Chapter Three
Rheda
The noise of the prison presses behind my eyes, dull and constant, like it has rooted itself somewhere in the back of my skull.
I’ve spent enough nights in this interrogation room to know that the sound should have dissolved into the rest of it—the ventilation, the distant footsteps, the old building settling around itself, but tonight it feels louder, older, like the room is holding its breath.
The room is ordinary in the way places like this always are: one metal table with three chairs that don’t match and grey walls. I notice things I don’t mean to. A smear on the table. The sharp taste of disinfectant at the back of my throat. It never switches off.
I stifle a yawn behind my hand and glance at the clock.
04:17 a.m.
Too late for a new case but not early enough to refuse one. Not that I could refuse one even if I wanted to.
This is the real cost of being a criminal psychologist: not the danger, not the cases, it’s that none of my time belongs to me anymore.
I’ve answered calls mid-shower, left meals untouched on the counter, fallen asleep in clothes I don’t remember putting on.
Even at home, a part of me is always listening for the ring of my phone, the sharp summon back into bright lights and locked doors, to diagnose and sentence criminals too violent to see real light again.
And yet, my colleagues don’t share this problem. They leave in pairs, laughing, talking about things that have nothing to do with this place. I don’t get invited into those conversations. I stopped expecting to.
It’s been this way for six years.
I thought it would ease as I proved myself, but the men still look at me in meetings and assume I’m there to listen, not participate.
They act like because I didn’t move through university the way they did, that I’m somehow lesser; as if my education came stamped inferior because it was earned sideways, in borrowed hours and second-hand books instead of lecture halls with oak-panelled walls.
They act as if that makes me an intruder here, working alongside them instead of beneath them where they think I belong.
Terry Richards, in particular. Three ranks my senior.
He still hands me the kettle in meetings and doesn’t look at me when he does it like he knows I can’t refuse.
He asks me to take notes, explains behavioural therapy back to me like I didn’t claw my way through the same exams he did—only quieter, only harder.
I glance at the clock again.
04:29 a.m.
Still nothing.
My jaw tightens once. I let it go. I refuse to give the room the satisfaction of watching me fray, but a familiar thought creeps in, nonetheless.
They may have called me in just to remind me they can.
It happens often enough to have a pattern. At least once a month, I’m summoned at some obscene hour, left to sit alone in this god-forsaken room, waiting for something that never materialises. Just a reminder that my time is theirs and that professionalism means swallowing it.
My fingers flex under the table, once, then still.
I push back from the chair. I take one step toward the door, and for a moment it feels like the right decision until I stop, held there by the quiet awareness of how easily it could be the wrong one.
Because there’s always the other possibility of transport delays.
A restraint issue or a paperwork snag. A single mishap that costs ten minutes and makes a fool of anyone impatient enough to leave.
I exhale slowly through my nose and bring myself back into place. I hook two fingers under the chair and pull it in by an inch until it sits square to the table. The scrape is minimal, but in this room, it still sounds too loud. I soften it with my palm.
When I sit again, my posture is immaculate. My face settles into neutrality, and whatever irritation is left stays contained.
The hour ticks by.
Then, just as I feel my eyelids drooping, the door opens behind me.
I hear the soft scuff of sensible shoes against polished floor—measured, unhurried. For a beat, I assume it’s one of the junior officers sent to relay instructions or deliver paperwork. I turn in my chair, already preparing to nod and listen.
And for a second, something in me misfires.
Three men. Armed. Their uniforms are cold and thick, and there is a badge on their left breast that I’ve never seen before: a thin slash of paint curved into a red circle.
They look at me with the kind of alertness usually reserved for problems.
I simply stare back. My thoughts refuse to make sense of what is happening.
The sight of the man in the middle lands slowly. He’s taller than the other two, with wider shoulders and a sharp posture. I’d place him in his sixties, though the deep folding of his face show that this job has aged him prematurely.
He has his suit jacket folded neatly over one arm, his tie loosened just enough to suggest exhaustion without admitting to it.
The fluorescent light catches in the grey at his temples, in the faint stubble shadowing his jaw.
He looks tired. Not worn down...loaded, like someone carrying a weight he hasn’t decided where to put yet.
But it’s the tense popping of the muscle in his jaw which unnerves me.
