Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/788211.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Lewis_(TV)
  Relationship:
      James_Hathaway/Robert_Lewis, James_Hathaway/Alan_Peterson, James
      Hathaway/Gurdip_Sohal, James_Hathaway/Fiona_McKendrick, James_Hathaway/
      OMC, James_Hathaway/Augustus_Mortmaigne, Laura_Hobson/Robert_Lewis, Laura
      Hobson/Alan_Peterson
  Character:
      James_Hathaway, Robert_Lewis, Laura_Hobson, Alan_Peterson, Jean_Innocent,
      Kate_Wilding, Ben_Jones, John_Barnaby, Tom_Barnaby, Julie_Lockhart,
      Gurdip_Sohal, Hooper_(Lewis), Alex_Grey, Hathaway_senior, various
      uniform, various_SOCOs, various_CPS_lawyers, Hathaway’s_mother,
      Hathaway’s_aunt, Valerie_Lewis, Sykes, Monty
  Additional Tags:
      Case_Fic, possible_suicide, possible_murder, Dubious_Consent, some
      mentions_of_past_childhood_abuse, descriptions_of_a_body_in_a_post-mortem
      and_scene_of_crime_context, First_Person_Narration, dead_person
      narration, death_isn’t_at_all_what_was_expected, inspired_by_the_music_of
      Laurence_Fox!, Spoilers
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-05-07 Completed: 2013-05-11 Chapters: 14/14 Words: 41314
****** Sure of the Fall ******
by kapakoscheisigma
Summary
     Hathaway is heartbroken by the way Lewis has got together with
     Hobson, with not a word or him, an explanation of even an apology. He
     can’t bear it.
     But did he jump or was he pushed?
     This is Hathaway’s last crime he has to solve. His own possible
     murder.
     Spoilers for the whole of season seven, The Mind has Mountains, The
     Dead of Winter, The Point of Vanishing, Life Born of Fire and
     possibly other little titbits I can’t remember now in the text.
     I’ve not tagged this as Midsomer Murders so not to disappoint the
     Midsomer fans; as the characters are quite definitely guest starring
     in the Lewis ’verse.
Notes
     Note 1: This story is in part inspired by the gorgeous song ‘So Be
     Damned’ by the lovely, talented, intelligent, beautiful Mr. Laurence
     Fox. But also by one of my father’s favourite films, ‘Sunset
     Boulevard’. Also, I was upset by the out come of season 7 and began
     to ask myself what if all the shipping of Lewis and Hathaway was also
     canon. It meant Lewis had not been very nice to Hathaway. And
     possible too much cheese at bedtime as this started as a nightmare of
     Hathaway falling...
     Note 2: This is my first Lewis work to take a dark turn – I normally
     restrict my dark works to Doctor Who: Virgin New Adventures, the X-
     Files and Star Trek: Deep Space 9. Apologies if I accidentally offend
     anyone with this. Please pay attention to all the trigger warning
     tags.
     Note 3: Many thanks to asparagusmama for the beta. Also for the
     cartographical and canonical corrections. All remaining mistakes are
     of course my own.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Chapter 1 *****
I’m a coward. I’m also stupid. I know it seems odd to say so. I’m known for my
cleverness. I’m frequently told I’m far too clever for my own good. I have an
almost photographic memory. I see and hear and observe so much all the time my
brain can hurt from it. I have a fine degree from Cambridge and a string of
‘A’, ‘AS’ and GCSE examinations that got me there. I won an academic full
scholarship and bursary to an expensive boys’ public school at the age of
fourteen and before that a fully paid music scholarship after passing entrance
exams to an equally expensive prep at eleven. You wouldn’t think I was stupid.
But believe me, I am. I’m stupid in the affairs of the heart. Ridiculously
stupid about men. Or perhaps I mean people? Once I thought I was dating a woman
to convince myself – God even? – and certainly my work colleagues and boss –
especially my boss, although he didn’t even notice I was dating! – that I was
straight. Or at least bisexual. Or even capable of a physical relationship. It
didn’t work. Besides, it turned out I was the cloak of heterosexuality for a
particularly ambitious lesbian who wished to remain firmly in the closet. All
the way to the top, she’s aiming, no doubt about it.
Forgive me. In my current state I seem to see all my life in one big ball of
mass of confusion. I lost my simile somewhere, didn’t I? I thought my life was
– and would seem now – linear and make sense. But apparently Time isn’t like
that. I also didn’t expect it to be like this at all. I was probably expecting
judgement of some kind. Angels maybe? I think I might be expected to judge
myself, but it doesn’t feel like that. Things don’t even seem sinful anymore,
either. Other things do. Lying. I regret lying. Loving men? I’m not sure
anymore about it. Forgive me. I’m a little dizzy and disorientated. Could I
even possibly be concussed? Does that even make any sense?
Maybe I mean I was naive about relationships and men, not stupid?
But I digress. Because here I am. At another possible crime scene. Uniform is
here, securing, waiting for all of us. CID, SOCO, pathologist. He is more than
a little in shock himself. Poor sod. I don’t even know his name. Yet he knows
mine.
The SOC: Another dead body. A young man, lying face down, head twisted at an
unnatural angle, side of his head crushed, face still perfectly recognizable,
if not perfect. His arms are flailed at impossible angles. Perhaps he flailed
and thrashed about hopefully, as if he might slow his descent, as if he could
somehow fly, as if he could fight against the inevitable. He's in a suit. An
expensive suit. Maybe he couldn’t even afford it. One shoe has fallen off. It’s
a rather lovely shoe, really. His favourites. I should know.
There’s the pathologist now. Odd, I’d have expected her to arrive with a
certain detective inspector. He’s on call tonight. As am I. But I’m already
here. Obviously.
She’s crouching down now. Any minute now she’s going to think she’s won him for
good. She’s going to feel dreadful and guilty but she’ll know all that
scrapping and bitching and cat fighting is over and done and she has really
won. She’s also going to rule suicide.
She will be wrong on both counts.
So how did this happen? How did this naive, stupid coward of a young man,
dressed so elegantly but so dishevelled and defiled, end up here: broken,
smashed, dead in a pool of his own blood at the bottom of the Westgate car park
with a note in his pocket addressed to his boss?
And here he comes now. I can see them. She stands, shaking her head as uniform
restrains him, for his own good.
Don’t look Sir. Don’t look at him. This isn’t your fault. Despite what the
letter will say.
She’s telling him. She’s handing him the note. Discreetly. Out of sight of
uniform and approaching SOCO. Interesting.
He looks gutted. As if all hope and life is draining out of his face. He looks
grey and old and sick. Did I intend this? Even for a moment? For him to feel so
abandoned, guilty, shocked and broken?
I think for a while I did. In my hurt. He broke my heart. But I loved him in
life. I still love him.
But I did change my mind. I changed my mind! Sir! I didn’t do this! I changed
my mind.
All right. Fine. I chickened out. I think. Told you I was a coward.
They have the note.
They will rule suicide.
He will blame himself.
I’m sorry Sir. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t even do it!
~
Let’s go back then. To a few weeks ago. Longer? A couple of months even? Had I
really taken so long to demand some form of explanation? Was I really such a...
doormat?
After all that I had done, giving up my holiday, leaving those kids in the
orphanage a few days earlier than intended, rushing across the Balkans, talking
with scary foreign macho policemen! After all that...
I had walked home that afternoon from the pub, numb, carrying my backpack in
front of me. I was hugging it tightly in fact. Innocent had followed me out.
She touched my shoulder. Thanked me. Tried to make me take a taxi. She had been
incredibly solicitous. Almost as if she had known.
I took the rest off my leave I’d booked off. I didn’t feel able to return to
the others at the orphanage in Kosovo, there had seemed no point. Besides, the
others, a ragbag mixture of students and young single professionals from
churches and denominations all over Oxford, would want the gory details of the
murders and the drug smuggling operation and manufacture. I couldn’t face that.
I could not talk about Robert Lewis as if he were just my superior officer. It
was unbearable. I would close my eyes and see the way Hobson looked at me
before she kissed him.
It was triumphant.
But then he had kissed her back. Passionately.
I stayed in my flat for the rest of the week, listening to music, playing
guitar, but mostly just staring into space. Sometimes my face was even wet with
tears but I barely noticed the physicality of my pain. I couldn’t close my
eyes. I couldn’t sleep. I ate little. Some days I forgot to eat entirely.
It played over and over. Dr. Hobson had kissed Lewis. On the mouth. A full
snog. And she had, quite deliberately, looked at me, before launching herself
at Robbie. As if she knew. As if she were staking her claim. As if she were
gloating.
I had sometimes, because I love him so much and believed him to be mostly
straight, and probably to convince myself how altruistic, how pure, how
Biblically Agape my love was, and not the dark sinful lust I felt my love could
be, I told him at times to ask Hobson out. Push him away. I didn’t mean it.
Obviously. I’d probably pointed out too how much she liked him, fancied him, to
punish myself, too. Not believing, as I often did in my self-doubt and despair,
that I was worthy of him, that I deserved happiness.
My ending certainly hasn’t been happy.
Of course, I did push him away. Recent cases made me question my desertion of
faith, even perhaps my vocation. I sometimes recently had been racked with
guilt. How pointless and trivial and foolish it seems now. Am I burning in hell
fire right now? No! I’m lost. So lost. And alone. But also, calm, seeing things
in this foggy twisting ball of my life. But my intention was pure love, I
dreamed of a proper committed relationship.
Not good enough for him though. Not at all.
Then all my self-hatred, low self-esteem, self-doubt in who I was, how I came
to be. All not my fault, all entirely to blame on the adults around me as a
small child. Maybe they deserve judgement for some of my sins? I think inside I
was still such a small boy. I trusted him, and he let me down, and if I had
jumped...?
But I didn’t! I DIDN’T!
Thought about it. Yes.
But I hadn’t meant it. Any of it. That my love was sinful, that I was scared of
his touching me, that I wanted him to ask out Hobson. Especially that. I hadn’t
meant that. I really hadn’t meant that. And I really hadn’t meant Lewis to make
unreasonable demands on me and my time as my superior, asking me to cut short
my holiday volunteering to drive over what felt like half way across Eastern
Europe to work with some very scarily macho police officers who, in broken
English, took the piss out of my genteel English ways in colourful homophobic
phrases... I did it for love, not loyalty for my commanding officer or for
justice, but for love. Because I loved him and he asked me. He asked me in a
succession of flirtatious phone calls and texts and yet all the while he was
already shagging Hobson. And I only had been out of the country a few days!
At least I assume they were shagging. Lewis was screwing Hobson now.
Lucky her.
I went back to work on the following Monday. Got on with work. Kept my head
down. Was the exemplary sergeant. He seemed happy. And oblivious to any need
for apology or explanation. Got me in on advice on cooking. He seemed so happy.
I loved him. I tried to be happy.
People at the station all seemed happy for him and Hobson too. All except DI
Alan Peterson. I, having hidden my feelings for years, could easily recognize
unrequited love in another. Poor Peterson, he had been smitten for years. He’d
fallen head over heels with her the day he had met her. Poor unhappy sod.
Hobson had seemed happy to date him for a while, then dumped him and made cruel
jokes at his expense. At the time I had been happy to join in with her and
Lewis. How cruel of me. That I do regret. I regret it all. He will have to be
told of my apparent suicide. It’s going to hurt him too. Another one who is
going to unfairly blame themselves.
If I had noticed Peterson, then Gurdip had noticed me. He noticed how pale I
was, even for me. How I was losing weight. He must have done. He kept popping
by my office when my boss wasn’t around, and Lewis always seemed to be taking
more and more days off and longer and longer lunch hours and packing up earlier
and earlier. He kept being stood up too. Hobson is married first and foremost
to her career!
But Gurdip was so kind. Gurdip who had been so interested a couple of years
ago, Gurdip who shared my love of graphic novels and comic books and fantasy.
He was always ‘just passing’ and always came bearing something for me to eat.
He sat on my desk and talked about graphic novels and comic books, movies and
TV sci-fi, fantasy novels and computer games. His Nanima – that is, maternal
grandmother – had come down from Leicester to stay and was forever cooking and
providing him with packed lunches to feed an army. He stayed talking until he
was sure I had eaten it all – aloo tikkis, luddus, samosas, ras malai, pakoras,
gulab jaman, the list of his proffered Indian snacks were endless. And almost
tempting too. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Gurdip and his Namima’s cooking I
might have starved for all the nutrition I was getting inside me at home. I
might have had the odd slice of toast or biscuit and a cup of tea, but other
than that I wasn’t even drinking. I sat and stared and felt like I would die of
the pain when I was alone. At work I could see him, smell him, bask in his
presence and convince myself he was an older heterosexual widower and deserved
a chance at happiness I couldn’t give. Except, the dark jealous part of me,
deep in my soul, tormented me with the observation that Val had been ‘the
little woman at home’ and if he wanted someone to defer to him, to cook and
clean and iron for him, then I was the much better choice than strong minded,
out spoken, career orientated, independent Hobson.
At the time I was just too numb and too much in pain inside to really
appreciate what Gurdip was doing for me. One day, albeit cryptically; he even
outright criticized Lewis’ treatment of me. At the time all I could think was
that he knew and was criticizing me for somehow not being a proper man or some
such. How I belittled myself even to the end. But that one day he had opened
up. I had noticed the frisson between him and Julie and he confirmed it. He
talked to me of being an oldest son, of that role, of all the cultural and
religious expectations that fell on him as such. He talked of the dislike in
his culture and caste of ‘darker skin’, how it indicated ‘low caste’ or even
‘untouchable’. He talked of the intense dislike of marrying out of one’s caste,
let alone race. He confessed that he was a coward, but he was a dutiful son who
would one day settle down and please his parents. Casual flings were okay as
long as both sides knew it were just that, but he couldn’t hurt someone he
loved when he couldn’t marry her. He was telling me he was in love with Julie
but trapped by convention and culture and religion and family.
“I wouldn’t use her like that,” he said to me that lunch hour. “I respect her
too much. What kind of low life uses someone for sex and has no intention of
honouring her with a proper, public relationship?” Gurdip had concluded
angrily, his gaze unconsciously going to His desk on the other side of the
office. I had looked at him sharply and saw nothing but sympathy and compassion
in his eyes.
He knew. He knew it all. I knew it was time. This avoiding it all and
pretending nothing had ever happened and I, like everyone else, was pleased for
DI Lewis and Dr. Hobson, had to stop.
That very evening I asked him again for a pint after work. This time I refused
to take no for an answer. It was only a Thursday, what plans could he have,
after all?
“You owe me an explanation. If not an apology!” I had said, hopefully quite
forcefully. I fear I may have sounded more pathetic. I didn’t bother with the
Sir. Why should I?
Robbie Lewis at least had the grace to finally look shame-faced. He looked away
from me.
“In fact,” I pushed, “come over to mine. I’ll cook.”
“James, me and Laura...”
“Or I tell her!” Now I know I sounded whiney and spiteful, rather than the
menacing blackmailer I’d intended, but it couldn’t be helped. I was angry,
true, but also heart-broken and rejected.
“Fine. But tomorrow James, all right? Me and Laura are doing something tonight.
Tomorrow. I’ll come over tomorrow. To explain. If I can James. Don’t know if
apologies are in order, though. I always made it plain what was going on.”
That threw me, I remember. I stared at him, confused. Did I? How did I know
what was going on? What did he mean? I thought we were together, but if he
could dump me without a word and publicly start dating and kissing Hobson in
front of me without a word then I obviously hadn’t a clue, he was playing our
relationship by some rules I had no reference to.
***** Chapter 2 *****
The Inspector is talking on the phone. I can tell that the person is not too
happy about being woken up in the early hours of the morning for a shout. Why
keep dogs and bark yourself? But then he is naming the body. He is telling her
it looks to be suicide. He’s asking to still be allowed to investigate.
Of course, he won’t be. But he can sort the pathologist and SOCO and uniform
until a decent hour. She wants him in her office at eight.
Three hours.
Meanwhile Hobson is supervising the removal of the body from the cold concrete
underneath the multi-storey car park.
“Be gentle with him,” Lewis calls to her, his voice breaking.
“Of course Robbie.” She squeezes his arm gently. He pulls away.
“Sir?” It’s John, one of the SOCOs.
“What?” he snaps. Wow, he is on edge.
“His other shoe. We can’t find it. Can we go to the top floor and secure where
he jumped? His shoe should be on the ground if he jumped. Why take off one shoe
before he jumped?”
“But we’re sure he jumped?”
“Robbie,” Hobson says suddenly. “His eyes were open. Jumpers close them. Or
tend to.”
I see him finger the letter in his pocket before he tells John to find and
secure where the victim fell and to find that other bloody Jimmi Choo.
They all look at him. “Well, they aren’t just bloody shoes, are they?” he
snaps, and I hear him mutter as he gets into his car, “I should know, cost me a
bloody fortune spoiling the bitch.”
Bitch! Bitch! I almost wish I had bloody jumped after all you fucking bastard!
~
Lewis arrived at my flat on the dot of seven carrying flowers. A cheap bunch of
dyed carnations picked up from a petrol station. He’d even left on the label. I
didn’t know if it made it better or worse, to be honest.
Worse, I decided, as I checked on the vegetables in the kitchen. I’d decided to
make him a pie. He likes pies. Lentil soup followed by steak and mushroom pie
with mixed vegetables. Simple English fare that he loved so much. Why? Perhaps
I was hoping the way to a man’s heart is his stomach. Perhaps I was still
competing with Hobson, even then? I’d even considered making a Plum Duff for
dessert, but the only previous time I’d made it he’d told me it wasn’t as good
as his ‘Mam’s’.
Better. I changed my mind as I arranged them in a vase of water and found three
expensive red roses studded among the cheap carnations.
“You could have warned me,” I finally said, after we had finished the food and
drunk the wine. I hadn’t known how to ask. He had behaved as he always did, as
my friend and boss, except sometimes, in the past, over the past year and a
half, more than boss, more than friend. He had said very little himself over
the meal, only work related matters.
“Make us a coffee. Then we’ll talk,” he said, pushing his plate away and
getting up. He sat in my chair, I noticed, not on the sofa as he usually did,
taking over the middle as he did in his own flat. I made him coffee, and as I
did so I finished off the wine in my kitchenette. Then I decided on Scotch
rather than coffee, then changed my mind and tipped my whiskey into my coffee.
“What happened?” I asked gently, the sort of tone I’d used with suspects and
witnesses. It was not lost on Lewis. He glared at me. I gave him his coffee and
tried to smile. It was probably more a painful grimace. I curled up on the sofa
and began sipping my whisky-laced coffee. He still glared for a while before he
spoke.
“What do you mean, what happened?”
“I thought we... I mean, I just go away and...”
“Yeah.” He seemed to be sneering. I didn’t understand why. “You went away all
right. With the church lad, remember? Without telling me in fact. More of you
damn lies James, more of your damn lies. Cheatin’ on me with God, weren’t you?”
“And that justifies...?”
“You were the one always telling me to get together with Laura.”
“I wasn’t. You kept telling me to find someone my own age.”
“But you left me for God.”
“I didn’t!” I yelled. I was alarmed at how high my voice had gone with stress.
I’d gone to help build an orphanage that Oxford’s churches had raised the money
for, not run away and entered a monastery!
“Oh. Right!” Why was he angry? He knows how I dislike it when he raises his
voice. What have I done to make him so angry, he’s the one who deserted me!
“You nearly fucking died right in front of me, right? I wanted you after so
badly and you...”
Oh. You say no to sex once and he dumps you. Without telling you! Is that what
he means? Surely not...? “I had things to work out.” My voice was quiet now. I
hate it when he shouts. He reminds me of Dad. “The case unsettled me. And I
didn’t nearly die.”
“We both thought you were a gonna. If it hadn’t been for that damn neck
brace...”
“Well, I didn’t die.” I have now. “But I wish to God I had done!” I don’t now.
Be careful what you wish for...
“James!” Lewis stood up, horrified at what I’d just said then. He came and sat
beside me on my sofa.
I looked down and spoke even more quietly. I was scared of the answer but I had
to know, he had to tell me, to explain, what I needed to know. “Why didn’t you
tell me? Even dumping me by text would have been kinder. Or did you think I
wouldn’t have chased have way across East Europe for you if you had?”
“I meant to tell you. When you got home.”
“Snogging Hobson was one way of telling me, that’s for sure!” I snorted
horribly at him. I had the right, didn’t I? All the anger, all the fight, had
gone out of me now. I just felt sick with misery and pain. And it was a real,
tangible pain in my chest. A great heaviness within me. Unbearable.
“I’m sorry about that. I am. It’s not what I planned. I didn’t see you pet, I
didn’t, I swear. It was Laura. I doubt she saw you either, although she doesn’t
know – you know, about us. But we shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have. Hell! It’s
not even me. I didn’t even snog Val like that in pubs and that.”
“So you are sorry for that, at least?” I asked pathetically. My voice didn’t
really sound like my own, so small and unhappy.
“You always knew that you and I were...”
“Were what Sir? What were we? You told me you were straight, but you still had
me, didn’t you? We... made love. You made love to me.”
“We were... what is that phrase? Friends with benefits. I’d like to think we
were still friends James?” He even sounded hopeful.
“Friends with benefits?” I rolled the phrase around with the contempt and
disgust it deserved.
“Yeah. Back in my day we used to say ‘fuck buddies’. Crude but true.”
“What? What?” My voice was rising again with anger and hurt. “Do you really
think that was what this was for me? Sir! I love you. I love you!” I was
shrieking now, I’m ashamed to remember. “You were the first man – the first
person – I – I – I... was training to be a priest! I still believe! I still go
to Mass! Did you really think I’d have such an immoral, loose attitude to what
we did? ‘Friends with benefits’? Whose benefit? You just mean you were using me
for sex until someone better came along, don’t you? Get out! Get out of here!
Get out of my home! Now!”
“James. James! Calm down. Please. I didn’t know. I honestly didn’t know. Oh.
Come here.” And he was reaching out to me, pulling me into an awkward hug,
stroking my back and shoulder in little circles, his other hand then started to
stroke my hair, running fingers, making it stick up on end, they way he always
liked to in bed, afterwards. I started to cry. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t
stop myself. I tried to hide it but there were great big embarrassing tears
splashing on to his shoulder and neck. My breath was snuffling and I was
practically hiccupping against him with the effort not to bloody cry. I hated
to appear so weak and vulnerable, especially after what he had said to me, but
I felt like my heart was breaking. I didn’t even believe he didn’t know how I
felt about him and our... relationship? Whatever it was, whatever he defined it
as. A big secret, that I always knew.
I wanted to remain strong, to pull away and tell him to go away again, but I
couldn’t. I was so weak, so needy, and so desperate for any crumbs of his
attention that came my way I started to yield. However much I told myself to
remain stiff and unyielding and not respond to this comfort my body relaxed
next to his, curled into him, I even lifted my legs so I was half in his lap
like a big child desperate for comfort. And yet the comfort was for the hurt he
caused.
Eventually he tipped up my head by my chin and wiped a tear away from my cheek
with his thumb. “There now,” he said. “No more tears James. We’re friends
aren’t we? And am I straight? God knows how we started this thing. I guess no-
one is 100% anything, are they? What about you and Fiona? Or Scarlett?”
I sighed. “I don’t think I’ve ever said I was a hundred percent anything. But I
don’t know. I only kissed them. I’ve only kissed other men, too, at Cambridge,
before taking a vow of celibacy.” Well, there was Tom, but that was complicated
and we never did anything involving penetration. “You were the first and
only...” And he was, really. Absolutely. I’ve never, not with anyone. He was so
kind and gentle. Well, I thought. But he was angry again!
“Stop it James! I won’t believe it! You were nearing bloody thirty when we
started shagging! I refuse to believe...”
He doubts me. How dare he! I pulled away and stared at him levelly. “You. Were.
The. First. And only. I love you. I’d hoped...” For what? Living together?
Marriage? Well, civil partnership? Although, by the time he retired it could be
marriage!
Well, yes I had hoped exactly that. Stupid, naive me.
“James,” he was saying, stroking my cheek where his thumb had been after wiping
my tears, “I’m straight,” he contradicted himself. What was I to believe? “This
has been fun pet, but I never said it was permanent. I’m about to bloody
retire, I’m not about to ‘come out’ to me family or work mates, am I? There’s
no point, I’m not even gay.”
“But you... but we...” I gave up. What could I say? I tried to pull away from
him, to get up and walk away as he no had no intention of leaving my flat. He
grabbed my wrist, my arm, restraining me with a tight grip of both of his hands
and pulled me to him, back down. He hurt enough to bruise but I didn’t let him
know that.
“I never meant to hurt you,” he said, not understanding my ironic snort as his
fingers bit into me. “I thought you were having fun, too. I never thought you
wanted more.”
“More than sex, do you mean?” I struggled to make my voice cold. I was feeling
cold inside again, cold and numb. Had I really been so blind to what was going
on? “Has it only been sex?” I needed clarification. I thought we had had a
proper relationship. “We went for pints...”
“As workmates.”
“And shared takeaways.”
“As friends.”
“I cooked for you. I tried to teach you to cook.”
“As me friend.”
“You stayed over.”
“When I was too pissed to get home.”
“I stayed at yours. I was often at your place.”
“When you were too pissed. You came round as me sergeant too, nothing more
James. Then as me mate.”
“But you fucked me!” So much for a cold, calm voice, I was yelling again.
He stared at me for a while. I was shaking. I could feel myself shake. He must
have been able to, he still held my arm. He looked away. Ashamed? I don’t know.
“Yeah,” he replied softly. “I did. You offered.”
“Because I love you,” I replied sadly. What was the point in telling him he
came around after the poor mad woman Bethan Vickery had knifed him? That he had
told me kissing Hobson had felt a bit like snogging his sister and had made a
move on me as soon as his shoulder had healed? That he had brought me flowers,
chocolate and wine, came with condoms and lube all prepared just expecting me
to fall into bed?
Well, he had obviously changed his mind about Hobson.
“Do you love her? Dr. Hobson?”
He let go of my arm and held my face firmly, making sure I had to look in his
eyes. I suppose I could have closed them, but my gaze was caught by the
intensity in his blue eyes. He was burning with unshed tears. There was
something he was trying to tell me in what he wasn’t saying. What? He stroked
my cheek again. “Oh James!” he said sadly. “I quite like her. I’m awful fond of
you. I loved my Val so much, and I don’t think I’ll ever love someone like that
again.” He had stopped his gentle caresses and held my face firmly in both his
hands now, looking so deeply into mine. He looked so sad. “Thing is, I’m ready
to move on. I’m so tired of being alone. I want a marriage. I want all the
little things I had with Val. Not just the sex. I can’t have that with you. I’m
not ... gay.”
“You want a wife?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Dr. Hobson is a strong minded, independent woman married to her career. If you
want someone to wash your socks and iron your shirts, cook for you, keep house,
put YOU first, then I would be more suitable that HER!!! I would...”
“James.” He said it so forcefully he just shut me up. It was definitely a
commanding, work tone. “I’m not gay. I can’t...”
I had had enough. I knew what he wasn’t telling me and I was so angry. I wasn’t
even the only one being used here and I did like and respect her, for all the
insensitivity she had shown me of late. “You mean,” I shouted, “you don’t want
the world to know you’re bisexual!”
“James. I’m sorry. Maybe I’m too old. I can’t...”
He looked so guilty and ashamed, perhaps even afraid, all the fight and anger
went out of me. “I’d be anything for you, I’d...” I was thinking of Feardorcha
Phelan but there was no way I would go through with something so extreme, but I
was desperate now. Pathetic! And as I was wondering what he meant he said,
“S’sh. I’m sorry,” and leaned forward and was kissing me. Before I could think
of anything rational, could pull away and demand what he was doing since he had
just dumped me and was with Hobson now, my body reacted. I parted my lips to
allow his tongue access, flicking my own tongue on his bottom lip. He still
held my face in his hands and his right thumb caressed my cheek as we kissed
but then he moved the other hand to the back of my head, holding me in place,
as if he expected me to pull away and bolt at any moment.
Which I did as soon as my brain kicked in, I struggled mentally with myself and
then began to struggle physically against him, trying to escape his grip. As I
jerked my head away he bit down on my bottom lip, drawing blood. I seriously
doubt he meant to do that but I put my fingers to my lips, as I demanded, “What
the fuck are you doing? Less than a month ago you were snogging Hobson in front
of everyone! You just told me it was over and now you’re...?”
“Comforting you. I don’t want to hurt you James. I said, I’m awful fond of you
love. Maybe I rushed things with Laura.”
“You’re comforting me?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re confusing me.”
“Come here.” He took my face in his hands again and kissed me aggressively,
licking up the blood he caused. I was alarmed by his force and struggled a
while, before yielding to being kissed, caressed, to being manoeuvred by him to
lie down under him, crying as his hands, then mouth found their way in my
clothes, undressing me, kissing me, his mouth moving from stomach to chest,
nipping a nipple before sucking at the hollow of my neck. I loved him so much,
I wanted to shut my eyes and pretend I’d not seen him kiss Hobson, not listened
to all the gossip at the station, not given him advice on how to cook a roast
for her, not listened to all he had just said to me. Just blot out the past
month as an aberration, a blip, a temporal anomaly. Perhaps I fell through a
hole in space-time and ended up in the wrong universe? The pockets of air
pressure we hit on the way back from Sarajevo kicked me into a parallel
dimension and I’d just found my way back home?
But I knew that was nonsense. A stupid fantasy to justify taking this comfort.
As he sat up, straddling me and pulling off my t-shirt I protested lamely,
“Sir, we shouldn’t...” But he put a finger to my lips.
“S’sh. You love it. I can make you feel nice, can’t I? You want me to, don’t
you?”
“Yes,” I said weakly.
“Come on then,” he climbed off me and the sofa and stood up. He held out his
hand. “Come on love. Let’s go to bed.”
Against my better judgement, I agreed. I loved him so much, was so desperate
not to lose him, I swallowed all pride and all hope and accepted the comfort on
offer. I tried not think about Hobson or all he had said. Maybe it was just a
chance to say goodbye properly, but I was going to take it. Pathetic, I know.
Pathetic, stupid and naive. Weak. A coward. That’s who I am.
***** Chapter 3 *****
How did I get here? I seem to have blanks. I don’t remember travelling. I
remember Himself and his horrid comment about me. Has he read the letter? Will
he cry? Have they found the shoe? Will they find the crime scene? Or did the
bastards clear it up? Will there be any forensic evidence to link them and
their cheap booze, fags and weed to me and what they did? Will they decide I
jumped anyway? Defiled and jumped? I can’t really remember so well. Maybe I did
jump after all? With one shoe? My head hurts. Well, no it can’t, can it? I
don’t have a head, really.
It suddenly brightens. Dr Hobson has switched on a light. We’re in the
mortuary. The clock says it’s 7am. The officer who arrived after the poor
street cleaner who found the body said it was 5am? What time did I fall? I got
up to the top at the Westgate at just gone 11. There were few cars and people.
I waited and I sat on the edge, looking down, afraid. I climbed off and there
they were. Laughing at me. Drunk. But what time was that? How long have I been
like this? And what is this? Some kind of limbo? I’m not in hell, thank God,
nor purgatory. I’m still here! Watching...
Hobson has pulled back the sheet and is looking down at the... at my body. She
is stroking my hair.
“Oh James. I’m so sorry. I knew you loved him. I never would have thought...”
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to watch her do this. I don’t like it
anyway at work but I certainly don’t want to see what I look like on the
inside. I have to get away. I have to... open the door? How can I open the
door? Can I just walk through it? Can I? I’ll just try to...
Ow!
Okay. But I’m spirit. I don’t exist.
My head tingles. It tickles. It hurts. No, don’t look, it has nothing to do
with that little electric saw in Dr. Hobson’s hands.
The buzzing is urgent though.
Oh! I’m at work. I just sort arrived here.
Not my corridor. Not my floor.
I’m at the door of DI Peterson’s office. He’s hunched over his desk. He’s in
work early.
Shit! He’s crying.
Alan...
I feel so helpless. We took the piss. Action Man. But actually, he was a nice,
decent bloke. A good father, certainly. When he was sober he told me all about
his kids, all five of them. And drunk and maudlin he missed them as much as
Hobson broke his heart.
Okay, so he’s standing. Wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand and sniffing.
Where is he going?
I follow him down the corridor and up the stair well and up another corridor
and here we are, knocking at Chief Superintendent Innocent’s office. The
secretary is showing him in. Sandra, isn’t it? Her eyes are red too.
A bunch of screwed up tissues are in the bin and Innocent’s eyes are red and
swollen too. There’s a lot of crying going on.
“Ma’am. About me leading this investigation.”
“If there is one. It looks like a suicide. We have to wait for the pathologist
to rule. I should never have...”
“What Ma’am?”
“I pushed him. He wanted to resign. I persuaded him to stay. I couldn’t
persuade him to go for inspector but I knew Midsomer were advertising for a new
DS in Causton CID and I suggested a change of location, away from personal...”
“From Lewis Ma’am?”
“It wasn’t that, was it? That poor lad he found. The one who hanged himself?”
“I can’t lead it Ma’am.”
“Alan. Why?”
“I... I... Oh God! This is my fault!”
No it isn’t Alan. No it isn’t! You were kind. We were drunk! It was my fault.
Please...
Oh! I seem to be back here. Don’t look at the body, don’t look...
It’s eight thirty now. Where did the time go? He’s here. Wasn’t he supposed to
see Innocent at eight? What is he playing at? He’ll get a reprimand if he’s not
careful. I think Hobson thinks so too.
“Robbie. There’s no way Jean will let you lead on this.”
“Laura. I have to know. And until I’m in that meeting with her and she tells me
– to me face – that I’m not in charge then I am. I was on call, his body
discovered on my watch. I owe it to the lad to know. Was it suicide?”
“Do you doubt it? You have the note. But no one knows about that but you and
me, do they? Why are you holding on that?”
“It’s personal. Private. And if you rule suicide then I’ll hand it in as
evidence, but if the boy changed his mind and fell – or was pushed. Laura, SOCO
found stuff up on the roof.”
“What ‘stuff’?”
“Lager cans, cider bottles, fag butts and roach ends. Skateboard skid marks.
Scuffed up ground around where he may have fallen. His shoe. Blood that I’m
betting is a match for his. Vomit too. And splashes of lager and cider.
Splashes of something else, too. Spunk, SOCO reckon. They’ve taken samples of
it all for the lab.”
Hobson sighs deeply. “Okay. You won’t like this Robbie.”
“What?”
“Signs of sexual activity. Several sexual activities in the last 24 hours of
so.”
He pales. He gulps. “Several?” he asks neutrally.
“I know. It doesn’t sound like our uptight, celibate James, does it? All with
men, I add. Does that surprise you?”
He shrugs and shakes his head. “Does it you?”
She shakes her head. “No really. Do you really want to do this? Some of what
I’ve found sounds like it’s going to tally with the scene of crime forensics.
But it still doesn’t prove he didn’t jump, afterwards.”
“Just tell me Laura.”
“Fine. In the reverse order of timings then. So, probably less than an hour
before death he had oral sex. I have good samples of the seminal fluid in his
stomach; the stomach acid had hardly got to work. Certainly more than one
man’s. Three or four even. Lab results should be able to separate and get DNA
fingerprinting done. But don’t hold your breath with so much to separate and
the stomach acid. Not much else in his stomach. He’d been drinking solidly for
a day, I would guess. Gin. Whisky. Beer. And tea. Sugared tea. But not much
else at all.”
“Oh James. Do you think he consented?”
“To an oral gangbang? James?! There are signs of bruising to the oesophagus.
He’d vomited too, which tallies with SOCO’s findings. And there was no
indication of any form of reciprocation. He didn’t... enjoy it. He didn’t
orgasm, to put it crudely.”
“Is that it then?”
“No. A few hours before death he had anal sex. Passive. He took Robbie.”
He shrugs, like he’s not being told something he doesn’t know. Which he isn’t,
of course.
“With a condom, a lubricated condom but from the perforations and tears, very
little else in the way of lubrication was used. Possibly salvia. I’ve taken
swabs so we may get a DNA profile from it.”
“Non consensual?”
“Harder to tell. Rough sex. He may have sort of consented, drunk as he was.
They may not have had lube to hand and decided to go for it anyway. But it’s
not my job to speculate, just give the facts.”
“And the rest?” he looks pale now, sick at heart. He’s going to have to tell
her. Her or Innocent or both. And then he will be damn well be out of more than
leading this, you can bet.
“He’d previously had anal sex, again the passive partner, a little more than 24
hours before his death. Friday night, I would guess.” She’s staring at him.
She’s already guessed. Fuck, this woman is good. I’ve always respected her.
“Yeah?”
“Without a condom, but with lots of lube. Both lube and seminal fluid
splattered on rectum walls. I should not only be able to get you a DNA profile
but brand and type of the lube, too.”
“Really?”
They stare at each other.
He looks away first. “Laura...”
“Yes?”
“It’s mine.”
“Which?”
“The spunk. In him. I fucked him, okay. It was a goodbye, comfort thing. I
never really told him about us, I hadn’t actually...”
“Dumped him? What am I Robbie? Your beard?”
“My what?”
“Your nice respectable badge of heterosexuality while you shag your pretty boy
sergeant half your age?”
“No, Laura, I like you. I just wasn’t ready before. James and me, well, it was
just sex. Friends with benefits. Isn’t that what’s it’s called?”
“No, Robbie, that’s what we were called. But not only is the sex done, but I
don’t think I can call you my friend anymore. Poor, romantic, vulnerable,
innocent James. He adored you. I thought it was all one sided, but if that
devout Catholic, messed up, trusting boy let you inside him, defying his deeply
held religious beliefs, then he loved you more than anything. He wasn’t having
a bit of fun with a friend. He trusted you. If I had known for one second that
you and him had anything physical going on I would never have ever moved in on
his territory. Oh God, the poor boy... Get out of here Robbie. And if you
haven’t told Jean by the end of the day that it is your DNA inside him I will.”
“Laura...?”
“Go! Now!”
He storms out and I follow him. He goes straight into the gents and vomits and
vomits and vomits until he has nothing to bring up. He rinses his mouth and
leans over the basin, looking at this reflection.
“Robbie Lewis, you total bastard!” he spits out at his reflection. And then the
tears come. Horrible, big, gut wrenching sobs. He rushes to the cubicle and
locks himself in. I can’t see him and I’m such a crap ghost I can’t follow. I
don’t know how to walk through doors and walls.
Ghost!
Is that what I am?
I suppose I am.
My ‘head’ tingles again.
I’m back in the Chief’s office. Her desktop monitor says its 0719. But it was
gone eight thirty. I’ve moved in Time as well as Space? What am I now?
“Why Alan? I know you run a specialized unit here, but you led murders up in
Gateshead. You have a glowing recommendation in your file and reference.”
“Personal involvement Ma’am.”
“How personal?”
“James and I, we... well, we got drunk and it seemed like the right thing to
do. You know, when you’re pissed and you do stupid things, right? He loves
Inspector Lewis, Ma’am, and I’m more than a little in love with Laura Hobson.
We just met up and started drinking. We went back to mine and drank some more.
I’ve never, ever even been with a bloke before but...”
Innocent sighed. “You had sex.”
“Well... yeah. I can’t even remember which one of us decided to get together to
make them jealous, but...”
“When did he leave you?”
“About nine in the evening.”
“How did he seem?”
“Oh God.” He takes a moment to compose himself. “If I could go back in time,
Ma’am. He was guilt ridden, distraught. Neither of us normally do one night
stands, but he was... didn’t I hear he used to be a priest?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“He ran out, so upset. I should have gone after him, I should have...”
“We could never know he was suicidal Alan.”
“But ma’am...”
“What?”
“I should have guessed. I should have gone after him. I’m a detective.”
“What?”
“His arms. The top of his thighs. Cigarette burns and cuts. Fresh ones, hours
old in some cases.”
“He’d been self-harming? Oh James... I should have noticed.”
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“When we met up, I thought like me it was unrequited love that caused him so
much pain.”
“But?”
“But, from what I could gather, for the past eighteen months or so, Lewis and
he have had a sexual relationship. Lewis wanted it kept secret, and he, from
what I could guess at from his drunken ramblings, still wanted James on the
side occasionally. No commitment, just sex, while the world thought he was
happy with Hobson. I always thought Lewis such a nice bloke.”
Innocent looks deep in thought. Eventually she says, “He is. Just deeply messed
up, I think. I need to wait on SOCO and the post mortem, but I think I need to
bring in someone from another station to head this. I think we are all too
personally involved with this. Do you want to take the day off?”
“With respect, Ma’am, I just want to throw myself into my work. We’ve had
information that the extremist group over at Reading University is in
infiltration of the nice liberal Islamic Soc at Brookes. I need to get one of
my people inside.”
“Isn’t that MI5?”
“We all work together on this. Laxton and I have been doing some great work
with the whole community here on prevention and awareness of domestic violence.
Our source is one of the local imams. He’s deeply concerned.”
“Fine. I’ll leave you to it. Keep me informed if you need uniform.”
“And Ma’am, you will let me know – the pathologist’s ruling on James, whether
he...?”
“I think I might have to do a whole station briefing. We’re all in shock here.”
Are they? I thought they took the piss out of me.
He goes and she puts her head on her desk and cries.
***** Chapter 4 *****
I never thought about it. All the PM results, all the times in all the murder
investigations that Hobson said to us he or she had had sex, had this done to
them, that done to them. I never really thought about that person, their
partner, how when they made love they never knew it was for the last time.
Well, I thought I knew that it was one last time. The ‘comfort’ that he was
offering. I should have declined. Where was my pride? I was so stupid. I
understand that. I should have stuck to my guns and thrown him out. But we do
desperate things when our hearts are breaking.
We undressed. He lay down and let me cover him in kisses, travelling all over
his body. Not just kissing, but licking, even sniffing. Breathing in his scent,
every part of him, tasting him, remembering it all, trying to imprint it in my
mind, store it in my brain to never forget what he felt like, smelt like,
tasted like. The love of my life. The man I gave everything to.
After a while, when he was rock hard and had stopped me going down on him twice
already, he laughed and said, “Are you ready James? You better be ready because
I am.” He braced my shoulders and flipped us over so he was lying on top of me.
He kissed me on my mouth, hard, his tongue imitating what he planned. I tried
to kiss back, to lose myself in the sensation, but tears came to my eyes again,
because this was the last time.
“Oh James my love,” he kissed away the tears. “Don’t cry, pet, don’t cry. I do
love you.”
Then he looked horrified, angry with himself for betraying himself.
“You do?”
He ignored me and reached to my bedside table, to its top drawer. “Where’s the
bloody lube gone?”
“Um. I threw it away.”
“What? Why?”
“I thought you didn’t want me anymore. I thought you were with Hobson.”
“Well, bloody find it or something, I’m going to have you with or without.”
Comforting myself with the secret thought he was angrier with himself and he
did love me I got up and rifled through the wastepaper basket next to the
nightstand. There it was, at the bottom, under countless screwed up snot and
tear stained tissues, a scrunched up empty cigarette packet, a half eaten
biscuit and an empty crisp packet. I handed it to him and got back on the bed.
He smiled and kissed me again, his hand on my chest pushing me back to lie
back. I tried to forget Hobson, forget the things he said. I smiled back and
spread my legs, bringing my knees up. His shouting at me, the reality of this
‘goodbye’ hitting me, I had begun to grow limp but I knew his fingers in me
would sort that out. I didn’t want to lose him, I didn’t want to...
I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the sensation. In no time at all
everything had telescoped down to the feeling of his fingers moving, stretching
me open, teasing my prostrate. The feel of my cotton sheets as I gripped them
and squirmed on them. His other hand, warm, resting on my thigh. No time. No
feelings. No thoughts. Just this. And then he spoke.
“You are so lovely like this James. I’d forgotten how beautiful you are, at how
tight you feel, how I love watching you like this. God, how could I give you
up, my lovely, lovely James.”
And I was crying again. He pulled out his fingers and yet again he kissed away
my tears before pushing my knees up to my chest and then, slowly, so slowly, he
entered me and it was bliss. I was his. He wasn’t going to leave me. He
adjusted the angle of his thrusts and I couldn’t think, I could only feel. I
knew he was making me make those little desperate noises he loved and I
couldn’t help it and everything was spiralling away in such intense waves and
all he had to do was tighten his hand around my cock and the moment of
unbearable pressure as my balls tightened and then I was coming, spurting over
his hand, my belly, and he was laughing, calling me beautiful again before he
grabbed my hips and pulled me in, thrusting deeper and faster, until he too had
come, deep in me. I cold feel each rhythmic pulse until he had emptied himself.
I opened my eyes. His deep blue ones looked at me so tenderly, before he got
up, sliding out of me, and grabbing some tissues.
“All right pet?”
I nodded.
“I forgot how bloody marvellous that feels. I can’t give you what you want,
James. I’m sorry. You want me to marry you. I’m too old to change who I am, how
people see me. But if you let me, we could still do this, couldn’t we?
Sometimes?”
I felt like a bucket of icy cold water had just been poured down my back.
“What?” I demanded, sitting up. “What about Dr. Hobson?”
“What the eye doesn’t see...”
“What?”
“Come on love, you love how I make you feel.”
No. I don’t. You are making me feel broken hearted. Trash. Like a tart. A sex
toy. “Get out Sir. Get out of my bloody home. Now!”
“C’mon love.”
“Don’t you fucking call me love! Get the fuck out of my home!”
“Can’t I have a shower first? I promised Laura I’d come round and stay the
night.”
“Get out! Get out!” And I was pushing him. Shoving him. Slapping at him. Then
punching him. Screaming at him. A real fucking embarrassing hissy fit.
And suddenly his experience as a beat officer, his extra weight, everything
about him, came to the fore and he was restraining me, my arm twisted behind my
back.
“Don’t you ever threaten me again, sergeant,” he hissed in my ear. Then he spun
me and pushed me back onto the bed. “You just made this a lot easier. I felt so
sick over the way I treated you, and yeah, maybe I’m a coward, but I’m not
truly gay, but you, James love, have just shown me what a bloody unstable queer
bitch you really are.”
He grabbed his clothes and shoes and stormed off to the bathroom. I banged on
the door, apologizing, but it remained locked until he came out clean and
dressed with wet hair. “Sorry I called you a bitch, James,” he said. I bit my
lip to stop more tears. “I know I’ve blown it. I know I’m a coward, but I can’t
do this to Mark and Lyn. Or the rest of me family. Come out, now? Have them all
wondering if I ever loved Val, when she was the love of me life. I want another
wife, one I can take to see me grandson and that.”
“Dr. Hobson won’t marry you. She doesn’t do commitment.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see. I know I’m not welcome back here, at any rate. Wouldn’t
respect you if I was, the bastard I’ve been. I’m sorry James. Truly. And if you
want to transfer immediately, fair enough, but it’s only weeks to me retirement
anyway. Take some leave lad. I’m sorry. If it helps, I do actually love you,
and even though you’re our Lyn’s age, thereabouts, if you were a girl I’d marry
you.”
“This is the twenty first century, not the 1950s. You can marry me. And people
have heard of bisexuality, you know.” I tried so hard to sound forceful, but I
was so unhappy. I followed him to the living room where he picked up his phone
and keys.
“Yeah. Well. I’m sorry for being such a shit. I want to hug you but that’s the
wrong thing to do, right?”
I shook my head and clung to him, resting my head on his shoulder, crying. “I
love you,” I said one last time.
If I had had the courage I’d have killed myself there and then. And I thought
about it. I tried with the knife, but all I did was cut myself and cut myself
as I had as a teen, after all the memories of Augustus came back to haunt me
with a vengeance when I hit puberty and really understood what had happened to
me in the Summerhouse. I was too scared to make that deep long incision to the
artery. I even lay in a hot bath, I’d heard it made it less painful. But no. I
cut and I drank and I cried. I fetched all the paracetamol, aspirin and cold
and flu remedies and lined them up with a bottle of Scotch and tried to will
myself to swallow it all down. But I couldn’t.
And I couldn’t even, not in a million years, contemplate hanging myself. Not
after that poor boy, not after that! I saw him in my dreams enough as it was.
Besides, deep down, subconsciously, I was probably just being a drama queen,
regressing as I was, the pain of my childhood as much as the heartbreak
resurfacing and hurting. I probably, deep, deep down, wanting Him to find me
and save me and come back to me.
I wasn’t in my right mind at all.
Eventually I must have passed out because I woke at dawn. Light was streaming
in to the living room and I was on the floor. I sat up stiffly and limped
awkwardly to the kettle and made myself tea, sugaring it, as if I had had a
shock. I remembered and began to cry again. Pathetic.
 
