Chapter 1 #2
‘Yes. Then I went to find him. There are two rooms off the lounge: a bathroom and a gym. I went into the bathroom where I thought sound was coming from. He came at me, ran at me. We tussled and the mirror broke. He picked up a shard of glass and ripped it into my side.’ I raise my arm and remind them both of my injury.
‘We kept fighting; somehow, we ended up in the gym room. I tried to kick the guns out of reach but only managed one before he pulled a chain around my neck. I struggled, we were thrashing around, I fell to the floor in the lounge and he was pulling on the chain. I couldn’t breathe and I could feel myself slipping; things going dark and blurred.
He was killing me. Then I saw the gun I’d kicked, on the floor, just within my reach.
Things started to go black. I snatched the gun, and just shot it at him.
I didn’t aim for his head but that’s where the bullet wound up.
I was shocked, stunned. I didn’t know what to do.
I crawled to Jackson and Scarlett and that’s when the security guys came in. ’
I’ve done it. It’s out there. Now Scarlett just has to keep to the story. I pull my hands through my hair and let my head hang, relieved that my statement is on the record and it’s the story I intended to tell.
‘Who was the man you killed?’ Trina’s tone is clipped, offensive.
I sigh. It’s still going.
‘He was my biological father.’
‘And why would your own father want to kill you?’
My dislike of this woman is increasing at a rate of knots. My temper is building. I turn my fist in the palm of my other hand on my lap. ‘I bought his company to sell it off.’
‘Forgive my naivety, Mr Ryans; I’m not a businesswoman.’ The way she uses my name is condescending. ‘Surely buying companies happens all the time and people don’t kill each other over it.’
It’s a statement. Had it been a question, I might’ve been inclined to enlighten her on how corrupt the world of business can be. But I won’t.
‘The company was his life, his prize possession, the only thing he’s ever treated with respect and cared for.’
‘So why would he sell it?’
‘Because I offered him an awful lot of money to buy it, Miss Martin, and the other key trait my father possessed was greed.’
‘This isn’t the first time you’ve been in a police station, is it?’ She catches me off guard and she knows it. A sadistic smile begins to turn on her lips as my jaw drops open and slowly closes again without making a sound.
‘To what are you referring, Miss Martin?’
‘Oh, there’s been more than one other time?’
‘Stop playing games, Trina,’ Barnes cuts in. ‘Ask him a question with purpose or we’ll wrap this up.’
She puffs and scowls at her senior. ‘You gave a statement once as a boy. In South Africa.’
She’s trying to establish motive. It’s underhanded, it’s dirty, but she’s played the game well.
‘That has nothing to do with this case.’
‘I beg to differ. I think it has a lot to do with this case. You once gave a statement that your father—’
‘I made a statement as a ten-year-old boy,’ I snap, pressing into the table and pushing back my chair.
‘I’m thirty years old. I’ve lived a life since I was that kid.
I see what you’re doing. I see your game but that ten-year-old boy won’t give you a motive.
The reason, the only reason, I shot a man tonight is because he would have killed me if I hadn’t.
Am I sorry that a man died tonight? Of course I am.
Will it haunt me every day for the rest of my life?
Of course it will. But am I sorry that if someone had to die tonight, it wasn’t me or, worse still, Jackson or Scarlett? No.’
I rest back into my hard-as-hell seat and soften my tone. Time to play the man. I gaze into her eyes until she shifts awkwardly and I wait until her pupils lock on mine. I lure her in. ‘I’m just a man, Trina. I took a life to save my own. Don’t I deserve to live?’
Her lips part with her breath as she slowly moves her head up and down.
‘I’m not the bad guy in this. I can promise you that. Kevin Pearson may have been my father but he was a sinful man. You’re about putting bad guys away, aren’t you?’
She nods again. She’s putty.
I sit back, giving her space to compose herself, glancing at Barnes, who winks very subtly from his left eye.
‘We’re done here,’ he says, turning off the recorder.
I breathe a short sigh of relief.
Trina is quick to make her excuses and exit, no doubt annoyed by her inability to control her pheromones.
‘You know Jackson?’ I ask Barnes.
‘We served together in the military and briefly in the police before he went private. I know what I need to know.’ He crosses one heel over his opposite thigh, revealing offensively yellow socks.
‘How’s it looking?’
He shrugs and rolls a pen between his fingers. ‘I can work with self-defence. Jackson’s statement matches yours. But the gun is more difficult. It’s a bad time politically for gun crime. The Crown Prosecution Service are going to want possession as a minimum, even if they accept self-defence.’
‘What can I do?’
‘It could cost you.’
I sit up straighter now. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve got, it’s money, Barnes.’
He nods. ‘Jackson said as much. He also said you’re a good guy.’
‘How is he?’
Barnes shakes his head on a short laugh. ‘He’s made of stone, that man. Muscle damage only. He was lucky. Had them stitch him up with a shot of the good stuff, no anaesthetic, then he discharged himself. Should be back on his feet soon enough.’
‘Sounds like Jackson. And Scarlett, how’s she?’
‘We haven’t spoken to her yet.’
‘Where is she? Can I see her?’
He shakes his head. ‘We won’t be long. She’s up next.’
The foreign sensation of pressure begins to build behind my eyes again. I need to sleep.
‘Can I trust you, Barnes?’
‘Jackson does.’
‘I’ll take that as a ringing endorsement.’
‘Do so. He’s a good judge of character.’
‘I hope so.’
‘You and me both.’