Authors: Sharon Sant
‘Hand sanitiser?’
‘Yeah. I don’t know how useful it is. Why would I smell that?’
‘I can pass it on to the psyche profilers; see if they can make sense of it. Is there anything else?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I reply. I pull at a loose thread on my sleeve. ‘I’ll keep working on it.’
‘Don’t wear yourself out, Cassie.’
‘I’m fine; you don’t need to worry about me.’
His expression is pensive for a moment as he weighs me up. ‘When is your Gran’s funeral?’
I shrug.
‘Have you been to the home?’
I nod in direction of the black bags. ‘That’s all from Meadowview.’
‘Right. That’s all her stuff?’
‘Yep.’
‘There’s no estate?’
‘I think there was a will – at least, she left details for a solicitor, so I think that’s why.’
‘So you’re sorting it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Cassie. Remember who you’re talking to.’
‘Can I bury her first?’
‘But you’re not doing that, are you.’
‘Gail at Meadowview said she’d sort it.’
‘You should have some input –’
‘I can’t talk about this now.’
‘I think you should. In the immediate future, how will people know about the funeral? Are you putting something in the newspaper? Long term, how are you going to cope entirely on your own?’
I look out of the window. The sun pours in around streaks of dirt on the glass.
‘Cassie, ignoring it won’t make it go away.’
‘Why do you care? This isn’t part of your case.’
‘I’m a human being before I’m a policeman.’
I turn my attention to him. ‘Cleaning alcohol, like hand sanitiser. Go and catch him.’
He sighs.
‘Gail – she works at Meadowview – will help me sort out the funeral. I’ll go to the solicitors when they call me. Other than that, I have everything under control.’
‘So, apart from that, you’re alright?’
I hesitate. Should I tell him about the weird happenings at my house? Should I tell him that I feel like I’m being watched all the time and it’s scaring me half to death? It’s probably all in my imagination, of course, and liable to land me with some kind of round the clock surveillance on my house, or whatever it is that policemen do when they want to keep an eye on someone. Under the circumstances, that’s the last thing I need.
‘I’m alright,’ I say.
‘And you’ve decided against that…
plan
you suggested to me the other day?’ he says, his gaze flitting briefly to Mark who is staring intently at his phone again.
‘Yes,’ I reply, the lie rolling too easily from my tongue. ‘You don’t need to worry about that. You’re right, I should let the trained people deal with it.’
He’s about to speak again when there is a knock at the front door.
‘Expecting someone?’ he asks.
I shake my head but don’t make a move.
‘Perhaps you’d like to see who it is?’ he asks.
‘I don’t get unexpected visitors,’ I say, ‘it’s probably a salesman or something.’
‘So you’re not going to answer?’
I sigh and push myself up from the chair.
Dante is outside on the step. The sun bounces from the bonnets of newly waxed cars. I squint up at him.
‘What are you doing here?’
He pushes a hand through his hair. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Can I come in?’
‘It’s awkward right now.’ I glance back down the hall. I don’t know why Karl’s presence makes things awkward; it just feels weird to have them all here at the same time, like my house is too full. But his eyes are all dark and mournful again and I find myself opening the door to him. ‘I have someone here already, though,’ I warn.
He follows me down the hallway. As we near the kitchen, Mark is coming out towards the door, eyeballing Dante with what I guess is his best scary cop face. He squeezes past and out into the open air without a word.
Dante raises a questioning eyebrow and opens his mouth to ask who that was as he follows me into the kitchen. Karl twists around on his chair and runs his appraising gaze over the new arrival, immediately clamping Dante’s mouth shut again.
‘Dante, this is DI Massey,’ I say as I gesture for Dante to take a seat. Karl’s in plain clothes so I guess the least I can offer Dante is some explanation to smooth the puzzled frown creasing his brow.
Karl’s look of faint menace turns into something that betrays a quiet sort of relief. Dante just looks at Karl with an expression bordering on alarm.
‘It’s ok,’ I say to him, ‘I haven’t robbed a bank or anything.’
He tries to smile but I can tell he’s still freaked.
‘I’m a friend,’ Karl says soothingly.
‘Me too,’ Dante says.
Karl nods and gets up. ‘I think that’s all I had to say to you, Cassie. I’ll leave you two alone.’
