Chapter 31
TOM
Craig’s door opens before I’ve even knocked, like he’s been standing there with a stopwatch and a lecture prepared.
“Get in,” he says, scanning the street behind me like I’ve turned up with a press pack and a marching band.
“Hey, Tom,” he says, smiling. “I’m heading out. You two behave. Craig, don’t interrogate him for sport.”
Craig kisses him like a man who absolutely will interrogate me for sport. “Back by ten?”
“Or eleven,” Phil calls, already halfway out.
The door shuts. Craig folds his arms. “Right. Sit. Talk.”
I flop onto their sofa and become briefly obsessed with a cushion because it looks designer and I don’t know how to sit near expensive textiles without sweating.
“So,” I say, picking fluff that doesn’t exist, “yesterday was… a lot.”
He gives me the detective face: neutral, patient, smugly inevitable. It’s the look he wears when suspects confess to parking on double yellows. “Start at ‘a lot’ and proceed chronologically.”
“Pete told me not to come back.” The words come out too fast. “He had bruises, Craig. Real ones. Dark. Cheekbone, jaw. He wouldn’t say, but—”
“From James?” Craig says, as if reading from a script.
“Yes. Probably. And then—” I inhale through my teeth. “I got followed by a car. Again. I thought I may have been imagining it the first time. I’m self-aware enough to know both are possible.”
He doesn’t even flinch. “What car? Registration?”
“Registration? No idea. I was busy panicking. Grey BMW. Could also have been a toaster.”
Craig sighs in a way that suggests I’ve let down the entire constabulary.
I continue. “But that doesn’t matter, because I confronted the driver.”
One of his eyebrows tries to make a break for it. “You what?”
“Yes, like slammed on the brakes and forced them to stop—”
“Very unlike you.”
“Yes, very, I was high on adrenaline. But, I’m glad I did.”
“Who was it?”
“It was Emma, Chris’s sister.”
Craig blinks, processing. “Chris? The ex?”
“Yes, the mysteriously vanished ex, who disappeared two years ago. She says he was with Pete for a while, but wasn’t getting along with James.”
Craig huffs. “So, why was she following you?”
“She’s desperate to find her brother. Thinks he’s gone into hiding. Thinks James knows more than he’s saying. Thinks I can help.”
“Help how?”
“Help by getting through to Pete.”
“And do you think you can help?”
I look at my hands. “I think Pete needs help more than her.”
“And what’s she like?”
“Emma. She’s… interesting.”
“Define ‘interesting.’”
“Like someone who keeps emergency mascara in the glove compartment and also believes she could hot-wire a helicopter.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Great.” He grabs a notepad from the side and flips it open. “Look, I’ve been doing a little digging myself. This stays within the room,” he says sternly. “Here’s what I’ve found.”
I sit up.
“James Whitlow,” Craig begins, and the surname feels expensive. “Forty-five. Property, private equity, some tech business too. A few shell companies. A very good accountant. The sort of chap who appears on charity boards in photos where everyone is wearing navy.”
“Of course he does,” I mutter.
Craig continues. “He’s been looked at before. Nothing that stuck. Two separate allegations of assault — one from a former employee, one from a… former partner, I think — charged initially then dropped. Witnesses went quiet. Money has a way of muffling noise.”
My stomach drops like a lift. “Jesus.”
“Intimidation complaints around a planning dispute. Again: charged but withdrawn.”
“So, violent, connected, and rich,” I say. “Great. My favourite flavour of villain.”
Craig gives me the Don’t-Be-Flippant-With-Crime glare. “I’m serious, Tom. This man doesn’t need to break the law to get what he wants. People do it for him.”
I feel the fizz of panic bubble under my ribs. “What do I do?”
“Stay away.”
I make the kind of face small children make when told broccoli counts as a treat.
Craig points at me. “No, I mean it. I know that look. It’s the look you get before you adopt a problematic cactus. You are not equipped to take on a man whose lawyers have lawyers.”
“I know,” I say, lying so hard the sofa should eject me. “I will. I’ll stay away.”
He narrows his eyes. “Say it again but try it without the subtext.”
“I’ll…” I twirl a coaster. “…take a measured approach.”