~
Where am I? Have I slept? Can I sleep? I’m dead.
Dead.
How dreadful that sounds. Frightening. I spent hours longing for death, for the
pain to end, but in the end my fear of hell won out and yet here I am. Dead.
Still broken hearted. But not in hell. No angels or demons or family members to
come welcome me to heaven or drag me down to hell. No face to face with my
Creator being shown the record of my life. It’s all here, this ball of muddled
light. I’m trying not to look too deep. There’s Augustus in there. And Mum. And
Tom.
I didn’t lie to Robbie. All Tom and I went in for was a bit of frottage and
mutual wanking. I was a bit scared of oral sex and he didn’t fancy giving me a
blowjob, so he wouldn’t take one from me. Fair’s fair, he used to say in his
best put on Cockney accent. He was from the East End, but his parents had been
yuppie incomers. He loved to play up to the hard image he cultivated. So many
girls fell for him. And me, I did too. In a mindless, teenage crush kind of
way. I certainly didn’t feel as deeply in love with him as I do – did? – do! –
Robbie Lewis.
I repented it all. After we split up, after he was rusticated. Then I really
decided to take my half believed vocation seriously. Gay fling done. Boat race
done. All there was left was to spend the following two years working hard on
the degree and attach myself as much as possible to the Catholic chaplaincy. I
gave up the rowing. Don’t know why. My confessor didn’t either. Sports are good
for the sublimination of carnal desire. But so is manual work, and I did plenty
of that, volunteering at a children’s home, running sports activities and doing
the garden. Same in two old peoples homes – the gardens, that is, not the
sporting activities! Shopping and gardening for elderly parishioners too.
It wasn’t just Tom I repented. Or teenage crushes on pop stars and actors and
the natural wanking that went with just innocent boyhood fantasies. I repented
Augustus. As if I were to blame in some way. As if I were to blame! Five or six
when he started grooming me. I was so excited to learn the piano but I don’t
think that makes me responsible for his interest in me. Or what went on besides
piano lessons.
And no, Lewis wasn’t the first. He was. I was ten. Dad found out a year later.
He went ballistic. And his lordship threatened him with the police. He wouldn’t
give Dad a reference. Instead he helped with the scholarships. Dad started to
drink then. Mum had been dead four years. I felt like I’d lost both of them.
But even though I hadn’t told anyone, even though I what? - didn’t let him kill
me like St. Maria Goretti took all those knife wounds to herself instead of his
cock inside her. Well, I took his bloody cock, but is it my fault? He didn’t
threaten me with a knife. He made me feel like he loved me, that this was what
I needed to do to show gratitude. And then, as I grew older, old enough to
understand the disgusting, filthy things he did to me, he threatened my father
with unemployment, us with homelessness. He could easily call the police, plant
things to make it so likely Dad was the thief he would be arrested. Easy to
believe as a child, and years later, twenty years later, as a policeman, I
can’t see uniform not believing a Marquis accusing his Estate Manager,
especially if the stolen property was then recovered in the said Estate
Manager’s cottage.
What had I to repent? I was a victim! Did Fr. Sanders say that to me? No. He
absolved me of it all, as if it were all one, being abused as a child, boyhood
crushes on male pop stars, wank fantasies about other men, a loving
relationship with a boyfriend. Well, I say loving. I convinced myself I was in
love with Tom, and he seemed to like me and fancy me but then he turned out to
have had two girlfriends on the go. The one who had used him as a dealer inside
our college and the one he got pregnant. Although, actually, I think he loved
all three of us. At least he had the guts to tell me about it all.
 
