Chapter 14
There was a long silence.
“I’m sorry,” I said after I’d found my jaw somewhere on my un-hoovered floor and picked it up again. “Did you say—”
“The cops are fucking useless; the intelligence services are even worse. They’ve both convinced the others that it was a random mugging gone wrong.”
“But—”
“It’s like they want it to be that way, Arden!
” He slammed his fist down on the table, which caused Kennedy to whine and disappear underneath it.
“They don’t want it to be political, or a hate crime, or, God forbid, terrorism.
So, they’ve decided it’s much easier for the UK’s reputation to take a hit as some lawless hellhole where gangs of street kids go around with pistols shooting people in cars rather than find out what happened. ”
“Which was—”
“I haven’t got a fucking clue!” he yelled and stood up, knocking his chair down. Kennedy whined again and burrowed into my leg under the table.
Simon paced my tiny dining room, running his hands through his hair.
“They … they’re going in with their minds made up. They want some tearaway kid from an estate to pin this on.”
“Simon, calm down.”
“Don’t you see, Arden?” He turned to me, his arms wide.
“This is exactly the stunt they pulled with Tarquin! Only you saw it for what it was; they wanted a quick arrest to clean up their stats. They couldn’t care less about who killed Arabella.
They’d have happily let Tarquin keep wandering about outside and put Pawel away if it was easier.
I bet you that they’re going to do the same with Riz’s killer! ”
“Simon—”
“So, help me catch them! C’mon.” He got down beside me, right in my face. “How did you do it? How did you figure it all out and decide it was Tarquin that did it? What do we need to do?”
Before I could answer, he was pacing again. “We need a list of suspects. Marina. All the other candidates. I’ll have to be on it too—”
He continued to work himself up, pacing backwards and forwards and ignoring me calling his name. “Simon!” I said loudly, which made Kenny whine even more. He couldn’t trust me either now, so instead hid under another chair.
“Would you please calm down?” I yelled at him, ducking under the table as I shouted, so it wasn’t to his face.
“C’mere, mate,” I said to Kenny, who was cowering. “I’m sorry I yelled, c’mere, mate. It’s okay, I promise.” I patted my thigh, and slowly he wagged his tail and came back towards me. I stroked his head and gave him a kiss. “And you scared Kenny.” More than a bit of annoyance filled my voice.
Simon’s legs were at a standstill. I couldn’t see anything above mid-thigh from my spot on the floor. His jeans and desert boots were rooted to the spot.
“Isn’t he a guard dog?” he asked eventually.
“He’s had a tough life,” I said, stroking him behind his ears. “Come sit with us.” I pushed a chair out of the way.
There was a long pause. Then a huff, and slowly Simon sat down on the floor beside me and reached out to touch Kenny. “I’m not sure we’re going to be friends; he didn’t seem to like me very much when I let him out earlier. Even feeding him didn’t seem to win him over.”
“Luckily, Kennedy is forgiving. For whatever reason you upset him earlier, he’ll let it slide. Won’t you, boy?” I said and gave the enormous mane of fur around his neck a ruffle. His tongue fell out of his mouth, and he lolled over me with joy.
Simon delicately put his hand on Kenny’s head and gave him a quick scratch before pulling it away again.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said and grabbed his hand – his big, strong, pale, freckly hands that had cupped my arse perfectly – ahem – and guided it back towards Kenny’s neck.
“Give him a proper scratch. Come on, it’s calming to play with dogs, there are studies and shit about it and everything. ”
“Is that why you got him?”
I shrugged. “I got him for lots of reasons.”
Simon paused, waiting for me to continue.
With a sigh, I spoke: “Guard dog, companionship, someone to come home to at the end of the day who is always pleased to see me.”
“You work from home,” he said with a crick in his brow.
“Fine, someone who’s pleased to see me no matter where I’ve been or what time it is.”
Simon’s hands reached forward, and he tentatively placed them on Kenny’s mane. He let his fingers sift through his fur and smiled slightly. “Soft.”
“You’re damn right it is; I spend a fortune on this mutt’s fur. He goes to the groomer every month, and I brush him as often as I can get him to sit still long enough to do it. I get enough to fill an armchair in a single sitting.”
Simon snorted.
He looked up at me and we locked eyes.
“Simon—” I started, but then noticed the wetness rolling down his cheeks.
