5
When I sneeze for the fiftieth time in two minutes, I’m nearly reluctant to wipe my nose, which already feels as if it’s about to burn off my face.
‘Some herbal tea, darling.’ Anna sets down a tray with an orange, two biscuits and a steaming mug. ‘Is the fever gone?’
I sink deeper into the mattress, dragging the duvet up to my chin as if another few pounds of cotton might smother whatever unholy thing has taken up residence in my lungs.
‘If it is, it doesn’t feel like it,’ I respond, already closing my eyes and burying my face in the pillow.
‘I see,’ she says. ‘How about something to cheer you up?’
‘An exorcist?’ I grumble without turning. ‘Chocolate. A Samoan masseuse. A magic wand, maybe?’
I blink through the fever-fog and finally push myself upright.
She’s holding up a letter with Crane’s name facing me.
A little bit of life returns to my limbs as I take it from her, but she remains planted beside the bed with an overly expectant expression.
I look at her.
She looks at the letter, then back at me.
Pressing my lips tight together, I slowly tuck it beneath the duvet.
Her mouth falls open a fraction. ‘Oh, come on.’
I cock a brow at that.
Giving me a deeply wounded look, she mutters something about ingratitude and leaves with considerably less grace than she entered.
The second the door clicks shut, I tear it open.
The first line reads, ‘Am I a dark romance trope?’
I huff a laugh—
Which immediately drops me into a fit of phlegmy coughing before I can read the rest.
Two spaces below that: ‘Honey for the throat. Thyme for the cough. Whisky for the soul.’
Rebecca must have told him I have the flu.
My eyes trace the curves of his slanted handwriting, almost visualising his hand as it holds the pen.
I catch myself wondering how he manages to say so little and still unravel something in me every time.
Then my thoughts turn, and the warmth in my chest goes with them.
I’ve been Elias Crane’s friend for several months now. Summer’s on the cusp of breaking through the rainclouds, and I often find myself counting days between visits like someone nursing a small addiction.
One-a-week has turned to two visits, sometimes more when the schedule allows. And still, the letters keep coming, whether I’d just seen him or not.
An entire storage box now sits in my basement – lined with envelopes bearing his name, matt-finished photographs, notes written in that perturbingly elegant cursive of his. They’re starting to feel like artefacts of a connection I don’t quite understand.
And yet, the question returns, as it always does – am I getting in too deep?
Guilt answers first.
My eyes drift across the rumpled sheets and the duvet to the closed laptop at the foot of the bed, half-buried in last night’s fever-damp sheets.
I’m no closer to learning what put Elias behind bars, and the court date creeps closer by the week.
Restless and sleepless, I drag the machine across the mattress. The screen blinks awake. Two intrusive notifications ping, and the browser opens to the last page I saw: Cambridge Neighbours and Fans Community.
I’ve tried digging through news sites, blogs, forums – anything to cut through the mystery. But found only fragments.
His brother – Isak Crane – lives in Cambridge with his wife, Melody. They married a month after Elias was locked away. Odd timing, given he’d just lost his father and his brother – in every way.
My thumb moves along the trackpad before opening Street View for the seventh time.
I found their address during a late-night search. An old property listing gave me the rest: five bedrooms, walls of glass and a clipped-hedge street. Street View supplied the picture: wealth and secrets.
Unfortunately, I’m too much of a coward to have gone and seen it for myself. I even started the car once with every intention of going.
The click of the mouse takes me back to the present.
On the Crane Logs & Timber website, Isak’s face stares from the page. He bears no resemblance to his brother. Since their father’s death, he has taken over as CEO and shares ownership of the company. Beneath him, a blank grey avatar holds Elias’ name beside a single word: Co-owner.
That image sears my eyes more than it should. As if he never existed beyond a line in a will.
And under it – his date of birth: 20 July 1984.
The twentieth. The week of Ron’s wedding – Marina told me.
I’ve memorised it. It makes me want to leave my brain in a cupboard until the week is over.
I latch onto Elias’ birthday to keep my mind off everything else. The decision to make it his week comes like a balm on a burn.
But until Friday—
I click back to the community discussion page.
Before fever knocked me sideways, I’d posted a vague anonymous question about the Crane family business, inventing a story about logs that never arrived – just a curious, concerned, somewhat agitated customer.
Now, eighteen new messages glare back – mostly baseless speculation and gossip. I skim quickly until one catches my eye.
A comment from a woman: ‘I heard there were lawsuits. The company lawyer was on the news years back – Simon… something.’
My pulse kicks.
I flip back to the company website, furious I didn’t check the page more thoroughly, and find the name: Simon Cromwell, Senior Counsel.
I mark the place of business, the phone number.
And let the fever take me for the day.
In the days leading up to Elias’ birthday, I call the prison more times than I care to admit. I’m not asking for much – just something that might pass for recognition. A thread of humanity on a day Crane might believe matters to no one.
Birthdays don’t get you far in His Majesty’s Prisons. Not when you’re in for what he is.
Still, after bureaucratic torture, Rebecca manages to secure an exception: a sealed supermarket sponge cake, no filling beyond a thin smear of cream.
It has to be dropped off the day before, cut open, examined, resealed, and only then brought to the prisoner.
But she also manages to convince them to let me bring it in instead of George.
It’ll arrive sad, squashed and wrapped in more plastic than a bag of narcotics.
Then comes the part that makes my knees shudder – a visit without the chains. If I’m confident enough, Rebecca notes.