~
 
After the tea I stared at my neat line of over the counter drugs and booze, all
ready for me to systematically swallow and take the slow, sleepy way to
oblivion. And then God’s judgement. Suicide. A mortal sin.
I couldn’t do it.
I was scared of hell.
But I couldn’t live.
I couldn’t face the pain.
Bright fame. Light bearer. Robert Lewis. My redemption. He gave me space and
respect. He let me be myself and only mocked in the kindest of loving tones. He
undid the wounds of abuse and neglect and let me grow. He was my everything.
And then he had turned into someone I didn’t recognize.
Or maybe I did. For all his grand, if albeit blunt Geordie, words, he hated
himself deep down as much as I did. Or one half of himself, he being bisexual
not gay. I could understand, maybe, after all. Perhaps something had been said
to him that made him even question what he was doing with me? Made him panic?
Hobson had never hidden her interest, so I suppose he felt she was there,
waiting in the wings, so he could prove to himself he was straight. Normal. A
real man.
He called me a bitch.
He’d never done that. He hated such phrases. Even though he had every right to,
even though I always took, even though I was so much younger than him.
But he didn’t even mean it like that, did he? He had called me a bitch as one
would a woman in a fight. He emasculated me to that extent.
Was that his age? Or how he saw me, deep down?
I began to cry again, curling up on the floor, pulling a cushion off the sofa
and hugging it.
I think I slept again. I woke up cold and stiff. I stumbled up and dressed and
made myself more sweet tea. I even made myself eat a biscuit. I looked outside
and saw bright sunshine, fluffy clouds. I could hear tourists and students walk
past. I went out.
I had some idea I might go rowing. Try to pull myself together. The sky. The
river. The ducks. The willows. The beauty of God’s creation. Find some comfort,
some reason, some meaning. It took me an hour to get to Donnington Bridge
boathouse. And then I realised I was dressed entirely inappropriately in tight
jeans and leather boots, not sweats and trainers.
I crossed the bridge and walked back the other way, through the Nature Reserve.
I came up by the Head of the River and crossed the Isis there and intended to
go into Christchurch Meadow. I’d now been out walking for about three hours. I
probably needed to eat. I was desperate for some water. But I couldn’t face a
pub or cafe, being with people more than I had to. As I got to the kissing
gates I realised the man who had staggered from the beer garden had been
following me.
“DS Hathaway!” he slurred. “James, isn’t it? You are a James, right, not a
Jim?”
“Inspector Peterson?” He was unsteady on his feet, and stank like a brewery.
And it was, only...? I didn’t know. I realised I’d not put on my watch, and
worst, left my phone at home. Shit, I was on call this weekend. Helpful, the
bells began to toll. It was two o’clock.
“Alan,” he said with false brightness, and put his hand to my shoulder. “It’s
Alan, James. It is James?”
“It certainly is James Sir.”
“Alan!”
“Alan.”
“Fancy a pint James?”
“Um, Sir, I think you might have had enough. I will gladly go for a drink with
you, Sir, but maybe we best get some lunch first, to soak up what you’ve
already drunk. Are you all right Sir?”
“It’s Alan. And, no, I’m not. I’m cursed, James, cursed. Everywhere I bloody
went. Couldn’t sleep, see. Got back so late, alone. I looked at their room and
I could of wept, mate. Really. My ex can be such a selfish cow.”
“I’m sorry Sir... Alan.”
“Anyway, after crashing out I thought I’d go for a run,” I noticed he was
wearing sweatpants and a rugby shirt, “but what happened was there they were,
all lovely-dovey and holding hands on the river...”
“Who were?”
“The lovely Laura and that old git. What she ever sees in him, God knows...?”
“A lot!” I snapped before I could stop myself.
“Oh yeah. Sorry,” he put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “Sorry lad.
Right pair we make, eh. Mooning after them. But it got worse. I went to the
Trout for a quiet pint and there they were soon after, all hand holding over
their beers and gazing in their eyes. I felt sick. So I came down here and I’d
been drowning my sorrows until in they walk so out I go and then I saw you...”
“They’re in there... The Head of the River?”
“Stay lad. It’ll only hurt.”
He was so drunk, his words so slurred. “You’re right Sir. Alan. Shall we get
something to eat somewhere?”
“As long as it’s nowhere they’re gonna turn up at.”
We went to the Nosebag; popular with students and not somewhere I had never
heard of Lewis or Hobson going to. I’d not been there for years, not since I
was in the Seminary and used to take the coach to meet up with Will and Jonjo.
Good, cheap food, fresh ingredients, all prepared while you wait. He had the
chilli, I had jacket potato and cheese, which I prodded and poked at and pushed
around my plate, a few mouthfuls may even have found their way in although
swallowing was painful. I had tea – somehow, sugary tea was all I wanted in my
heartbreak. I made sure he had a whole pot of strong black coffee. Eventually
he asked if I was going to eat that and finished my lunch for me, then got up
for pudding. He had cheesecake and brought me a slice of chocolate gateau and
tried to encourage me to eat it. The food and coffee had done their work and he
was more than halfway sober by the time we finished.
“Thanks for all that James. I owe you one.”
“That’s quite all right Sir... Alan.”
“It’s not just Hobson and Lewis, though God, it has been hard these past few
weeks. Hasn’t it?”
I looked down and pushed chocolate cake crumbs about my plate. My cheeks felt
warm. Perhaps I was blushing. “Yes.”
“You don’t exactly hide your crush, do you? And I’ve even been out with her,
but I think I might have been played to make him jealous. Bastard!”
“He isn’t...” Actually he is, and you don’t know the half of it Sir.
“I don’t want you to think I’ve been drinking like that every weekend since
they’ve got together, James. I haven’t. I had this weekend off entirely off
rota. My kids were coming to stay.”
“You have children?”
“Five all told. But my first two are by my first marriage – sixteen they are,
Sam and Matty. Just done their GSCEs. Did well. Matty’s into science, he’s
staying on to do ‘A’s. Sam’s all dramatical, she’s off to college to do
performing arts. They’re in London. Come down when they like. We email and
skype and text. Good relationship, me and the twins. Always came to stay in
Gateshead every school holiday when they were little.
“No, it’s my little three. Ex is always doing this. We meet half way, she
drives down from Gateshead and I go up. Service station, we meet at. At three,
so I always take Friday afternoon off when they are coming. But she didn’t
show. Waited until nine o’clock, worried sick. Got on to one of my sergeants,
just to check traffic, to see... At nine, I got the text. Bobbie’s got a bit of
a fever. Probably a lie. Always something. Not the first time I’ve driven up
like that only to be sat waiting for hours.”
“I’m sorry.” I don’t have children. My Dad and I are so distant. But I know,
even though Mark is nearing thirty Robbie still hurts about the lack of
contact, and he and Lyn talk on the phone most days. “How old are they?”
“Angie’s the oldest, she’s six.” He pulled out his wallet and showed me a
picture; a girl with blonde bunches and a smile with her front teeth missing.
The tooth fairy had been busy. A boy, smaller, and a baby, completed the photo.
He took out his phone and then started scrolling through hundreds of them, on
swings and slides and at zoos and parks and farms... “Bobbie’s eighteen months
now, and Darren is four. He’s just started nursery full time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“Miss them.” He seemed to pull himself together. “Okay, young man, I seem to
remember offering you a pint. How about the Cricketers Arms, can’t see you know
who going there. Come on, I owe you.”
I nodded. As I stood my sleeve rode up and I caught him looking at my arm.
“James lad. He’s not worth it.” He touched my arm, he sounded horrified.
***** Chapter 5 *****
I feel like I’m waking up. It’s not just like a blank, but like I’ve actually
been asleep. Do ghosts or spirits or whatever I am, do they – we – sleep?
I seem to be curled up pressed against something. Oh. It’s a mortuary drawer.
Is that where... I am? My body is? Hobson is sitting over in the corner, at a
desk, typing. Only one small light from the laptop screen illuminated her face.
Her phone rings.
“Oh Nikki. Thanks for calling back. I couldn’t talk to anyone around here,
they’re all too involved. Besides, I want to keep Robbie’s secrets for him.”
She listens, they then talk about pathology and bodies for a while. She asks
after this Nikki who appears to be another pathologist, an ex student of hers
who is working in Manchester. Then Hobson says,
“I can’t believe how he treated him. I can’t. I’ve known Robbie for years,
since he was a sergeant. And I can only say he has always been kind, non
judgemental and a gentleman, an old fashioned gentleman. He’s clever, too.
Everything I’ve respected about him seems to have vanished overnight. I’ve
always fancied him, even when he was married, and as my friend it was
heartbreaking to watch him fall apart after Val died. I thought that we could
be good, together, you know? I know he’s old fashioned but I didn’t think he
was so sexist and stuck in his ways like his old boss to not consider, you
know? But why he changed his mind and asked me out, I don’t know. I thought it
was as he said, he was over Val, but he must have already been over her. Oh
Nikki. I liked James immensely. I would never have hurt him for the world...”
Oh Laura. I didn’t want to hurt you either. Have you seen on my body what they
did to me, how they hurt me. Can you tell I didn’t jump?
Unless I did?
Like some medieval maiden who had been dishonoured?
I have this horrible feeling that part of me is as stupid as that.
No!
I didn’t jump. I had climbed back off and to be clear with myself, they had
cracked some ribs and punched me so much in the kidneys I think I might have
been bleeding internally. I can’t see how I could have climbed back over the
wall and the safety nets to jump in that state. But how can she tell what is
due the fall and what is due to them hitting me, jumping on me, kicking me...?
But you saw all the different sex, loving consensual, drunken dubious consent
and sexual assault and you catalogued them all. If you did that can you
separate my injuries. Please, Laura, I know you can...
 
~
 
I can’t remember it yet. It’s too painful, too terrifying. I’d hardly eaten for
two days, and was still probably so drunk. In fact, I’d been barely eating for
weeks. I was so weak. Weak, drunk and tired. And emotional. After all, I’d been
contemplating a jump of no return. Since I was too afraid to slash my wrists or
take an overdose I was going to leap into the dark, into pain free silence. But
then I realised it would be the eternal fire of Hell forever and climbed back.
They were laughing. They too were drunk. And stoned too. Eight of them.
No. I can’t face this.
 
~
 
There is a knock at the door and a young blonde woman walks in. Laura is
surprised, to say the least.
“Kate! What the hell are doing here? Shouldn’t you be in Causton? Chasing some
lab work?”
“Oh Auntie Laura, I wish I was. Can I come in?” A niece? No wonder she seemed
so similar to Hobson, like a younger version out of the same mould. And a
pathologist too, if I was understanding what I was hearing correctly, for
Midsomer Constabulary. The highest murder count outside the main cities like
London and Manchester in the whole country. Busy girl. What was she doing here?
Of course, Causton was just down the road, so it was likely they might ask the
John Radcliffe forensic path labs for assistance now and again.
“Sure. It’s good to see a friendly face. Oh Kate, give me a hug.”
“Um, sure.” It didn’t look like the Hobsons were usually a huggy type of
family.
They hug and then Kate pulls away. “I’m so sorry Auntie Laura, but I’m here to
check on your autopsy and conduct a second.”
“On James?”
“DS James Hathaway? Yes. I’m afraid the Oxfordshire Chief Constable has decided
that this is too close to everyone in Oxford. A DCI from my patch has arrived
to lead and he asked me – I’m so sorry Auntie, I know you won’t have missed
anything, but you’ve been unable to rule so...”
“He was sexually assaulted before he died. He’s a Catholic. He’d not the type.”
“With respect Auntie, that is subjective.”
“Yes. I know. However, I’m waiting to run a few more tests and look at certain
injuries again. A lot of the bruises, even some of the breaks, are not
consistent with the fall. I think he may have been beaten very badly as well as
orally raped. They may have ‘helped’ with the fall, either as he struggled to
get away or even after they had finished with their physical and sexual
assaults. He would have been very weak. He’d existed on a diet of mostly
alcohol and sweet tea for at least 30 hours. I have to be sure. I can’t condemn
him without checking. The very least I can do for the poor boy is make sure he
gets a proper Catholic funeral and burial.”
“He meant a lot to you?”
“Oh, Kate...”
“Can I see the body?”
Hobson visibly pulls herself together, becoming very professional. “Of course
Dr. Wilding.”
And now they are walking over here, to the body drawer, to... me.
My head is buzzing...
I’m back in the gents near to the mortuary. I can hear Himself still sobbing,
as if I never left. I’ve gone backwards in time again, I think. Unless he’s
been crying solidly for hours?
Oh Robbie...
I really don’t understand what is happening to me! I just seem to be moving
backwards and forwards in time and location, a few hours back and forth and
from the bottom of the Westgate to the John Radcliffe and then the station and
back again. If it’s not me, is it when someone thinks of me? Or I when I think
of them?
No, then I would just be stuck to Himself like glue.
Oh!
Okay.
I can see my reflection. In the mirrors above the basins.
And the big one opposite the door too.
I look bloody awful. The side of my head. Shit!
Okay. I have seen worse at crime scenes. But not me! So much blood. And stuff!
“Too many bloody brains, that’s you trouble James!” he used to tease. Huh!
Well, Sir, I think I’ve left some of them under the Westgate car park now.
Do I have to spend – what, eternity? – looking so awful? I stare at myself in
the basin mirror and as I do, the nasty bashed in injury is fading. But my hair
and face are such a mess.
That’s better. Face and hair all perfectly groomed. A little quiff I think. A
no, not blond eyelashes. We need to see how long they are. Much better. A
permanent tint, I think.
I look down.
Oh. Will you look at my clothes? Ripped and torn and dirty, covered in stains
and dust. My shirt is untucked and half the buttons are undone, some ripped
off. My tie is loosened.
Now that’s much better.
I twirl in front of the full length mirror at the end of the bathroom. Now, I
look good. Jsen Wintle grey suit, pink crisp cotton shirt and my dark pink silk
tie he bought for my second birthday working for him. Plus of course...
My shoe! Where’s my shoe! I only have one shoe!
One lovely two tone Jimmi Choo and one dark pink soft wool sock!
Ah, that’s better. My Jimmi Choos. Part of my best birthday present of all
time. He surprised me. Drove me to London on the Friday after work. Made sure
we both weren’t on call. Took me to the Savoy. We made love on the king size
bed and called room service for a very expensive meal. The next day he took me
shopping, bought me my shoes, took me to a show – ‘Les Mis’ – then out for
another expensive meal and back to the Savoy. Smoked salmon for our final
breakfast.
There now. I’m looking like I planned when I decided to jump.
Except I didn’t.
I wasn’t in my right mind.
Oh Sir! Did you really mean to make me feel so cheap and used?
He regrets it now, crying in the cubicle.
Oh, Robbie...
He starts to subside in hiccupping little snorts and then finally stops. He
comes out and goes to the basin and splashes lots of cold water on to his face.
His eyes are red and swollen. He looks old. He still looks grey. His lips are a
little blue too. Shit. He straightens up and looks into the mirror.
He sees me.
He can see me!
He spins around, but he can’t see me.
But he can see my reflection. I’m so pleased I sorted myself out.
“Ah, God, Robbie Lewis, you’re going crazy now!”
I smile at him. I can’t help it. I love him so much.
“Come on now, you heard Val in the next room for months, smelt her perfume near
you for years. It’s the same. You’re bereaved man. Pull yourself together.”
No, I’m here! It’s me! I’m with you Sir! Please, I didn’t kill myself. I didn’t
kill myself. I didn’t. I DIDN’T!!!
“Oh James lad. Pet. My love. I’m so sorry.”
Don’t be! I didn’t kill myself. Listen to me! Please listen to me!
He looks terrified now; he won’t look in the mirror now. He walks quickly to
the door. I try to follow him but the door swings back into my face. Why can’t
I walk through them like a proper ghost?
He’s gone. He thought he was hallucinating.
 
~
 
I have to wait ten minutes for Aberdeen Angus to come in for a pee. I bolt out
of the door and run after Himself. I catch him in the car park. As he opens the
door I slide inside and ease myself into the passenger seat. I make sure I
can’t see my reflection in the wing mirror or anything.
His phone rings and buzzes and sighing he looks at it before he answers it.
He’s already plugged it into the sound system so it’s on speaker.
“Ma’am. I’m sorry. I know that...” His voice is hoarse; it’s obvious he has
been crying.
“Robbie,” Innocent says very gently. “I do need to talk to you, and as his DI
alone you can’t possibly lead. In fact –” she pauses and takes a huge gulp of
air – “we’re all too close to this. The Chief Constable has called in an
outsider, from Midsomer Constabulary, to lead. You must give him every
assistance. And before you speak to him I must speak to you. I’ve had
information I need clarification on.”
“Damn Laura, she promised,” he mutters.
“Not Dr. Hobson,” she says curtly. “Where are you?”
“At the John Radcliffe.”
“Not attending the PM I hope?”
“I didn’t want to leave him, I... if you must know Ma’am, I’ve spent the last
half hour crying in the bog like a bloody schoolgirl.”
“Oh Robbie. Look, as soon as you’re up to the drive you come and see me. and
then you’re on leave. No argument.”
 
~
 
Stuck like glue. I follow him all the way to the Chief’s office. He’s brought
tea by the secretary. She’s redone her face now, no sign of the earlier tears.
Likewise Innocent. Ah, the wonders of make-up. Himself looks shit, but then he
settled himself on cold water and scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his
hands.
“Robbie. I’m won’t preamble. You will have be questioned in a while by the DCI
from Causton.”
“Yeah. Fine. Of course.”
“But before that I want to know.”
“What Ma’am?”
“Did you and James have a sexual relationship?”
He reels a moment before he answers. “Yes, for about 18 months or so.”
“And you didn’t even finish it before you started your relationship with
Hobson?”
“Well, I didn’t see him as well.”
“Was kissing Hobson in the bar your way of telling him it was over? That’s
worse than doing it by text or email.”
“Thanks Ma’am. And yeah, I know. I wasn’t thinking. I was panicking.”
“About what?”
“Gossip. Not being straight. At how close we were getting. The thought of all
the nasty talk and telling me kids and - ah, I don’t know what! He’s such hard
work, my awkward sod. I think I assumed all kinds of crap, too, that gay men
were just into sex. Stupid homophobic crap. People are people and James was a
very moral person. He wanted marriage, I think. I know now he hoped that’s what
he was getting when I retired, an end to the secrecy and a ring on his finger.
I thought we were just mates having a fling. I’ve never done it before but it
goes on all the time in the force, right? You shag your partner for a while,
have an affair. Normally a heterosexual one, true, but...”
“Oh Robbie. Just your usual lack of communication then. Poor James.”
“I know. I was a complete bastard to him,”
“When did you last see him?”
“Friday night. And you may as well know, we made love. Laura’s found evidence
of sex and she’ll send the semen off and the stuff, um, up his arse, is mine.
Not the other stuff. I didn’t hurt him. I didn’t force him. Well, I broke his
heart, didn’t I? But I didn’t rape him.”
“Thank you for being so honest.” Innocent then goes on, as if thinking aloud,
“So it’s only the seminal fluid in the stomach unaccounted for.”
“What?” he growls. “Who fucked him with the condom? You know? There’s no bloody
way forensics would have got back with the spit when they haven’t with the
cum...”
“Calm down Robbie. It’s someone else here.”
“Gurdip then.”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Robbie, you know full well I can’t...”
“Who?” he stands, leaning over, almost threatening his commanding officer. She
doesn’t put him in his place, which is so unlike her. She looks stunned.
“Peterson.”
 
