at the elevator doors, then at Akram.

“I see the snark is hereditary,” he muttered.

Akram just smiled.

Dinner was soon spread across the old evidence table—Yasmin’s bags had yielded a feast: neatly stacked fatayer, foil trays of lamb in fragrant sauce, warm lentil rice, hummus, and flatbread still soft and steaming. It smelled incredible. Too incredible for a basement crime unit with questionable heating.

Hardy loaded his plate with flaky pastry triangles. “What’s this one called again?”

“Fatayer,” Akram said patiently. “Spinach and cheese.”

“I need about a hundred more of these,” Hardy said, already half-way through devouring his third one.

Carl hovered near the edge, arms folded, as Akram set a battered kettle on a portable hotplate and rolled up his sleeves.

Carl wasn’t prepared.

Akram’s forearms were all muscle and quiet precision, hands moving with that same calm confidence he had when ruthlessly disarming a suspect or navigating a chaotic case file. He measured out cardamom like it was an ancient ritual, not a Tuesday night in a concrete dungeon.

Carl averted his gaze and squinted at the ceiling. Absolutely not.

“You’re making a religious experience out of coffee,” he muttered.

Akram didn’t glance up. “You make a religious experience out of complaining. Everyone has their rituals.”

Carl opened his mouth for a retort—but caught movement in the corner of his eye.

Hardy, seated across the table with a paper napkin tucked into his collar like a bib, was watching him. Not casually. Not idly. Intentionally.

Carl narrowed his eyes.

Hardy raised one brow. Just the one. It was the look that said: You’ve got it bad, mate.

Carl glared harder.

Hardy took a bite of lamb like he hadn’t just detonated an entire unspoken conversation in five seconds flat.

Carl looked away, toward the opposite wall. “Unbelievable.”

“What is?” Akram asked, still focused on the brewing.

“This place.” Carl deadpanned. “Smells like a five-star restaurant. And all I’ve got is trauma and a budget folder.”

Rose dropped into her seat with a grin. “Welcome to Department Q.”

Akram poured tiny cups of coffee—black as night, served in porcelain that looked like it belonged in a museum. He slid one across the table.

Carl sipped. Froze. Then blinked like he’d just been enlightened.

“Oh my God,” Rose said gleefully. “He likes it.”

Carl glared at her. “Don’t look at me like I’ve joined a cult.”

“You’ve had one sip,” Hardy said, “and you're already halfway to conversion.”

Akram leaned against Carl’s desk again, watching all of them with that quiet, unreadable fondness Carl was starting to learn meant he was actually enjoying himself. 

Rose plucked a flatbread from the container and pointed it at Hardy. “You know what?”

“No,” Carl drawled, “but I'm sure you're gonna tell us.”

Rose ignored him. “Nothing will ever beat that case with the missing wedding dress.”

Hardy’s eyes lit up. “Oh Christ, yes—the one we found in the deep freeze behind the community theatre.”

Akram raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t that the one with the taxidermied swan?”

“Swans,” Rose corrected. “Plural.”

Carl looked pained. “Can we not relive our greatest hits?”

“You know,” Hardy said, turning to Rose, “you’re getting better at interrogation. Still too soft on the nuns, though.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “It was one nun and she had arthritis.”

“She was smuggling six frozen geese under her habit, Rose.”

Carl groaned, long-suffering. “You’re both banned from casework. Immediately.”

Akram just sipped his coffee like he hadn’t been an enabler in half of those situations.

Carl looked over just in time to see him turn to watch the board again, that thoughtful crease back between his brows.

He leaned over. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“That someone’s lying,” Akram said. “They just haven’t slipped yet.”

Carl tilted his head. “You always this patient?”

Akram glanced at him. “You always this stubborn?”

Carl almost smiled. Almost. Instead, he pushed the box of fatayer toward him wordlessly.

Akram took one without breaking eye contact. “Thank you.”

Carl grunted. 

“You’re such a caveman,” Rose muttered, side-eyeing him.

“Careful,” Carl said mildly. “That’s Detective Caveman to you.”

Hardy snorted. “Cavemen solve cold cases now, do they?”

“Only the classy ones,” Carl replied, already reaching for another flatbread.

For a few quiet moments, the team tucked into the food. Somehow Hardy managed to make eating look mildly professional, though Carl suspected the man was trying to hide how much he loved the lamb. Akram, ever benevolent, made sure everyone had enough before settling down with his own plate.

Then Rose leaned back in her chair, balancing her coffee in one hand. “So. Who’s top of the list for you?”

Hardy didn’t hesitate. “Marr. He’s arrogant, bitter, and clearly hates women who don’t tolerate his bullshit.”

“Crosbie,” Rose said, wrinkling her nose. “I know we’ve got that footage of his poetry event, but something about him sets my teeth on edge. I don’t trust anyone who romanticises trauma for the sake of a punchline.”

Carl didn’t answer at first. He tapped the corner of the file in front of him, eyes drifting to the cork board. Eliza’s handwriting stared back at him from a photocopied diary page—beautiful loops, sharp thoughts. That same turn of phrase again.

He sat forward slightly. “Quinn.”

Rose blinked. “Seriously?”

Hardy’s brow creased. “Why?”

Carl drummed his fingers once. “The way he speaks. The way she wrote. There’s overlap. Phrasing. Rhythm.”

Hardy narrowed his eyes. “You think he groomed her into thinking like him?”

“I think,” Carl said slowly, “whoever she was writing about... got inside her head. And stayed there.”

The team went quiet.

Akram finally said, “But he’s got the most airtight alibi.”

“Maybe,” Carl allowed. “Or maybe he just planned it better than the rest.”

“Bit harsh for a guy who offered us his filing cabinet,” Rose murmured.

Carl gave her a flat look. “Bundy offered people rides.”

Akram leaned back in his chair, considering. “If he did do it, he’s not just smart—he’s meticulous. Which means the mistake won’t be in what he said. It’ll be in what he didn’t.”

Carl nodded. “We need to go back through the diary again. Slowly. See what she’s not saying.”

Hardy raised his cup in a toast. “To paranoia and coffee.”

Akram deadpanned, “Coffee is best paired with existential dread.”

Carl sat back in his chair, watching the board, his gaze snagging again on that sketch of the reservoir. The shadowy figure. The briefcase.

Hardy sipped his coffee, following Carl’s line of site, brows furrowed. “What if it wasn’t someone from the university?”

Carl looked up, unimpressed. “You think a stranger wandered into her lecture hall, charmed her into secrecy, emotionally dismantled her, then murdered her and left no trace?”

Hardy shrugged. “Weirder things have happened.”

“Not better things,” Carl muttered. “She didn’t have a nightlife. No job. No known boyfriend. No dodgy clubs, no wild nights. According to Mhairi, she went to class, came home, studied, and visited the reservoir. That’s it.”

“She mentioned the library,” Rose added. “But it was run by a seventy-year-old woman who knits during lunch breaks and once made bookmarks for the entire student body.”

Hardy sighed. “Okay. So not her.”

Carl leaned back in his chair, pulled the worn leather diary from atop the stack of files, and opened to a dog-eared page. 

“Listen to this,” he said, scanning for the passage he’d half-remembered.

“He speaks like the air is his to ration. Slow, precise, always with intent. He says my ideas matter. That they’re bold, dangerous, but necessary. That I’m necessary. Sometimes I feel like I vanish in his presence—but maybe that’s what love is. Dissolving, willingly.”

No one spoke.

Carl flipped the page. Another line caught his eye.

“He hates when I doubt myself. Says self-doubt is a kind of disobedience. Says if I want to be taken seriously, I have to think like him.”

He looked up slowly. “Tell me that doesn’t sound like a man who wants to leave fingerprints without touching a thing.”

Akram’s expression had gone unreadable. 

“The phrasing,” he said. “It’s not just poetic. It’s rehearsed. As if she’s quoting him.”

Rose sat forward slightly. “You think he taught her how to think? How to phrase her own inner voice?”

Carl didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Hardy stared at the cork board, lips pressed thin. “If it is Quinn… then we’re not just looking for a killer. We’re looking for someone who taught her how to protect him.”

Carl closed the diary. 

Akram’s voice cut through the silence. “Then we start listening for his voice. In her words.”

Carl gave a single nod. “Exactly.”

The silence thickened—everybody lost in their own version of the same thought.

Rose rubbed the back of her neck. “So where does that leave us? Quinn the saint. Marr the creep. Crosbie the unstable poet. Cleugh the bitter academic. And no fingerprints on anything.”

Hardy stood, stretching his leg with a soft wince. “It leaves us with four suspects and a ghost.”

Carl grunted. “Classic. She vanishes, and now everyone else gets to define her.”

Akram’s gaze flicked to the corkboard, his voice low. “Then we’ll redefine her.”

Hardy clapped his hands once, too loud in the hush. “Alright. I’ll chase down any reference Quinn ever made to student mentorship. Maybe he’s slipped up in interviews.”

Rose tapped her tablet, already pulling up the university archive. “I’ll cross-reference Eliza’s coursework with anyone who had access to her thesis drafts. If someone helped shape her voice, it might show up in the margins.”

Hardy grabbed his coat off the back of his chair. “Try not to let the ghosts talk you into anything while we’re gone.”

Carl didn’t look up. “Ghosts don’t scare me. People do.”

Hardy rolled his eyes, already heading up the stairs. “That’s because ghosts don’t file HR complaints.”

Rose laughed softly as she followed him out, boots echoing up the concrete.

The basement settled again.

Carl didn’t move. Just tapped the diary once against the edge of the desk before setting it aside.

Akram crossed to the board, arms folded, studying the sketch of Eliza by the reservoir.

“She drew him faceless,” he murmured. “But he’s in everything. The writing. The silences.”

Carl got up, slowly, and came to stand beside him. Their shoulders almost touched.

“She never got a chance to tell us,” Carl said. “She tried. You can see it—line after line. Like she was building the nerve to say it out loud. And then... nothing.”

Akram glanced at him. “Are you always poetic like this after hours, or is this just for me?”

Carl shot him a sidelong look. “You’re the one who brought real coffee. It’s gone to my head.”

Akram smiled faintly, then pointed to a pinned photo of the reservoir path. “If he wanted her silence, why let the diary survive?”

“Maybe he thought the water would do the job.” Carl leaned in, the air between them taut with thought. “Or maybe he wanted a legacy. Something only someone like him would recognise.”

Akram turned to him fully now, and the space between them grew smaller without shrinking.

“You think he’s proud of what he did.”

Carl met his eyes. “I don’t know.”

A beat.

Then Akram’s voice dropped, soft but certain. “We won’t let him decide her story.”

Carl didn’t answer. Just nodded once—then stepped back to his desk, rubbing his jaw absently.

Akram didn’t say anything more. He just wandered over to Carl’s desk, leaning on the edge of it.

He reached for the diary, flipping through it idly. Calm, comfortable. Close.

Too close.

Carl tried to focus on the notes he’d scrawled in the margins of the diary scans. But his brain refused to play along.

Akram tapped the edge of the page with a thoughtful finger. “The phrasing in that last entry,” he said quietly. “About dissolving. That’s not just romantic. It’s ideological.”

Carl glanced up. “Go on.”

“She was studying power dynamics,” Akram said. “Systems of control. Legal manipulation. She was trying to put language to something she was actively experiencing—but instead of naming it, she folded it into metaphor.”

Carl frowned. “You think she was hiding in the poetry.”

“No,” Akram said. “I think she was documenting. She just didn’t know she was the subject.”

Carl didn’t answer. Not right away. Because that was exactly what he’d been circling for days—but hadn’t gotten around to saying aloud.

Akram just flipped to the next page and skimmed quietly, posture relaxed, completely at ease as he leaned in slightly. Close enough that his elbow brushed Carl’s shoulder. The scent of cardamom and coffee lingered faintly.