Not in the visitor’s room, either. She offers me a family room under CCTV or the yard for family visits. She phrases it carefully, adding that Elias’ behaviour record is clean and the latest risk assessment supports relaxing the restrictions.
Or… something like that. I’m surprised I haven’t learnt legalese after this much time spent with Elias.
His behaviour is commendable, at any rate. So why does my mind give me only one image – him slouched and distant, shackled to the floor?
I agree to everything Rebecca offers, of course. But unease catches up when the adrenaline drains.
Because however much Crane and I have relaxed around each other, my mind keeps replaying the facts: the file. The charge. Those large, scarred knuckles. Corded, strong arms – a man who has used them to break more than bread.
And this time, he won’t be tethered to the floor.
I remind myself risk assessments aren’t disregarded lightly. That he’s been compliant. That they wouldn’t offer this if he so much as flinched wrong in custody.
Still.
The truth burns in my mind.
Several days later, I wonder whether I’m walking into prison as comfort… or an unwitting reminder of everything he does not have.
And possibly might never have.
The heavy door buzzes, then clicks open, and I step into the small outdoor visits yard – though the term feels like a cruel euphemism here.
It’s not much more than a slab of cracked concrete, a laughable patch of grass, all framed by high brick walls and wire netting between them.
A battered wooden bench sits in the middle, flanked by a bolted-down picnic table and a wall-mounted security camera whose red light never winks.
I force my attention away from the hard reality and turn my face towards the sun instead – then the warm stone and dry sweetness of elderflower that make this place easier to bear.
At least that much of the world reaches him in this hellhole.
Small victories.
A single guard stands in the shade, just beside the entrance. Arms crossed, gaze keen, he keeps to his post beneath the awning – far enough to give us the illusion of privacy, close enough to remind us that every word still carries. We nod acknowledgements to each other as I step fully out.
At the far end of the yard, Elias stands alone beneath the soft drape of a willow tree. The branches move gently in the breeze, the silver-green tips trailing like fingers over the edge of the wall.
He’s perfectly still, looking up into the leaves as if they’re saying something only he can hear.
Even from this distance, he looks… different.
My gait slows when I notice the main detail – his beard’s gone.
The sight nearly stops me cold.
Clean-shaven, he looks years younger. More defined.
His jaw is hard bone and dark shadow, the cleft of his chin catching the sunlight as he tilts his head upwards to look at a bird landing atop a branch. There’s nothing to soften him now, no scruff to blur the lines of that face.
It’s almost like seeing him unmasked.
A smile threatens to break out on me as my gaze follows the way his curls fall wild around his ears. They’ve grown out – more chaotic waves now than curls.
He looks down.
His eyes meet mine.
For one stupefied heartbeat, I’m not sure whether my ribs can contain my lungs. I don’t know what to do with the jolt that rushes through me. My gaze drops to his mouth, then darts back to his eyes.
Even in nothing but a plain white crewneck and prison-issued joggers, he steals the bloody air from the yard.
And without chains dragging his body into submission, there’s suddenly far too much of him: too much height, too much strength, too much man standing loose on the same plate of concrete as me.
Everything in me pulls tight as if I’ve stepped off a cliff and only just realised there’s no ground beneath me.
‘Happy birthday!’ I call halfway across the yard.
The corner of his mouth lifts a little as he turns to face me fully, sunlight sliding over the hard planes of his body.
The thin cotton of his shirt clings to the breadth of his chest, throwing staccato shadows over the muscle beneath, as he clasps his hands behind his back like a man trying very hard to look harmless.
It doesn’t work. If anything, hiding those big hands only makes me more aware of what they could do should he decide to use them.
Something must be profoundly cracked in me, because the thought scrambles my common sense and makes me want to prod at the beast instead of run the other way.
His gaze slides down to the box in my hands – the cake that survived the security search now sitting crooked and faintly tragic inside.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I promise it tastes better than it looks.’
A soft chuckle escapes him, the faintest glimpse of teeth flashing.
‘Best birthday ever,’ he murmurs, and I’m somewhat worried that I already recognise how that twitch of his brow signals the joke before the words are out.
He joins me by the bench, gesturing for us to sit – but the movement places his hand in front of me and—
My legs root to the ground.
Violet bruises ring both wrists.
Rage punches straight through my chest.
Instinct over thought, I reach out and snatch his hand, balancing the small cake in my other.
He goes completely still as I lift one hurt forearm between us.
His fingers curl – a reflex he doesn’t quite manage to suppress – and only then do I realise… this is the first time I’ve ever really touched him and held the contact.
Despite the outrage, the yard seems to shrink around us, a gust of air seemingly too loud.
I lift my eyes to his. For once, there’s no defence in them. No sarcasm. Only uncertainty.
‘What happened?’ I ask, trying to find some strength to send it to my vocal cords.
His skin feels warm beneath my fingers. Nothing like the distant, untouchable man in chains behind letters and ink.
Slowly, as if testing whether I’ll vanish if he moves too abruptly, Crane lets his hand relax. He withdraws it and hides it behind his back as if not seeing it would make the hurt go away.
His restraint does something far worse to me.
‘Just the way things are.’
That is his explanation.
I search his face as the space between his brows tightens.
‘This is a prison, Leah. A place of punishment. I’m accused of murder.’
Somewhere beyond the wall, a gate slams hard enough to send a shudder through the bricks. As if to underline the grave reality of where we are. The sun still warms my skin, the breeze brushes lightly across it, but I no longer feel any of it.