“Sorry,” he said, brushing his face. “I don’t know what to do. Mum and Dad mean well but they’re suffocating me. I … I can’t go back to work. They’ve told me to keep away until this is all … I don’t even know, what they think.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket. “That’ll be Mum. She’ll have seen I’m gone and will want to know where I am.” His phone buzzed a few more times. “Yup. She’s convinced I’m going to top myself.”
“So, finding you gone at 7 a.m.?”
He sighed and pulled out his phone. “Am fine,” he narrated as he texted a response. “Have gone for a walk …” He looked up at me. “With Arden and his dog. Might be a few hours.”
He put his phone back in his pocket. “There. Now, can you please listen to me about this?”
I resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Fine. Okay, whatever. I need a shower and to brush my teeth. While I’m in the shower …
” I stood up and grabbed a notepad that I kept to scribble ideas in while I was writing and ripped off the page I’d been brainstorming on the other day.
I gave Simon the pad with a fresh page on top.
“Write down everything that happened between you and Riz the last” – I thought for a second – “seventy-two hours before he was killed. Every text, every phone call, and everyone he met. Timelines, everything. You have until I get out of the shower.”
I departed without looking back because I knew Simon was middle class and would try to say thank you or something.
Instead, I went up to the bathroom and took an epically long shower.
Apparently, sleeping for that long gave me an ache in my shoulders and chest. I seemed to have creases from my pillowcases permanently tattooed on my cheek.
I would have taken up acrobatics and Chinese lessons if it meant staying in the bathroom longer and not having to face what was downstairs. Namely, a heartbroken man thinking I had some magical answers to, what, exactly – bringing back Riz? Getting him justice?
Even if that wasn’t the case, then the fact that it was Simon would still be an issue.
Prickly, judgemental Simon, who made it abundantly clear he didn’t like me.
Who regretted our one-night stand, who thought I was some floozy who collected men like supermarket coupons and, what was it that he’d said a few days ago, oh yeah, that I’d been trying to pick up men in a police station toilet. I mean, really.
I did that once when I was twenty. And it was in Soho. It’s practically encouraged.
So why I was putting on a nice shirt and jeans that sculpted themselves around my arse instead of shorts was neither here nor there.
I hesitated over my phone. It was switched off.
After several seconds of lip chewing over whether to turn it on and bring it downstairs with me, I decided to leave it up in my room.
I came downstairs to find that Simon had …
oh, sweet Jesus and all the serial-killing-saints.
My living room walls were now covered in pages from the notepad like a madman’s lair.
Kenny, that traitor, had abandoned his usual spot outside the bathroom door whenever I was in there and was following Simon about the place like he was a god.
If only I’d known that was all it took. There had been some awkward moments when I was busy trying to take care of nature as quickly as possible before he clawed the door down.
“Do you have a printer?” Simon asked before I could even open my mouth to ascertain why he’d turned my home into Dexter’s workshop.
“Um, yes, it’s in the dining room under the window,” I said.
“Great, I’ll email you some stuff and you can print it. I think it’ll give you some clues.”
“Clues?”
“Yes, clues. Should I send it to the same email you gave me when I was working on the kitchen?”
“Ah, yes, that’d be fine. Um …” I looked at my fireplace, which was where Simon seemed to have put most of the paper that formed a timeline of Riz’s last few days.
“Right, shall we get started?” He clapped his hands together and came to stand beside me, radiating warmth and a pleasant musky scent that spoke of man, and sweat, and more … man. God, I wanted to jump his bones.
I inwardly groaned. What. Was. Wrong. With. Me? Why, why, did I let my dick control my life? Just once could I get through a social interaction with a semi-attractive man without becoming a slave to what was between my legs?
“Okay, um.” I pinched the bridge of my nose again.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
How could I let him down gently? “Er, why don’t we go through Riz’s last movements?
I got the feeling there was a lot they weren’t telling us at the press conference,” I said and then berated myself for letting that slip. Don’t feed his fantasy.
Simon got some papers together and stuck his tongue out as he concentrated. I sat on the sofa and leaned forward to try and give an air of interest and enthusiasm.
“Right, okay, so you know what the cops said in the conference?” He began taping up a long sheet of A4 he’d Blu-Tacked together over the mirror on my mantlepiece. “More or less accurate, bar a few things.”
“Such as?”
“That the number he was calling obsessively wasn’t registered. It was a burner phone.”
I cocked my head. “So, they …”