Carl grunted and looked away. His mouth was dry.

“You ever stop?” he muttered.

Akram glanced at him, amused. “Stop what?”

Carl gestured vaguely. “Being like… that.”

Akram blinked. “Organised?”

“Competent.”

A soft laugh. “I thought you liked competent.”

Carl snorted. “I do. I just didn’t realise it came in tall, polite, and smug.”

Akram raised an eyebrow. “I’m smug now?”

“Most people knock before barging into my airspace.”

Akram smiled. “Would you like me to move?”

Carl didn’t answer.

Because the honest answer might’ve been no.

His gaze dropped—just for a second—to where Akram’s hand rested on the file. The steadiness of it. The way he always moved with intent. Not just physically, but emotionally. Measured. Focused.

Carl felt something tug—low and quiet—beneath the usual noise in his head.

He looked up.

Akram was watching him. Not intrusively. Just aware. Like he always was.

For a heartbeat too long, their eyes held.

Carl’s brain fumbled the emergency shutdown switch.

He cleared his throat, standing up so fast his chair let out a screech of protest against the floor. 

“We should get out of here before they lock us in,” he said, already reaching for his coat like it might shield him from whatever the fuck that had just been.

Akram straightened. Didn’t question it. Just reached for his scarf and gloves.

But as they headed for the stairs, Carl swore he saw the corner of Akram’s mouth twitch with just the faintest flicker of a smile.

* * *

The street was too quiet.

Not the eerie kind of quiet—just the expensive kind. No sirens, no shouting, just the occasional dog walker or distant bark, the hush of a life so well-upholstered it never needed to raise its voice. Even the wind sounded refined here. Polished.

Carl tipped his coffee out the window.

“That bad?” Akram asked without looking up from the clipboard in his lap.

“It tastes like regret and stale diplomacy,” Carl muttered, screwing the lid back on the travel cup like it had personally offended him. “Next time I’m bringing a flask. A real one.”

Akram hummed, unconcerned. “You say that every time.”

“Yeah, and I mean it every time.”

They’d been parked outside Quinn’s semi-detached Victorian townhouse for just over two hours. Lights on inside. Someone had turned the heating on before they got home—the maid maybe—the windows were gently fogged, soft silhouettes moving behind drawn curtains. Domestic, normal.

Carl adjusted the seatbelt strap digging into his coat. “Nothing sketchy yet. Unless you count the curtain rods. What kind of sociopath has matching rods in every room?”

Akram didn’t rise to the bait. Just flipped to the next page on the clipboard and checked a line. “Maybe he’s consistent.”

Carl squinted through the windshield. “Maybe he’s hiding a body under all that landscaping.”

Before Akram could reply, Carl’s phone buzzed against the dashboard. Rose’s name lit the screen like a warning flare.

Carl answered and hit speaker. “You’re supposed to be watching Marr, not live-tweeting your boredom.”

“Oh good,” Rose said. “You’re still awake. I was taking bets.”

In the background, Hardy muttered, “I’m not convinced you haven’t been replaced with mannequins.”

“Rude,” Carl said.

Rose sniffed. “We’re fine, thanks for asking. Marr’s just spent twenty minutes yelling at his wife because she accidentally threw out one of his annotated clippings from The Guardian.”

“Riveting criminal behaviour,” Carl drawled. 

Hardy piped up. “She called him a ‘wilted Tory eggplant.’ Loudly. Twice. Might make it my ringtone.”

Carl snorted. “Please tell me we bugged the place.”

“No need,” Rose said. “We can hear it just fine all the way outside.”

“We’ve logged three arguments,” Hardy added. “Two brandy refills. One suspiciously long stare at his garden shed. Possibly contemplating murder.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “You want a commendation?”

“I want caffeine,” Rose replied. “And for Marr to commit one arrestable offence, ideally something with fire or mild public nudity. Hardy’s started naming the streetlamps.”

“I didn’t name them,” Hardy snapped. “They introduced themselves.”

Akram gave the quietest chuckle, then reached for the case notes between them again. “Tell the lamps we send our regards.”

“I’ll put it in their group chat,” Hardy said.

Carl hit the ‘End Call’ button with a roll of his eyes.

Silence settled again, thick and unbothered. Carl exhaled. Let the quiet stretch.

Then, of course, his phone buzzed again.

He glanced down. A text.

Dr. Irving [20:53]
You’ve missed your last three sessions. I can’t help if you don’t show up. Let me know when you’re ready to talk.

Carl stared at the screen for a beat. Locked it. Shoved it face-down into the cup holder.

“Jasper?” Akram asked with a hint of concern. 

Carl didn’t answer right away. “No. Apparently ghosting your mental health professional isn’t as passive-aggressive as it used to be.”

“Didn’t think you were the ghosting type,” Akram said mildly. “You’re more of a drive-off-while-honking type.”

Carl shot him a dry look. “Thanks.”

Akram closed the file and rested it against his thigh. 

“You know,” he said, “where I grew up, no one had therapy. You talked to your brother. Or your neighbour. Or the man at the corner stall who sold over-sugared tea and gave surprisingly wise advice.”

“That’s a hell of a sliding scale,” Carl muttered.

“I didn’t say it always worked,” Akram said, amused. “But the act of showing up? That counts no matter where you are.”

Carl leaned his head against the seat rest and closed his eyes for a moment. “You always gonna be like this?”

Akram looked at him. “Like what?”

Carl cracked an eye open. “Reasonable. Decent. The opposite of whatever this is.” He gestured vaguely at himself.

Akram smiled cryptically. 

Outside, headlights turned the corner—sleek, deliberate. A dark car pulling into Quinn’s driveway.

Carl sat up straighter.

Quinn stepped out of the driver’s seat, casually dressed in a dark overcoat. His wife exited the passenger side, laughing softly. Their three daughters clambered out behind them, all long scarves and tangled hair and voices too bright to be hiding anything.

They carried shopping bags, books, a leftover cake box from somewhere expensive. Someone held up a paperback and waved it like they were mid-debate about plot twists.

They looked happy. They looked whole.

Carl frowned.

He didn’t trust anything that clean.

Akram shifted slightly, mirroring the motion. 

“Book club night,” he said. “It’s in his calendar.”

Carl glanced sideways. “Of course you checked his calendar.”

Akram’s lips curved. “Of course I did.”

They sat in silence a little longer, watching the family disappear inside.

Then Carl cleared his throat. “How’s Yasmin’s piano stuff going?”

Akram turned, eyes warming. “Good. School recital next week. She’s nervous.”

“She’ll be brilliant,” Carl said before he could stop himself. Then, more gruffly, “She’s got that overachiever gene.”

Akram chuckled. “She gets it from her mother.”

Carl didn’t reply. But he smiled—just barely—into the quiet.

It didn’t take long for the street to slip fully into night—windows glowing, curtains drawn, leaves skating across the road in papery spirals. A soft drizzle started sometime around nine, but neither of them bothered turning the wipers on. The rain streaked quietly down the windshield, refracting the porch light into smears of gold.

Quinn’s house hadn’t stirred in over an hour.

Akram tapped a quiet note into his phone. Carl had long since run out of sarcastic things to say about gentrified flowerbeds and was now nursing the remains of his dignity and a second coffee—this one from Akram’s thermos, and therefore actually drinkable.

“Do you ever sleep?” Carl asked finally.

“Not well,” Akram said. “But I manage.” 

Carl nodded slowly. He understood that. “Night’s when it gets loud.”

Akram glanced over. Waiting.

Carl hesitated. “Sounds. You know. Doors slamming. Breathing that’s not yours.” He scratched at his jaw. “Sometimes just… silence, but it feels wrong. Like you’re waiting for what comes next.”

Akram didn’t interrupt. Just watched him carefully, like he was learning something important.

Carl blew out a breath, rubbing absently at his shoulder. “You’d think the second time would’ve reset the scale.”

“It doesn’t reset,” Akram said softly. “It just shifts where the weight lands.”

Carl was silent for a moment, staring out into the rain.

“Right now it’s all spine,” he muttered. “Wouldn’t mind a few lighter bones.”

That made Akram smile, but only just.

“I make tea,” he said. “When I can’t sleep. Something slow to do with your hands. Doesn’t fix it. But it’s a start.”

Carl’s lips twitched. “I make toast. Don’t even eat it. I  just like the smell.”

Akram smiled. “It’s the small rituals. They remind the body it’s safe.”

Carl didn’t answer right away. But as he sat there, listening to the rain, he felt like maybe that was true.

The car was warm. That good kind of warm, slow and heavy. It clung to his jacket like a blanket and made the noise of the outside world feel like it was happening to someone else.

He caught himself watching Akram’s profile again—the way the light hit the sharp angle of his jaw, the calm precision of his stillness. Always still, this one. Still but never passive. Like his thoughts were running miles, but his body didn’t need to.

“Do you miss it?” Carl asked, apropos to nothing. 

Akram looked at him, brow creasing. “What?”

“Home.”

For a moment, the silence stretched. Not uncomfortable. Just careful.

Then Akram said, quietly, “I miss my mother’s voice. And the sound of the old prayer tower near our house—it would crackle in the wind when the speaker was broken. I don’t miss the rest.”

Carl nodded. Didn’t press. Didn’t need to.

After a while, Akram asked, “Do you miss home?”

Carl gave a dry snort. “It’s not England I miss. Just—less paperwork. And the butter.”

Akram smiled faintly. “Your patriotism is inspiring.”

They fell quiet again, though not out of awkwardness, and Carl leaned his head back.

The dashboard clock blinked at him in slow intervals. 21:42. 21:43.

He was still listening. Still tracking the porch light and the windows. But some part of him… released.

A muscle behind his eyes unclenched. His hands softened on his thighs. His breath evened.

And without meaning to—without even noticing—he let go.

When he blinked awake again, breath caught halfway in his throat, the clock read 22:30. The rain had thickened to a steady percussion, muffled by the car roof. The windows were fogged. Outside, Quinn’s house was unchanged.

Carl shifted slightly—and realised with a start there was a jacket draped over him.

Not his.

Black wool, faintly cologne-scented, still warm.

His eyes darted sideways.

Akram hadn’t moved. He sat exactly as before, one arm resting on the door, the other near his thermos. His eyes stayed trained on the house, expression unreadable.

Carl’s pulse kicked. Just once. Sharp and irritating.

He should’ve said something. A joke. A deflection. Something to reclaim the ground he’d apparently just lost by sleeping in front of a colleague like some kind of domestic cat.

Instead, he sat there—coat warm over his chest, jaw tight, and heart doing something traitorous in his chest.

And then Akram glanced over.

Just a flick of his eyes. Measured. Aware.

Their gazes locked.

Carl looked away first, clearing his throat and shrugging out of the coat with a muttered, “Didn’t mean to doze off.”

Akram took the jacket without comment. “You were tired.”

“That obvious?”

“No.” 

Carl hesitated. “Thanks.”

Akram gave a quiet nod. “Anytime.”

“This doesn’t leave the car.” Carl went on.

Akram smiled. “Of course not.”

Carl forced his focus back out the window. But he wasn’t thinking about the house now.

He was thinking about the way Akram always moved without sound. Without question. The way safety had crept up on him—quiet and uninvited, but not unwelcome.

He tapped a rhythm on the coffee lid with his thumb.

Emotionally hazardous territory.

And he was already waist-deep.

Carl stared at Quinn’s house for so long he could’ve sketched the doorframe from memory. The porch light was still on. The living room lamp still glowing through sheer curtains. Domestic. Innocent. Predictable.

He exhaled slowly, watching the fog collect on the glass. 

But his thoughts had slipped again—back to the warmth of the coat, the scent he shouldn’t recognise, the way the interior of the car had felt like shelter instead of stakeout-induced lockdown.

