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“Believe what you want, Sam. We had a very nice evening, and that’s all I’m saying.”
“Okaaay. I’ll not pry any further.”
“Good. Now, what do we have on for today?”
There was nothing too taxing to begin with, but as the day wore on, the cases became a little more intense. We followed up on a couple of robberies, an assault on a homeless person, and to finish the day, a stabbing on the outskirts of the city. We spent the afternoon interviewing witnesses, attempting to find anyone who had seen what had happened, but to no avail. People around didn’t want to talk.
It reminded me of Ziggy’s case, where Stuart and Damian had abandoned him to die. No one had wanted to talk to us then, all professing to have seen nothing.
“Ever get a feeling of déjà vu?” Sam asked, echoing my thoughts.
“Yeah, I do.” I had that same eerie feeling I’d had the day we attended Ziggy’s scene. Seeing him carted away, almost dead. This time it was a woman, barely older than Ziggy. One of the officers had tentatively identified her as a sex worker. She’d worked the patch close to where Ziggy had. Seemed an awful lot of coincidences.
“I mean, it can’t be them,” Sam said. “They’re locked away, and this thing with Stuart being moved to an open prison, it’s bullshit. I heard it on good authority it’s not even going to happen now.”
“Really?” Liam would be happy with that news.
“Yeah, someone has looked at the evidence again, said he’s still a risk, and no matter what a ‘good boy’ he’s been now, it won’t make up for the atrocities he committed.”
“Well, that’s a turn-up for the books.” I’d be sure to let Liam know when I saw him later.
“They’ll be taking her to the hospital shortly. I’m not sure she’s in any state to be interviewed today. We can pick this up tomorrow. I honestly don’t think we’ll learn anything from this lot.”
Sam gestured at the people gathered around, phones out, recording anything and everything. No amount of cajoling would get them to surrender what they might have recorded. We were used to it.
I looked at my watch. A little after five. I had plenty of time.
“Somewhere to be?” Sam asked with a smile.
“Maybe?”
“Things are getting serious.”
“It’s our second time going out, and anyway, I said I’d cook.”
“Ha! You cook? He knows what he’s letting himself in for, right?”
“I burnt the food just once, and you can’t shut up about it.”
“John, you didn’t burn the food. You cremated it. It was ashes in the baking tray.”
Okay, so I wasn’t that good at cooking. Not long after I’d moved into the house, Sam and Trish had come around for a meal, and we’d been talking. The wine and beer had been flowing, and I might have forgotten the appetisers I’d put in the oven. Needless to say, they’d ended up in the bin.
“It’ll be fine. I’ll set the timer.”
“Probably a good idea.”
We’d get nothing more from the onlookers we'd interviewed, so we called it a day and went back to the station.
Another half an hour, in which Sam ran through what we knew with the team, and I was out of there.
I jumped into my car and drove to the barber’s shop. I probably should have gone home and showered first, maybe tidied up a little, but I didn’t think Liam would mind.
He stood outside the shop chatting with Drew as he dropped the shutter. I was right on time.
When he spotted me, he ran across the road, shouting goodbye to his friend, and got in the car.
“Hi, John.” He leant across and kissed me on the cheek, his cold nose sending a shiver through me.
