He absorbed it without blinking. “Proof.”
“In my head,” I said. “And in a locker on Guildhall Street. Left-luggage. Code cut into the underside of kiosk D with a blade.”
He exhaled once. Not relief. Motion. “Tonight?”
“Sixty minutes,” I said. “Then it is dust.”
He nodded. “What else.”
“The two men with the heavy bag,” I said, tilting my chin to the van below. “They are not Coalition. Gloves wrong. Eyes wrong. They watched the police, not the organizers. If there is a bomb, it is there. If there is a gun, it is a short one.”
He stepped to the edge with me and looked. One glance. Two. He made a call I could not hear, then pocketed the phone like it had served its purpose.
“Consequences,” he said, turning back. “You do not get to walk clean.”
I waited.
“You will register as a confidential source,” he said. “You will meet me twice a week with dates, names, and places. You will hand over any recording devices you have used. If I catch you contaminating a scene again, I arrest you. If a single civilian dies because you decided to be cinema, I arrest you and I do not bring you a coat for the ride.”
“And tonight.”
“You will go home,” he said. “You will sleep. Tomorrow morning there will be a formal caution on paper with your name not on it and your signature still is. You will give me the locker and the code in writing. You will give me your map of Black Chapel. If you try to burn me, I burn your mask.”
“And if I do not sign.”
“Then I put you in a car now,” he said. “We see how your father looks at me when I tell him why.”
I thought of my father’s hands on my face. The way his voicebroke when he said I have known. I thought of Viktor setting my arm in a sling and telling me stay. I thought of the square this morning and the way hope smells a little like wet paper and a little like bread.
“I do not like being owned,” I said.
“You are not being owned,” he said. “You are being accountable.”
“For what.”
“For believing you get to be the law because grief gave you good aim,” he said. No malice. Only accuracy. “You helped tonight. Now help properly.”
We stood inside the wind until my choice found the shape it has been making since I was thirteen and the rain tasted like iron.
“Fine,” I said. “I will share. I will not stop if someone is about to die.”
“I am not asking you to stop thinking,” he said. “I am asking you to stop playing alone.”
“Do you look the other way for all your suspects.”
“I look where the city asks me to.” He stepped in. Not a challenge. A closeness that drew a line we both understood. “One more consequence,” he added, low. “Lie to me once and I treat you like any other man with blood on his boots. I will not regret it.”
“I will not lie,” I said. “But I am not signing anything.”
Silence. The river pushed light around the bridge. He watched me the way men watch a fuse.
“Explain,” he said.
“You want maps, names, timings,” I said. “You want the locker tonight, the route next week, the funder when I can prove it. You get it. Direct. Off record. No paper that can be leaked, subpoenaed, or weaponized. You keep me off your board and I keep your board clean.”
“And your leverage.”
I let the wind do a count of three. “You know who I am under the hood. You also know what it would mean if a detective chief inspector was found meeting a masked man on a roof while his units pulled weapons out of a van. You would survive it. The case might not. Thecrowd definitely would not. I am not threatening you. I am telling you the cost of sloppy paperwork.”