~
 
“You fucking bastard!”
He’s stormed along the corridor and down the stairs to Peterson and is now
pinning him to the wall. Officers are rushing to pull him off.
“You’re the fucking bastard Lewis!” he yells back, shoving back.
Lewis throws a punch, Peterson retaliates, they are yelling obscenities at each
other as they are pulled apart by two burly uniformed officers.
“You hurt him,” Lewis finally says, calmer. “Laura says you made him bleed.”
Peterson hangs his head. “I never meant to.”
Innocent appears at the door, hands on her hips. “Enough. Home. Both of you.
Stay home until you’re sent for to make your statement. Now gentlemen. Out!”
She screams this last bit. Both men are released, and glaring at each other,
they storm off, Lewis out and Peterson back into his office to fetch his
jacket.
I’d say my legs felt shaky but I don’t really have them, do I? But they do, all
the same, and I’m sitting on the floor on the outer office, shaking, as people
move around me - and through me! - talking about what has happened, talking
about me. They seem to think I might have loved having two men fight over me.
No, not really. It’s horrible.
No-one is surprised that I was Lewis’ ‘bitch’. They’re not surprised Peterson
is bi. Someone says Peterson’s ex is a lesbian. An older officer mentions past
gossip about Lewis and Morse. I’ve not really worked with anyone up here. No-
one knows me. I’m just the pretty-boy sergeant ex-priest with a fondness for
pretentious weird music to them who followed his inspector like a devoted
puppy.
Fair assessment, maybe.
My head is buzzing again.
My body. I’m laid out in the chapel. The door opens. A youngish dark haired man
I don’t know comes in, followed by...
Dad.
Oh Dad!
The sheet is folded back. He keeps Dad to the side that is not smashed in by
concrete, gravity and velocity.
He looks a long time. He leans on his stick and looks and looks. He steps
forward and brushes a stray curl back in place of my destroyed quiff. He stokes
my face.
“Mr. Hathaway?” the officer, because he must be an officer, prompts.
“Yes, that’s my son, that’s my James. But you all knew that Sergeant Jones,
didn’t you?”
“We have to do things formally Sir. I am so sorry for your loss.”
“I sort of lost my boy years ago, you know?” He strokes my hair again, my
cheek, and then bends stiffly, full of arthritis, and kisses my cheek. “Sleep
well, sweet prince. Sorry I so screwed it all up for you.”
Oh Dad.
He steps away and follows Detective Sergeant Jones out of the chapel.
Dad.
Daddy!
***** Chapter 6 *****
I sit by my broken body for a long time. Someone – Hobson, I expect – has
closed my eyes and cleaned up the blood and stuff. By stuff I mean brains and
bones and bits of pavement.
If I close my ‘eyes’ right now I can see the ground rushing up to me, feel the
wind on my face, hear myself scream and plead and beg for forgiveness for any
harm I ever did, any sin I ever committed. Yet I still love Robbie Lewis and
don’t feel forgiven, just redeemed, as if it was never a sin.
Dad drank in his helplessness. I can see that now. Lost without Mum, and
desperate to stop what Mortmaigne did. Taking the bribe of helping me in to the
prep because it would give me such opportunity and take me away from Crevecoeur
Hall. And when the scholarship was assured he searched for work that would take
him without a reference. But by that time I was such a snob that Estate Manager
had been embarrassing, but woodman, in a tiny, tiny two up, two down cottage,
had been unbearable. I hated our drop in income; it hadn’t been big enough to
start with as far as the teenaged me was concerned. He protected me and I
sneered at him.
Thou Shalt Honour Thy Father and Mother.
Stuck up little prig, I was.
An orderly has come in, and is taking my body. I follow.
“Thing is Auntie,” Dr. Wilding is saying to Dr. Hobson, “I didn’t tell the
Inspector we were related. I thought it best he didn’t know. He might have
asked for someone else, and if you had to have someone question you and second-
guess you, I thought it had better be me. I know you. I know that you would be
as impartial as with anyone. Even if you have a motive for not wanting it to be
suicide.”
“Because I’m in part to blame, you mean Kate?”
“No, Auntie, of course not...”
“Firstly, I didn’t know until after the PM that I was, in anyway, however
indirectly, to blame for that poor boy’s distress. And secondly, if he jumped
then the sexual assault would have affected the balance of his mind.”
“I see that Auntie. Besides, now we can separate more of the injuries, I’m of
the mind he was probably thrown.”
The door is opened by DS Jones and he is followed in by a slightly older man, a
big man, tall, broad, a bit plump maybe. He has a kind face and intelligent
eyes. I like him immediately, I think.
“Dr. Hobson I presume? I’m John Barnaby. I understand you were Kate’s
professor. I hope this is not too difficult for you. I mean no insult to your
professional opinion or conduct in anyway, but we must follow procedure. If
this isn’t suicide, and in any case, with the sexual assault, I want a
conviction. We can’t give any defence any ammunition.”
“Of course Chief Inspector.”
“Do you mind if Dr. Wilding talks me through, Dr. Hobson?”
With a rather curt gesture, it seems to me, Hobson indicates for her niece to
talk.
“DS James Hathaway, found at the bottom of the city centre’s multi story car
park. Right side of head smashed in and several broken bones, including all the
long bones in the arms and legs. However, we have broken and cracked ribs that
appear to have happened an hour or so before death, rather than at the time of
death. The mouth and oesophagus are bruised and there is evidence of forced
oral sex. Early lab results have identified five distinct DNA profiles, but it
is too early yet to get a full match on our records with any of them. His eyes
were open and his contacts were in. Then there is all this...”
She pulls back the sheet. “This bruising again was prior to death. It’s come
out post mortem. Here, these lines of marking, with these circular indents –
hit with the edge of a skateboard, possibly? The grooves are in line with the
edge of a plank, something of that kind, but then with these two circular
patterns, it would indicate a skateboard.”
“It would indeed.”
Hobson rolls me on to my side. Wilding continues, “Bruises that will tally with
shoe sole patterns, most likely match some kind of trainers. Also, one kidney
had ruptured. He was bleeding internally for at least half an hour before he
died. His blood pressure and core temperature would have been dropping. I doubt
very much if he could have got himself on his feet, much less climb a high wall
and some kind of safety fence.”
I knew it. I felt something – rupture? I had been feeling so cold. Shock and
fear, I thought. Medical shock, obviously.
“There are nets, too,” Hobson adds. “Jumpers have to be very determined and
able, these days.”
“So. Not suicide then,” Barnaby says thoughtfully.
“Unlikely,” agrees Dr. Wilding.
Thank you.
“But I understand you found a note, Dr. Hobson?”
She sighs. “It was addressed to Inspector Lewis.”
“So... what? He intended to jump but was murdered first?” asks Jones.
“Whatever his intentions were, this is still a murder, and a serious sexual
assault,” Barnaby replies.
“I know James Hathaway. He may have contemplated it, but I’m sure his Catholic
upbringing would have stopped him in the end.”
“I will be talking to you, later, Dr. Hobson, if I may?”
“Of course, of course.”
“Anything else Dr. Wilding? What about his arms here?” He points to my left
arm. Did I really cut myself that much that night?
“His wrists have been restrained, but there is also earlier bruising to wrists
and upper arms of finger bruising, that could just be related to intercourse,
or someone grabbing him. The cuts and cigarette burns are self-inflicted –
hours to weeks prior to death.”
“He was not a very happy young man.”
No. No I wasn’t.
“He’d also had anal sex with two men in the hours before death. Once with a
condom, using little in the way of lubrication apart from saliva, five to ten
hours before, that had caused tears and bleeding, and 24 to 30 hours before,
with plenty of lubrication but no condom. Also the bit lip here that must have
been quite deep happened again roughly 24-30 hours ago. Could be by him or his
partner during intercourse, or it could be coincidental and indicative of his
disturbed state of mind – you know, chewing his lip.”
“We are already aware of both those partners. I will be questioning both very
soon. But I’m wondering on whether to wait for the DNA full profile from the
stomach contents first.”
He thinks Robbie or Alan raped me and threw me off a car park?
No!!!
Absolutely not!
This is awful. In life I was the uptight ex-priest that they took stakes on
whether I was still a virgin. Now in death I’m some kind of slutty helium
legged bitch! This is horrible!
What did I think would happen if I’d jumped? There would still have been a PM
and a search for the DNA to find motive. Or even just my letter. I could not
have protected Lewis from the flak either way.
Oh Sir, I’m so sorry.
He’s asking Hobson something. “Did DS Hathaway bite his lip, as a habit, had
you noticed Doctor?”
“No. He bit his nails down to the quick and the skin around them too. He smoked
a lot. But I can’t say I’ve ever noticed him bite at his lip at all.”
“Right. Thank you very much doctors. If I have any further questions I’ll be in
touch. You’ve both been very helpful. Come on Jones.”
Have they? Where are you going?
“Where are we going Sir?”
“The scene of the crime, Jones. Keep up.”
 
~
 
“They found the shoe here Sir.”
“It’s a long way from the edge.”
Yes, it is, right back up against the walls of the lift shafts and stairwell.
Out of sight of any CCTV, although I know that there is hardly ever any film in
the Westgate cameras. The security company likes to cut costs. Uniform bitch
about it, comforting victims of car break-ins with suggestions of footage to
trace the thief and then, of course, there is none.
A whole section of the top floor of the Westgate is marked off with yellow,
blue and white incident tape. From the back of the stairs and lifts to the
place where I fell.
Fell.
Was thrown.
“Blood was found here. And here. Further back the semen was found, and all over
beer cans and cider 2 litre bottles, along with cigarette and reefer ends Sir,”
Jones is saying.
“And his shoe. Came off in the struggle.”
Yes. Already badly beaten. On my back. Winded and in pain. Already afraid. When
the eldest, the one obviously in charge, had sat on me, leering. He leaned over
and licked my face, like a fucking animal.
“Tastes of fag!”
One of them demanded, “What the fuck?”
“Tastes of make-up. Don’t you, eh? Bumboy? Bitchfuck. Crying over your darling
boyfriend, are we dahlin’?”
“Fuck the bitch!” yells the youngest, scaring, shocking and saddening me into
tears. And they laugh and he then straddles my head and forces open my mouth
and I kick out and my shoe must have come off and I try to hit and my hands are
grabbed and
No
I can’t do this
I won’t remember I can’t remember I won’t I can’t I can’t I can’t....
 
~
 
“You know what this reminds me of Jones?”
“What Sir?”
“Something out of your experience, no doubt, in all your years of genteel upper
class murder and pig poaching and hare coursing.”
“What Sir?”
“If DS Hathaway had been half his age and female, I’d be in no doubt.”
“What?”
“This looks like a line-up turned murderous.”
“In Oxford Sir?”
“Oxford has its fair share of rough estates and housing projects. There are as
many NEETs as there are university students here Jones. Oxford has one of the
highest homeless rates and highest child poverty rates in the country.”
“NEETs Sir?”
“Not in Employment, Education or Training Jones.”
“Ah. I see. The line-up would have been opportunistic though Sir.”
“Aren’t they all, even the ones where some poor girl is targeted? Look, cheap
alcohol, weed, cigarettes, skateboards and bike tracks. Who comes up to the
roof of a multi story car park in a large group of at least five males after
it’s closed in the early hours of a Sunday morning but the bored, dispossessed
youth?”
“If that’s the case, how are we going to find them Sir? And prove it?”
“We’ll hope to God one of them in is on the database already. After that, we
get one of them to crack.”
“Sir. If you are right and we do find them, keeping them safe and alive while
we question them might be a problem.”
“And keeping us alive might be hard if it turns out one of those Inspectors
wanted him silenced.”
I hope he is joking!
“Have you ever had an affair Sir? With another officer?”
“No. I won’t ask you Jones.”
“Best not Sir.” Oh, I recognize that irony of hiding what you mean in plain
sight.
They walk away, to the car.
They are right though.
No. I won’t remember this. I can’t.
I feel cold and shaky.
But I don’t have a body to get cold.
I get up and walk to the edge and look over. It’s a bloody long way down.
I don’t want to be here. I can’t. I won’t!
 
~
 
I’m at my desk. In our office. In the station. At work. There are cigarettes
and chocolate in the drawer. The birthday card for Dad that will never get
sent. A novel I was reading. My tiny pocket Bible. My rosary. A picture of Mum
and Auntie at some family wedding. Silly, personal things. The kind of things I
sometimes have to go through, wearing gloves and trying to divine motive
from...
My monitor is switched off. But the clock above His desk says it’s now twenty
past eleven. I think I’ve been dead about eight hours then. But with all this
flipping backwards and forwards in time it’s hard to tell.
They know I didn’t kill myself. That has to be good. But Robbie has my letter,
and he knows I wanted to, knows how much I hurt him, and knowing how I died
instead of by my own hand in only going to make his guilt worse.
I was such a melodramatic, attention seeking drama queen to write that bloody
letter. If they hadn’t found me I’d have driven home and shredded it. He’d have
never known. I’d maybe listened to Innocent and if I passed the interview I
might have replaced that Jones. And I’m getting to like Barnaby and his quiet,
thoughtful way.
Or perhaps returned to academia? Or even the church?
No, I couldn’t do that.
I’ll never know now.
I just wish I knew what I was and why I have to do this. I want someone to tell
me what is going on. I want someone to hold me. But how can I be held again?
None of the hurt stops at death. I’m so alone.
And afraid.
 
~
The office is a hushed murmuring. I look out of the door to the outer office.
People are filing in, CID, uniform, SOCO, tech, admin even. Cleaners and
canteen staff even. It’s getting crowded. There are two white incident boards.
I wander out and look.
Oh God.
It’s me.
Several pictures of me: my smashed body, from so many angles. And another photo
too. It is a nice one. I’m in a dark suit, the Paul Smith, and a purple tie and
white shirt. It must be before I had my hair cut to its current style and it is
gelled upwards. I’m smiling a slightly drunken smile. Oh! It’s the Christmas
party the year before last. It must be from Gurdip’s phone.
There are lists. Call came in to control at 0437hrs. Uniform found and
identified body 0459hrs.
My name.
The phrases serious: sexual assault. Battery. Possible murder. Query?
Someone has put a jar with some wild flowers in front of the boards. Not
standard practice. Another person has laid another flower, a rose, in front of
that, and a third has put my rosary there.
Innocent walks in and the quiet chattering abruptly ends.
“Right. Thank you for gathering here. I appreciate that you have duties so I
won’t keep you. I know we’re a bit pushed for space.
“Yes, as you can see from the incident board, DS James Hathaway was found dead
in the early hours of the morning. Initial appearances suggested suicide and I
know gossip and concern has been rife. However, the more we learn from the PM
and scene of crime forensics the more we are becoming certain that his was a
murder.
“This is DCI John Barnaby from Causton CID in Midsomer Constabulary. I have
asked him to lead as I feel we all – myself included – are too close to this.
The Chief Constable and I have asked for a counsellor to come to the station
for the rest of the week. She will be in interview room 4 from tomorrow morning
and please, it is not a sign of weakness but strength if any of you choose to
take advantage of her presence.
“You will have heard rumours of Hathaway’s involvement with two senior
officers, which again is why we need outside investigation. Please give DCI
Barnaby and his Sergeant, Benjamin Jones, every assistance. Thank you. If
everyone not directly asked to be in this investigation could now return to
work.”
People file out. Someone else has left another flower, a white lily, with the
incident board, as they left. I didn’t see who it was. As Gurdip leaves he puts
some Indian sweets with the flowers.
“Right. This is DCI Barnaby.” Innocent takes a step back and folds her arms.
“Hello everyone. Can I first please be allowed to offer my condolences? You all
knew the victim well and I appreciate how painful and difficult this is for all
of you. I’m afraid it may get harder and if any of you will struggle with
professional detachment, I would rather you let me know about it. I will
entirely understand.
“James Hathaway. Evidence and eyewitness accounts suggest he was disturbed and
upset and possibly contemplating suicide, it may well have been why he was up
on the top floor of the car park. Perhaps he would have jumped, or perhaps he
changed his mind. There is still a small chance that the assault pushed him
into jumping. But whether or not we are investigating a murder we are
investigating a serious sexual assault, and – if it is murder or manslaughter –
then the rapists are the murderers so we need to find Hathaway’s attackers.
“So. What do we know? He was on the roof. Unhappy, drunk and had not slept or
eaten properly for days, even weeks. So he was not himself, so much more
vulnerable to being assaulted and over-powered, despite being police trained in
self-defence. He was beaten very badly, to the point ribs were cracked and
broken and a kidney ruptured. If he had not been pushed or jumped he would have
been dead within hours if he hadn’t had immediate medical attention. If he
jumped then we get these bastards for attempted murder as well as rape, let’s
be clear on this. He was orally raped at least five times, possibly more. So we
know that he was beaten by at least five men.
“I say men, but the evidence of the cheap lager and cider, cigarettes and
cannabis, coupled with evidence of push bikes, skateboards and roller blades
being used by the assailants suggest youths to me. I don’t know this city. I
need to rely on your knowledge of any gangs with previous whose know turf was
the Westgate.”
“I’ll chase that down, Sir, if I may.” It’s Julie.
“Thank you. WPC...?”
“Lockhart Sir. Julie Lockhart.”
“Right. Thanks. DS Hathaway’s watch and phone were missing. Jones and I will be
going to his flat after this, but we can assume for now that he was also
mugged. A designer watch and a smart phone, in the hands of probably young men
or boys with little income might arouse suspicion in some.”
“I’ll get on to it Sir.” It’s Hooper. “And Sir, I know DI Lewis is on leave,
but he will be able to identify the watch and any other valuables the sarge may
have had on him.”
“Thank you Constable Hooper, it had occurred to me. But thank you for the
offer, I will furnish you with a full itemized list as soon as we have one.”
“I think he often wore a gold crucifix under his shirt.” It’s Gurdip. He
shouldn’t be here, but he is, at the back, leaning on the wall. He speaks very
quietly, but still everyone hears. It’s a small detail that was private and
mostly unknown and yet it seems to be really recalling me in their minds.
“Was a necklace found Jones?”
“No jewellery, no watch, no work or personal phone. Wallet emptied of cash and
credit and debit cards. No change in his pockets. Definitely robbed, Sir.”
“I’ve already tried to track the phones Sir,” Gurdip says. “Gurdip Sohal Sir.
Tech. Both sim cards have been removed and both phones are switched off.”
“Thank you Sohal. Right. We need any CCTV in and near the car park looked into.
1100hrs Saturday to 0430 Sunday. Witnesses. There are the housing estates and
student accommodation. Door to door. Let’s see if there are any witnesses.
Likewise, people in the service industries – cafes, bars, pubs and so on. They
may have parked in the Westgate in the section for employees and had their own
key and have left after it was closed to the public. Let’s build up a clear a
picture as we can of Hathaway’s last hours and the people in and out of the
Westgate during his last hours.”
People murmur and start taking notes and indicate compliance.
“Oh. And one more thing. The fact is a gang of youths is the most likely theory
to fit the facts, but I must point out two other lines of inquiry Jones and I
will be pursuing. I mean no disrespect and I do not seriously counter it, but
procedurally, I must. We have two men here with motive and possible
opportunity.
“DI Alan Peterson.” Jones puts a picture of him on the board, next to the list
of reasons to suggest a gang of youths. “Straight. Well liked. Not one to
readily admit he is bisexual or want his subordinate officers to know of a one
night stand with another man, especially a man who also doesn’t to one night
stands and would want commitment.”
No. It wasn’t like that.
“DI Robbie Lewis.” Again Jones attaches a photo of Himself to the incident
board as a connection, a possible suspect! “In a sexual relationship with
Hathaway for the past 18 months or so. Wanting a fresh relationship with a
woman and tried to finish with Hathaway then, apparently, changed his mind and
wanted Hathaway as a ‘bit on the side’. Hathaway did not like that. It was what
started his drinking and contemplation of suicide, maybe? Did Hathaway threaten
to tell Dr. Hobson or even the Chief? Was he silenced?”
Everyone looks mutinous and starts muttering.
“I don’t like this any more than you do, but we must do everything by the book,
for Hathaway’s sake, we can’t risk CPS or court throwing it out due to lack of
due process or contamination of evidence. Lewis had motive and opportunity. But
as I said, leave this aspect to Jones and myself. I don’t know him and thus can
keep detached. Although I understand from my predecessor he is a fine detective
and a honourable man so please understand me, I am doing this by the book, not
through choice.
“Thank you.”
He goes into OUR office. Jones follows him. So do I. I’m not sure I like him so
much now. Robbie Lewis – kill me! The sun is more likely to rise in the West!
“Well, that went well,” Jones says.
“No-one said this was going to be pleasant. Chief Superintendent Innocent
wanted me to follow all leads and motives and be upfront with them.”
“I know Sir. What now?”
“Now, I think we’ll take a look at the poor young man’s flat. Then we’ll have
in first this Peterson, and then the boss and lover, DI Lewis.”
“True Sir, about your ‘predecessor’?”
“Ah, cousin Tom. Yes, I called him a couple of hours ago. He did a few joint
investigations with Lewis, both as a DS and a DI. Nothing but the uttermost
respect for him.”
“And his judgement of character is second to none Sir,” Jones says with a fond
smile.
“Such loyalty is commendable, Jones.”
“Tea Sir? Before we go?”
“That sounds like a very good idea Jones.”
***** Chapter 7 *****
I feel so stupidly embarrassed as I follow the DI and DS around my home. I
don’t live like this I want to say. I’m not a slut. But it remains as it was
after Robbie left me and worse than that. The supper is still on the table. I
wrinkle my ‘nose’, imagining the smell of two days old meat pie remains. Coffee
cups and wine glasses and my tumbler still half full of whisky next to the
bottle and all the packets of prescription pain killers. A bloodied vegetable
knife and a pile of tissues and antiseptic wipes. More tissues, tear stained
and snot soaked, scattered on the floor. And I hadn’t even emptied the bath
after I contemplated killing myself in there. The other knife, the carving
knife, sits there on the side.
This is not me.
“This doesn’t feel right, Sir? From the rest of the flat, the neat order of the
books and CDs and records I would say this flat is usually pristine.”
“My thoughts exactly Jones. He was obviously distressed. Contemplating suicide
but perhaps not serious.” He picks up my Bible that I’d left on the sofa.
“Wanted to be dead to end the heart-break, then? He must have really loved
him.”
I did. And death doesn’t even end the heartbreak. I think. I feel calmer. Not
numb, but calm. And I can see Robbie was scared of changing, in the opinion and
understanding of everyone who knew him, that is. I think the Robbie Lewis who
loved me is the Robbie Lewis who loved Val. The Robbie Lewis who cheated on me,
dumped me, used Hobson as a beard and told me I was just a bit on the side, his
secret bitch to bang, that isn’t him. It’s like someone took him over. He was
acting on fear, maybe? Self-hatred and fear?
Screwed up tissues. A bottle of lube. Stains on the sheet. Spunk. My spunk.
Where he wiped his fingers after they’d been in me. The quilt on the floor.
My bedroom looks so sordid.
Jones looks at my crucifix on the wall. Barnaby is picking up my prayer book.
“I think he very well went to the edge and changed his mind again,” Barnaby
muses.
“Very likely Sir. Statistically, Catholics are unlikely to commit suicide.”
“Fear of hell? Yes, but he would already have that, wouldn’t he?”
“What, for being gay? Suppose so Sir.”
“Not such an unforgivable mortal sin as suicide, though.”
“Didn’t have you down as a Catholic, Sir.”
“I’m not. But the psychology of belief is a fascinating subject Jones.”
“If you say so Sir. No sign of either phone or watch, or this necklace the
techie mentioned.”
Barnaby seems to be in thought. “M’m? No. There isn’t. Jones, I want you to go
back to the station. I need you to get some files for me to read. Back cases of
Hathaway.”
“Why?”
“DC Hooper...”
“Knew him back in Midsomer. He’s a good bloke Hooper.”
“Didn’t know he was one of ours.”
“Transferred when he made it into CID. Before your time Sir. Anyway, what did
Hooper have to say?”
“I want you to look for the Black and Graham murders, winter 2010. And the
Mortmaigne abuse case.”
“Heard of that.”
“Even in far away Brighton we had heard of that Jones. It was all over the
media. A Marquis abusing kids on his Estate for over four decades. Of course it
was.”
“Wasn’t he implicated in those murders?”
“One of his victims was, yes. Hooper told me that Hathaway grew up on that
Estate.”
“Right. Black. Graham. Mortmaigne. 2010. Anything else?”
“Yes, the Phoenix Killer, 2008, plus the suicide of a Will McEwan, same time.”
“The possible trigger. Heard of that one too. Made our average serial murder
look rational. Homophobia connections, weren’t there Sir?”
“And to Hathaway. He was the last intended victim. I want all that we can get
from the files. I ideally want Hathaway’s file but I’ll have to approach
Innocent directly for that.”
“Ooh, good luck Sir.”
“Are you still here Jones?”
“No. I’m going. How will you get back Sir?”
“It’s a small city. I’m going to walk to the crime scene again. I’ll see you
back at the station in a couple of hours. Arrange for DI Peterson to be there
at one thirty.”
“Sir.”
 
~
 
I stay. This is my home. Barnaby sits in my chair and stares out of the window.
“You poor boy. Such a tragic end to such a short life. Did it give you any
happiness, I wonder?”
He gets up and browses my books. “Such a clever young man. I understand you
were applying for Jones’ job. It would have been my privilege to have you as my
sergeant.”
He pulls out a book. Randomly. Stephan Knapp’s Comparison of Hinduism with
Christianity. “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of
being unloved.” It sounds like a quote. “Oh well, it wasn’t to be. Shame. Sarah
would have invited every eligible gay and bisexual young man she knew until you
were matched and hopefully happy.”
Who is Sarah? Did I want to be match-maked?
To work for an Inspector who accepted me, who read and quoted and had a wife? -
girlfriend? – who would want to match make me?
I can’t imagine it.
Someone comes in with a key. I brighten, expecting Himself. Barnaby stands,
alert. He takes out his warrant card.
“Sorry. I thought the police was finished. I was given the key by a young
constable.”
“No. We’re done. Who are you?”
“Jonathon Hathaway. John.”
Dad.
Oh Dad.
“I thought I’d make a start, you know... sorting...”
“Cup of tea Mr. Hathaway?”
“Um. Yeah. Thanks.”
He looks lost. Like a lost little boy. He leans heavily on his walking stick. I
can’t bear it. It looks wrong, my Dad, used to physical exercise all broken up
by arthritis, standing in my flat, where he had never been. He doesn’t know
where to look.
Oh my God.
The bedroom.
I can’t stay here.
 
~
 
I can’t walk through walls and doors yet, although people seem to walk through
me and it tickles! And yet, now, as when on the Westgate, I can move if I’m
determined enough. Just not control where I go. So far I’ve been to only my
crime scene, work and home, or near my body. But now I’m at His place.
He is no longer in his suit, but jeans and a red sweater. It’s the cashmere one
I bought him for Christmas. He’s curled up on his sofa, a big bag of fun sized
Mars Bars and a bottle of brandy in front of him. Also a big jar of indigestion
tablets. That’s new. And a bit weird. I catch my reflection in his coffee
table. So does he, as he starts, shocked.
“Will you look at me? Dear God! Only imagination.” And he swigs from his
brandy, straight from the bottle. Then chews an indigestion tablet. He’s
rubbing at his left shoulder as if it hurts him. He’s still so pale and grey.
I sit on the sofa next to him. I curl up. I put my head on his lap. I can’t
feel him though. It’s not the same.
“Oh James...”
Does he know I’m here?
No.
He just is saying my name.
He is crying again.
Oh Sir! I’m so sorry. So so sorry.
I love you.
I didn’t mean it. I didn’t.
My head is buzzing again. I’ve not had that for quite a while now.
What? We’re in an interview room. It’s now half past one. I’ve travelled in
time again. This is really messing with my head. Mind. Spirit. Oh! Whatever I
have. Am.
What am I?
Dead.
Barnaby and Jones are with Peterson, who is fidgeting with his phone in his
hand, twisting and turning it over and over again.
“So, you spent most of the afternoon at this pub...?”
“The Cricketers Arms, yeah.”
“And how did Hathaway seem?”
“He got drunk fast. But I was already drunk, so...” Peterson shrugs. “Nervous.
He seemed to be afraid I was going to take the piss, or worse.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, he’s gay. He likes weird music, classical stuff, world stuff. He plays
in a band. He’s religious, used to be a priest, or almost. He’s sensitive.
Can’t leave cases alone. Every murder, every suicide, every rape or assault,
they all get to him, eat into him. If he makes a mistake and there’s another
victim, he really lets it seep into his soul. Yeah. He’s too sensitive. And
clever. Ex Cambridge boy, isn’t he?
“Not your usual copper, in other words,” Peterson drawls suddenly. “People do
take the piss. Did take the piss. I expect he was expecting homophobia, but...”
“But?”
“But he realised he wasn’t going to get it from me. I was looking for someone
who felt the same.”
“Why?”
“I love Laura Hobson. I have for a year now. She did go out with me a few
times, even sleep with me a couple of times, but she made it plain she didn’t
do commitment. Then suddenly she’s practically shacked up with Lewis, and
they’re making a big song and dance of how ‘they’re together now!’ like they’re
fucking fifteen! It was embarrassing.”
“And it hurt?” asks Barnaby.
“Well, yeah. And poor James. He finally told me that he and Lewis had been
sleeping together for a year and a half and he had been in love with his boss
for about five.”
“At the pub?”
“No, we went back for mine. For food. We stopped off and got a doner kebab.”
“What time was that?”
“Er? ’Bout seven maybe?”
“Then what?”
 