‘Don’t go on my account,’ Dante says, ‘I can go if you need me to…’
‘I have a pile of work the height of Nelson’s Column on my desk,’ Karl smiles. ‘I should get back to it. It was nice to meet you, Dante.’ He offers his hand and Dante takes it in a slack grip.
I follow Karl down the hallway to the front door.
‘He your boyfriend? Family?’ he asks in a low voice, inclining his head back towards the kitchen.
I half-smile. ‘He’s quite safe, if that’s what you mean.’
‘It’s just good to see that you have someone.’
‘I hardly know him,’ I admit, more truthfully than I mean to.
He studies me carefully for a moment. ‘Thanks for your help today.’
I open the door for him without reply. I’m not sure he should be thanking me at all. He steps out into the sunlight, shading his eyes, and nods to Mark, who is on his phone across the road, before he turns to me again.
‘You know where to find me if you need to.’
‘Thanks for scaring me half to death and then coming to scrape me off the ceiling,’ I reply.
I see genuine humour in his smile for the first time as he pulls out his car keys. ‘I’ll try not to do it again. But I need you to tell me the minute you have any more information. And I still don’t believe that you’ve quite grasped the seriousness of getting involved in any way that is more direct than what you’re doing already with us. Everything must come through me and my team… understood?’
I give a mute nod, hoping that his suspect radar can’t pick up the fact that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Maybe he’s right, maybe I ought to be leaving it to them. But I know that the itch won’t leave me now.
Karl drives off with Mark and I close the door. I turn to see Dante leaning on the doorway of the kitchen.
‘You want to tell me what’s going on?’ he says.
‘You heard him, he’s a friend.’
‘So you call all your friends by their official title when you introduce them? And they usually have to visit in pairs?’
I push past him and stand at the sink, gazing out of the window. He pulls me around to face him, resting his hands on my shoulders. I don’t want to look into his eyes but I’m forced to and I tumble into their darkness.
‘This is the thing you couldn’t tell me about the other night, isn’t it?’ he says.
‘Why do you have to be so damned perceptive?’
He gives a shrug and a lopsided smile. ‘One of my many gifts.’
‘It’s an annoying one.’
‘You didn’t say whether I could see you today.’
‘That’s because I hadn’t decided.’
‘I couldn’t stay away.’
‘I see that.’ I wrench my gaze away and take my seat at the table.
He leans back against the sink and looks at me thoughtfully. ‘I know you can’t say what the deal is with the police,’ he says slowly, ‘but just tell me that you’re ok.’
‘I’m ok.’
‘And that’s the truth?’
‘It’s what you wanted to hear.’
He takes a tentative step towards me and reaches out to smooth a stray hair away from my face. His lightest touch sends a quiver through me.
‘I can’t do this now.’ I push his hand aside.
‘I’m not asking you to do anything.’
‘Not with words.’
He takes the seat next to me and leans across the table. ‘I don’t know what it is about you,’ he says slowly. ‘I should be scared, but I’m not.’
‘Scared of me?’ I laugh. ‘Gran always said I’d inherited the acid-tongued gene but I don’t think I’m that bad.’
He pauses. He looks as though he wants to tell me something, something massive. Then he looks away.
‘What’s the matter?’ I ask.
‘It’s nothing.’ He turns back to me and forces a smile. ‘What are your plans today?’
I look at my watch. ‘I have to see Helen in an hour.’
His smile fades. ‘I don’t suppose you’ll feel like doing anything afterwards?’
‘A visit to Helen doesn’t really make me feel amorous, if I’m honest.’
‘We could just hang out,’ he says. ‘We could talk, see a film, get a drink, whatever you want.’
‘I’d really rather come home,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I’m up to nightlife yet.’ My attention wanders over to the bin bags piled at the wall.
‘What’s in those?’ he asks, following the direction of my gaze. I know he’s only asking to take the sting from my awkward rejection.
‘Gran’s stuff.’
‘Oh.’
I look into his eyes and I’m freefalling. I want to feel his arms around me, his body pressed tight against mine, the warmth of him on my skin.
‘I have things I need to do later,’ I say.
‘Are you dumping me?’ he asks.
‘How can I dump someone I’m not dating?’
‘We’re not dating?’
‘I’m not sure. You never actually said.’
