Page 296 of These Tears

Cromwell studies me. ‘You’re playing a serious game—’

‘—I’ve had a serious few months.’

He pauses. ‘You would testify against Elias Crane in exchange for… what did you call it? Protection?’

I take in a long breath first. ‘And insurance.’

He frowns theatrically, swiping nothing off the pristine desk. ‘Insurance?’

‘Are we pretending the men who followed me from Brimsbury Lane Post Office and rammed my car off the wet road last September were merely enthusiastic fans of my photography?’

His face gives me less than nothing. This man has the emotional range of frosted glass.

He shifts in his seat. ‘Frightened people often misinterpret ordinary events.’

‘Ordinary men don’t tail a woman and ram her car.’

He chuckles. Low and long. It echoes until the marble swallows the last ripple.

My pulse kicks once. ‘Elias told me they were yours.’

‘Elias Crane is a madman.’

‘He said you would use me to get to him.’

A softer smile this time. Almost pitying.

Brute makes a low sound. It’s not a growl, but he doesn’t like the tension any more than I do.

Cromwell looks at him briefly, then back at me. ‘Your support animal is sensitive.’

‘He has good instincts.’

‘So do I. Particularly around people who walk into my office carrying a story too carefully rehearsed to be spontaneous.’

‘I’m tired of men feeding me lies. Of using me.’

Cromwell’s finger taps once.

I step closer to the desk, dropping my voice. ‘Arthur is dead. Isak is dead. Melody is dead. Elias is giving statements. That leaves you with a lot of ghosts and not much time.’

His eyes cool. I feel it in my marrow. ‘Careful, Ms Nottingham.’

‘Why? Will you send another car?’

As he rises at last, the temperature in the room shifts. Everything around me loses warmth. The air tightens as if granting the room the honour of his full height. He is not as large as Elias – not even close. But he carries a different kind of breadth. One of money. Reach. Access to men who answer phones at night to quiet problems.

He rounds the grand desk and turns towards the city spread beneath the windows, as though the world outside has arranged itself beneath him.

Brute shifts forward and I set one hand lightly on his head. ‘Stay.’

‘Discipline is a good quality,’ Cromwell notes as he glares at the dog glaring right back at him. ‘Though sometimes it makes people confuse defiance with safety.’

I open my mouth, but he speaks before a word can come out.

‘What do you really want, Leandra?’

‘I told you.’