~
 
“You’re going to eat this, right?” Alan had slurred. “I ate your lunch. Think
you need to soak up that booze too.”
The flat was tiny, furniture utilitarian. A few books and CDs. All the DVDs
were for small children. There were lots of photos everywhere of his twins and
his youngest three. He dumped the takeaway bag on the coffee table and the
caught me looking. He probably recognized instantly that I was assessing,
giving it the once over. One detective to another.
“Not got much. Most of my salary goes on my kids. Worth every penny though,
don’t get me wrong.” He picked up a picture of the little ones. I remembered
this was also why he was drinking. His ex had let him down over access.
“Can I use the toilet?”
“Through there.” He waved vaguely.
I walked past a bedroom with a bunk bed and a travel cot put up; everything
looked very clean and tidy. Three little wrapped parcels sat on the chest of
drawers along with a packet of toddler-sized nappies. I started to feel more
than a little angry for him myself, I remember.
“Don’t want plates and stuff, do we?” he asked.
“Not with kebabs,” I answered.
“Could only find this in. Don’t tend to stock on the booze when the little ones
are coming. More orange juice and pop.”
It was a cheap, generic supermarket lager. “It’s fine,” I said. More alcohol of
any kind was very welcome; it blotted out the pain.
“Well, found this too. Left over from when my Gran came down at Christmas.”
It was gin. “Now, that is better!” I said.
“I’ll get some glasses.”
He ate and watched me nibble. Swallowing was so painful and I just didn’t feel
hungry at all. I forced myself I eat a few mouthfuls, but the pita was soggy,
the chilli sauce tasted chemically, the salad had gone slimy and as for the
greasy meat, it could have been horsemeat for all I knew.
“Oh, come here, you’re so bloody fussy.” He grabbed the pita from me, our
fingers accidentally brushing. I finished the lager instead and then poured
myself a gin.
The food hadn’t really sobered him up much at all. He joined me in the gin. “I
can’t fucking believe we saw them again. In the bloody Chinese next door.”
“Robbie likes Chinese,” I said stupidly. It had been a shock, seeing them get
out of the car and go into the restaurant next door to the takeaway. I’d stared
out of the window and I thought I saw Himself see me. I moved towards Alan and
tipped my head flirtatiously as I said something to him. Look, see, I was
saying. Alan didn’t notice, thank God. But he did notice Hobson is a pretty
green dress and bolero cardigan. Not looking her usual self at all, but a much
softer, feminine, fluffy kind of woman. Val-like, maybe?
“All bloody day!” Alan erupted in a loud drunken slur, dragging my mind back to
his flat. “They’re down there, in the pub, right in my fucking face, all lovey-
dovey and before that they’re all over each other on the river like fucking
teenagers so I piss off somewhere else and it’s like they’re bloody following
me, right in my face, at the next pub, all smiling and looking in each other’s
bloody eyes like they’re taunting me! You know James; it was bloody hell, sheer
hell. I’m so pleased I met you. You know what it’s like, don’tcha?” He was
angry. It was the booze. Of course. He was angry at his ex-wife and he was
angry at Lewis.
I must have been so pissed because suddenly I was angry too, at this man in his
drunken wallowing. “You don’t know the fucking half of it!” I yelled. “I
thought he was my boyfriend, I thought I was only secret until he retired. I go
abroad for three fucking days and he’s all over her. Doesn’t even dump me.
Instead he tells me we were never lovers, just ‘friends with benefits’ whatever
the fuck that means?”
“Well, if you thought he was more then it means the bastard was using you for
sex. The bastard. What a total dick.” Alan joined me in my anger, glad, I
think, of any excuse to hate Robbie Lewis.
“Yeah, I know. And last night he comes round and tells me he wants me on the
side. Her tells me he’s not even gay but he wants to keep banging me like I’m
some kind of... some kind of... some kind of...” I tailed away. I didn’t want
to cry in front of Alan.
“But you’re not though, are you? You’re clever. Sensitive. Why don’t you
transfer James? Away from that shit. You’re worth more, you are.”
And then I was crying, great big gulping drunken tears. “I love him. I want to
be near him. He wants to be just my friend and meet up when he’s retired and I
thought I could cope with all that. But now, now I don’t understand anything.”
“You’re not a bloody slapper, James. Don’t let him treat you like a slag.” He
was slurring his words so much through drink it was a struggle to follow. Or
maybe I was struggling to follow because I was so drunk. I appreciated his
kindness, though. He stumbled on, “I know fucking slags; my ex was shagging my
sergeant and techie behind my fucking back. The bitch. You’re worth more. Much
more.” He had moved closer, rubbing my shoulder, then back, and then had his
arm around me. I looked up as he told me about his wife and suddenly we were
kissing. I have no idea who made the first move. When I could process thoughts
all I thought was that I’d not shaved and I was probably the first man he’d
kissed.
Finally we parted, looking at each other. “James, at the risk of sounding like
that bloody old Geordie bastard, I’m not gay. I’ve never, with a man, not
ever...”
“It’s all right Sir. We’re drunk. We won’t mention it again.”
“Well,” he then said thoughtfully, “No-one is completely anything. My first
wife, she left me for another woman.”
I stared stupidly. We were so drunk.
“Childhood sweethearts we were. Married young. But she’s gay. Completely gay.
Yet we’re best mates even now and she says she did love me, for a long while.”
He shrugs. Then he stroked my cheek, my hair, and then traced his fingers over
the edge of my ear. “You’re cute. Pretty. Not handsome, your features are too
soft, your nose turns up in such a sweet way.”
Does it, I thought. My ears stick out too much, I also thought.
He kissed my nose to prove a point.
“You know, maybe we should just make them jealous? What do you think?” he said.
Or maybe I said it?
I don’t know.
We were drunk and suddenly we were in his bedroom, undressing. He found a pack
of condoms. “These okay James?” he asked, waving them in front of me as I sat
on the bed undoing my boots.
“Um. I suppose.” I replied uncertainly. Robbie never wore condoms. How did I
know?
He put the pack down and sat down next to me, pressing our thighs together. He
put an arm around my shoulders. “Thing is James. I like you. I want to do this.
But I’ve never been with a man. The thought of touching another man’s dick is a
bit... unnerving. But if I fuck you I can make you come, can’t I? Can I fuck
you? Do you want me to?”
I was so bloody drunk. I smiled and reached up to his head and pulled him down
on me, kissing him. I had one boot off, one on, my jeans were around my knees
and my t-shirt off. He still had his sweatpants on. We must have made an
unattractive, drunken sight. “It’s’okay,” I murmured into his mouth, “S’okay. I
like it. You can have me. Easy.”
For a while we just kissed and caressed, I kissed his neck, he bit mine, and
then he began to rock against me, thrusting hard into me, his cock to mine.
That obviously gave him pause for thought.
He sat up. “James, I’ve never, before...”
“I’ll show you. Promise.” I took the opportunity at undressing completely. So
did he, and then he pulled back the duvet.
We climbed into the bed and I took out a condom and rolled it down onto his
cock before he could lose his hard-on. He was looking at mine uncertainly. I
grabbed a pillow and rolled over onto my belly, putting the pillow under me. I
spread his legs for him.
“James. Are you sure?”
I smiled at him over my shoulder. “Sure. Absolutely.” Fuck you Robert Lewis, I
was thinking more than anything.
He lay between my legs and I could feel his cock. Weird, I remember thinking,
the difference in texture, the feel of the condom. He pushed into me but of
course he couldn’t enter.
“James,” he said uncertainly, kissing the back of my neck.
“S’okay. Get off me.”
Once he did, I knelt up and spat on my hand, and, reaching around myself, began
to open myself up with my spit and fingers. He knelt behind me and I tried to
reach for his cock, guiding it, but he was way ahead of me. With the spit, the
lubricated condom and me shoving back against him hard he entered me. I yelled
with the shock. Robbie always entered me so slowly.
But in my drunken determination we were going to do this. I thrust back at him
until he got the idea and began to fuck me.
“Sir!” I murmured at one point.
And then he was kneeling up, taking me with him. He held me, stroked my belly
and chest, kissed the back of my neck as I let my head tip back onto his
shoulder. Then his hand slid down. For a man who had been unable to even look
at my cock, he had certainly changed his mind.
“It’s Alan,” he whispered in my ear. “I am not into any dom crap, whatever he
was into.” Then he kissed me again.
He fucked me slowly and gently, his hand on my cock, fisting me at the same
rhythm until I came.
I let out another quiet, broken, breathy Sir as I did so, but he let that one
pass. Instead he pushed me back down, bending me over and grabbing my hips in
his hands and began to fuck fast and furious until he came with a shout.
As he pulled out of me he said, shocked, “James! God! I’m sorry. I’ve made you
bleed. Shit, I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“A lot?” I asked.
“No, don’t be daft. If it was that bad I’d already be tipping you forward and
dialling 999.”
“Pity,” I said sadly.
 
~
 
“He said ‘pity’, so wistfully, like he was longing for death,” Peterson tells
Barnaby and Jones.
“He may have felt suicidal, but it wasn’t suicide, Inspector, let’s be clear on
that.”
“It wasn’t? It really wasn’t? Thank God for that, at least.”
“Why? Because you’re off the hook?” Jones demands.
“No. The man’s family. His religion. He can have a proper Catholic funeral.”
 
~
 
“James...” he said, horrified. And again, five minutes later, when we were
cleaned up and drinking more gin in his bed. He opened a window and let me
smoke, giving me an old jam jar lid to use as an ashtray.
“What?”
“Are you okay? I didn’t... really hurt you?”
“I’m fine.” I wasn’t, but it wasn’t my arse that was hurting, but still my
heart. My chest heaved and my stomach churned with the misery of it all. Then I
realised my stomach was really churning and I ran to the bathroom and brought
up the bloody gin and kebab.
I went back to the bedroom and looked at him, really looked at him. He wasn’t
bad looking and he had really tried to be kind and to understand. But he wasn’t
Robert Lewis. He wasn’t my Robbie.
I felt sick with the guilt and misery. I felt cheap and heartbroken. I wanted
Robbie back. I wanted things to be the way there were before I’d gone to
Kosovo.
Failing that, I wanted it all to stop. All the pain, like a stone in my chest
on top of my heart. My stomach heaved constantly, my guts churned. I felt heavy
and lethargic. I wished I were dead.
***** Chapter 8 *****
Chapter Notes
     Hathaway remembers his assault and murder here so please take note of
     ALL the trigger warning tags here.
“He was so sick,” Peterson was saying. “Mind you, we’d both had so much to
drink it wasn’t at all surprising. But he was so upset. He wouldn’t get back
into bed. He was all for leaving, there and then. But he was so drunk; he fell
over pulling his pants up. It’d been funny is he wasn’t so racked with guilt
over what we’d done.”
“Did he leave then? What did you do?” Barnaby asks.
Peterson still turns his phone over and over in his hands. “I made him sit down
on the bed. Told him to calm down. Got dressed myself, fetched him a glass of
water and gave him some space.”
“Do you think he regretted the sex or was feeling guilty due to his faith, or
attachment to his boss?” Jones asks.
“I think all three,” Alan replies, sadly.
“And did you?” Barnaby demands. “You seemed to think he was keener than you
initially. I’m sorry to ask so bluntly, but among other things the Chief has
asked me to make sure there has been no abuse of privilege as a superior
officer.”
“Definitely not that!” Alan buts in. “Well, certainly nothing untoward from me.
I don’t like what I heard from James about his relationship from Lewis. It’s
not my place to judge, or instigate an investigation, but it sounded like Lewis
might have used the boy’s crush and triggered childhood groomed behaviour to
get what he wanted. But I wasn’t there. I didn’t even know about the
relationship until James told me last night.”
Absolutely it was nothing like that!
Was it
He’s just scared about coming out. Or something.
I love him! And he loved me.
Didn’t he?
Alan shrugs. “Did I regret it? I don’t know. I don’t think so really.”
“Then what happened?
“After a while, we both dressed properly and I made us a brew and phoned a taxi
for him. We went back to the living room and sat on the sofa and talked...
Well, I mostly talked. He smoked and drank his tea, keeping his eyes averted. I
asked him out.”
“You asked him out?” Barnaby seems a bit surprised by this.
“Well, yeah. I did tell you. I’m not really into one-night stands. But he
certainly wasn’t. I wanted him to feel less... used.”
“Used? But from you have told us, he wanted the sex. He was doing all the
running, as it were.”
“And he’d obviously instantly regretted it. I tried, anyway. I asked if we
could get together as work colleagues, as friends, or go on a date. Whatever he
felt comfortable with, however he wanted to play it, really. But all he wanted
was Robbie bloody Lewis.”
“He said that?”
“Yeah. About all he did really. He didn’t say much at all, apart from to
apologize and then say he had decided to take Lewis up on his offer.”
“Which was?”
“To be a bit on the side, extra to Laura. I pointed out how bloody unfair that
was to Laura and he just said in this small, pathetic voice, ‘yeah, but I love
him. I can’t live without him’. It made me get bloody mad!”
“What do you mean?”
“I told him to pull himself together. To take a long hard look at himself – get
counselling if he had to. I gave him as week, or after that I would be telling
Chief Superintendent Innocent that he had been self-harming.”
“Ah, yes. The self-harm,” Barnaby muses, as Jones says,
“Bit harsh. Tough love or what?”
“But you didn’t threaten to tell Dr. Hobson?”
“How could I? It would hurt her, and hurt James too. I think James was hurting
enough, poor lad, and Laura doesn’t deserve that kind of dent in your
confidence. I had no idea what to do, to be honest. I had no idea. I’m kicking
myself. I should have gone after him, or made him stay the night until he’d
sobered up. I should have realised... all those cuts and burns...”
“There were many?”
“You’ve seen the body, haven’t you?”
“I want to ascertain how many were self-inflicted and how many, if any, were
caused by the assault.”
“Cuts hours old and a few scars days to weeks old, but not that many – about
five or six. The fresh cuts were too numerous to count on his left wrist and
arm, and a few fresh cuts on his right as well. About three to four fresh cuts
on each upper thigh, plus several cigarette burns on the inside of his left arm
and on both thighs.
“Sounds like they were all self-inflicted,” Barnaby says.
They were.
“Thank you Inspector,” he goes on. “What happened after you tried to push him
into getting some help?”
“He was silent. Told me I didn’t understand and little else. Said he’d wait
outside for the taxi, which he did.”
“What time did it come?”
“Around nine? Just before I think.”
“Did you hear from him again?”
“No.”
“And what did you do after he left?”
“I changed the sheets, had a shower and went to bed. I must have been asleep by
ten.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look, I was blind drunk, shagged out and hadn’t slept the night before! I
didn’t stir until Innocent phoned me at half past six in the morning!
“Look, I know what this is. James did not phone me from the Westgate in trouble
or threatening to jump! I certainly didn’t go there and throw him off! Why
would I? I would have dated him, and unlike Lewis, I’d have faced all the
gossip and back-biting and not hidden a thing. I’d have been proud to call him
my boyfriend, even if I’d never even considered myself bisexual up to that
night! Okay? I wish he’d have called me, or better, control or even 999, got
himself some back-up! I wish to God...”
“It’s all right. Thank you DI Peterson. Jones, do you think you could get a
glass of water for the Inspector? And switch off that thing. Interview
terminated at... 2.46 pm.”
Jones leaves.
“I am sorry Peterson. I have to follow all possible motives. I don’t want
anything undermined or criticized by a defence lawyer or not give the CPS the
right ammunition.”
“Sure. I do understand. Just as long as you understand I in no way abused my
position as a senior officer with James.”
Of course you didn’t Alan. I was the drunken slut.
Barnaby nods. “I seem certain it was just one of those embarrassing drunken
encounters that possibly could happen to any of us.”
“Well, thank you for being so understanding. You just catch those bastards and
throw the book at them.”
“I intend to.”
Good.
 
~
 
I follow Barnaby as he leaves poor Peterson to compose himself. Poor, poor
Peterson. Nothing he could have said or done would have changed anything. I was
beyond reason. I was out of my mind.
Truly.
I. Was. Out. Of. My. Mind!
I mean it. I had not been in my right mind at all. My self-disgust at the
casual shag with a straight man on top of all the heartache and reject unwound
something deep inside myself. I felt lost and alone and unworthy, trapped in an
ever-downward spiral of despair and self-loathing.
I was disgusting. Sinful. I wasn’t even worth of God’s Grace in any way.
Might as well end it now.
Once home I sat on my sofa. I think I hugged myself tightly and rocked, like a
disturbed child.
Like an abused, neglected child.
Which I was.
Deep down.
I stared at all the booze and pills, the knife.
And then I knew.
Except, I don’t remember thinking very clearly, certainly not making any
decisions or plans. I moved numbly, like an automaton on a pre-programmed
course.
I shaved. I smoothed on moisturizer, then cologne. I fixed my face and hair. I
dressed elegantly and put on my Jimmi Choos. I wrote the letter to Robbie
Lewis. I don’t even know what it says now. Then I drove to the Westgate.
It was locked. I broke in and climbed the stairs, leaving my car parked in
Paradise Street. I wonder if uniform or traffic have found it?
I think it was about eleven o’clock, just gone, by the time I’d climbed over
safety barriers and walls and wire netting. I sat, perched high on one of the
ugliest of buildings in Oxford, or anywhere really. The spires and towers of
the university, the rivers and building and the whole dark, pinprick lit city
lay spread out beneath me.
Slowly and painfully I came to my senses.
What was I doing?
I began to think of all the pain Robbie would feel, when he had already lost so
many whom he loved: Val, Morse, his parents. I thought of my poor booze-soaked
Dad, being told of my suicide by uniform. I thought of Dr. Hobson and Gurdip
and the band and Fr. Roberts. I thought of all the old ladies and children at
church who seem to dote on me.
I thought of Hell.
I though of God. Of Our Lord. Of the Bible and the Church.
I thought of Our Holy Mother, of all the anguish and pain as she watched her
Beloved Son, Our Lord and Saviour, crucified. If she could bear that, I can
bear this, I told myself.
I thought of Our Lord, bearing the sins of the world, in His agony. He bore my
sin. He walks in my suffering, sharing it...
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest.”
Stiff, exhausted and weeping, not now in heartbreak or anguish or self-pity,
but for the love of God, I climbed back onto the top floor of the car park.
They were there.
Eight of them.
Two circled me, on bikes. One taunted me, then the others joined in. Then the
one on the skateboard crashed deliberately into me and in my drunk and
exhausted state I toppled backwards as he shoved, hard. Another kicked me as I
fell.
The homophobic insults and taunting began in earnest. I was kicked. Hit. Jumped
on. Rammed with the bikes and battered with the skateboard. Then the one on
rollarblades jumped on my back and the world went very fuzzy and strange.
Something had burst. I felt wet inside. It’s all I can say. Oozing wetness
inside my body.
And then the pain really began.
The pain! It was unbearable, a tangible, real physical pain like nothing I had
ever felt. Being shot is the only thing that came even close.
At first I had tried to punch, to kick to defend myself. I had tried to assert
my authority with a calm, firm voice, the kind of words and tone they teach you
to use at Hendon.
Then I tried to get to my phone. They took my phone. Phones. Both of them. My
personal Nokia and the work Blackberry. My watch. My wallet. My change. My
cigarettes and lighter. They ripped my shirt open and took the gold crucifix
Dad had given me on leaving the Seminary – to still remember, in what path I
chose, he had said.
They found my warrant card.
Some panicked but the ringleader turned it to more hate. They kicked me some
more. Called me filth and pig. Laughed a lot more in their stoned, drunken,
childish way.
They hadn’t a clue what they were really doing, the consequences. I wonder what
they think now? Do they feel guilty? Do they even remember?
One found the letter and read it aloud in stumbling words. Illiterate idiots,
they found it so funny...
The ring leader straddled me, licked my face, forced his cock in my mouth...
The others cheered him on.
After it was done, they dragged me to my knees, and across to the wall of the
stairwell and lift shaft, propping me up, on my knees...
They took turns.
Every one of them, that is, who was physically old enough to.
You see, this is the saddest thing of all. The oldest was fifteen or sixteen,
no more than seventeen. The youngest was ten at the most.
I’m so ashamed of myself. I was so afraid, after the first time, lying on my
back, gagging, choking, fighting to breathe, unable to stop it...
I’m so wicked and unclean. The other four, I let them do it. I didn’t struggle,
I even helped...
I wanted to breathe.
I wanted to LIVE!!!
Afterwards they got bored, and left me lying on the ground, panting, struggling
to breathe, to even focus on anything, the wet seeping inside growing worse,
while they smoked more skunk and opened another bottle of cider.
Then they panicked.
I was a pig, after all, not just a suicidal faggot.
So they hatched a plan. The letter went back into the envelope – if only I had
sealed it! – and into my jacket pocket. Empty wallet and warrant card were
returned.
It took six of them to throw me off the Westgate.
 
~
 
“Sir!” Jones is saying as he replaces my desk phone as Barnaby comes into our
office.
“Yes Jones?”
“It’s DC Hooper. He thinks he’s traced the phones. Uniform are bringing in a
couple of young lads found trying to flog them at a local car boot sale.
Apparently the organizer and a couple of people they approached flagged it but
it didn’t get enough points for a response until Hooper spotted it.”
“Good. It’s a start. We can question these boys.”
Well done Hooper!
I hope.
 
~
 
You know those dreams you have? Dreams where you are falling and falling and
Falling and
falling...
And then you wake up!
It was just like that.
I woke up.
I woke up next to a body.
I sat up, afraid, and looked at the body.
It was me.
Okay, so I was terrified. I tried to climb back in, but I couldn’t. I bounced
off myself as if my body were protected by a bubble of energy. A force field.
I sat back down and hugged myself and looked at my empty body, at how broken
and smashed and bleeding it was.
I was never getting back in.
I was dead.
Be careful what you wish for.
 
~
 
Barnaby sits down at His desk. “Tell Hooper good work.”
Jones won’t use my desk, I notice, not unless he has to, as in answer the phone
or search the PNC. He hovers by the door, or perches on Lewis’ desk that
Barnaby has appropriated for himself.
On the way here Barnaby had called Julie away from trawling through the PNC for
gangs with previous of assault and rape and sends her to fetch DI Lewis.
Now he snaps at Jones, “Chase the forensics, will you Jones? Tell them I know
it’s a Sunday and it’s only been eight hours, but I need those DNA profiles!”
A print out of all Julie’s possibles from the PNC is in his hand. I look over
his shoulder. Two arrestees, let off on a technicality, for a line-up with a
thirteen year old girl. The same two, with two more, various ASBOs for
vandalism. Three have social workers. Parents had been prosecuted several times
over school non-attendance. One is in foster care. They call their gang the
Oxpen Westie Dozen.
They can’t count.
There are eight of them.
 