Which, frankly, was unacceptable.

He rubbed at the back of his neck. Tried to focus on the case. On Eliza. On anything that wasn’t the fact that he'd accidentally fallen asleep next to Akram Salim and felt safe doing it.

Idiotic.

Unprofessional.

Emotionally irresponsible.

He adjusted the vent, pretending he wasn’t still warm from the coat, pretending his heart wasn’t thudding with the anxious rhythm of someone trying very hard not to admit how far he’d fallen into uncharted territory.

And then—without warning—Akram leaned over him.

Not metaphorically.

Literally.

Carl blinked, startled as a warm forearm braced beside his head, and Akram’s chest ghosted close enough to feel. There was the soft click of plastic, and suddenly Carl’s seat tilted backward with a mechanical tick.

He was practically horizontal.

And Akram was right there.

“What the f—”

“Shh,” Akram murmured, eyes just above the window line. His voice was low, precise. “Look.”

Carl shut up instantly and craned his neck, following Akram’s gaze.

Quinn’s front door had opened.

A tall figure stepped out, bundled in a coat, leash in one hand. A big golden retriever loped beside him. The porch light flared across Quinn’s face—relaxed, unreadable. He turned left at the gate, walking slowly.

Carl frowned. “It’s nearly eleven.”

“It is,” Akram agreed, still leaning close.

Carl’s brain was working at half speed. Half of it was saying yes, finally something suspicious! and the other half was going you’re wearing three layers and he still feels warm.

He shook himself.

“Late night stroll?” he muttered. “You think it’s nothing, or something?”

Akram finally leaned back, settling in again. Calm as ever. “Depends where he walks.”

Carl’s mouth twitched. “What, we’re following a golden retriever now?”

Akram raised his brows. “You have a better idea?”

Carl watched Quinn retreat into the shadowed pavement, his breath already fogging in the cold air.

“No,” he said, reaching for the keys. “Let’s see what bedtime routine reveals.”

They slipped out of the car with the slow, practiced coordination of people who’d done this before. Carl adjusted the collar of his coat, casting a quick glance across the street as Quinn wandered farther down the pavement, leash slack in hand, dog trotting ahead of him.

No one walked their dog near midnight in the freezing cold unless they were restless, hiding something… or both.

Carl stayed just a step behind Akram, letting the night air snap some clarity back into his brain. His pulse hadn’t entirely leveled since the seat thing. Akram leaning over him, clicking the latch without warning, that sharp little shush whispered right by his goddamn ear—

He shoved the memory aside like it had physically assaulted him and focused on Quinn’s retreating figure.

They stayed in the shadows, keeping a low, careful pace. Residential streetlights were patchy here—some blown out, some flickering faintly like they hadn’t seen a council check in years. Carl’s boots clicked once on a loose bit of gravel, and Akram shot him a glance, the corner of his mouth twitching in amusement.

Quinn rounded the block. No one else on the road. 

But as he turned down a narrow footpath that ran between two rows of fenced-in gardens, he stopped.

Someone was already there.

A man stepped out of the darker end of the alley. Stockier than Quinn. Hood up. Face mostly shadowed.

Carl’s instincts fired.

They didn’t shake hands. No greeting. Just a brief, tight exchange—Quinn handed something off. A small envelope, maybe? The shape disappeared into the man’s coat too fast to be sure.

But it wasn’t just the transaction. It was the man himself.

He stood like someone used to armour. Not nervous—ready. Back straight, weight distributed evenly through the heels. Not slouched. Not casual. Tension coiled low in the shoulders, like a spring that had been held for years.

Then something else caught Carl’s attention.

The man turned slightly under the orange spill of a lamplight—and his right leg dragged.

Barely. Just a fraction of hesitation in the step. A shuffle like one side of his body had aged more than the other. A favouring of the left knee, possible stiffness in the right hip.

Carl barely opened his mouth before Akram leaned in and murmured, “That limp. Shrapnel injury. Military, probably. Old, but deep. You move like that if the joint never recovers.”

Carl stared at him.

Akram’s eyes didn’t leave the figure. “I’ve seen it before.”

There was no bravado in his tone. No swagger. Just simple, clinical precision.

Jesus Christ, Carl thought. What kind of life do you live where you can read a limp like it’s the blurb of a bloody book?

“You think he’s ex-forces?” Carl asked at last.

“Definitely trained. Could be private sector now. Mercenary. Security. Doesn’t matter.” Akram’s jaw tightened just slightly. “It means he knows how to make people disappear.”

Carl’s hand twitched near his coat pocket. He pulled his phone out. A quiet click. No flash. A grainy shot through the drizzle—just enough to catch the frame, the posture.

The man said something low to Quinn and turned. Limp still present. Then he vanished down the alley, swallowed by the dark.

Quinn stood still a moment longer. Then bent to pat his dog, turned, and strolled home like he hadn’t just arranged something in the cold with a ghost.

Carl exhaled.

Akram was already moving.

They didn’t speak until they were back in the car. The doors shut with a soft thunk, muting the world.

Then Carl said, “Yeah. Totally normal walk.”

Akram didn’t answer immediately. He was watching Quinn’s house. The lights flicked on, one by one.

“That man wasn’t a friend,” Akram said. “That was a job.”

Carl stared ahead. “A job for what?”

Akram finally looked at him. “That’s what we need to find out.”

Chapter Text

Diary Entry: September 17th, 1997

I think he likes me better when I’m uncertain.

When I apologise for speaking. When I phrase my ideas as questions. When I laugh at things that aren’t funny.

I keep trying to be who I was at the start. I thought if I said everything the right way, he’d look at me the way he used to.

But that look is gone.

Now I get patience. Or irritation. Or silence.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m being studied. Not taught. Not mentored. 

And he always knows when I’m lying about being okay.

Department Q, 05:00 p.m.

The rain hadn’t stopped.

The fluorescent lights overhead flickered once, then thought better of it and gave up entirely. And somewhere in the basement corner, the coffee machine was growling like it had unresolved trauma.

Carl sat hunched over his desk, Eliza’s diary open in front of him, spine cracked from overuse. Pages filled with looping, lyrical handwriting that no longer read like poetry. 

He rubbed a thumb against his temple and muttered, “Fucking book club.”

Without a word, a mug of steaming coffee slid into view.

Carl blinked at it. Then looked up.

Akram was already back at the board, sleeves rolled, tie loosened. There was an extra sheen to him now—focused, efficient, irritatingly unruffled.

Carl frowned, staring at the coffee like it might get up and bite him, then took a sip. 

Akram glanced back, amused. “Strong enough?”

“It’s an uppercut in a cup,” Carl muttered. “Exactly how I like it.”

Across the room, Rose was flipping through phone records with surgical precision, and Hardy was pecking at his keyboard like he was personally insulted by the spacebar.

“Alright,” Rose said, not looking up, “Quinn arrived home at 9:17 last night, stayed in until 11, then left for exactly twenty-five minutes with his dog, not suspicious—until he took a left down Glencairn.”

“Where he met the mystery man,” Akram said.

“Yep.” She slid a printed still across the table. “That doesn’t look like a meeting with a friend. Not with that posture. Or that jacket.”

Carl studied the grainy image. Broad-shouldered. 5 o’clock shadow. A noticeable limp. 

Akram nodded once. “Favour exchange.”

“So Quinn doesn’t need to pull a trigger himself,” Carl said. “He just needs someone who knows how.”

A beat of silence.

“There’s that one entry,” Carl began, “the one where she—”

Akram reached for the diary and, without hesitation, flipped directly to a page Carl had been circling in his head all morning. “July 6th. She describes the way he delegates. Never acts directly.”

Carl stared. “How the hell did you—”

“You re-read it last night,” Akram said, unbothered. “Three times. You muttered while doing it.”

Rose didn’t look up. “Do I need to leave the room, or are we all pretending we don’t see this happening in real time?”

“Pretending,” Hardy said flatly. “With the intensity of a man on fire.”

“Focus,” Carl snapped, but even he didn’t sound committed to it.

Akram, unruffled, leaned toward the board. “We need to ID the man. Not an academic. Probably not local. Possible military background, based on stance. Injury to his left leg—compensated gait suggests an old femoral fracture or maybe sciatic damage. Didn’t favour the knee.”

Hardy blinked. “That was… specific.”

Akram looked at him mildly. “I've seen worse injuries.”

Hardy paused mid-sip. “You know, sometimes I forget how alarmingly competent you are.”

“And then I say things,” Akram replied, sipping his own coffee. “And you remember.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “I hate how smooth that was.”

Carl smirked faintly. “You’re all fired.”

“Not before we figure out how a tenured professor turned into a covert recruiter,” Akram said.

“Still haven’t proven it,” Hardy reminded them. “Everything’s circumstantial.”

“Everything’s always circumstantial,” Rose said, flipping a page. “Until it’s not.”

Akram turned back toward Carl’s desk just as Carl muttered, “Quinn never gets his hands dirty. But she kept writing about them. The compliments. The touches. Always the hands.” 

Akram picked up the diary page, eyes scanning. “Because they were the only part he let her see.” 

Carl nodded. “Everything else—he kept hidden. Himself. His connections. That man he met? What’s the story there?”

Rose looked up. “You’re saying Quinn’s outsourcing?” 

“Quinn’s directing,” Akram said. “And that man was the blunt end of something a lot sharper.” 

Hardy let out a breath. “So his alibi’s worth nothing.”

“Worse than nothing,” Akram said. “It’s calculated. He knew what to show, and when to vanish.” 

Carl met his eyes. “He knows exactly how to stay clean.”

“I don’t know what’s more unsettling,” Hardy said. “Quinn potentially hiring a fixer or you two becoming a hive mind.”

Akram just handed Carl a fresh page without being asked.

Carl stared at it. “Stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Knowing what I need before I do.”

Akram’s mouth twitched.

Carl grumbled something unrepeatable and flopped back in his chair. Akram leaned against the desk beside him, easy and close. Comfortable.

Rose stood, tossing her pen onto her notepad. “Hardy and I are heading to the library to chase down those donor records. Let us know if you two make eye contact long enough to crack another suspect wide open.”

“Don’t stay down here too long,” Hardy drawled. “You’ll start naming the files.”

“Doris and I are deeply in love,” Carl said without missing a beat, tapping a manila folder.

Hardy sighed like a man carrying the weight of too many bad jokes. 

The elevator doors clattered shut behind them.

Silence returned, thick and comfortable.

Carl glanced sideways. Akram hadn’t moved. He was still leaning against the table, one hand on a file, the other curled loosely around his coffee cup. Steady. Grounded. Goddamn picturesque.

Carl reached for his coffee, and for a moment, their arms brushed. The contact was fleeting. But it lingered.

“So,” Akram said finally, voice low and thoughtful, “You think Quinn’s our center of gravity?”

Carl nodded, flipping to the back of the latest scanned diary page. “He’s got the poise. The rhetoric. And now muscle, apparently. You don’t just meet a man like that in the street.”

“Not unless he’s been in your orbit a long time.”

Carl rubbed his forehead. “So, he’s trained. Which makes him even more dangerous.”

Before Akram could reply, the elevator dinged.

Carl stiffened instinctively. They weren’t expecting anyone else.

The doors opened and DC Wilson stepped out like she owned the air.

Sharp-cut blazer, sharper eyeliner. She held a bulging folder and looked thoroughly unimpressed to be standing in their basement.

Carl barely suppressed a sigh. “Well, if it isn’t Edinburgh’s most passive-aggressive civil servant.”

“I’d say the same to you, Morck, but your aggression’s never been passive.”

Akram stepped forward, ever the diplomat. 

“DC Wilson,” He greeted. “You have something for us?”

She raised an eyebrow. “At least one of you has manners. This is everything on Alastair Quinn and known family members you requested. Plus military ties flagged from a deep sweep. You’re welcome.”

