Page 27 of These Tears

An entire storage box now sits in my basement – lined with envelopes bearing his name, matt-finished photographs, notes written in that perturbingly elegant cursive of his. They’re starting to feel like artefacts of a connection I don’t quite understand.

And yet, the question returns, as it always does – am I getting in too deep?

Guilt answers first.

My eyes drift across the rumpled sheets and the duvet to the closed laptop at the foot of the bed, half-buried in last night’s fever-damp sheets.

I’m no closer to learning what put Elias behind bars, and the court date creeps closer by the week.

Restless and sleepless, I drag the machine across the mattress. The screen blinks awake. Two intrusive notifications ping, and the browser opens to the last page I saw: Cambridge Neighbours and Fans Community.

I’ve tried digging through news sites, blogs, forums – anything to cut through the mystery. But found only fragments.

His brother – Isak Crane – lives in Cambridge with his wife, Melody. They married a month after Elias was locked away. Odd timing, given he’d just lost his father and his brother – in every way.

My thumb moves along the trackpad before opening Street View for the seventh time.

I found their address during a late-night search. An old property listing gave me the rest: five bedrooms, walls of glass and a clipped-hedge street. Street View supplied the picture: wealth and secrets.

Unfortunately, I’m too much of a coward to have gone and seen it for myself. I even started the car once with every intention of going.

The click of the mouse takes me back to the present.

On the Crane Logs & Timber website, Isak’s face stares from the page. He bears no resemblance to his brother. Since their father’s death, he has taken over as CEO and shares ownership of the company. Beneath him, a blank grey avatar holds Elias’ name beside a single word: Co-owner.

That image sears my eyes more than it should. As if he never existed beyond a line in a will.

And under it – his date of birth: 20 July 1984.

The twentieth. The week of Ron’s wedding – Marina told me.

I’ve memorised it. It makes me want to leave my brain in a cupboard until the week is over.

I latch onto Elias’ birthday to keep my mind off everything else. The decision to make it his week comes like a balm on a burn.

But until Friday—

I click back to the community discussion page.

Before fever knocked me sideways, I’d posted a vague anonymous question about the Crane family business, inventing a story about logs that never arrived – just a curious, concerned, somewhat agitated customer.

Now, eighteen new messages glare back – mostly baseless speculation and gossip. I skim quickly until one catches my eye.

A comment from a woman: ‘I heard there were lawsuits. The company lawyer was on the news years back – Simon… something.’

My pulse kicks.

I flip back to the company website, furious I didn’t check the page more thoroughly, and find the name: Simon Cromwell, Senior Counsel.

I mark the place of business, the phone number.

And let the fever take me for the day.

In the days leading up to Elias’ birthday, I call the prison more times than I care to admit. I’m not asking for much – just something that might pass for recognition. A thread of humanity on a day Crane might believe matters to no one.

Birthdays don’t get you far in His Majesty’s Prisons. Not when you’re in for what he is.

Still, after bureaucratic torture, Rebecca manages to secure an exception: a sealed supermarket sponge cake, no filling beyond a thin smear of cream. It has to be dropped off the day before, cut open, examined, resealed, and only then brought to the prisoner. But she also manages to convince them to let me bring it in instead of George.