He rubs a hand through his hair. ‘I thought it was obvious.’
‘Not to me.’
‘So, you don’t want to date me?’
I can’t help smiling. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’
He grabs my hand. ‘Will you go on a date with me?’ He looks so earnest I suddenly want to laugh in a way I haven’t done in what feels like a lifetime.
‘I’ve just got so much to sort out.’
‘You can’t spare one night for me?’ He leans forward a little. A little more. Slowly, cautiously, as though he’s testing resistance. His lips brush mine. It’s hardly more than a graze at first, tentative and questioning. He moves in, his kisses harder. Against my will, I kiss him back. Somewhere, in a dusty corner of my mind, there’s a small voice nagging me that this can only end badly.
I pull away. ‘I have to go,’ I whisper.
‘Now?’ he asks, holding me in that dark gaze again.
I nod. ‘Helen…’
He looks as though he might kiss me again. But then he sits back and gives me a crooked smile, more pain than contentment. ‘Want me to walk there with you?’
‘If I said no, you’d follow me anyway.’
‘That obvious?’
I nod.
‘Not in a stalker-ish way, though?’
‘Kinda.’
His smile is easier now. ‘What can I say? I’m a sucker for red hair and Doc Martens.’
‘I’ll make it brown.’
‘It’s too late, I have my memories,’ he gives me an impish grin, ‘and a really strong left arm.’
‘You’re gross.’
‘I know.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to let you come then. What if Helen disapproves?’
‘Of us?’
I nod.
‘She can’t tell us who to see beyond her walls.’
‘Yeah, but we’re both patients.’
‘
Clients
…’ he says, mimicking Helen’s voice.
‘That’s the most Irish English accent I’ve ever heard. Please, don’t do it again, it hurt my ears.’
He salutes. ‘Ma’am.’
I glance up at the clock. ‘We need to leave if we’re going to make it.’
‘If we’re walking together,’ he says as he gets up from the table, ‘does that count as a date?’
‘No,’ I reply, pulling my coat from the back of a chair.
‘So… when am I getting my date?’
‘I didn’t say you were.’
‘But you’re going to?’
I turn to him and the smile fades as I stare at him. ‘Why would you want to date me?’ I ask.
‘Why not?’
‘Let’s see… because I’m half-dead, because I’m screwed in the head, because everyone who gets close to me, anyone who ever meant anything to me, dies.’
‘We all die,’ he says quietly, with something that sounds like fear in his tone.
‘And some of us die sooner than is fair.’
He has that look again as he measures me. I feel like he wants to say something to me, something stuck in his throat.
‘What?’ I ask.
He shakes his head slowly. He speaks as if to himself. ‘I thought I’d be scared, after the nightmares and everything. But when I’m with you, I’m not. That’s weird, right?’
‘I don’t know, because you have never told me what’s in your nightmares,’ I say. ‘What have they got to do with me?’
‘Why do you have policemen round your house and talk about murdered girls?’ he asks.
‘Touché.’ I glance at the clock. ‘We have to go, so the interrogation will have to wait.’
‘We can walk and talk.’
‘If you want that date, you should concentrate on being entertaining during the small time I’m allowing you to be in my presence.’
He grins and salutes me. ‘Entertaining… right.’
When I come out of Helen’s office, Dante is there. He sits in the waiting room, where there is silence other than the tip-tapping of nails on a keyboard as the receptionist works. We parted outside the clinic building as we arrived and hadn’t really agreed that he would wait, so I’m a little surprised to see him. After I get my new appointment at the desk, I head for the door. I’m not sure what the etiquette is here – do I acknowledge him or not? He gets up and starts towards me.
‘Want me to walk back with you?’ he asks in a low voice, throwing a shy glance back at the reception desk. The receptionist looks up, from me to him and back at him again, then returns her attention back to her screen. Her faint smile is a bit too smug for me.
‘Sure,’ I reply.
We step out together. A bright dusk is settling over the city, the sun skimming low across the streets. The road is busy with rush hour traffic and I’m secretly so glad to have Dante beside me. It’s like he absorbs some of the mess in my head. I reach for his hand. He glances across at me, his expression one of surprise for a moment. Then his grip tightens, as though he needs the reassurance of my presence as much as I need his.