Carl took the file. “Why do you smell like smug success?”

“Because I’m better at research than you,” she said sweetly. “Good night, gentlemen.”

And just like that, she swept out of the room.

Carl opened the file and flipped past the surface-level details—tenure applications, grant receipts, public lecture listings.

“Boring,” he muttered.

Akram hummed, reading upside-down. “Not if you want to track his ego inflation over the years.”

Carl gave him a look, but kept turning pages, flipping past the education and funding tabs to a thick sheaf of scanned photographs.

One caught his eye, aged by poor scanning. Two men in uniform—one unmistakably Quinn, just younger, leaner, his hair still dark at the temples. The other man stood beside him, same sharp cheekbones, same eyes, same smile tilted just slightly higher. 

Carl turned the photo over. Scrawled handwriting on the back:

Daniel and Alastair Quinn – ’85

“So Quinn had a brother,” Carl said, almost to himself. “But had no pictures of him in his office.”

Carl flipped to the next few photos—action shots, informal group pictures, boots in the dust. One showed Daniel crouched low with a small unit. In the background, blurred but just visible: another man. Broader. Crew cut. Sharp jaw, scar at the temple.

Carl tapped the image. “Look familiar?”

Akram narrowed his eyes. “The man Quinn met.”

“Exactly.”

They both leaned closer. Daniel sat beside him in the photo, grinning like a man mid-joke, and the other had that same grounded, coiled energy Carl remembered. The posture. 

Akram tilted his head. “He wasn’t a stranger. He was family-adjacent.”

Carl flipped to a personnel list at the back of the packet. “According to this, Quinn’s brother—Daniel—died in 1994. And this guy—Owen Lennox. Served in the same unit. Honourable discharge. No known address for the last few years, but there’s a flat listed from a benefits claim two months back.”

“Looks like he came out of hiding.”

“Let’s find out why.” Carl said, rising to his feet and pulling out his phone to fire off a quick message to Jasper.  

[18:00]

I'll be late tonight. Don’t wait up. Leftover pasta’s yours. Don’t touch my beer.

A reply buzzed back almost instantly.

Jasper [18:00]

pastas mid-demolition. ur on tea duty tmrrw i want pizza 

Carl stared at the screen a beat longer than he meant to.

Akram glanced over. “All good?”

“Yeah,” Carl muttered, stuffing the phone away. “Let’s go meet our ghost.”

* * *

It was raining again. Mean, slanted, and unapologetically wet. The kind that soaked through coat collars and moral resolve alike.

Carl parked two streets over, engine humming low beneath the downpour. Akram sat beside him, reading the address again from his phone.

“Flat 4B,” he said. “End of the corridor. Top floor.”

Carl followed his gaze through the windshield. The building ahead wasn’t derelict—just invisible. The kind of place people passed every day without ever remembering. Peeling brick, cracked railings, one security light flickering just enough to say ‘don’t bother.’

“Quaint,” Carl muttered, shutting off the ignition. “You’d never guess this place was once the headquarters for war crimes and poor life decisions.”

Akram arched a brow. “Don’t insult the architecture.”

Carl huffed and stepped out into the downpour, shoulders hunched.

They made their way up the rusted stairs. No lights. The hallway stank of wet carpet and damp paint. Someone had scratched a peace symbol into the doorframe of 4B. The kind of irony you didn’t laugh at.

Carl knocked.

Silence.

He waited, then knocked again—louder this time.

Still nothing.

He glanced at Akram. “If this guy’s home, he’s got the self-control of a corpse.”

Akram stepped back slightly, scanning the narrow corridor. “I’ll circle around. See if there’s another point of entry.”

Carl hesitated. “Don’t get clever and try to be the hero.”

Akram gave him a dry look. “You say that like you’re not already about to walk in alone.”

Carl grunted. “Touché.”

Akram slipped off, quiet as breath. Carl tested the door.

Unlocked.

“Well, shit,” he muttered, then eased it open.

The air hit him first. Not the reek of rot or filth—just stillness. Like the place hadn’t been breathed in for days.

The flat was cold and… wrong. Not dirty, exactly. Just stripped. Hollow.

Barely any furniture. No personal photographs. 

There was a single couch pushed towards the side of the room near the window, and a flickering lamp sitting atop a wooden chair, casting warped shadows across the floor. 

The walls were beige, stained in corners with old water damage. 

Carl moved slowly, scanning.

No television. No kitchen clutter. No shoes by the door.

But along the back wall—

He froze.

Pinned haphazardly were photographs. A dozen, maybe more. All in black and white. Newspaper clippings, CCTV freeze-frames, blurry shots that had clearly been taken from a distance.

Rose outside the station. Hardy inside a café. Akram crossing a street.

Carl felt his stomach drop.

His own face stared back at him from one grainy photo—caught mid-laugh next to Jasper, jacket collar turned up, unaware.

He stepped closer.

There were words scrawled in pencil under each image. Tight, slanted handwriting. Barely legible.

Too close.
Sees too much.
Eyes like his don’t miss.

Silence him. 

There were notebooks stacked in the corner, pages open, half of them torn out. The margins were filled with loops of repeated phrases.

she should’ve listened
why didnt she listen

And then, just beside the light switch, faint but deliberate—

Carl turned.

There was writing on the wall itself. Carved into the plaster with something sharp. Not big, but over and over again.

Im sorry im sorry im sorry imsorryimsorryimsorry

Carl leaned closer. This wasn’t just obsession. It was guilt, trauma, unraveling thought. A mind trying to impose order where none existed.

A creak.

Floorboards.

Carl turned sharply.

A shape launched at him from the dark. Broad, fast, deliberate.

Something slammed into him from the side. Hard. Carl crashed into the wall, shoulder taking most of the hit before he twisted out of it, elbow coming up to block the second blow.

Too late.

A forearm cracked across his jaw.

Carl staggered back, caught sight of a figure—broad, fast, trained. His eyes were wild. Owen Lennox.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Owen growled. “Should’ve stayed in your lane.”

Carl ducked a punch, swung low—landed a hit to the ribs—but Owen didn’t flinch. He was muttering under his breath now, voice fractured.

“She kept pushing... wouldn’t let it go... thought she was smarter, thought—”

Carl slammed his shoulder into Owen’s chest, but it was like hitting concrete. They both hit the floor, grappling. Owen’s knee came down hard into Carl’s side. A flash of pain lit up Carl’s ribs. He twisted, broke the hold, but just barely.

Owen straddled him, pulled something from his coat.

Not a gun. A knife.

Carl’s heart kicked hard.

“No loose ends,” Owen said. “He said—”

The door burst open.

In one impossibly fast lunge—Akram looped his scarf around Owen’s neck and yanked.

The effect was immediate. Owen choked, reared back, and lost his grip on Carl just long enough for Akram to close the distance.

He tackled Owen with precision Carl had only ever seen in films and nightmares. The knife skittered across the floor.

They clashed hard. Akram deflected a jab, ducked under an elbow, landed a flat-footed kick to the side—no wasted movement. 

Owen lunged—but he was off balance. Akram seized the moment. Pivoted. Hooked a leg—

—and drove him down with brutal efficiency.

Carl scrambled upright, chest heaving. He’d seen Akram fight before—but never like this. Not with this kind of intent.

Owen groaned, one hand gripping his knee. He tried to push up—but Akram was already moving.

Owen rolled out of the way of a well aimed kick, twisting to grab the lamp off the chair and hurled it full-force at Akram’s head.

Akram ducked—but the impact shattered something behind him, and the moment of distraction was all Owen needed.

He dove toward a low crate near the far wall. Pried it open with manic precision.

Carl didn’t see what he pulled until the cylinder left his hand.

“Get down!” Akram barked—and then he was on Carl, shoving them both behind the couch with barely a second to spare.

The world detonated in white.

Carl’s ears rang. His vision blew out. He coughed, curled instinctively into the weight pressed against him—solid and shielding and tense as stone.

For a second, the only thing grounding him was the smell of Akram’s cologne and rain and the heat of an arm braced across his chest.

Then the ringing ebbed. Slowly.

Akram shifted off him, eyes scanning, pulse visible at his throat.

Carl groaned, half blind. “Did we just get flashbanged in Edinburgh?”

Akram exhaled slowly. “Yes.”

“By a man who lives in a shoebox and owns no furniture?”

“Yes.”

For a long moment, the only sound was both of them breathing.

Then Carl muttered, “Remind me never to split up again.”

Akram helped him up without a word. His grip was steady. His jaw was locked.

“You should’ve waited for me,” he said, voice flat with suppressed adrenaline.

Carl winced, brushing dust from his coat. “Tell that to the guy who left his door open like an invitation.”

Akram didn’t smile.

Carl looked toward the shattered lamp. The overturned chair. The gouge marks in the wall. “What the fuck is this case.”

“A headache,” Akram mumbled, rubbing his forehead. 

Carl wiped a sleeve across his face. It came away red.

He stared at it. Blood. Not a lot, but enough to make his pulse kick just a little faster. He couldn’t even feel where it was coming from—his body was too busy screaming about his shoulder and whatever damage had just been done to his already cursed left arm.

Akram noticed instantly.

“I’m fine.” Carl said immediately, waving him off, already shifting to limp away.

Akram ignored the dismissal and intercepted his path. “You hit your head.”

“No, the wall hit me,” Carl muttered.

Akram gave him a look that had no patience for jokes, before he reached up, fingers light but direct, and tilted Carl’s face. Carl tensed automatically, then hated himself for doing it.

The light stung his eyes. Akram’s were steady. Dark. Focused.

“It’s shallow,” he said, thumb brushing just beneath Carl’s temple. “You won’t need stitches.”

Then—with the gentlest touch Carl had ever felt—Akram wiped the blood away. Just like that. No fanfare.

Carl’s heart did something traitorous and stupid in his chest.

Akram didn’t seem to notice the tension blooming between them. Or maybe he did—and just had the decency not to point it out.

Carl cleared his throat and stepped back, pulling his phone from his pocket. He tapped Rose’s number with more force than necessary.

She picked up on the second ring.

“We’re alive,” he said. “Mostly.”

“I heard,” Rose said, voice sharp. “Are you both okay?”

“Define ‘okay.’”

“In one piece.”

“Then yes. Except for maybe my spleen.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Flashbang,” Carl muttered.

A pause.

Then Hardy’s voice in the background: “Did he just say flashbang? In a council flat?”

“Yeah,” Carl said. “Apparently it’s the new Edinburgh welcome package.”

“Christ Carl,” Rose said. “Backup’s already on the way. Sit tight and don’t move anything.”

“I think the man owns five things, Rose. Including the flashbang.”

Hardy again, muffled: “Next time we search a place, we’re bringing a bomb dog.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Don’t worry. We’ve decided we’re not going anywhere without full riot gear again.”

Then he hung up before Hardy could reply with anything funnier.

The quiet came back fast.

He turned. Akram was standing by the window now, watching the road like he could still see Owen disappearing into the night. His scarf hung loose around his neck, one end torn from the brief scuffle.

“You good?” Carl asked, softer than he meant to.

Akram didn’t turn around right away. 

Then: “I should’ve anticipated that he'd be waiting in here.”

Carl blinked. “You took on a man nearly twice your size and walked away with a wrinkle in your scarf. Pretty sure you’re allowed to skip the self-flagellation.”

Akram turned to look at him then. And smiled—but it was faint. Tired. Worn at the edges.

They stood in the ruined flat, the smell of smoke and adrenaline lingering like perfume gone stale. Sirens wailed faintly in the distance.

Carl finally exhaled.

“Next time,” he conceded, “we’ll wait for backup.”

Akram raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t believe in learning from your mistakes.”

“I make an exception for military-grade loose cannons.”