My stomach tightens.
This isn’t routine.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?”
The man in the middle finally speaks. “Rheda Ainsley?”
My eyes narrow. “Yes?”
“My name is Detective Peter Holmes. May we come in?”
His name echoes around my mind louder and louder until recognition lands like a bullet.
Peter Holmes.
Peter Holmes has always felt like the kind of name that exists above everyone else’s pay grade.
He delegates, observes, appears only when a case has already begun to rot from the inside.
Intake rooms are beneath his notice. He sends people like me into rooms like this. He doesn’t step into them himself.
He was a name without a face until this very moment. And the fact that he’s here at almost six in the morning, with a forehead scrunched into layers, makes my spine straighten before my mind can catch up.
Startled, I push back my chair and stand.
“Detective Holmes,” I greet him quickly. I step forward to shake his hand and realise too late that both of his are occupied with files. My hand stalls awkwardly in the air before I lower it, heat creeping faintly up my neck.
“Excuse my manners, Sir. I didn’t recognise you.” I add quickly.
His mouth quirks. It’s not quite a smile, but something close enough to register as warmth. “Stand down, Miss Ainsley.”
He steps past me and kicks out the chair beside mine, sitting down with a quiet finality.
Not across from me.
Beside me.
The movement unsettles me more than it should. I glance at the empty chair across the table, then back at him, a crease forming between my brows.
“Are you taking the room?” the word my is on the tip of my tongue but I swallow it down just as fast.
“We’re joining you. Yes.”
“You’re... sitting in?” I say, keeping my voice level.
He exhales slowly and leans back, folding his hands loosely in his lap like he’s settling in for a long conversation. “Afraid so.”
I note the way the muscles in his face flex and then relax as though he’s forcing calmness, but the fracture in the corner of his lip reveals something different. He pauses before breaking the silence again.
“I’ve been looking at your file. It seems you have quite a knack for making people talk.”
I’m not sure if it’s a statement or a question, so, my lips stay pursed.
“Six hundred and seventy-three cases,” his eyes sharpen. “All of them a success.”
My heart skips a beat. “Yes, Sir.”
He opens the file in his lap, and I glance down at my name scrawled across the top of the page. Below it, there’s a picture of me on my first day. My eyes are bright; cheeks flushed with excitement.
My CV has been pinned in the file, too. It’s grubby and dirty with fingerprints staining the sides, and words have been highlighted, illegible comments sprawled in the margins by the interviewing officer.
“Do you enjoy what you do, Miss Ainsley?” He asks.
“I love it.” The answer comes easily, too easily. I steady it. “I like working with the patients. Understanding their motives.”
“Hmm.” It’s not approval but not quite dismissal either.
He watches me long enough that I feel it settle under my skin like I’ve said something he’s still turning over.
“I spoke to your colleagues,” he says after a moment. “They described you as a ‘mind reader’.”
The words land before I can prepare for them.
Heat rises, quick and unwelcome. “Did Terry tell you that?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate.
I drag in a slow steading breath.
“Body language expert,” I clarify, “That’s what I do.”
My voice drops. “They don’t believe me.”
He holds my gaze until it starts to feel deliberate. Then his attention drops. His pen finds the number of cases and circles it once, slow, precise.
“You’ve worked with one hundred and thirty-three patients so far this year.” His pen stills against the paper. “That’s more than ten times the others. How do you fit it all in?”
“I don’t sleep as much as them.” It comes out flatter than I mean it to.
He hums, nodding his head like I’ve answered a question he hasn’t asked yet. “Good to know,”
There’s no follow-up question, nothing. He just closes the file then, the sound quiet but final. He rises from the seat in the same unhurried way, like nothing about the moment requires urgency. His fingers lift just slightly for the guards to move, and then he stops, just briefly.
Something sharp pulls beneath my ribs.
“Wait,” I say. The word leaves my mouth before doubt can catch it. “Is there a case you need me for, Detective?”
“There’s always a case. The question is whether you’re useful on it.”
“I’m useful.” I say too quickly, the words rushing out. “What do you need? An assessment? A confession? I can do it.”
“Miss Ainsley, this isn’t just any case.” He pins me with his gaze. “This is a class M criminal.”
Class M.