~
 
I wasn’t there long before a man with a pushcart with Oxford City Council logos
arrived. He looked at my body, fought with nausea and then muttered, “Not
another bloody one!" before taking out his phone.
The young uniformed officer arrived only a few minutes later, or at least it
seemed so to me, but my relationship with Time, I now realise, has altered
somewhat. He had only been around the corner, he explained, before asking the
street cleaner to wait, in case CID wished to question him. He spoke into his
radio as he approached me.
“423, in attendance of the body in Westgate now. Can confirm a body. Possibly a
suicide but...”
Then he really looked at the body. At my body.
“Will dispatch pathologist and SOCO. Copy 423.”
“Oh shit. Shitbuggerfuck! Shit shit shit!”
“423? Copy? Do you require assistance?”
“It’s DS Hathaway.”
“423? Repeat please?”
“It’s James Hathaway. It’s Lewis’ bagman. It’s Hathaway. We have a man down.
Repeat. We have a man down.”
“Okay 423. Calm down. Have despatched scene of crime and pathologist now. Will
send for CID now, won’t wait for pathologist and SOCO to call. Or is it
suicide? 423? Trevor? Trev?”
“Um. Yeah. We have a man down. Don’t know. Clothes disturbed. One shoe missing.
Eyes are open. Oh shit, his head is all mashed in. I only saw him in the
canteen Wednesday...”
“Assistance and back-up on route. Oh shit.”
“Uh?”
“It’s DI Lewis. He’s on call tonight.”
“He’ll not want anyone else here.”
“No.”
I didn’t even know the officer, and yet he recognized me and is upset by my
body. He doesn’t even want to contemplate my suicide. But the murder of an
officer is a disturbing thing indeed.
The street cleaner took him by the arm and pulled him away from me.
“Sit here mate. I got some tea in a flask I was saving for my break. Here, you
drink this Constable. One of your lot, is he, then?”
“In love with his boss, everyone laughed about it. Now look at him. He’s got
himself a woman. His boss I mean.”
Oh, he does think it’s suicide.
“Poor bastard. Think he jumped then? Thought you lot were pretty stable
people.”
“We’re just people,” the PC replied sadly.
***** Chapter 9 *****
Jones has just answered the phone on my desk and given his guv a ‘look’ and now
they are leaving. Desperate not to have any doors blocking my way again I
follow. We go down to the interview rooms where I see Julie carrying a mug. She
takes it to room 4, which is where all three of us arrive moments later.
Himself.
He’s back in a work suit. He looks shit though. No other words for it.
“Ta Julia,” he is saying, cradling the mug with his right hand. His left is
bunched up into a fist, held against his chest. He is greyer, if anything.
“Inspector Lewis. I’m Chief Inspector Barnaby of Causton CID, Midsomer
Constabulary. This is DS Jones. WPC Lockhart you know. Interview commenced
at... 1647 hours.
“Do you understand why we have to do things formally DI Lewis?”
“I’ve a fair idea. Aye.” His voice is uncharacteristically hoarse, as if he’s
in pain. Or been crying too much.
“Firstly, I do need to see the letter.”
He sighs and puts down his tea before putting his hand into his jacket pocket
to retrieve it. It’s a lot more crumbled that when it was put into my jacket
pocket. He slides it across the table.
Barnaby picks it up, removes my letter from its envelope and reads it briefly
before handing it to Julie.
“Photocopy please, Lockhart. We’ll return you the original. I appreciate it
means a lot to you.”
“Thanks.”
“Although personally I would say re-reading it over and over is not helpful to
you. The pathologist has ruled murder by person or persons unknown. Whatever
his intention, Lewis, he did not jump.”
“Aye.” He sighs deeply. “I’d say it was a relief but he wanted to, didn’t he?”
“He may have changed his mind. It appears from his flat he’d already considered
and rejected various other methods.”
“Had he?”
“I’d even say he wanted to be found. Or just stop the pain. I doubt he was
serious, but you know him far better than us, don’t you?” Jones added. Lewis
looks stricken with guilt. A small part of me actually gloats. Maybe I’m still
not quite in my right mind? Barnaby scowls at his sergeant before he demands of
Lewis,
“When did you last see him?”
“At about ten thirty, maybe eleven, Friday night.”
“Where was that?”
“At his flat.”
“That’s when you left?"
“Yes.” Barnaby opens his mouth but Lewis interrupts, “And before you ask, we
made love. You’ll have the pathology report soon and you’ll see my DNA inside
him.”
“Was it for the first time?”
“No. We’ve been sleeping together for... what? Eighteen, maybe twenty months?”
“But you had finished with him?”
“Not exactly... I’d sort of started seeing Dr. Hobson but...”
“So you were using Dr. Hobson as a shield, a cover, as it were, to hide your
gay relationship?”
“No! Yes... I don’t know! I like Laura. I thought me and James were...hell! I
don’t know. There was this case, a while back. A suspect knew a colleague of
mine, and during several interviews I had with him he bated me with... stuff.”
“What stuff”
“Homophobic stuff. Subtly. Implying I wasn’t a real man any more. Maybe I
decided enough was enough. I don’t know. If I could go back in time...
“Look! I told James it was over then I... I shagged him, all right? Told him I
would never live with him, but I’d keep him for... Oh God! Listen to what a
bastard I’ve become. This really isn’t me.
“I loved him. I love him! I didn’t mean to harm him.”
Oh Sir...
I love you too.
“You want to know it there was an abuse of privilege, don’t you?
“I don’t know. Maybe? It didn’t feel like that.
“Or maybe it did? He was always there, by my side, schoolgirl crush, big needy,
hero-worshipping eyes and eager to please – perfect tea and coffee, stay up all
night sifting evidence without being asked, making sure I went to the dentist
and whatnot, sorting out presents for me daughter and grandson. Perfect DS and
PA and devoted puppy dog all rolled into one. Laughs – laughed at me jokes like
no-one except my Val...”
“This is your deceased wife?”
“Yeah. You’ve only seen him dead. You don’t know how bloody gorgeous he was.
Looked. Smelt. Felt. So tall and skinny in his smart designer suits, could have
been a model. Lovely, he was.”
As he speaks he’s getting greyer and greyer as I watch, listening to him
describe me, his feelings for me. It feels weird to me to finally know. He
bloody well fancied me for someone ‘not gay or bi’.
But now his lips go blue, or bluer, his left arm pressing more firmly to his
chest.
“I’m nearly thirty years older than him and his senior officer. He’s so old in
his head but such a little naive, trusting boy in other things. I knew about
the abuse that happened when he was a kid, but I didn’t know ’til Friday night
I was the first man he’d ever, you know...”
And now he breaks of, completely breathless, his right hand pressing to his
left arm.
“Are you all right Sir?” Jones asks.
“Yeah. It’s just bloody indigestion,” he manages to get out in a painful gasp
before he kind of topples sideways and falls to the floor.
Jones and Barnaby react immediately – Jones getting him into the recovery
position while Barnaby checks for a pulse on his neck. Barnaby shakes his head
and suddenly they stretch him out. Jones is performing CPR while Barnaby
smashes a fist on the alarm and rushes to the corridor and yelling that they
have a man down and need the medic and an ambulance...
I can’t see him. Or feel him. He’s still in his body, if my limited experience
is anything to go by. But I still start to shout at him.
No Sir! You can’t die! You hang on in there! I miss you but Lyn needs you! Your
grandson needs you! You hear me Sir! Robbie! Don’t do this to Mark, Lyn and the
little one! Live Sir! Live for Lyn!
Jones checks for a pulse again and sighs with relief.
He opens his eyes and looks right at me. “James?” he says. “Is that you lad?”
And then he passes out.
 
~
 
I so want to stay with him, but I haven’t yet mastered this walking through
walls and doors thing that ghosts and spirits and other things always do in all
the fiction I’ve read – and believe me, I’ve read a lot of that kind of
fiction!
Also, there are so many people, and they keep walking through me, I can’t
really see what is going on. It also is hurting, all these people, their
corporeal physicality and their thoughts and feelings seem to swamp me
momentarily. Each one makes me sick and dizzy.
The medic arrives and she checks that Jones did the right thing, and soon the
paramedic and technician arrive in their green jumpsuits and get him on a
gurney. By now Innocent is here, walking along side him telling him he’s such a
stupid idiot.
I try to keep up. Twice I get left behind but I make it to the ambulance and
the doors are slammed in my face. It pulls away and in a panic I leap, trying
for the roof of the ambulance. I land flat on my ‘face’. I think for a moment I
see a man with a smart suit and silver hair shake his said sadly at me before
he laughs gently, but then he’s gone.
I’m now stuck in the car park. Someone comes out for a crafty fag – except I
realise it’s not a real cigarette. It’s DC Grey and his pretend electronic
thing. He looks a little grey himself under his rich chocolate brown skin. He
had a lot of respect for my boss. A little digging and I found that Lewis had
been kind to him as a sergeant when Morse investigated Grey’s Dad’s death. If
only Morse had investigate Mum’s I’m sure he’d have picked up on what was going
on...
Grey closes his eyes and mutters a little prayer for Lewis’ recovery. It’s the
first time I’ve seen someone pray since my... death. Sparkles of white energy
seem to flow and for a moment I see the air shimmer with white and gold and
silver.
An angel?
A real angel?
Maybe.
So not all was in vain and mistaken?
I hope not.
Grey sees or feels nothing, of course, except for worry and compassion for his
governor. He goes back inside. I follow quickly.
I try to find Barnaby and Jones. They are my key.
They are in one of the open rooms used for statement taking and child suspect
interviews. There are two boys, an Asian and a ginger white kid. Both are about
twelve or thirteen. I recognize neither of them.
But the two phones in evidence bags, those I do recognize.
There are two social workers and two legal aid solicitors and two significant
adults. The white kid has a shaven ginger tattooed thug of a man and the Asian
kid has a woman in a sari who is crying.
The Asian boy is also crying, hanging his head and muttering over and over
about his Dad killing him and needing to do his GSCEs and not wanting to be
excluded.
The white kid is defiant. Head held high, he glares at Barnaby and Jones with a
smug look, daring them to contradict him.
“I already said, didn’t I?” he is saying. “My cousin fount’em.”
“Where?” asks Jones.
“Dunno.”
“And this cousin...”
“Harry. He’s grounded again, in’t he?”
“Where did you see him them?”
The boy rolls his eyes. “I already told you. I saw’d Harry at Church. At Mass.
This morning, didn’t I? He says he’s fount these phones and can I sell ’em. He
knows me and Jamil like going up the car boot sales at Blackbird and Barton and
that. I said I’d try and sell ’em. He then says to me that me and Jamil can
keep some of the money.”
“What about you Jamil? What do you have to say?” Barnaby asks.
“It is as Josh says. He came to my house for lunch – he always does at the
weekends. We did our history course work assignment – we are doing a project
together. Then we went to the bus stop and caught the number 5. We tried to
sell the phones but everyone thought they were stolen.”
“Did you not think to hand the phones to the police station Jamil?”
“I know we should have done. They are two expensive phones. I felt bad. But
Josh said if someone was stupid enough to lose a Blackberry they didn’t deserve
it. I am truly sorry.” Jamil hangs his head again, perhaps in shame, his heavy
black fringe shielding his face. I felt sorry for him. Obviously, so did
Barnaby.
“Okay Jamil. You and you mother can go. There will be no further action, so
whether you tell your husband is up to you Mrs Asraf. And Jamil?”
“Yes Sir?”
“It is really good that you have a friend like Josh, and that you want to help
him with his schoolwork. But next time when you know what is the right thing to
do, help Josh to see that too. Some people don’t always find it so easy to be
able to see clearly the right path.”
“Oi!” shouts Josh’s father, obviously picking up on an oblique criticism.
“I’m sorry,” Jamil says again.
“Thank you,” says Mrs. Asraf shyly.
“Thank you Inspector,” the solicitor says. We don’t have chief inspectors in
Oxfordshire, so perhaps the solicitor can be forgiven for getting Barnaby’s
rank wrong. It’s so easy for a hard worked legal aid lawyer called away from
his Sunday lunch to make a mistake, I suppose. Barnaby obviously thinks so, he
does not correct him.
The social worker mutters something about taking no action and leaves first, in
a hurry to her next emergency weekend call out I assume, followed by the duty
solicitor and then Mrs Asraf and her son. Josh, his father and Barnaby and
Jones remain.
“Now Josh,” Barnaby says gently, picking up both phones in their plastic
evidence bags. “These phones belonged to a man who was assaulted and murdered
last night.”
“A policeman, in point of fact,” Jones adds.
“I don’t know nothing about that!” Josh protests. But he no longer looks
defiant, but scared.
“Can you help us Josh?” Barnaby asks just as gently.
“He was a well-liked officer here, in this station,” growls Jones, a tad
menacingly.
Was I...?
“Look! I don’t know nothing about no murder!” Josh shouts. “Harry told me they
was fount at the top of the Westgate. It’s where him and his gang go hang out.
They call 'emselves the Oxpen Westies, coz half of 'em come from the Oxpen
Estate and the other half from the houses around Westgate, yeah? But it’s all
stupid kids stuff, yeah? They strut about and talk about booze and ganga and
bitches and claim they’ve got guns, but it’s all an act. Maybe they got knives
and that and they is scary at school but look... they wouldn’t kill no
policeman! Or no-one! No way!”
“Someone threw him from the top of the Westgate,” Jones says.
“These are kids, right? He was a policeman! Harry and that must ’ave fount the
phones!” Josh looks panicked now. Act or not, Josh knows his cousin and his
gang could beat him up. But he’s also rattled by my death. I can tell.
“Why was you cousin grounded Josh?” Barnaby asks.
“He says he didn’t get in ’til gone four in the morning. Him and his little
brother. They woke their Mum up. She got mad coz he kept Tel out all night.
He’s only ten, right?”
Ah. And a vicious little psychopath to boot. You are not lucky with your
cousins Joshua Smith.
“Not only that,” Mr. Smith suddenly adds, “My sister-in-law was really angry at
the state of ’em. Sick and blood and booze all over their clothes. Wouldn’t
tell her why. She did get mad coz they’d been drinking and fighting, but...” he
shrugs. “Me brother’s own two. Can’t believe it...” he shakes his head sadly
and ruffles Josh’s hair. “My boy, he’s a good boy, right? It was wrong of him
with the phones, he do know that now, don’t you?”
“Yes Dad. Sorry Inspector. Sergeant.” He hangs his head.
They take details of the cousins, and reluctantly, the other gang members that
Josh knows about.
But my ‘head’ is itching in that now familiar way. I hope I’m going to the
hospital to see Himself.
 
~
 
Oh!
My flat!
With John Barnaby?!
I’ve travelled back in time again. This is so confusing. Not to mention weird.
Barnaby has made my Dad some tea and they are sitting, talking.
“We never got on,” Dad says. “He got too posh. Sometimes I think he looked down
on me, at any rate.”
Oh Dad...
I’m horribly ashamed to say that until recently it was true. I was a revolting
snob. In my defence it had been part self-defensive armour until it became me.
Robbie stripped it back, layer by layer, all my coatings of armour against the
bullying and unhappiness and self-loathing...
I’m sorry...
Barnaby is making some kind of non-committal, sympathetic noise.
“I was so proud of him. Always. Scholarships. Cambridge. Even when he decided
the priesthood wasn’t for him. Don’t know where he got his faith from? Not me,
I’ve always been more lapsed than holy. Maybe when his Mum died, Father Edwards
was always so nice to him. My sister was going to be a nun when she was little,
but she lost her faith completely in the end.”
“Both his Mum and his Aunt are dead?”
“Yeah. His auntie, my sister, she came to live with us, to help out, but then
she got sick. Really sick and disabled. So it was us helping her. My James was
always so good. So patient. We missed him so bad when he was at school and then
university. The council sent around home helps, but it weren’t the same. Not
the same. This...” Dad gestures around my flat, “... is what I would expect.
Not the washing up not done. James was always neat and tidy.
“Is that the stress, do you think? They said first – the police officer who
came to tell me about James that is – he said that it might be suicide. So did
your sergeant.”
“Thank you Jones,” Barnaby mutters to himself under his breath.
“Like his Mum,” Dad goes on sadly.
“His mother...?”
“Yeah. She drank. Drowned.”
“But not an accident?”
“Maybe. But she left a note though, saying she was a terrible mother and we’d
be better off without her.”
We weren’t! She wasn’t! She loved me! She was fun!
She was also bipolar, often drunk, frequently stoned and forgot things like
keys and food and clean nappies, and later she forgot the time school started,
packed lunches and PE kits. She smelt lovely. Okay, she smelt of what I can now
identify as patchouli, cannabis, gin and cigarettes, but it was the most
wonderful smell to me. She made up stories about fairies and tree spirits,
aliens and monsters or the best ones, ones about the two of us travelling the
world and sometimes the universe. She made my toys and the stories come alive,
and she made me castles, moon bases, spaceships and farms out of cardboard
boxes, toilet roll tubes, tissue paper and glue. She made little dolls peg
knights, spacemen and farmers to go with them. She was an artist!
And she also drowned by the Lake above the Chase on the Estate, near the old
ugly Fountain, opposite the Summerhouse. I was seven.
She said she was so proud of me. I wonder is she still is?
And along with the crafts and the mass cake baking sessions went the times when
she lay on the sofa weeping and drinking gin, the room a fug of cigarette and
cannabis smoke, when it was ‘shut up James’, ‘stay still James’, ‘God James, I
wish you’d never been born’ and ‘no you can’t have a fucking cuddle!’
She suffered with bipolar. I understand that now. Then, Mummy was either very
exciting and very angry and sad. Dad shouted at her either way – either for
keeping me off school to play games with or for forgetting to take me to school
or feed me. Protecting me again, you see. But I didn’t understand that then, I
thought he was cross with Mummy.
She made a big hole in our family. My auntie tried to fill it, but then she got
sick...
Dad was explaining to Barnaby, “... but they ruled an open verdict. Couldn’t
make up their minds whether it was suicide or death by misadventure. She always
wore those long floaty skirts...”
Oh yes. Some with bells or tassels that I’d play with when I sat on her lap and
she read to me!
“... They dragged her down.”
Like the Lady of the Lake. She lives in the lake. Or she did, in my mind. Or
like Lady Shallot. Too innocent and pure, dying of heartbreak, married to
prosaic and boring Dad. My Lancelot turned out not to be much good either. Like
mother like son. Did she mean to drown, I wonder?
“I’m sorry Mr. Hathaway,” Barnaby says.
Dad gets up and wanders about my living room, looking at my books mostly. “Does
this look like the pad of a posh poof, or an ex priest? Or both maybe?”
“I can’t really comment.”
“I always knew my boy was gay. Ever since he was quite little. I just wanted
him to be happy, but I don’t think he ever got that. We’ve never really moved
on, you know? Past the sulky, resentful teenager and the shouting father bit.
We always end up yelling at each other. I try so hard not to. And now...”
Dad sits down again and starts to cry. Barnaby gives him some tissues and makes
him some more tea. I sit down next to my father and try to press myself next to
him, willing him to know I’m here, that I love him, that I’m sorry I was such a
terrible son.
“The pathologist has ruled murder,” Barnaby eventually says gently. “I know
it’s not much comfort, but you will be able to bury your son properly.”
“Unlike his Mum.” Dad is silent for a while, and then asks, “Can I meet him?”
“Who Mr. Hathaway?”
“DI Robert Lewis. His boss. His lover. The man who broke my boy’s heart. I’m
not stupid, what ever James used to think, Chief Inspector, I do know. Even
though he tried to not tell me anything, it was written all over him – the
love, unrequited at first, and then not. And then his misery last time I spoke
to him. My lovely, gentle James...”
I snuggle into my Dad, lay my head on his lap and hold on tightly to him. My
Dad. My poor, lost, heartbroken, bereaved Dad. I spent so long helping my boss
in his grief and I neglected my own Dad. Blamed him even.
I wasn’t a good son. But I loved him. I hope he knows that. I hope he does.
I really do.
***** Chapter 10 *****
This is so strange. For the second, no third, time, I feel as if I’ve been
asleep. I was at home, with my Dad, curled up on my sofa, my head on his lap.
Now where am I?
It’s so dark.
Oh. I’m back next to the mortuary drawer, curled up in front of where... I am?
My body is. It’s pitch black, but if I concentrate I’m sort of... lit up?
Illuminated? I can see a little around me at any rate, as if the light emanates
from me. I get up and wander about. Such a bleak, dark, concrete and whitewash
sort of place. I’ve been here many, many times, of course. With Himself.
Sometimes without. With DI Knox before Him. Sometimes with Hobson, sometimes
another pathologist. Watching Laura or whoever with some poor victim’s body.
Trying not to look but curiosity always getting the better of me. The nausea
would sometimes last for hours.
They’ve done that to my body.
Twice!
The clock says it’s ten minutes to midnight.
I’ve moved forward then. I’ve been dead nearly a day then. Sort of. I suppose.
The flip-flopping in Time makes it hard for me to tell.
I wonder is he’s here. In ICU? Cardiac Care? A general medical ward? Cardiac
Care on Level 2 seems to be the most obvious place.
But here I am, down in the second basement, three floors down, with so many
closed doors between us.
I go to the door and try to relax. I close my eyes and concentrate, trying to
remember that disturbing feeling as a person walks through me. The momentary
awareness of flesh, bone, muscle, blood pumping, the whole lot down to the
cellular level floating though me...
The door is solid. It’s wood and plastic, metal and glass.
But I’m not solid.
I’m not real. Not really here at all.
I’m not a scientist. I’m a theologian. Classics, the arts and humanities, these
I know. I’m also a policeman. But apart from the forensic sciences, which I’ve
only recently read and self-taught, I am most eminently not a scientist!
I do not know the molecular structure of wood or glass, plastic or metal.
Will I feel...? See...? Wood and glass molecules, metal and plastic ones, their
various elements...? The way cells rush through me as a person walks right
through me?
I close my eyes again.
I am spirit. I am not here. I am not real.
I step, eyes still closed.
I open my eyes.
I’m in the grey concrete corridor outside the mortuary door.
Right.
No, left. For the stairs.
Each door, it gets easier. I walk past the occasional porter or cleaner. Once a
nurse. And then I see a girl sobbing. I take a step towards her. She’s so
little and thin, dressed in a pink nightie. She is a mass of bruises where
tubes have gone in and out of her thin little arms and up her little baby snub
nose. She has absolutely no hair.
She sees me and runs desperately towards me.
Before I’m even consciously aware of what I’m doing I’ve scooped her up in my
arms and I’m comforting her as she sobs, grateful for someone to see her, to
hold her.
But she speaks Polish. I do not.
I stroke her poor baldhead and sit down, settling her on my lap. I want to tell
her she can make her hair grow back if she wants, as I ‘healed’ my broken head
and ‘mended’ my ripped and torn clothes. But I don’t have the words. Not in her
language. I don’t know what to do. I feel awful about the fact that I too am
taking some comfort from the ‘physical’ contact.
Physical!
The girl is as dead as I.
Suddenly a bright light appears at the end of the corridor. It is dazzling. I
catch sight of more shimmering figures of gold, silver and bright white.
And then a man walks out of the light. He is elderly, and leans on a stick, but
for all that he is powerfully built. He has white hair in tufts above his ears,
is very tanned and has age spots on his hands, cheek and the top of his
baldhead.
“Zofia!” he calls.
Zofia looks up from my lap, she had buried her face in my chest. She smiles
joyfully and runs to him, as he calls to her and talks to her, holding out his
hands. He scoops her up, and then steps forward and puts a hand on my shoulder
and smiles at me.
“Thank you.”
“It’s all right,” I say numbly.
He turns, carrying his granddaughter into the light.
Then he, the child, the angels or spirits or whatever they are, and the
dazzlingly bright light, they all vanish.
And I’m left wondering why it never crossed my mind to head towards the bright
light too.
Then I remember. I know. I continue my climb to level 2 and DI Robert Lewis.
 