A beat passed. Then—

“Carl,” Akram said, voice low. “What happened tonight… this wasn’t just fear. He was following a plan.”

Carl nodded slowly. “Yeah. That’s what worries me.” 

He ran a hand down his face, grimacing as it caught on the tender spot near his temple. Blood, drying now, flaked against his skin like guilt.

“He wasn’t just lashing out,” he said after a beat. “He was muttering to himself. Not just rambling—focused. Repeating things. Like… commands. Like he was still somewhere else. In his head.”

Akram’s gaze sharpened.

“And did you see the walls?” Carl continued. “He had pictures. Of all of us. Me. You. Hardy. Rose. He’s been watching us. Tracking our movements. Probably since we reopened the case.”

Akram frowned. “None of us noticed.”

“Because he didn’t want us to,” Carl said. “Probably knows how to be invisible when he wants to be.”

He looked toward the busted door, the streetlight slanting across the broken threshold like a warning.

“He had a purpose,” Carl said. “And judging by those photos, that purpose was us.”

Akram’s jaw tightened. “Quinn.”

Carl nodded. “Owen was close to his brother, yeah? Same unit. And the brother dies under traumatic circumstances... maybe Owen blames himself. Maybe he felt like he owed Quinn something.”

“Which Quinn exploited.”

“Like a true sociopath.”

They stood in silence for a beat.

Then Carl muttered, “He’s not just dangerous because he’s smart. He’s dangerous because he doesn’t even need to get his hands dirty. He gets other people to do it for him.”

“Which means we’re not just chasing a killer,” Akram said grimly. “We’re chasing someone who knows how to build loyalty.”

Carl’s eyes flicked to the empty hallway. “Let’s hope it stops at Owen.”

Akram looked at him. “And if it doesn’t?”

Carl’s voice was rough. “Then we take them all down.”

* * *

The walls in Moira’s office were the same shade of government beige they’d been for thirty years, but she’d found ways to make them threatening. Photos of retired commissioners glared down like ghosts. A dusty ficus in the corner leaned sideways like it, too, had opinions. Several toy spiders lined her desk. Now what the fuck was that about? 

Carl leaned back in the chair that creaked every time he moved, staring at the spiders. Hardy sat to his left, arms folded. Rose and Akram stood just behind them, one looking serious, the other looking like she’d wandered in from a slightly less grim murder scene.

Across the desk, Moira flipped through the file they’d compiled—photos, transcripts, timelines. Every page she turned was deliberate. Unhurried. Like she was counting how many ways this could go wrong.

“You want to raid the home of a respected university professor,” she said finally, “based on a blurry photo, a flashbang, and a gut feeling?”

Carl didn’t flinch. “Gut feelings tend to be right when you’ve been doing this long enough.”

Moira’s eyes lifted. Sharp as needles. “I’ve been doing this longer than you, Carl.”

Akram, calm as ever, interjected. “We have enough for probable cause. Quinn has a clear connection to Owen Lennox, who assaulted a senior officer during an active investigation. We believe he’s being used to obstruct the case.”

Carl added, “Quinn’s deceased brother served in the same unit as Lennox. Died in action. We’ve confirmed financial links between Quinn and Owen going back several years.”

Rose stepped in, dropping a smaller file onto the desk with a soft thud. “Also, there’s this. Eliza’s diary entries shortly before she disappeared. It references someone who talks like Quinn. Uses the same phrasing. Same ideology. She stopped trusting him—but not soon enough.”

Moira pinched the bridge of her nose. “So what you’re telling me is… this girl was manipulated, possibly groomed, possibly silenced, and the man responsible may have hired someone to make sure she stayed that way?”

There was a pause. Then Hardy muttered, “In fairness, she summarised that better than any of us.”

Moira sighed. “I want this airtight. If you screw this up, Quinn walks and takes his story to the press. We look like a department that chased ghosts.”

Carl held her gaze. “We’re not chasing ghosts. We’re chasing a man who’s been hiding in plain sight for over twenty-five years.”

Another pause. Then Moira closed the file.

“One day,” she said. “You’ve got twenty-four hours. Find something that gets me a search warrant that won’t get torn apart in court.”

They stood. Carl nodded. 

“Thank you,” Akram said.

Moira waved them off like smoke in her office. “Go. Bring me the bastard.”

Hardy adjusted his coat like he was leaving a funeral. “Well. That went better than I expected.”

Rose yawned. “God, I could sleep for a month.”

Hardy grinned at Akram. “Try not to let Morck wander into any more shoebox death traps.”

Akram deadpanned, “I’ll try.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “You’re both insufferable.”

Hardy clapped him on the shoulder. “Spoken like a man who has never once been tolerable.”

Rose grinned and gave him a mock salute. “Don’t stay too late, boys.”

They peeled off toward the stairs.

The silence settled in naturally.

Carl followed Akram down the long corridor, the building humming faintly around them. Police HQ after dark had a peculiar stillness to it—like the cases in the walls were sleeping.

Outside, the wind scratched at the windows. Carl pulled his coat on.

“You off to the recital?” he asked.

Akram nodded. “Yasmin’s playing something dramatic. She didn’t tell me what. Wants to surprise me.”

Carl smiled faintly. “That’s a trap.”

“She’s eleven. Everything’s a trap.”

They reached the end of the corridor. Akram turned to him. “You heading home?”

“Eventually. Thought I’d stop off at the store. Jasper’s nearly out of cereal. If that happens again I might not survive.”

Akram gave a low laugh, warm and brief.

Then, a pause.

Something unsaid hovered between them—like a coin suspended in midair. Carl opened his mouth. Then closed it.

“Have a good night,” Akram said, buttoning up his coat.

“You too.”

Akram turned to go, swinging his scarf over his coat collar.

Carl stood there a moment longer.

Then headed out into the dark.

* * *

The flat was quiet when Carl stepped inside.

Rain trailed in with him, cold and needling at the back of his neck. He dropped his keys into the bowl on instinct—secondhand habit from Martin—and shrugged out of his coat.

Faint light spilled from beneath Jasper’s door.

He walked past slowly, catching a glimpse: Jasper in his desk chair, headset on, controller in hand, lips moving comically wide as he shouted at someone through a game he probably wasn’t supposed to be playing on a school night.

Carl didn’t knock. He didn’t interrupt. He just kept walking.

The kitchen was dim, lit only by the oven clock blinking red and the last dying flicker of daylight. Carl reached for the switch.

And froze.

Someone was already there.

A man stood beside the fridge, silhouette half-swallowed by shadow.

And he was holding a gun.

Carl didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

Owen stepped forward just enough to let the light catch his face.

He was more together than he had been the last time Carl saw him. But not calm. Not steady. His grip on the gun was tight. White-knuckled. His mouth a thin, pressed line.

“Don’t,” Owen said, low and sharp. “Don’t do anything stupid. Please. No one has to get hurt.”

Carl didn’t answer. Just slowly raised both hands, palms open, chest tight.

Owen’s gaze flicked—toward Jasper’s door. 

Carl’s stomach turned to ice. 

“You don’t want to hurt him,” he said slowly, like maybe if he said it first, it would stay true. “That’s what you said. Right?”

Owen’s jaw twitched. “I don’t. I really don’t. But if you make this difficult—if you force my hand—”

“You won’t.”

“I don’t want to!” Owen hissed. His hands trembled now, just a little. “So don’t make me.”

Carl stared at him. The barrel was steady now, but Owen’s voice wasn’t.

This wasn’t a hardened hitman. This was a man unraveling.

Carl swallowed hard, forcing his voice to stay even. “What do you want?”

“I want you to come with me. Quietly. That’s it.”

Carl’s heart thudded once, twice. Jasper was in the next room. Still wearing headphones. Still completely unaware. If he stepped out—

Carl couldn't finish the thought. 

“Okay.”

Owen hesitated. “You’re not gonna fight?”

“Not while my son is in the next fucking room.”

Silence stretched thin.

Then Owen reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs—standard issue. Familiar.

Carl turned slowly and let his arms be pulled behind him.

The cuffs clicked into place.

Owen’s breath hitched.

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said, almost too softly. “No one has to get hurt. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Carl didn’t answer. The cuffs bit into his wrists as Owen nudged him out the front door. Past Jasper’s room.

The night had turned mean—wind slicking sideways, rain beginning to pelt the street like the sky had decided to spit nails. Carl blinked into it, trying to slow his breathing, heart thudding like a warning.

Jasper was safe.

That’s all that mattered.

Carl could play along. For now.

A dark car waited at the curb. Engine on. Lights off.

Owen opened the rear door and gestured with the gun. “In.”

Carl climbed in without a word, the vinyl seat cold against his back.

In the driver’s seat, Alastair Quinn turned, smiling faintly. Like this was all some late-night excursion. Like he wasn’t sitting behind the wheel of a kidnapping.

“Well,” Carl said flatly, “aren’t you a long way from your book club.”

Quinn’s smile didn’t shift. “Good evening, DCI Morck.”

Carl leaned back against the seat, expression unreadable. “You know, most people just leave a bad review when they don’t like being investigated.”

Quinn chuckled—low and soft, like a man in complete control. “Oh, I’m quite enjoying being investigated. You’re very… thorough. But unfortunately for you, curiosity has a cost.”

Carl’s jaw tightened. “So this is your grand plan? Guns and cuffs and a rainy night? Little cliché, isn’t it?”

Quinn glanced in the mirror, checking the empty street.

Then he said, lightly—almost gently—

“I warned Eliza not to keep pushing, too. You’re very much alike.”

Carl didn’t move. But inside, something dropped through his chest like a lead weight.

Quinn shifted the car into gear.

And they pulled into the dark.

Chapter Text

Diary Entry: November 12th, 1997

I think I let it go too far.
There’s this sickness in my chest now.
Like I opened a door I don’t know how to close.

He hasn’t hurt me. Not really. Not in ways anyone would understand.
But I feel smaller every time I leave.
Like I’m being erased, piece by piece.

I made a mistake.
I have to tell someone.

But I can’t stop thinking—if something happens to me, who would believe it wasn’t my fault?

Gorgie, 09:00 p.m.

The cab was warm and slightly too stuffy, its windows fogged with the kind of condensation that made Mina draw little hearts on the glass.

“You played the Allegretto faster than usual,” she said, thoughtfully. “But it still sounded good.”

Yasmin beamed, her voice soft with pride. “Mr. Lane says I’m finding my own tempo.”

Akram met her eyes in the rear-view mirror. “Mr. Lane also says not to rush staccato.”

“I didn’t rush,” Yasmin insisted. “I just... finished energetically.”

Mina snorted. “You zoomed.”

Akram bit back a laugh. “You did zoom a little.”

Yasmin groaned, flopping back against the seat. “I zoomed with grace.”

“That you did,” Akram said warmly. “And the ending was perfect. That pause before the final note? You had the whole room holding their breath.”

“Even that man with the giant moustache,” Mina added, pleased. “He looked like he was about to sneeze and cry at the same time.”

The cab turned onto their street, headlights brushing against wet pavement and dark hedges. Akram leaned back slightly, letting the rhythm of their voices wrap around him.

“Did you see how many people clapped?” Yasmin asked.

“I counted twenty-five,” Mina said. “And I might have clapped twice, but I’m not sure.”

“Still fewer than you deserved,” Akram said as the cab slowed.

“Exactly,” Mina said, triumphant. “Recount!”

The cab eased to a stop. Akram paid the driver, ushered the girls out beneath the light rain. Yasmin took Mina's hand as they ran up the front path, giggling. They bolted through the door, kicking their shoes off before Akram could even say a word about the rug. 

He followed them in, shrugging out of his coat, listening as their voices trailed into the kitchen.

Normal.

That was the word. This life he’d built—it wasn’t always easy, but it was his. Normal. Grounded. Solid.