He groans into his hands. “Tom.”
“Okay, okay.” I hold up palms. “I will. But I can’t just leave Pete.”
Craig’s voice softens. “I know. But you can’t save someone who doesn’t want saving.”
“There was a time when I would say I didn’t need saving.”
Craig frowns. “This is different.”
“Is it?” I ask.
“Of course. I’d known you years before you met Daniel. There was a very clear benchmark of what your normal, if slightly erratic, overthinking and melodramatic behaviour was—”
“—Melodramatic?”
“—So, I could tell how you changed, became a shell of yourself.”
I pause. This was true.
“And you’ve known Pete for like twenty minutes and you’re, what, trying to swoop in like Batman and save the day?”
“But I feel like I’ve known him forever. He knows so much about me. My life, Dad. I told him about Guy.”
“Oh,” Craig says.
“Everything, about how I was seeing Guy behind Daniel’s back. The truth.” I stop for a moment before continuing. “Well, nearly everything. I didn’t talk about what happened when Daniel found out.”
Craig just nods.
“Or how he found out,” I add.
“No, I suppose that’s not important.”
“No, but it is to me. Even now, I’d love to know how he found out.”
“Maybe solve one problem at a time, hey?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “And now Pete’s my main priority. You should have seen the bruises. Over his face. I can’t just leave him in that house.”
Craig leans back in his chair. “I get it,” he says. “You want to help Pete. But you’re not equipped to fix this. None of us are, not in the way he needs.”
That hits like a slap, though not an entirely unfair one. I open my mouth to argue, but he keeps going.
“If Pete’s in a violent relationship, he needs professional help. Proper safeguarding. People who do this day in, day out.”
I sigh. “So what? Helplines? Leaflets? It feels so… impersonal.”
Craig shakes his head. “It isn’t. Refuge run a twenty-four-hour line.
Completely confidential. They’ll talk him through safety planning, even housing if he needs it.
He doesn’t have to commit to anything, just…
talk. And there’s Galop—they specialise in LGBTQ+ domestic abuse.
There’s local services that can give him counselling, legal advice, the whole lot.
If Pete ever feels ready, I can make a referral. But it has to come from him.”
I chew on that. It feels useless, like giving someone an umbrella in a hurricane. But Craig’s tone softens.
“His GP could help too. You’d be surprised how often people disclose to doctors first. It goes on his record.
And if he ever wanted to log incidents with the police — even without pressing charges — we’ve got safeguarding teams for that.
It builds a picture. If things escalate, that picture matters. ”
He says it like it’s all practical, simple. But the weight behind it is anything but.
I laugh nervously, trying to cut through the heaviness. “You’re telling me to stop playing the knight in shining armour, aren’t you?”
Craig’s mouth quirks. “Pretty much. Leave the armour to the people trained for it.”
I nod, pretending I can do steady when inside I feel like a washing machine on spin cycle.
“Well…” I hesitate, because I’m already asking too much. “Can you look into Chris? Emma said the police think he left by choice, but… I don’t know. She’s convinced there’s more.”
Craig stares at me a long beat, then nods once. “I’ll see what I can do off the books. And if I find anything, you let me decide what’s actionable. Promise.”
I nod, which we both understand is not legally binding.
He takes his notebook and scribbles a few lines. “And if James contacts you, or if you see him near your house—”
“I call you,” I recite. “Or 999 if he’s wearing gloves.”
Craig doesn’t laugh. “I’m not playing, Tom.”
“I know. Sorry.” I take a breath. “Thank you.”
“And in the meantime, just step away from all this for a bit.”
I nod. Although inside, I know this is a promise I may very well not keep.
Leaving Craig’s place, outside, the air is cold and sensible. I sit in the driver’s seat and stare at my phone. It’s only when I see my own reflection in the black screen—pale, older than yesterday—that I realise my hands are shaking.
The phone vibrates like it’s had enough of my introspection.
Evelyn.
Fuck.
I stare. For a second, I consider letting it go to voicemail and pretending I was in a tunnel or fleeing a bear.
I can’t stop thinking about the blood.
I can’t do this now.
I lie in bed thinking about how the knife sliced through him.
But I know I can’t put this off.
I answer. “Evelyn?”