~
 
When I finally find him I think he’s asleep. I sit down in a chair left next to
his bed. He opens his eyes immediately.
“Sir!” I say stupidly.
“I know this is a dream James. I know I’m alive. I can hear those bloody
bleeps.”
“Are you all right Sir?”
“Had a minor heart attack. I’m just in overnight for observations. I’ll live.
But I wonder what the fuck caused it, eh James?” He is suddenly angry.
“I’m sorry. I never meant to...”
“Did you jump? Did you want to? Ah, don’t bothering answering, this is my
dream, you’ll say what I want.”
“I thought about it. I did. But I changed my mind. For you, and my Dad, and
just because I was too scared to. I did change my mind Sir, I did...”
“Oh James, what happened to you, pet, what happened?”
“Don’t make me remember, don’t ask me, please, I can’t...”
My head is buzzing. I can’t be here! I want to be here! I don’t want to
remember again. Please...
He reaches out a hand to my arm. It passes straight through me. He looks
startled and I see a wary understanding cross his eyes. He’s beginning to
realise I am there, with him, I think.
“Oh James, my love. Forgive me...”
“Dad!” hisses a female voice in a worried whisper. “Who are you talking to?”
It’s Lyn. I should have realised. The owner of the bag under the chair and the
cardigan draped over its back. She has a Styrofoam cup and a Kitkat in her
hands.
“James, “ he mumbles, confused. He looks a little worried, but it’s nothing to
the alarm that is crossing his daughter’s face. She looks at where he’s
looking, at me in the chair. Of course, she sees nothing. Nevertheless, I get
up so she can sit down. I don’t want her sitting through me and I certainly
don’t what Himself to see that.
“Oh Dad,” she says sadly as she sits down, putting her snack and drink down on
the floor with her handbag.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” he says, his eyes screwing up like a small child
about to cry.
“I know. I know.” She strokes his hair, kisses his forehead. Their roles have
reversed.
“I love him,” he mutters. “Didn’t want to hurt you, shock you and Mark, so I
hurt him instead. Should have been braver...”
“I know Dad, I know...”
He can no longer see me.
Or hear me.
I can’t bear it. He seems so vulnerable. Old. Weak. Confused. Sick. I simply
can’t bear it.
My death did this to him.
I did this to him!
I can’t be here!
I turn and run. My panic makes running through doors and walls so much easier.
As I run out an old lady calls out to me but as I turn a young man dressed in a
Second World War army uniform I take to be her husband is meeting her. As I
look she sort of de-ages, becomes as young as he, both dressed now in
fashionable clothes of the 1930s. She waves but I turn again because I can’t
bear it, that light isn’t for me but I can’t stay with the man I love because
I’ve destroyed him...
I’m so tired by the time I get back to the mortuary. I don’t even know why I
ran here. It’s as if some invisible cord pulls me back here. Snaps me back. I
slide to the floor and curl up next to that cold steel drawer that contains my
broken and smashed remains.
I’m so tired and confused myself.
Concussed even?
Maybe. My head is smashed like an egg.
All the kings’ horses and all the kings’ men...
***** Chapter 11 *****
I can’t get it out of my head. Our relationship. Friendship with benefits. A
superior officer exploiting his junior partner’s infatuation even? Whatever he
says our relationship is – was. Whatever DCI Barnaby and DS Jones seem to think
it was.
Except now he told his daughter he loved me. The same daughter he was too
afraid to come out to.
It’s all a muddle.
We never talked. That is the crux of the matter. I fell in love with him in a
matter of days after meeting him for the first time at Heathrow. I’d been so
annoyed, too, I remember, that Innocent had sent me and not some humble DC or
PC. Mind you, I’d not been promoted long, and only in CID a while. And I’d not
had much proper experience either, desk work, and secretarial work, really.
Innocent’s little gopher. No wonder there had been such resentment with me. A
fine detective brain, train him up, Innocent had told Knox. But he didn’t like
me. I was too poncy, too educated and too bloody holy. He couldn’t even pigeon
hole me, which annoyed him more than anything, I think. He’d shout down my
suggestions then pass them off as his own ideas.
But I fell head over heels with my new DI. What does that say about me? Oh, I
tried to bury it and hide it. It was a sin.
Or so I thought.
But my love only strengthened and grew the longer I knew him, as our working
relationship and then tenuous friendship grew. He tolerated my foibles,
rejoiced in my quotes and my education in general, for all of his teasing. He
understood and forgave my weaknesses. Lies, I mean. As he knew more about me
his opinion never seemed to change, his respect and liking of me never
diminished. He gave me the strength and courage to be myself.
To finally be me. The James Hathaway I was meant to be.
I was meant to be for Him. I still feel that.
Yet, then, in all that he made me safe and proud and unashamed of the awkward
person I was, I hid my love, tried to hide my sexuality. Even after he knew I
was gay, even after he really knew and I knew he knew, I pretended not to be.
Maybe I wasn’t so unashamed after all?
And all the while he fancied me. Maybe even fell in love with me?
He hid his sexuality as much as I did mine. Believe me, he is bisexual. He was
absolutely faithful to his wife, of that I am sure of. But I am equally sure
that before her he had slept with other men as well as women. Maybe after her
death too? Drunk while on his ‘out-of-sight-out-of-mind/problem gone away’
posting DCI Strange had sent him on? Drunk and suffering from PTSD, of which I
have no doubt the sudden death of his wife had given him, did he go in for the
casual shag or too? After all, the British Virgin Islands, far from home in the
far warmer climate, with his brandy habit and PTSD, he could have relaxed his
usual quite strict sexual moral code.
Couldn’t he?
I don’t know.
I hope he wore a condom there then.
Oh. What am I thinking? I’m dead. It doesn’t really matter now if he’d given me
AIDS, does it?
But my point here is he knew damn well what he was doing with my body.
Or at least, appeared to know what he was doing. Perhaps he was pretending to
be as relaxed about it all and much more experienced and know what he was doing
than he really was?
I know I was.
I can’t decide who was the selfish one first time. Or the deceptive one? Or
perhaps it was just both of us?
Or maybe neither of us? In sex, as in our work and friendship, we never talked,
never really communicated, never really told the other what he was thinking or
feeling much at all. Expecting the other to be able to read it all in the
subtext. Something hidden and understood. But never spoken of.
And until I returned from Kosovo and saw Hobson snog him I had always thought
that it was working out just fine for us that way.
 
~
After Bethan Vickery had been charged, he told me he was going to the hospital.
To see them. The psychiatrist, Dr. Gansa, and his poor wife in the coma. I
wasn’t surprised. It was just the kind of compassionate, but wholly unnecessary
and unexpected follow up that he always would make that made me fall in love
with him in the first place. What surprised, confused, and yes, hurt me, was
when he had phoned from the hospital to tell me that seeing poor Claire Gansa
and her husband’s devotion had made him think about life, about death and lost
chances, and that he was meeting Dr. Hobson and maybe going to even ask her
out, if this Franco wasn’t too important.
I can’t remember what I said. Did. I must have made banal platitudes as all my
hope died in one phone call. After all, I had hidden my feelings and my
sexuality less and less over the past few months and all he had done was ignore
the little hints and even date that bloody ex sergeant Ali McLennan in my face,
as if to rub my nose in the fact I wasn’t special or that he was heterosexual –
he had certainly finally seen how much I loved him during that case, that was
for sure! But in that McLennan woman he had demonstrated yet again, apart from
the sainted Mrs Lewis of course, he obviously had poor choice in women. Perhaps
he had inherited it from his former guv?
Oh yes, I had heard the stories.
He told me that night to leave the paperwork and go home and chill. Put my feet
up, listen to music and relax. It was done. The insanity of the murderer had
unsettled me and he had seen that. But relax? The chance would have been a fine
thing indeed! I stayed late and worked through the night until five hours had
gone by. It was gone ten that night. I only realised because he phoned.
“James. You’re not at home!” He sounded both aggrieved and worried.
“No Sir. I’ve been sorting everything out for the CPS.”
He sighed crossly. “I told you to relax man! Now get back here now!”
“Back where?”
“Your flat. Your takeaway’s getting cold.”
“My what?”
“I got you food man!”
I rushed home obediently to find him sitting on my doorstep, his car parked up
the road. No takeaway was to be seen. Instead, a huge bouquet – two-dozen roses
in fact! – and a supermarket carrier bag.
“Have you eaten the takeaway Sir? Are these for Dr. Hobson? I’m sure she’ll...”
He stood up awkwardly, picking up the bag and bouquet one-handed, his other
strapped up to give his shoulder chance to heal. He made a fuss when I tried to
help even though he was obviously uncomfortable.
“Can we go inside James?" he practically snarled, but I guessed that to be pain
rather than anger at me for going against his orders and working late again.
“Um, yeah,” I replied and unlocked the door.
Once inside he said, “These are for you James.” He handed me the roses and then
produced a rather nice bottle of Pinot Noir and a box of expensive hand-made
chocolates.
“Um...? Thank you?” I was confused, to say the least.
“Couldn’t decide on what was best. What was more appropriate. Of course, none
of it might be, but I know I wouldn’t object if Val – or anyone I liked – had
gone and got me any of this.”
“Appropriate...?” I still wasn’t getting him.
He sighed and rubbed his eye. He looked a bit shy, and younger, and my heart
did a little back flip. “Can I buy you dinner James?” he asked awkwardly.
“I thought you were...” I was convinced he was supposed to be on a date with
Hobson. I still couldn’t quite hope... let myself believe... that he...
“No.” He shook his head fiercely, that I remember. “Can I take you out? To
dinner.”
“As I date? Are you asking me on a date?” I’m ashamed to say my voice sort of
squeaked, as if I were fourteen again with a breaking voice. I needed someone
to pinch me.
“Yeah. As a date.” He laughed nervously at what he was about to say. “Will you
go out with me James?”
“What about Dr. Hobson? I thought you and she...?”
“We talked it through. Besides...”
“Besides?” What was I? Second best?
“Besides. Kissing Laura felt ever so slightly like kissing me sister. Maybe
we’ve left it to late, maybe it was never meant to be...”
“You don’t have a sister,” I said stupidly, not knowing how to react to the
revelation. Part of my brain was still just screaming: he kissed Hobson! Not
fair!
“You know what I mean!” he snapped lightly.
“That I’m second choice?" I let out, not meaning to.
“No pet. That kissing her made me realise who I’d much rather be kissing than
anyone else on Earth!”
“Me?” I more sorted of mouthed than spoke aloud, pointing to myself.
“Can we sit down love, you’re sort of looming over me and I’ve not kissed
anyone taller before, you great long streak of nothing!”
And he pulled me to the sofa. Sat next to me. And kissed me!
I was numb. In shock.
Then I relaxed into it.
And kissed back.
And it is still the most perfect kiss I have ever had. Words cannot describe it
or the feeling.
So don’t try to tell me now he was just using me for as an easy bitch to have a
quick bang until something better came along. Don’t tell me it wasn’t poor
Laura Hobson that was being used more than me.
A proof of heterosexuality? Or normality? Of manhood?
He decided he wanted a beard and didn’t even have the grace to tell me but
expected me to understand.
But how could I? I wasn’t born in the fifties and been a teen in the sixties
and I didn’t spend my wild twenties in the seventies. I didn’t even have any
wild times in my twenties, I studied hard, rowed, did voluntary work, entered a
Seminary, came out of it and joined the police. No boyfriends, no wild parties,
just studies and early nights. I get the impression Robbie Lewis knew how to
have a good time when he was young!
I was a small child when the battle against Clause 28 took place. I grew up at
a time when gay people achieved equal rights. I might personally have a faith,
but after Will I had long learned not to judge anyone but myself and expect
equality and respect for all.
Why would he need to hide his love for me?
 
~
 
I seem to have got lost in my thoughts. Is to forgive to understand or can we
just forgive? He wants me to forgive him.
I love him and of course I want to forgive him the last couple of months. But
I’m sure the belief that he would stop hiding our relationship once he retired
had come from him and not just my wishful thinking.
After the first, rather disastrous, non communicative attempt at love making
and a few more stumbling attempts at his place, he told Innocent I needed a
break and he had to see Lyn and arranged for us both to have three days
uninterrupted leave – Thursday night through to Monday morning. He told me to
pack and discreetly leave my bag in the boot of his car Thursday morning.
“What should I pack Sir?”
“Well,” he grinned dirtily – he was constantly looking at my arse and grinning
in the early days and weeks of our new sexual relationship. I had told him to
be careful, but he denied he was doing it! But he then said, “Your birthday
suit might be all you need lad. Plan to have my wicked way with you in all
sorts of positions.” I blushed beetroot red and he laughed happily. “Jeans, t-
shirts, jumpers, a coat, good trainers or boots James, as it’s all pretty
mountainous where we’re going, so if we venture out of bed we’ll be walking. If
you’re not happy with your work suit, another for a nice meal out.”
I nodded and did as I was told. I always did as I was told – as a sergeant and
as a boyfriend.
 
~
 
He took me to Wales, to the Brecon Beacons. It was already dark when we
arrived, very dark, but the night was clear and the sky was amazing. So full of
stars. It was also bitter, condensation huffed out of our mouths as we made our
way from the car to the door. It smelt fresh, of clean air and fresh grass and
frost. I’d never been any where like it in Britain before.
The hotel was a four star one; half way up a mountain just above a tiny
village. I couldn’t help thinking about the cannibals in Torchwood. He didn’t
get the reference. When he finally realised what I was talking about he told me
I didn't even know what proper Dr. Who was! We argued good-naturedly all the
way to our room.
We dumped our bags and fell on the bed. In no time at all we were kissing and
then more...
He slowed us down, suggested we shower together. He went down on me, my first
blowjob. You see, no doubt in my mind he was bisexual and experienced!
After I’d stopped shaking we went back to the bed, falling in a tangle of wet
limbs, kissing and licking and nipping. He had made the right decision, he was
right, I was so much more relaxed than I had been in my own flat, or his. I
wondered if subconsciously I’d been waiting for a shout.
He gave me a little shove. “Turn over for me James,” he whispered in my ear,
before kissing the top of it and biting my earlobe.
I smiled and did so.
He greased himself up liberally, squirting a little over me, before pushing
slowly, so very slowly, his cock gently opening me and sliding its way in so
very slowly, opening me and stretching me until he was inside to the hilt, his
balls pressed against mind, his chest and stomach pressed heavily on my back.
He leaned forward and I twisted my neck so he could give me an awkward kiss.
“Better, eh? You’re so much more relaxed now, eh love?”
I nodded and rocked back against him and he began to move, every thrust pressed
deep in the spot inside me and soon as I was as hard as him again.
We came together.
He laughed. “Oh the joys of being so young and recovering so fast,” he said,
and I thought he was teasing but he was just pleased to make me come twice.
We snuggled up afterwards and decided on room service and just staring at
mindless TV. I felt too rude and dirty to go to the hotel dining room. He had
told me the hotel website had said it was gay friendly, but the woman on the
desk had looked shocked at us. I suppose it may have been the age difference.
Or perhaps I stupidly called him Sir again. He looked liked a dirty old man
screwing his employee or something.
Well, he was.
Or something.
I slept with my head on his chest, him stroking my hair. I woke still there, to
the sounds of sheep bleating and wind rustling in the trees.
We made love again, then showered separately and went to breakfast. He
suggested a walk, so we climbed the mountain, came down the other side, had
lunch in a pub then caught a bus back to the small town the hotel was above. He
took a hot bath, claiming he’d ache otherwise. I curled up on the bed and read.
When he came out we made love again, this time he wanted me on my knees. The
feeling was intense, he could move so deep and hard within me I lost all sense
of anything else. I was his so much. I loved him so much. I suddenly regretted
my earlier pretence, I now wanted to tell him he was the first man I ever let
do this. But how could I? He would be hurt that I hadn’t trusted him in the
first place, and hadn’t I already gone there twice at work? I hated myself. I
should have trusted him. I had just been so embarrassed.
We went down to dinner that evening, to a candle lit side table, eating Welsh
lamb with red current jelly and some vegetables I can’t even remember. He had
some kind of death by chocolate and I had some kind of tiramisu, but we ended
up sharing each others’, feeding each other titbits across the table. Some
people stared, but only in the kind of indulgent, smiling way people do to
those newly in love. He had chosen well.
We made love again that night, this time he went down on me again, this time
putting two fingers inside me too and his mouth did amazing things. It was so
deliciously intense. But he wouldn’t let me try to return the favour. He said
he was too old. I got upset, it didn’t seem fair. He hugged me and told me to
stop being ageist. We watched rubbish TV again from the bed, snuggled up, legs
and arms all a-tangle, my head on his chest again. It was all I had ever
dreamed of and more. I’m sure he even teased me about us being in the honeymoon
suite and that maybe, one day, when he finally retired, it might be us for real
on honeymoon. He also firmly reminded me of how much we had to be a secret for
now. He made it out more for my benefit – it might hamper my promotion and
future career prospect, and being the sensitive soul I was, which was said
without any of his usual irony or humour, the gossip would kill me!
He was probably right.
He fell asleep early so I had a bath and read.
We drove out the next day, to the coast. We walked along a windswept beach,
hand in hand, beachcombing. We ate at another pub and came back and made love
again. It was when I discovered that he could fuck me face to face. It felt too
intense, too much, so I don’t know what. I could see him. But then I couldn’t
feel him as much. I told him I liked him lying on my back, skin to skin,
totally touching, the fact he could kiss my neck. He smiled down at me and bent
forward to kiss me. Afterwards, he kissed my forehead and told me he loved me.
I was suddenly curious. How did he know so well what I would like, how I felt.
I meant, really, did he really know that I would like to take, that I had
fantasized for so many years, that was all I wanted. Or was it just he had been
straight and decided that was what he wanted. Was he giving or selfish?
“I’m a detective pet," he had teased. “I detect things.”
“How?”
“Your body language. The way you look at me, respond to me.”
I panicked then, thinking everyone was noticing, could tell I was gay. Could
tell I was a complete bitch. He took so long to reassure me and calm me down,
make me hear what he was saying, how he was talking about us in private, about
how he had been observing me intently for years.
The last morning we made love again, with him lying on my back again, arms
holding me tightly, moving inside me so slowly, making it last. We then
showered, packed, had breakfast and checked out. We stopped in the Wye Valley
and ate al fresco – although in the car, the weather turning even colder.
After than we found it easier to cope with our changed relationship –
colleagues and superior and junior officer at work, work friends at the pubs we
always attended in and around Oxford, but lovers in our flats and when we drove
out of Oxford for a meal somewhere.
At least, that was what I had thought of as our relationship until the Friday
before my death, although the previous two months had been hell.
Although, now I think my perception was the truth, he had just had some kind of
awful panic attack that caused him to grab hold of Laura Hobson and just use
her to prove to himself and the world he was straight, normal, a real man...
I know that feeling. But I am a real man. Gay. A bitch even. Yes, when I fancy
a man I want to take. But I’m still a man. And here I am, dead, knowing now I
am not sinful. I was made to be that way. I am what I am, or rather, I was what
I was. Now I’m dead. I am spirit. But not intrinsically sinful. Have sinned,
yes. Lies. Deceit. Contemplating suicide. Despair. Self-harm. Smoking and
drinking too much alcohol and coffee and not eating enough. My body was a gift
to look after. Trying to be straight and using Fiona – even if she was doing
the same to me, it was my intent to use. Getting drunk and using poor Alan
Peterson for comfort. All these things were wrong.
As was tripping up a suspect and pushing him down the stairs! Very wrong.
But mostly, not showing my Dad how much I loved him. Not taking the time to
understand him. Blaming him for things when he always, always tried to do his
best for me.
These things I repent. But not a loving relationship. And it WAS a loving
relationship. Until the end.
But that first weekend we had away together seemed to heal something in me. I
still struggled with my faith after what we did – although only alone or at
Mass – but not again with the terrible memories of Augustus. And because of
that I just never tensed up or froze again. I always felt loved and respected.
And safe.
And deep down, although he didn’t guess he was the first, he did know it was
Mortmaigne that was getting in the way. Hence our romantic weekend away and his
spoiling of me.
You see, although we never spoke, we did always read each other in the silence
and the subtext.
***** Chapter 12 *****
~
What is this? I’ve been asleep again! I suppose there is enough religious and
spiritual texts and literature along with a considerable amount of poetry that
compares sleep to death.
And vice versa.
I open my eyes to stare at a small part of my desk at work. I appear to be in
my chair, slumped over my desk and arm, asleep on my desk.
Oh!
It’s all been a dream! I just fell asleep at work again!
I sit up and yawn and stretch.
The first thing I notice is the distinct lack of reality – or air! – in my
yawn. The second is my arm appears to pass through someone, I feel the
disorientation of flesh, blood and bone and feelings – in this case sleepiness
and the need for coffee. The third thing is Barnaby, passing my desk on the way
to Lewis’.
He has just sat down and switched on the computer when Jones appears, looking
equally sleepy.
“Morning Jones. Sleep well?”
“The little I had, yes Sir. Traffic was hell.”
“I weaved my way up through B roads and country lanes Jones. Took me less than
twenty minutes. Tom gave me the route last night. Avoided all the Midsomer
commuters to Oxford and the M40 junction.”
“He might have told me,” Jones mutters darkly before saying brightly, “Tea
Sir?”
“Coffee I think Jones, don’t you? If you could rustle up a couple of pastries
for us that would be a good idea, don’t you think? Unless you’ve had
breakfast?”
I don’t think Jones has shaved, much less fed himself from the look of him.
“I’ll have to go out of the station.”
“A good idea. I noticed a very promising looking French patisserie opposite
Christchurch yesterday.”
“Right you are Sir.”
Jones exits just as Julie enters.
“Good morning WPC Lockhart. I really appreciate all the work you put in
yesterday. I will make sure Chief Superintendent Innocent approves overtime.”
“Thank you Sir, but I’d have done it for no pay. I’d work a dozen Sundays on no
pay as long as we can find the bastards who hurt the sarge.”
“You liked him?”
“He scared me a bit, actually. Wasn’t easy to be friends with. But yeah, after
all that, he was okay. We used to...”
“What?”
“Laugh at him a bit. His posh little ways, his clever quotes and that. And his
campness. But mostly the fact he was so devoted to his guv. I mean, we all
admire Inspector Lewis, but he’s no oil painting, is he?”
Well, thanks a lot Julie Lockhart! And who are ‘we’? Not Gurdip I hope?
“I wouldn’t know Lockhart. Love is blind, as they say. I hope you appreciate
that all you have heard or seen in connection to DI Lewis is confidential?”
“Of course Sir.”
“Good. Good. I take it you came in this office to tell me something?”
“What? Oh yes. I’ve spoken to the two school secretaries. They are going to let
us know which, if any, of those boys, attend school. I only hope that Joshua
Smith hasn’t warned his cousin.”
“I doubt it. I got the impression that there is no love lost between his father
and his auntie, and I doubt Mr. Smith would have let his son call his cousin.
Shocked, wouldn’t you say?”
“I wasn’t privy to the interview Sir.”
“No, of course you weren’t. Well, thank you Lockhart. If you could save Jones
the job and organize the back up for these arrests. You know this station much
more than either of us.”
“Of course Sir. And I’ll let you know when I hear back from the schools.”
It says nine minutes past eight on the clock in the main office. Jones returns
fifteen minutes later with coffee and breakfast. Eight after that Julie returns
with the news that the youngest three boys are in school, but the five oldest –
my fucking rapists! – have failed to show. This is normal.
Quelle surprise!
Apparently the Head wants a personal explanation before she is prepared to give
more information.
Barnaby sighs and rolls his eyes before asking for the number and picking up
Lewis’ phone.
 
~
 
I seem to be moving in a more linear fashion through Time again, ever since I
woke by my body and went to see Robbie in hospital. I hope he’s okay.
After a brief, terse, authoritative chat with the head teacher Barnaby signals
to Jones and calls to Julie, asking her if she wants to be in on the collars.
She jumps at the chance.
It’s easier to keep up now I can just go through any door swinging back in my
face. Innocent comes out of her office and walks with them to the car park.
“Everything strictly by the book,” she demands.
“Of course. Any news on Inspector Lewis Ma’am?”
“Apparently he has spent a comfortable night. He has to make changes to his
lifestyle and is on leave now until he retires, but he is doing fine. Just
waiting to see the consultant before he can be discharged. His daughter has
come down from Manchester with her partner to look after him. They intend to
stay at least a week.”
“That is good news, isn’t it Jones?”
“Yeah. Definitely.”
Yes it is! Very good news indeed!
 
~
 
First we go to North Hinksey Primary School in South Oxford. It’s a modern
build on the ground of a Victorian Church of England one. The main building
remains but the focus is a cluster of very new twenty-first century open plan
classrooms and play area. We join three squad cars in the car park, blocking in
teachers’ cars and access. Rows of curious small faces peer out of classrooms.
Two women, who introduce themselves as head teacher and school secretary, meet
Barnaby. We follow them along corridors and walls that go past open plan
classrooms. We – well, they - attract less attention and fuss than the boys in
blue outside.
We reach a door with the notice: Miss Holdbrook, 6H, Y6 and then a printed
poster than seems to have had self-portrait cartoons of 31 children pasted on
to it. The Head knocks and we all enter. As we do Terence Smith takes one
panicked look in our direction. He obviously hears the Head’s murmured
explanation as he starts to slide out of his seat.
“Terence, could you come here please. These gentlemen are policemen. They just
have a few questions, there’s nothing to worry about.”
Terence has other ideas. The door is blocked and as the classroom is one of the
few enclosed rather than open plan classrooms he heads for the windows but he
can only open them a few centimetres.
“Come on,” Jones is saying calmly, approaching him. “We just have some
questions about your older brother and his friends in connection to the death
of a policeman...”
The class lets out a collected gasp of 30 young and one adult shocked voice.
Terence grabs an empty chair and throws it out of the window, making a loud
smash accompanied by about five girlish screams and squeals as the girls on the
nearby table are covered with broken glass. 25 cries of shock or support
accompany them. The Head yells for order but Terence is gone and I hear no more
as I give chase pointlessly, sprinting after him through children and furniture
and wall and glass and across the playing field.
He makes it as far as the back fence and begins climbing it when a young
officer apprehends him.
He puts up a good fight.
By the time Barnaby and Jones arrive with the Head, secretary and class teacher
one officer has a broken nose and the other is nursing a bitten hand. Terence
Smith is still squirming in the firm grasp of both officers.
Jones sighs and produces hand cuffs and cuffs the boy’s hands behind his back,
“Is that really necessary?” demands the Head. The class teacher remains
silence, and I almost see a bit of speculative jealousy in her eyes. If only,
you can imagine her thinking...
“Yes,” Jones says curtly, nodding towards the officers as they now attempt to
stem their collective flows of blood from one’s nose and the other’s hand.
“Terence Jones, I arrest you under suspicion for being an accessory to grievous
bodily harm, serious intent to injure, sexual assault and murder. You do not
have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention now,
anything you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be given in
evidence.”
“I didn’t do nothing!” he yells, panicking and afraid, struggling against
Jones. He gives him a hard kick backwards in the shin and back head butts him
and then squirms free, making a run for it. Before any officer gets him his
class teacher has him and hands him to Barnaby.
“We can add assaulting three more police officers to your list of crimes,
Terence,” Barnaby says sternly.
“I didn’t do nothing. I only kept watch. It was me brother! It was all the big
ones! I didn’t do nothing!” he continues to yell as they lead him to the car.
Oh. Yeah. Right. You little shit. You had the idea for the oral rape, the line-
up and to throw me off. You egged on the older ones. You were drunk and stoned
and God alone knows how damaged your brain is because of it. You didn’t just
stand watch. And don’t you dare use some miserable childhood as an excuse you
little shit. I was abused and neglected too, but when have I ever committed a
crime or hurt someone for the hell of it?
 