He was reaching for the light switch when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered before checking the ID. 

“Hello?”

“Uh, Mr. Salim?”

Jasper’s voice. Tight. Controlled—but with that edge Akram had come to recognise in Carl, too. The panic being buried.

Akram’s posture straightened instinctually, the lightness dropping out of the room like someone had sucked out the air.

“Yes, Jasper. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Carl—he’s not home. His coat’s here, and his keys—the car's out front, but he hasn’t texted me. He always texts if he’s gonna be late, we agreed. And his phone—his phone location says he’s at some place called Baddinsgill reservoir?”

Akram stopped cold in the entryway to the kitchen. Yasmin turned to look up at him.

“Have you called the police?”

“Not yet, I—I didn’t know if—”

“Do it now,” Akram said, sharp but not unkind. “Tell them his location is pinging by the Baddinsgill reservoir and he’s with an armed suspect. Don’t wait. I’m on my way.”

“Armed suspect—?”

“Do it, Jasper.”

“Okay—okay. I’ll call. Please—”

“I’ll find him. I promise.”

He hung up and turned immediately to Yasmin. 

“Habíbti,” he said, soft but urgent, “take your sister upstairs. Go to the nurse’s flat. Stay there until I come back.”

Her face shifted. “Is everything okay Baba?”

Akram hesitated just long enough to touch her shoulder. “It’s nothing you need to worry about. Just do as I ask.”

Yasmin hesitated for a moment—but nodded. “Okay.”

She took Mina’s hand, already ushering her sleepy sister toward the door.

Akram grabbed his coat and tore out into the street—rain hitting his face like needles, cold already slicing through his sleeves.

No car.

No time to call a patrol unit. They’d take too long to deploy this far out. Bus? Useless. Rideshare? Too risky—too slow.

He spun a slow, desperate circle in the middle of the road—heart pounding, mind flaring through options like a burning index.

Think. Move. Now.

And then he saw it.

Across the street—a man locking up a Triumph motorcycle, helmet tucked under one arm.

Akram was already crossing, fast and sure, badge out before his brain even caught up to his feet.

“Sir,” he said, breath tight, “this is police business. I need your vehicle.”

The man blinked. “What the—?”

“I’ll return it in one piece,” Akram said. “Please.”

Whatever he saw in Akram’s face—the drenched hair, the urgency, the fire behind his eyes—it stopped him cold. He didn’t ask questions. Just held out the keys.

Akram took them. “Thank you.”

Then he swung his leg over the bike, fingers already on the ignition. The engine kicked hard under him, a living thing.

And he was gone. Headlights slicing through dark. Streetlights warping in his vision.

His coat snapped behind him like a warning shot.

He only hoped he wouldn’t be too late.

Pentland Hills, 08:45 p.m.

The car slowed to a stop.

Carl caught the crunch of gravel under the tyres, the cold reflection of moonlight on water. The wind had teeth this far out—gnawed at the windows, clawed at the hills. Baddinsgill Reservoir, dead centre of nowhere.

Figures moved outside.

The back door opened.

“Out,” Owen said.

Carl didn’t move. Couldn’t—not with his wrists cuffed behind his back, body boxed in, and a Glock hovering just shy of his ribs.

He stared straight ahead, not flinching. The long pier stretched into the reservoir like a crooked finger, black water slick with moonlight. Wind howled off the hills. Cold enough to crack bone.

“Get the gun out of my face,” Carl said flatly.

Owen didn’t move at first.

Carl’s eyes flicked toward him, slow and surgical. “You want me out, fine. But don’t play trigger-happy while I’m still jammed in the bloody seat. You’re not that stupid.”

A tense beat.

Then Owen shifted back, just slightly—enough to give Carl space to slide free, though the gun stayed up.

“Now,” Owen said again. Quieter. Edged.

Carl slid out.

The wind hit him like a slap. His shirt, still damp from earlier rain, clung to him. No coat. No gloves. Just that sharp, bone-aching kind of cold that made it hard to think of anything but survival.

“Quaint spot,” he muttered, stepping onto the pier. “Always wanted my murder to have a rustic finish.”

Owen didn’t reply. Just nudged him forward with the barrel of the gun.

Ahead, Quinn stood with his hands in his coat pockets, silhouetted against the pale spill of moonlight over the water. Calm. Collected. Like this was just another errand.

Carl walked. Each step hollow on the metal.

When they reached the edge of the pier, Quinn turned.

His expression was polite. Unhurried. Like he might’ve been waiting for a dinner reservation.

“I expected more of you,” Quinn said. “Frankly, I thought you'd be harder to catch.”

Carl glanced over his shoulder at the handcuffs. “Well, next time I’ll have a clone on standby. Very inconsiderate of me.”

“You joke,” Quinn said, “but I think part of you knew where this would end.”

Carl stared at him. “If you’re trying to scare me, you should know I’ve had better men do worse with less time.”

Quinn smiled faintly. “I’m not trying to scare you, Carl. That would imply I care how you feel.”

Behind them, Owen shifted slightly, still holding the gun steady—but his stance had changed. Tense now. Shoulders high. Knuckles white.

Carl noticed. Filed it.

“Tell me something,” Carl said after a beat. “Why her? Why Eliza?”

Quinn tilted his head, as if Carl had asked something deeply uninteresting. “Because she believed in things. In justice. Belief is such a convenient pressure point.”

Carl’s stomach turned. “She was twenty. A student. For Christ sake, you have daughters.”

Quinn’s expression didn’t change. “And I teach them to question weakness when they see it. Even in themselves.”

Carl let out a mirthless chuckle. “You really don’t feel anything, do you?”

“There’s no moral scale in the mind,” Quinn said. “Only choices. And consequences.”

“And when your consequences show up wearing a badge?” Carl asked dryly.

Quinn glanced toward the dark water. “Then they’ll be too busy looking for you to bother with me.”

Carl went very still.

“I imagine they’ll find you,” Quinn added. “Eventually. But time is a great eraser. I’ve already packed the car. We’ll be driving north by morning. A nice little road trip to wait out the noise.”

The words sat in the air like oil.

Carl exhaled once, sharp. “Jesus Christ.”

“Don’t be melodramatic,” Quinn said. “You’ve known from the beginning. Men like me don’t get punished. We get tenure.”

Carl’s breath frosted out in the cold. “Funny thing,” he said, voice lower now. “You’ve been real careful. Kept your hands clean. Played innocent. But you missed something.”

Quinn raised a brow. “Oh?”

Carl met his eyes. “You never read her diary, did you?”

A flicker. There. Barely a blink. But something shifted in Quinn’s expression.

“You knew it existed,” Carl continued, jerking his chin at Owen. “You sent your clean-up crew to get it. But you never read it. Otherwise you’d know she quoted you. Your poetry. Reverent. Obsessive. But also scared.”

Quinn didn’t move.

Carl’s tone dropped. “Why didn’t you burn it?”

Silence.

Then—Quinn turned slightly. Looked at Owen.

Owen’s mouth twitched. He shifted his weight again. His grip on the gun loosened, just slightly.

Carl wanted to roll his eyes. 

Of fucking course. 

“You were just supposed to scare her, weren’t you?” Carl said to Owen. “Make her back off. But it went too far. And now here you are again, doing the same damn thing. Like a loyal dog hoping for scraps.”

“Stop,” Quinn said sharply.

Carl didn’t. “You think he gives a shit about you, Owen? He doesn’t even have pictures of his dead brother in his office. You’re not a contingency. You’re a mistake. One he hasn’t cleaned up yet.”

Quinn took a step forward, all cold fury beneath the calm. “Careful.”

But Carl moved first.

He launched forward with no warning—shoulders low, balance shifting fast. A single violent motion. He dropped his weight and headbutted Quinn square in the mouth.

Quinn stumbled with a sharp grunt, blood blooming at his lip.

Owen shouted—startled, frantic. “Don’t—!”

“If I’m going down, I’m taking one of you fuckers with me,” Carl snapped.

Owen swore. The gun waved wildly. He took two rushed steps forward and—shoved.

Not a calculated strike. Just panic. Raw and automatic.

Carl’s foot caught the slick edge of the pier.

And then—air. Cold, whiplash air.

Carl hit the reservoir like a stone.

It was shock. Pain. Freezing, instant, disorienting pain.

The cold hit his chest like a fist. He clenched his teeth tight. Dark. Icy. His wrists—bound behind him—dragged him down. He kicked, but nothing caught. No surface. No grip. Just the black swallowing him whole. 

The impact had knocked the breath from his lungs, and now his chest burned, screaming for air. Panic flared sharp and bright.

Fuck, he thought, wild and irrational. Fuck my fucking life—

The last of his air burned in his throat.

This was it.

This was the end.

What a way to go. Shoved off a pier by the muscle of a narcissistic sociopath in a cashmere coat.

No dramatic last words. No clever exit line. Just him, freezing, flailing, lungs ready to mutiny while his brain played highlights of his worst hits.

Jasper would have to go back to his mum’s. Probably hate every second. 

He’d never get to hear Hardy quote something witty he once said a decade ago in that insufferably smug way he did. Or hear Rose say “prick” with that soft bite she pretended wasn’t affection.

He’d never lock Martin out of the house again just to watch the man do his panicked penguin-walk of rage back around the building trying to find signal.

And Akram—

Carl clenched his jaw, barely. His head felt too far from his body now. Too quiet. Like the black was tucking itself around him. Like it was a kindness.

No more paperwork. No more sleepless nights. No more wondering if he was doing any of it right.

Just—

Movement stirred above. Faint. Shifting. A ripple in the dark like a memory or a ghost.

At first he thought he was hallucinating—something flickering through the black like a ghost—but then it was there. Real. Reaching.

Hands.

Strong, sure hands grabbing his shoulders, wrenching him upward.

Carl felt himself turning, rising—lungs screaming, blood roaring in his ears. And then he was being hauled—dragged with powerful strokes—up, up, up—

They broke the surface in a crash of water and noise and stars—but it was too late for breath. Carl’s lungs seized, coughing, sputtering, heaving air and panic. The water was in his ears, his mouth, his eyes.

He was alive.

Alive.

Arms wrapped around him—solid, anchoring—pulling him toward the shore.

Akram.

He didn’t need to see to know.

His wrists were still cuffed, so he couldn’t hold on. But Akram never let go. Even when the freezing shallows bit at them, Akram kept a firm grip until they hit land—mud and rocks and biting wind.

Akram’s voice cut through the rush. “Carl, breathe—”

Hands. Pressing. Tilting—

Warm air hit his mouth.

Sharp. Deliberate.

Carl gasped and hacked hard—his body convulsing as water exploded from his lungs. He choked, rolled, felt the cold like burning. Something solid held him upright—steady, firm.

“You’re alright,” Akram said, close now, voice taut with urgency. “Just breathe.”

Carl wheezed. “Y-You kissed me,” he croaked.

Akram paused just long enough for Carl to hear the soft exhale that might’ve been relief. Or disbelief.

“Technically, I resuscitated you.”

“Romantic,” Carl rasped. “Tell it at my funeral.”

Akram let out a breath that shook faintly against Carl’s shoulder. “Not fucking funny.”

Carl almost laughed. He was freezing. Every breath hurt. His head spun.

Akram shifted beside him, fiddling with Carl’s cuffs.

“Don’t move,” Akram said, voice low but urgent.

Carl tried to say something clever. Something dismissive.

It came out a wheeze.

Akram got the cuffs off with ease that would've impressed Carl had it been under any other circumstances. Then—without a second of hesitation—he stripped off Carl’s soaked shirt and his own, dropping both into the wet earth before pulling Carl back against him. Skin to skin, arms around Carl’s ribcage, breath warm against his ear.

Carl shuddered. Couldn’t stop.

“Fuck,” he muttered, teeth chattering. “Can’t feel my—anything.”

“You will,” Akram said softly. “Just take a deep breath.”

Akram’s breathing was steady. Carl’s was shallow and wrecked.

Silence.

Then, Carl mumbled, “You didn’t even buy me dinner first.”

Akram let out an incredulous laugh. “Before saving your life?”

“Before mouth-to-mouthing me in a fucking freezing puddle.”

Akram huffed, and for a moment, the world didn’t feel quite so lethal.

Carl looked up, just slightly. Their faces were inches apart. His body felt numb. His heart hurt in a different way now.

Because Carl knew how to handle near-death experiences. He knew how to deal with pain and barely surviving the frankly ridiculous number of attempts the universe had made to kill him.

What he didn't know how to handle was Akram Salim, calm and quiet and devastatingly competent, breathing warmth into his frozen bones and looking at him like Carl was something precious he couldn't bear losing.

He'd rather drown again than admit it aloud, but Carl knew exactly how screwed he was. It wasn't hypothermia making his pulse race like an idiot teenager's. It wasn't shock making his mouth suddenly dry, his thoughts suddenly tangled up and frustratingly stupid.

He stared up at Akram who had, yet again, dragged him back from the brink, and tried desperately to conjure up something cutting, something sarcastic—something distinctly him. Anything to remind them both he wasn't entirely helpless.

He licked his lips, tasted reservoir water, realised belatedly he probably looked ridiculous, half-drowned and shivering in the dirt—and still, somehow, he didn’t care nearly as much as he should’ve.

“I think I need CPR,” Carl said finally, voice rough with exhaustion and sincerity he didn't particularly like acknowledging.

Akram stared at him, deeply unimpressed. “You—”

“For safety reasons,” Carl added seriously. “Could be dying.”

Akram shook his head, but his hands never stopped moving—rubbing heat into Carl’s arms, checking for tremors, for signs of slipping under. “You’re hypothermic. You’re not in full possession of your faculties.”

“I’ve never had full possession of anything,” Carl muttered. Not even his own heart, apparently.

Akram’s gaze flicked to his mouth. Then back up.

Carl tilted his head back. “I see the light.”

Akram shot him a flat look. “Don’t.”

“No really,” Carl said with a weak grin. “I think I’m finally free from this mortal coil.”

Akram’s jaw flexed—like he was about to scold him—but something else was bleeding into his expression now. Something low and warm and quietly furious. The kind that comes from nearly losing something you weren’t sure you were allowed to want.

Carl, for once in his life, didn’t have a quip. No armour. No joke.

Akram breathed out slowly. Then leaned in.

The kiss wasn’t cautious.

It was desperate and quiet and full of every unspoken thing between them—like all the boundaries Akram had drawn around himself were collapsing at once. Carl’s fingers, still shaking, curled into the side of Akram’s neck. 

When they parted, Carl was shaking for a different reason entirely.

Akram leaned back a few inches, eyes scanning Carl’s face. His brows drew together like he was assessing damage.

Carl narrowed his eyes. “What?”

Akram’s mouth tugged faintly. “Just checking you didn’t implode from the burden of realising you have feelings.”

Carl scoffed. “Please. I’m British. We’re issued exactly one emotion at birth, and it’s shame.”

Akram tilted his head. “Interesting, because I’m seeing at least two.”

Carl opened his mouth to fire something back—but Akram reached up, cupped his jaw, and turned his face into another kiss.

This one was slower. Lingering. Less restrained.

Carl’s fingers slid into Akram’s wet hair—not out of desperation now, but desire. The kind he’d been pretending not to feel for months. The kind he hadn’t let himself want.

And when they pulled apart again, it wasn't far. Akram pressed their foreheads together. 

Sirens hummed in the distance. Far off. Coming closer. The red-and-blue strobe bouncing off the water like some kind of judgment day.

Carl groaned. “Oh good. Witnesses.”

From the ridge, Rose’s voice echoed out. “Carl?! Akram?!”

Hardy: “Tell me he’s not dead, I swear to fucking Christ!”

Akram looked up. Called back: “We’re here!”

Carl let his head thunk back against the ground. “Let me die.”

Akram smiled against his hair.

Carl didn’t move.

He wasn’t sure he could, even if he wanted to. 

Which he didn't. 

Not yet.

Chapter Text

BBC Broadcast – Live from the High Court in Edinburgh

“After over two decades behind bars, Callum Rane was formally exonerated today for the 1997 disappearance and presumed murder of his sister, Eliza Rane. New evidence brought to light by the Department Q task force resulted in the arrest of two men earlier this week—Alastair Quinn, former university lecturer and prominent academic, and Owen Lennox, an honourably discharged veteran.

“Sources close to the investigation confirm Lennox provided crucial details in custody, leading investigators to the recovery of Eliza Rane’s remains near Loch Ard, a remote and previously unsearched location roughly fifty miles from Edinburgh. Police say the confession came as Lennox, cooperating with authorities, broke two decades of silence about the tragic events.”

A shaky clip of police leading Quinn and Lennox in handcuffs across a rain-slicked pavement. Both unshaven. Both silent.

On the screen, the camera panned back to the court steps. Merritt adjusted her coat as reporters surged forward.

“Ms. Lingard! Can you comment on the outcome?”

“Do you have anything to say about the rumours stating you took this case as a favour to DCI Morck?”

“Do you believe the justice system failed Mr. Rane?”

“What about compensation?”

Merritt lifted one elegant hand. The crowd quieted.

“Mr. Rane has lost two and a half decades of his life. That cannot be returned. What can be done—and what was done—is the truth. My client is innocent. He was innocent in 1997. And he’s still innocent today.”

There was a pause. Cameras flashed. 

“Those responsible will face trial. The state will issue compensation. And I’m sure the university that sheltered a predator for twenty years will have its own soul-searching to do—assuming they can find one.”

Reporters scrambled to write that down.

One bold voice called out:

“Ms. Lingard—how would you summarise this case?”

She glanced down at the file in her hand, then up at the camera.

“Justice doesn’t always arrive on time. But when it does,” she wiggled the file, a smirk on her lips, “it brings interest.”

And with that, she turned and walked off screen, coat flaring at the edges, leaving the microphones in her wake.

“This has been our continuing coverage of the Rane case. Stay with us for more on this developing story.”

The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, 08:00 a.m.

The hospital ceiling tiles were a familiar shade of institutional grey. Carl had been staring at them so long, he was starting to find patterns. One vaguely resembled a goose. Another, a punching nun.

Fitting.

The door creaked.

“Oh, thank god,” he croaked. “If you'd been another nurse with rewarming techniques, I swear I would've ripped out my IV and walked into traffic.”

“Hello to you too, you ungrateful sod,” Rose announced as she entered, clutching a takeaway cup in one hand and a stack of paperwork in the other.

Hardy trailed behind her, looking like he’d aged five years in a night. There were bags under his eyes. His coat looked slept in.

Carl blinked. “Did you two spend the night in the lobby or just under a table?”

Hardy dropped into the armchair beside the bed and rubbed his face. “We took shifts glaring at the vending machine and praying you didn’t die before you could tell us where you keep the blackmail files.”

Rose handed Carl the cup with a flourish. “Here. Camomile tea, doctor’s orders. Akram said you’d complain if it wasn’t the exact shade of beige your soul runs on.”

Carl took it and sipped. He grimaced. “Miraculous. I live another day.”

“Barely,” Hardy muttered. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain to hospital security that your idiot colleague was thrown into a reservoir?”

Carl shrugged. Immediately winced. “Let’s just say I’m very popular with criminals.”

Rose perched on the end of the bed. “First the flashbang. Then kidnapping at gunpoint. And now, attempted drowning. Anything else you forgot to mention? Grenades? Landmines? Secretly married to the Prince of Wales?”

Carl was about to reply—wittily, of course—when the door creaked again.

This time, Jasper stepped in.

He looked pale. His hoodie was half-zipped, and there were dark smudges under his eyes. He held a carrier bag in one hand, but didn’t move past the threshold.

Rose and Hardy stood, quiet now.

“We’ll give you two a minute,” Rose said softly.

Hardy followed her out without another word.

Carl watched them go. Then looked at Jasper.

“Hey,” he said, because it was the only word that would come.

“You’re not dead,” Jasper said wryly.

Carl snorted. “Not yet. Disappointed?”

Jasper shrugged, setting the bag down on the table. “Would've inherited your record collection.”

Carl’s lips twitched. “We don’t even have a turntable.”

“I’d have sold them for cash,” Jasper muttered. “Bought myself something nice. Like noise-cancelling headphones so I don’t have to listen to Martin lecture me about coriander for half an hour.”

Carl made a soft, amused sound. “Honestly, that almost seems worth it.”

Jasper shook his head, but there was a hint of genuine amusement behind his eyes. He stared at the monitor for a long moment. The silence stretched, settling into something heavier.

“He was in the house,” Jasper said at last. “I didn’t even hear him.”

“That’s not your fault.” Carl said firmly.

Jasper sat down. Hard. “But it still happened.”

Carl watched him for a beat. The slumped shoulders. The defensive hunch. The unsaid fear.

Then Jasper said, quietly, “Please don’t send me back to live with Mum.”

Carl blinked. “What?”

Jasper kept his eyes on the floor. “I know it was just supposed to be temporary. And I know this whole thing—it was a lot. So if you’ve changed your mind—”

“I haven’t,” Carl said immediately. “I didn’t.”

Jasper’s eyes flicked up. “Even after this?”

“Especially after this.”

Silence settled again, thicker this time. 

Jasper’s voice was quiet. “You always blame yourself. When people get hurt. When they stay. When they go. You always think it’s your fault.”

Carl sighed. “That’s because it usually is—”

“But I’m not going anywhere,” Jasper cut in. “I want to stay with you.”

Carl watched him for a moment longer. The kid was still pale. Still shaken. But his voice didn’t waver.

“Well,” Carl said at last, settling back against the pillows. “I suppose you could get hit by a car just walking down the street.”

Jasper looked up, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Exactly. Or a plane crash.”

Carl chuckled, tired and warm. “Statistically less likely, but yeah, sure.”

Silence settled, comfortable this time.

“I brought food,” Jasper said, nudging the plastic bag. “None of that pudding that comes in a tube.”

“Thanks,” Carl said, reaching out to give Jasper’s wrist a squeeze. “Now go get me a real coffee before I start chewing the bedframe.”

Jasper rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Sure, Dad.”

Carl blinked.

It was casual. Thrown off like any other word. No ceremony. No tension.

But it hit him like a brick to the sternum.

Sure, Dad.

Not Carl.

Dad.

The word echoed in Carl’s brain. Not loud. Just... sudden. And final. Like a key turning in a lock he didn’t realise had been there.

He didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.

Jasper didn’t seem to notice—just gave a small smile, like nothing had shifted, and turned toward the door.

And then he was gone, the door clicking gently shut behind him.

Carl let his head fall back against the pillow. Stared at the ceiling like it had answers.

The room settled back into the usual hospital silence—the soft beep of monitors, the low mechanical hum down the hall, and the clunk of a vending machine devouring someone’s last coin.

Carl exhaled.

Then muttered to himself, “Shit.”

Because he’d just been called Dad.

Carl was contemplating how quickly he could get dressed and escape when the door opened again.

He didn’t need to look. He knew that step.

Akram closed the door behind him and paused just inside. His scarf was wrapped a little more carefully than usual. His coat hung heavier on his frame, like he’d run through weather to get here. His dark eyes swept over Carl quickly, as if to confirm that yes—still alive, still mostly intact.

Carl raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be in a bed too? You were half-frozen last I checked.”

Akram stepped forward, slow and deliberate. “My constitution’s better than yours.”

Carl snorted. “You’ve got jokes now?”