~
 
Next we are on to the Oxford Academy in Littlemore for the next youngest. The
twins. Hopefully the head teacher will be more cooperative than she was on the
phone.
As Barnaby and Jones – and I! – get out of the Chief Inspector’s car Jones’
phone rings.
“That was Hooper Sir,” he says after taking the call. “He thinks he’s found the
watch and necklace, and a gold inscribed lighter: ‘JH, on your 30th, RL’...”
Yes. He gave me incredibly nice gifts even before we got together. At the time
I started to think his love was paternal. I treasured it; it went in my bed
with me, under my pillow, for the first few months after my birthday, which
wasn’t the most safety conscious thing to do. I had to tell myself it was
paternal, or else my hope would have been off the scale and I’d have sent
myself for such a fall.
Believing as I did then that He was straight.
“He wants to know what to do about getting Inspector Lewis to ID the items.
Should he take them to hospital?”
“Get him to check on the situation re the Inspector’s health first, but yes.
But get them to forensics for fingerprints and DNA. Where were they?”
“A Cash Converters on the Cowley Road. The manager told him two young lads came
in this morning, about an hour ago. He’s happy to do an ID from files or an ID
parade. He’s with the photofit artist now.”
“Good. Evidence. That’s what I like to hear Jones!”
 
~
 
Barnaby and Julie remain with the head teacher, who has rounded up a few surly
looking boys from the top two years, the older gang members classmates. She
seems to have taken on board that this is not the investigation of anti social
behaviour or theft or even the sexual assault of another young girl or knife
fight with another young boy. This is murder.
Of a police officer.
She is now bending over backwards to be as compliant and as helpful as
possible.
I’m torn on whether to remain to see what these boys know of the bastards that
raped me or follow Jones and uniform to arrest the tiny little identical
buggers who helped throw me of the fucking car park.
The boys are not in their Year 8 science class, much to the embarrassment of
the Year Head, a young West Indian man who doesn’t look old enough to have
qualified, yet alone be in a responsible position.
Shyly, embarrassed, a young girl follows us back into the corridor and whispers
to Jones, whom she has taken a shine to, that the twins will be in their
‘office’
The office turns out to be the Year 10 toilets at the other, senior, end of the
school. They are caught red-handed, to even more embarrassment of the staff
member, selling a small packet of grass to a sixth former. They are too stunned
to protest when arrested under suspicion of murder, assault and as an accessory
to sexual assault. Jones throws in possession with intent to supply for the
sheer hell of it. Both boys’ blazer pockets are packed with small plastic bags
of dried weed and white powder, drug identity yet unknown, and fistfuls of five
and ten pound notes.
 
~
 
Reluctantly the twins confirm the possible locations with Barnaby before they
are driven off to the station.
“You’re the local, Lockhart. Pick which one we try first.”
“It’s a mild, sunny day and they’ll have had plenty of time to get there after
spending their Cash Converters cash, “ she grins weakly, “so I would say let’s
try Grandpoint first.”
“Lead on WPC.” And Barnaby hands her his car keys. Jones sighs and gets in the
back.
 
~
 
On the way there Hooper phones Jones again. Lewis has been discharged and
although Miss Lewis is not happy about it he has arranged to meet the guv at
his flat in half an hour to get a confirmed ID on the personal effects.
He’s out of hospital.
That’s good, at least.
I think.
 
~
 
I’ve been running with Time in a linear fashion now since I awoke at ten to
midnight yesterday.
Just as if I were alive.
But unlike being alive no one knows I’m here. Okay, fine, people used to ignore
me, even when I was asking them to do something. Authority was somewhat a
problem at times. Particularly with some of the older men in CID. Shouting
always made them smirk.
But being ignored until they’re bollocked by the DI is one thing. Being looked
through – walked through! – is entirely another.
I’m bored. And lonely. I feel so powerless, watching the investigation unfurl,
observing interviews, seeing some break and others defiant or deny all despite
the increasing forensic and eye-witness evidence that is amassing.
Although of course, if I were here – there – alive! – I wouldn’t be part of
this investigation. I would be a witness. The witness. The victim.
I was a victim.
I am the victim.
Story of my life. However hard I kicked against it.
Can we fight the inevitable? Raging against the dying of the light? Until we’ve
lost the fight. Lost the light.
I need that light.
But as the victim, the chief witness, I could tell them those five raped me,
those six threw me off the car park; that one pushed me over, that one jumped
on my back with his rollarblades and that one forced his cock into my mouth
first.
And I could say that all the while that little scary psychopath with his
frightingly high IQ and cold, cold, unemotional eyes told his elders what do
to.
This is the kind of child the media screams about – what access to 18+ horror
and porn and violence in movies and games does to a child.
What would I be like if I had access to such things rather than piano and
guitar lessons, rowing and rugby and cricket, to the whole cold showers and
discipline of prep and boarding school? If at home I hadn’t a group of children
of mixed ages and classes to play with in open spaces and woodlands and lakes?
Climbing trees and swimming and pretend war games is what these kids should
have had, not urban and concrete and parents stoned or drunk in the corner of a
shit hole small flat. They should have been out gorging themselves on
blackberries not nicking sweets and going up to the Porch for a food box
because their Mum spent the money on smack again.
Okay, so Paul’s Mum fed me when Mummy spent the money Dad gave for food on gin
or weed again.
A few hours ago I hated these kids, called them shits and wanted the full force
of the law thrown at them.
Now I’m not sure.
I want to blame their parents.
But why are they addicts?
How far back do we go?
 
~
 
It took hours to run the gang to ground. There were not in Grandpoint Nature
Reserve as such, but had gone over a footbridge to the wild land the other side
of the train tracks. I believe it belongs to a college, but somewhere in the
scrub and woodland was their camp. It took eleven uniform, the helicopter and
Peterson’s ninjas in the end.
The rumour was true.
They had a gun.
It turned out to be a replica. But uniform were not to know that when it was
pulled on DS Jones.
 
~
 
Swabs were taken. It was a waiting game. The labs results on my body had
already come back and five separate DNA fingerprints isolated from my stomach
contents. I thought I’d puked it up, but obviously, and now thankfully, not all
of it. The DNA on the saliva too proved that Peterson was certainly telling the
truth about the lack of coercion on his part.
I wonder...
If I had lived...
Alan was all right really. Not my Robbie. But he hadn’t wanted me...
I might have ended up being a stepfather to five children. Dad would have liked
that. He had long ago resigned himself to not being a grandfather when I talked
about being a priest, and as he told DCI Barnaby, he knew I was gay.
Probably before I did from what he said. Since I was a little boy he said. I’d
love to know how.
Once upon a time I would say that Augustus knew too, and that was why. Now I
know that it’s not like that. My sexuality, my feelings, my wishes were all
irrelevant. My sometimes neglectful mother, my childhood bereavement, these
were useful tools, making it easier to groom me.
As was poor Paul’s stutter. Although that is a bit of a chicken and an egg
situation, really, isn’t it?
 
~
It’s gone nine o’clock at night when all the interviews are done and social
workers have arrived to take the children to secure custody until court
tomorrow morning for their remand. Michael Irons from Oxford CPS has arrived
with his assistant Martha Tyler and are holed up in Innocent’s office with
Barnaby. Jones has gone for a drink with Hooper and Julie, to be treated no
doubt to reminiscences of me.
I was at school with Michael. He was two years above me, head boy before me. He
also, aged 17, spread rumours about me. He had somehow found out I was on a
full scholarship and my father worked for the National Trust looking after
woodland and we lived in the tiniest of tied cottages.
I denied it.
He had truth on his side.
I had sneering arrogance and the sheer bravado to pull off the wounded, put
upon boy who has no idea why someone would lie so horribly.
Ever since he moved here we avoided each other, both ashamed of our horrible
teenage behaviour, I think.
But now I listen to him. He is determined to get a conviction. With all the DNA
and forensics – my DNA on bikes, skateboard, rollarblades, their clothing;
witnesses of those who have received my stolen goods, both the boys and the
manager of Cash Converters and plus of course the full confession of three of
them in tears and the repeated denial of the youngest that he didn’t want
anything to do with it, he only kept watch...
Oh, that boy is good. Convincing. I would believe him, if I’d not heard the way
he egged them on with ‘fuck the bitch’ and ‘he was gonna fucking jump anyway.
Let’s help the nob-scoffing pig’!
What will happen to him?
Will he even get a custodial sentence?
Everyone thinks his big brother is the leader of the gang.
 
~
 
“I can’t believe it,” Martha is saying to Michael as they walked away. “Poor DS
Hathaway. Will we have any problems, do you think, securing a conviction?”
“I can see defence arguing he was drunk.”
“That he consented?”
“We need to keep the other sexual activity of that weekend out. It can’t be
admissible in court for the defence to use.”
“But even then...”
“Both pathologists are fairly certain the kidney was ruptured before the forced
oral sex. Then there is the bruising to the oesophagus. As long as the right
DNA comes back from the swabs, I have no doubt.”
“And we will have them by tomorrow in court?”
“We should. And you’re right. Poor, poor James. I must send his father a card.
I was at school with him...”
“Really? You kept that quiet.”
“Yeah, well I was a total shit to him. I’ve been ashamed, not known whether to
apologize or not...”
I forgive you Michael. We are all total shits in our teens.
But he can’t hear me.
And I don’t follow him.
Instead I just run out of the station. Where I’m going I have no idea.
 
~
 
I can go anywhere. Walk anywhere. Through anything.
I’m so bored.
And alone.
I walk through the streets full of tourists looking for somewhere to eat or
drink and students out for the night. I walk past the silent walk on extras,
past faceless people who work in the shops and offices, in cafes and bars and
restaurants, the cleaners and nurses and social workers all going home or to
work or meeting friends or out on a date. I walk past the homeless, the Big
Issue sellers, the buskers and the pathetic, huddled in blankets in shop
doorways with their dogs. The dogs can see me and I smile at them.
I walk and walk up through St Giles and up the Banbury Road. Dons and Fellows
drive past on the way home, as do doctors and consultants and no doubt more
office and shop workers, bank tellers and waiters and barristas on bus after
bus. People walk past on the way to buy a pint of milk, a loaf of bread,
something for tea, the takeaway chips or pizza. They walk past with dogs on the
way to the park or meadow; the dogs wag their tails to me.
Sally drowned trying to pull out my Mum. Lucie came with us to the NT woodland
and loved it. Gracie was my auntie’s disabled assistance dog and went out with
her when she was able to get out and about in her motorized scooter. When she
got to ill, Gracie retired and every holiday we went for long walks.
Do dogs go to heaven?
Will I go to heaven?
Am I trapped here for good?
***** Chapter 13 *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Cats can obviously see me too. Monty hisses at me, surprised. He comes to see
me and sneezes at the lack of scent. He tries to rub around my legs and passes
through. Alarmed, he scoots away and jumps onto Robbie’s lap.
“What’s spooked him?” a man I take to be his son-in-law asks.
“Search me,” he replies, but he looks to where Monty looks.
Lyn walks in. “Right, that’s the little one asleep. Now for you Dad.”
“I’m not a bloody invalid,” he grumbles, but allows Lyn to lead him to bed.
He lies down after Lyn has gone, telling her he’ll read a while. Instead he
looks at pictures of me on his phone and cries.
“Oh James lad. Why was I such a bastard?”
I don’t know. I wish I did.
I walk in front of his mirror but he can’t see me. Instead I lie next to him on
my side of the bed.
Except it must be Laura Hobson’s side now.
Of course, she finished with him. She won’t be used. She has far too much self-
respect.
Unlike me.
 
~
 
I could stay there all night but I wander back to his living room.
“Oh Tim,” his daughter is saying, curled up on our sofa in her husband’s arms.
“Did he ever really love my Mum? Did he just use her? How many men did he sleep
with when Mum was alive? Do you think she knew?”
Oh Lyn. He loved your Mum. He has never stopped loving your Mum. And as far as
I can tell he was totally, utterly faithful to her.
This is what he said, wasn’t it? If he was with me his children would wonder is
he ever loved his wife. Valerie Lewis. The love of his life the way he was the
love of mine.
“I think your Dad loved your Mum very much,” Tim soothes, stroking her hair. “I
think he is bisexual. I like your Dad, he’s a good man; he wouldn’t have
cheated on your Mum.”
“He cheated on Laura though, didn’t he?”
“No Lyn. He cheated on James.”
She frowns just like her Dad, trying to puzzle it out.
I like Tim.
I go back to our bedroom and curl up next to him. Monty joins us, looking at me
suspiciously a while but deciding I’m tolerable in spirit form, just as he
decided I was tolerable and then warm when I slept over on the sofa and then
decided to tolerate me in his human’s bed. The first time I caught him staring
unblinking at us when we made love he spooked me a bit too, I can tell you.
Well, we are even now then Monty.
He decided eventually to tolerate his human’s new mate in time. Eventually
accepting me as another human that would feed him and provide with warmth and
comfort. He would vanish when we made love but always returned when we got to
post-coital cuddling, just to share in it.
He also now tolerates Robbie kneading his fur and even allows a small cuddle
before swiping with a clawed paw to just show who is boss. But he moves no
further than to curl up by the back of his knees, staring straight at me,
twitching his tail. Robbie starts to cuddle the pillow, but then throws it on
the floor with a yell of frustration, swearing.
Monty bolts.
“Smells of her! Not of him!” he explains to Lyn, who has come to check he is
all right. He is so angry with himself.
“Oh Dad...” she lets out sadly.
“Perhaps I’ll have that sleeping pill the quack gave me, eh pet?”
 
~
 
I wake up. I’ve slept again.
I’ve also moved.
Sleep walking – floating – disapparating? – seems to be a real problem.
I’m in my own bed. Someone is snoring.
Dad!
I sit up. The sheets are changed. Boxes and bags are everywhere. Filled with
clothes and books and everything. My life. Packed up for charity and some for
memories to go to his bungalow.
It’s daylight outside.
Shit!
My alarm clock says it’s seven minutes past ten.
I’m due in court.
Well, okay, I’m not due anywhere. I’m dead.
Late.
Already late wherever I go.
I start to run out of the house, down the street, past mums in Asian suits with
buggies and elderly men with long grey beards and walking sticks and out on to
the busy Cowley Road full of Asians, Africans, Goths, hippies, punks and
Brookes students. I run past the man who rants about the Bible and the Day of
Judgement...
Stop! You’re wrong! And you don’t help the rest of us...
Past the smackhead begging from the gaggle of Spanish language school students
who look intimidated...
A bus!
I leap and find myself sailing through metal and glass and I’m onboard.
I don’t get off obediently with the living at the top of the High. Instead I
stay on as it turns into St Aldates.
I jump off at the courthouse.
I mean, what am I going to do?
Die?
Oh. Right. I already have.
 
~
 
I have missed it.
Michael and Martha look quite happy. I follow, trying to listen.
It seems that all eight have been remanded to secure facilities until the trial
and that the DNA swabs have come back with a positive match not just for my
stomach but for my clothing and external body from all eight of them as well as
my DNA all over their clothing, bikes, skateboard and rollarblades. And then
they have confessions, now of two more who broke down in court this morning.
“It’s all a fairly safe conviction,” Martha says.
“Let’s not count our chickens. We still have to prevent his mental state and
previous sexual encounters from being admissible.”
But as I start to panic Michael reassures Martha that it is very unlikely they
won’t. After all, what circuit judge hasn’t met me when I’ve given evidence as
a DS?
“Justice is blind. But she peeps a bit when an officer is down,” Michael says
and I remember why I had a crush on him before he turned on me so horribly all
those years ago at school.
 
~
 
I don’t know what to do. Am I just to roam Oxford forever? Where is this light
that was for the girl and the old woman? Do I wait for my funeral? They didn’t.
I know that the little bastards who raped and killed me are going to be
punished. That Laura and Robbie are apart. That he regrets his treatment of me.
Am I to forgive him?
I want to.
I want to heal us.
But how?
 
~
 
I leave the courthouse and cross the road to the station. Barnaby and Jones are
gathering their few possessions left in our office. Innocent is with them,
frowning at the most lovely little black and white terrier. He wags his tail at
me. I can’t stroke him so I smile.
“Thank you so much Chief Inspector.”
“My... well, I won’t say my pleasure because this has been a disturbing case,
not only because of the fact he was one of ours. Although I think I have lost
myself a very good possible replacement for Jones.”
“Yes, I did recommend him.”
“It’s been my privilege to work with your team Chief Superintendent. Please
pass on my thanks to all who have assisted. They all deserve a commendation in
how they have restrained themselves in such difficult circumstances. I can’t
praise Gurdip Sohal and Julie Lockhart highly enough. Now there is a young
woman who I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see in CID very soon, nor taking
her sergeant’s exams.”
“No,” says Innocent thoughtfully.
They leave and I could follow, but instead I sit down at my desk. I can’t
really stay here. Haunt my place of work.
Well, why not? I spend the best part of the last seven years of my life here.
Where else would I haunt?
Haunt.
I don’t want to be a ghost that haunts.
I don’t want to be a ghost.
My head starts to buzz and tingle and itch like it did that first day. I can’t
believe this is actually my third day dead!
I need to be somewhere, that is what this buzzing means.
But this is different.
Almost as if...
“James. James Hathaway!”
Someone is calling....
Chapter End Notes
     I really, really did not plan this to go on long this, but Hathaway
     has a lot to say. Thanks to the readers who have stuck with this,
     however dark. Any comments welcome! This is all I have back from my
     beta so I may not post the rest for a while, or if I do it will be
     full of errors, so I apologize in advance.
***** Chapter 14 *****
Chapter Notes
     No beta on this chapter. And apologies for random text in last few
     chapters. i think I've sorted it out now but if anyone notices chunks
     of text from previous chapters or random text from other things, like
     letters, please message me on LJ or comment here. My Word prog has
     gremlins :-(
Oh.
I have no idea where I am!
I’m in a sitting room of a normal house. It’s gloomy, despite the bright
sunshine outside; with far two many pot plants, particularly lots of ferns,
including many in the window, which is covered by thick, yellowing net
curtains.
There is a circular table with tarot cards laid out. A purple candle is lit and
burns in the centre of the table. Quartz crystals surround the candle and the
tarot. A pair of hands – a woman’s hands - are flat on the table. She has deep
purple nail polish and heavy silver rings. She has long dark blonde hair and is
quite um plump really. She is wearing some sort of dark baggy top and loose
cardigan.
There are other hands on the other side of the table. Hands I recognize so
well.
Why?
Oh!
It’s the mad cat killer from earlier this year.
“Mad cat killer. That’s not nice. I was ill.”
Sorry.
Shit, she is really genuine then.
“Of course I am.”
“What, what is going on?”
“James is here Robbie.”
“Oh right, and I believe that because...”
You’re right Sir. I do miss you now I’m gone.
She repeats it.
“Ah! Shit. It’s him. James. My James? I’m so sorry.”
I’m not really your James, am I? You finished with me.
“Ah lad, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I never thought I could hurt you so
much, that you would...”
I didn’t! I didn’t Sir. Please believe me. If those fucking little shits...
Justine gasps as if she is suddenly aware of how I died!
... hadn’t found me I would have gone home, shredded the letter, cleared away
all the knives and tablets and tidied the flat. I would have still been hurt
and still cried, but...
“What pet?"
“I’d have said yes. To you still seeing me. I love you so much.”
“I was a complete selfish bastard. You shouldn’t have said yes, love. You
shouldn’t have let me get away with treating you like that. I think I would
have dropped Laura soon enough. Or she would have got bored of me. She’s dumped
me now. She’s angry for you love.”
I know.
“You do?”
I’ve been watching. For a long time I stayed with my body so I saw all Dr.
Hobson’s reactions. I’m so, so sorry Sir. I’ve hurt you. I’ve made you sick. I
gave you a heart attack.
“I broke yours pet. Fair’s fair. I have nothing to forgive. You need to forgive
me but I expect you can’t, the complete and utter shit I was to you.”
Oh Sir... I forgive you. I love you. I always will.
“Wait for me James.”
How can I? Mrs Lewis has a prior claim on you.
“It’s different on the other side,” Justine says gently.
“I love you James. I’m so sorry I was scared to let the world know that. Do you
forgive me?”
Yes. Of course. Do you forgive me for being a stupid drama queen with my
childish suicide gestures?
“James, I caused that. You mustn’t blame yourself.”
And for cheating on you?
He makes a ‘it’s nothing gesture’ and then asks, “Did you suffer much?”
Oh Sir. I was terrified. I was in so much pain. As for the fall...
“It’s okay James, don’t remember...”
Sir. You mustn’t believe Terence Smith. Tel was behind it all. He’s the
youngest but he goaded the others into all they did to me. I don’t know how you
do it, but please tell Michael and Martha they must prosecute him too. I know
he’s only ten but he’s evil.
“James pet...”
“He told them to rape me and to throw me off the top. But Sir, I was dying
already. They ruptured my kidney and...”
“Don’t remember James,” Justine interrupts after repeating what I had said.
“Yes James, Justine is right. We have them all in custody. I will somehow get
CPS to look at prosecuting all eight. But tell me again, you do forgive me for
using you and hurting you. I do love you so much.”
I love you too Sir.
“It’s Robbie.”
“I love you Robbie. I forgive you. I understand. Of course I do. You know all
about my own Catholic guilt, don’t you? Forgive me...”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I had hurt you so much when I knew how vulnerable
you were deep down.”
“Look James,” Justine says gently.
The light I saw for the girl and the elderly woman is appearing in front of
Justine’s ferns and spider plants.
“Go James. You can go now,” she says softly.
Sir. Robbie. Promise me something.
“Anything James.”
Look after my Dad for me.
“Oh James. Of course...”
Someone walks out of the light. It’s...
Mummy! It’s my Mum!
“Go James,” Justine says again gently and I see her put her hand on Robbie’s to
let him know he has to let go now. I look at him one more time before turning
to my Mum and running to the light, down through a tunnel of light.
As I do I seem to lose height and age and as I reach her I’m as I was when I
was seven years old. She picks me up and spins me around, showering me in
kisses.
As we spin I grow up again and when we let go of each other I’m much taller
that she is.
We smile at each other.
“My James,” she says, “what a beautiful young man you’ve grown into.”
She takes my hand and we are in beautiful English countryside on a perfect
summer’s day and in that moment I think not so much of the Bible or of Church
teaching but of the final scene of the final book of the Narnia series, the
Final Battle.
Two women walk towards us. The first I know immediately. It’s my auntie! But
she is so well and whole and unlike she was in the last years of her life. We
hug. I’m so pleased to see her.
The second woman I also recognize. From photos. She takes my hand.
“James. If you would like, you can wait with me. Would you like that? We’ll
wait for him together.”
“But Mrs Lewis...”
“Valerie. No surnames here James. We can wait together and love him together.”
“But...”
“James, sweetheart. You far more than I ever could have been, were made for
Robbie. You are Robbie’s there and here, then and now and when.”
I always knew I was made for him. I smile awkwardly.
“Yes. I’d like that. I will wait with you for him. If I may?”
 
~
 
Robbie Lewis stands awkwardly after laying the lilies on James’ grave. He’s in
the same Oxford cemetery that Valerie is in and now he comes to visit both of
them. Today it was orchids for his Val, and white lilies for James, as he knew
how much he liked them. It’s been three weeks now since the funeral and the
grave is still a bare mound of earth. He remembers from Val that it will take a
long time to grow the grass, to look more like part of the place and less like
an ugly scar. Like the grief in the heart – the ugly rip of pain forms a scar
and eventually blends in to be part of the heart, a pain you carry but can live
with.
A man is walking towards them – him. He must remember James is not really here.
Only his remains. His poor, smashed, violated remains.
The man is tall but walks stooped over a stick. He still has a full head of
hair, although it is grey rather than the blond Robbie can tell it once would
have been. He looks too much like James, although this man is more ruggedly
handsome than the softer, prettier features of James.
“Inspector Lewis?” the man asks.
“It’s just Mr. Lewis now. Robbie. I’ve retired. Are you James’ father?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry for you loss.”
“And I am sorry for yours Mr. Lewis... Robbie. I don’t know what James had told
you about me, but I was much more accepting that he ever thought. I would have
been happy to call you son-in-law.”
“Ah, I don’t deserve that. I was awful to your son.”
“But here you are?”
“I loved him. I love him.”
Jonathon lays his flowers, sweet smelling orange jasmine, with the lilies. He
tried to stoop but Robbie stops him and puts them with his lilies in the vase
and waters them again.
“Can I buy you a drink Mr. Hathaway?”
“I’m teetotal.”
“A coffee then?”
“Yes. All right. Thank you.”
“An’ you can tell me what my James was like as a boy. If it’s not too painful
for you?”
“I would love to talk about him. Keep him in my mind.”
“An’ mine Mr. Hathaway.”
“It’s Jon.”
“And I’m Robbie.”
They walk back towards the car park slowly, at James’ father’s pace, away from
the fresh new grave of James Hathaway.
End Notes
     James quotes the Bible, Matthew 11.28.
     John Barnaby quotes Mother Teresa.
     I am not a Catholic, or even a Christian, and I apologize if James’
     prayerful thoughts and meditations are in any way wrong or
     misrepresentative or give offence. None was intended, rather the fact
     that in the end, his faith was stronger than his misery and despair
     and suicidal thoughts.
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