Akram smiled faintly and pulled the chair closer—the same one Jasper had vacated—and sat down beside the bed.

For a moment, neither of them said anything.

It wasn’t uncomfortable.

It was… charged. Electric. Like everything unspoken was now sitting in the space between them, waiting.

Carl cleared his throat. “So.”

Akram tilted his head slightly, amused. “So.”

Carl rolled his eyes skyward. “Are we going to talk about it? Or just pretend that CPR now comes with optional tongue?”

Akram gave him a dry look. “Really?”

Carl's lips tilted up into a smirk. “You could’ve pinched my nose like a normal person.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You’re the one who kissed me.”

Akram held his gaze. “I did.”

That made Carl’s stomach do a stupid, flipping thing. He tried to sit up straighter and immediately winced. His ribs protested.

Akram reached out, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder—gentle, but firm. “Careful.”

Carl’s mouth twisted. “Are you going to keep doing that?”

“What?”

“Touching me like I’m made of glass.”

Akram didn’t pull his hand away. “Only until you stop nearly dying every two weeks.”

Carl huffed a laugh—breathless and warm. “Fair.”

A beat passed.

Carl turned his head just slightly, his voice dropping. “So… what now?”

Akram’s thumb brushed absently across the edge of the blanket. “Now I stay. And when you’re not in a hospital bed, I ask you if you meant it.”

Carl blinked. “Meant what?”

Akram raised his brows, still amused. “When you kissed me back.”

Carl went still.

“Did you?” Akram asked, his voice low.

Carl hesitated—just a flicker. Then he shrugged, casual. “Hard to say. I was hypothermic. Possibly delirious.”

Akram’s mouth quirked. “So you kiss everyone who drags you out of a reservoir?”

Carl raised a brow. “Only the ones built like action figures with mysterious pasts.”

Akram let out a soft huff. “You’re impossible.”

“And yet,” Carl said smugly. “Here you are.”

Akram didn’t respond. Instead, he shifted closer—close enough for Carl to feel the pull of his body heat.

Then, with deliberate calm, he sat on the edge of the bed.

His hand reached out, slow and sure, fingers brushing lightly under Carl’s chin, tilting his face up.

Their mouths met like a secret—soft at first. Tentative. Carl parted his lips, his hand sliding instinctively over Akram’s forearm, curling around his wrist like he didn’t even realise he was doing it.

Akram deepened the kiss just slightly, tilting his head, his hand moving to the nape of Carl’s neck, fingers threading through the too-long strands. His thumb stroked gently behind Carl’s ear, then traced down his jaw until it pressed against the scar on his throat.

The ECG monitor to his left spiked with all the subtlety of a gunshot.

Carl jerked back. “God—dammit—”

Akram ducked his head, deeply amused.

Carl buried his face in one hand. “Perfect. Brilliant. Love that for me.”

“I take it as a compliment,” Akram said, far too pleased with himself.

“You would,” Carl muttered darkly.

The door creaked open a sliver. A nurse popped her head in. “Everything alright in here?”

Akram turned his head calmly, his tone maddeningly polite. “He’s just recovering.”

The nurse raised one delicate brow. “Right. Well. Try not to flatline.”

She shut the door again.

Carl exhaled heavily. “I hate everything.”

Akram reached for his hand—didn’t ask, just did. “You don’t.”

Carl lifted his chin stubbornly. “If anyone asks, I was dead calm and utterly disinterested.”

Akram raised one sceptical eyebrow. “The evidence suggests otherwise.”

Carl glared weakly. “You know, for someone who could’ve drowned yesterday, you’re annoyingly smug.”

“And for someone who actually did,” Akram replied mildly, “you’re annoyingly stubborn.”

Carl grunted, eyes narrowing slightly. “I didn’t drown.”

“You stopped breathing.”

“I paused breathing,” Carl corrected irritably. “Strategically.”

“Right.” Akram’s lips twitched. “Strategically.”

Carl sank further into the pillows, eyes fluttering shut. “Don’t gloat. It’s unbecoming.”

Akram chuckled softly, and Carl felt the warmth of it against his jaw. “I’ll try to behave.”

“See that you do,” Carl mumbled.

A beat passed, the silence softer now. Akram’s thumb traced lazy circles over Carl’s knuckles—steady, grounding. Gradually, Carl felt the ache in his bones ease, the weariness pulling him deeper into stillness.

And for the first time in a long time—he didn’t dream of anything at all.

Chapter Text

The radiator still hadn’t been fixed.

Carl nudged it with the toe of his boot as he passed, half-hoping it might groan to life, spit out a breath of heat, and pretend to be useful for once. No such luck. He muttered something unspeakable under his breath, then shuffled toward his desk with coffee in one hand and a half-eaten pastry in the other.

Rose looked up from her computer with an exaggerated gasp. “Carl Morck, you’re early.”

Carl shot her a dry look. “I’m not early.” 

Hardy peered over the edge of his laptop screen. “Is it because Akram’s always on time and you’re trying to impress him?”

Carl didn’t even dignify that with a response—he just sipped his coffee and fought a losing battle with his smirk.

“I’m here before any of you.” Akram said, amused.

The board was half-cleared now. Eliza’s name remained, in softer ink. No red string. Just quiet reverence. The photo of her had been moved to the corner.

No one had taken it down yet.

Footsteps on the stairwell signalled Moira before she arrived—voice sharp in the hush. “You’ve got visitors.”

Carl stood just as Akram turned from the filing cabinet and Rose shut her laptop. Hardy rose slower, already chewing on another ginger biscuit.

Mhairi and Callum entered together.

They looked different in daylight. Not healed, not whole—but changed. Mhairi had her arm looped through her brother’s like she’d braided hope into the gesture.

Carl blinked. “What the hell are you doing back in a police station?”

Callum gave a small, crooked smile. “Would you believe nostalgia?”

Mhairi signed something. Her hands moved fluidly, her expression warm. She smiled at Akram.

He signed back briefly—quietly competent—and then translated aloud for the team. “She says it’s strange to walk back into this place without dread. But not unwelcome.”

Carl let out a faint breath of a chuckle. “We aim to terrify slightly less, these days.”

Mhairi signed again, this time more pointedly.

Akram interpreted: “She says you’re lying, you still terrify everyone.”

Rose grinned. “I like her.”

Callum stepped forward, reaching into his coat and pulling out a worn envelope.

“This belonged to Eliza,” he said quietly, voice hoarse. “She kept it tucked behind a picture frame. I thought… maybe it should stay here.”

Carl took it gently and opened the flap.

Inside: a folded slip of yellowing paper.

He unfolded it carefully, scanning the lines in silence.

The ink was faded but clear. The handwriting careful. Confident.

Akram leaned in just enough to read over his shoulder.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
—Alice Walker

I didn’t speak at first because I was scared.
Then because I was ashamed.
But I've learned that the ethics of silence is knowing when your truth is safer held—

And when it’s braver shared.

He stared at it for a long moment, then nodded. “We’ll make sure it’s remembered.”

Silence held for a breath.

Then Carl looked up at Callum. “What’s next for you?”

Callum blinked. “What?”

“You’ve got your life back. That’s a start. And… a decent bit of compensation. So what do you want to do with it?”

Callum shifted awkwardly, then scratched the back of his neck. “I always thought I wasn’t much good at anything. Not smart enough. All that.”

Carl waited.

Callum cleared his throat. “But there was this outreach project in Dundee. Works with kids who’ve been through care. I thought… maybe I’d volunteer. Help out. Maybe do something that counts.”

Carl met his gaze, and for once, didn’t deflect.

“That counts,” he said simply.

Hardy cleared his throat, far too loudly. “Right, well. If anyone needs me, I’ll be upstairs.”

Rose linked her arm through his. “Don’t cry, old man.”

Mhairi stepped forward and gently touched Carl’s arm. He startled—just a fraction—but didn’t pull away.

She signed something softly. Akram translated. “She says Eliza would’ve liked you.”

Carl smiled wryly. “We’ll agree to disagree.”

Mhairi rolled her eyes and smiled.

Carl looked down at the poem again. Heard the voice of the girl who refused to be erased.

He turned to pin the paper to the board, where her photo still sat.

Case closed. But some echoes deserved to linger.

Justice, at last.

The day wound down in slow turns. Reports filed. Statements signed. Coffee consumed like medicine. Quinn and Owen had both been transferred to secure facilities. Eliza’s remains were returned to her family. Her diary too.

Carl returned to his desk.

Akram passed him a file. Without asking. Without looking.

Carl grunted. “You’re creepy, you know that?”

Akram sipped his coffee. “You say that like it’s new information.”

They didn’t touch. But the space between them felt occupied. Like it remembered.

Rose glanced at them. “Just checking—are we still pretending you’re ‘just colleagues’?”

Carl didn’t look up. “I’m pretending I don’t hear you.”

Akram actually laughed. Soft. Quiet. But it lit the room.

Rose pointed at them both in turn. “One day I’ll catch you. You won’t know when. But I will.”

Hardy looked up from shrugging his coat on. “God help us all if she gets photographic evidence.”

Rose gathered her coat. “Alright, Grandpa, let’s go before you turn to dust.”

Hardy tossed his scarf around his throat with a theatrical groan. “Try not to fall into each other’s arms the second we leave.”

Carl made a face. “It’s like you want a harassment complaint.”

“He thrives on legal threats,” Rose said cheekily.

“Goodnight, weirdos,” Hardy said, already turning toward the stairs. “Don’t do anything I’d disapprove of.”

“That's a blank cheque,” Carl called after him.

They disappeared into the elevator.

And silence settled.

Carl leaned back, stretched. His shoulder ached. He rubbed at it absently, fingers tightening, but it didn’t help.

“Sore?” Akram asked.

“When it’s cold.” Carl muttered.

Akram shifted, reaching out to lay his hands on Carl’s shoulders—steady and warm—working out the tension with the kind of quiet competence that shouldn’t have been this distracting.

“You know,” Carl muttered, “if you’re trying to kill me, this is the way to do it. Lull me into a false sense of security.”

Akram’s hands didn’t pause. Just pressed more firmly into the knot above his shoulder blade. “Is it working?”

Carl huffed a laugh, tipping his head back slightly. “You’re lucky I’m too tired to file a complaint.”

“You’d have to file it through me,” Akram said mildly. “Otherwise it’d never get processed.”

Carl snorted, eyes half-lidded. “Exactly. Terrible system.”

Carl felt the warmth of Akram’s breath before he realised how close he’d leaned in. The edge of it curled against his temple, drifted across his cheek.

Then Akram kissed the spot just beneath his jaw. Right over the scar that had long since stopped aching. Carl closed his eyes, exhaling slowly.

“You’re doing that on purpose,” he murmured.

“Doing what?” Akram asked, innocent and infuriatingly calm, his breath still ghosting lightly against Carl's skin.

“Trying to melt my brain,” Carl grumbled. But he tilted his head a fraction further, leaning into the warmth anyway.

Akram’s lips curved against his skin. “It’s hardly my fault your defences crumble at the slightest hint of affection.”

Carl snorted quietly. “Affection? Is that what we’re calling blatant sabotage these days?”

Akram made a soft, amused noise and gently kissed the spot again—tender this time, slower, as if making a deliberate point.

Carl opened one eye slightly, shooting him a sidelong look. “So… dinner?”

Akram turned his head slightly. “Yours or mine?”

Carl shrugged. “Whichever one has better food.”

Akram smiled. “Mine.”

Carl stood slowly, gathering his jacket. “Fine. But I’m picking the wine.”

Akram nodded once, slipping on his coat. “I’m regretting this already.”

They walked out together.

The lights of Department Q flicked off behind them, the board left untouched—for now.

The case was closed.

Others would come. They always did.

But not everything needed solving.

Some things, you just had to let happen.

— END —