Page 37 of These Tears

He looks over one shoulder before lowering his voice further – the same solicitor who just lectured me about confidentiality now apparently deciding exactly how much of it applies when frightening me serves him better.

‘When they found Arthur Crane,’ he continues, ‘his face was so badly damaged they needed forensics to identify him. That is who your… friend is.’

I just stand there, cars groaning warningly beside me, the smell of hot tarmac gathering at my throat.

Something ugly shivers beneath the shock, but instead of backing away, I fight the urge to poke at it just to see it writhe.

Cromwell turns and disappears into the crowd as if he hadn’t just tried to nail shut the coffin of someone still breathing.

His words follow me long after his suit blends into the masses – loose cannon, psychiatric care, damaged face…

Each one finds somewhere unpleasant to lodge.

But despite that, during the drive home, the softness of Elias’ lips lingers on mine like heat after lightning. Out of everything said yesterday, and what Cromwell tried to scare me with today, that touch is what I remember most.

Not the brittle confession about never having a birthday cake. Not the talk about his temper.

Not his eyes when I’d mentioned Melody Crane.

What stays is the stillness in him – something too vast to fit the version Cromwell painted. That shine doesn’t belong to such a man, and my heart refuses to absorb it no matter how many times my mind takes a turn around it.

When I pull up to my house, my old Ford wheezes its final breath beside a sleek, black Mercedes that shimmers like oil under a streetlamp. My brain begins the methodical process of working out who its owner might be – but the list of suspects is short. Apart from Ron, I don’t know anyone with pockets deep enough to own something that glossy.

Halfway to the teal-painted front door, I’ve threaded the same key between my fingers three times. Each step feels like wading through water thick with implications.

It’s not Ron.

Why would he be here?

Why now?

Questions clamour between my temples whilst I try to focus on my house keys jangling too loudly in my hand. By the time I slide the right one into the lock, anxiety has curled into my throat and dug its claws into the soft flesh.

Breath held tight, I push the door open and step into the silence – pulse already counting the shadows.

Rounding the small corner that separates the hallway and the open-plan sitting room with the kitchen, I zero in on Anna and a tall stranger sitting at the table. Papers and files are scattered across it, and each sheet kindles the angst that still holds a firm grip on my nerves.

He’s a slender man in his forties, dark hair kept neatly back from a pale, thoughtful face.

Thick black frames sit squarely on his aristocratic nose, lending him a seriousness that softens the moment he clears his throat.

He doesn’t interrupt Anna when she speaks. Doesn’t fidget through the silence afterwards either. He merely waits, pen resting between his fingers, until she is finished.

There’s a certainty to him I’m not quite sure where to place.

‘Afternoon,’ I murmur warily.

Anna looks up with the hollow gaze of a woman flayed. My fingers close around the coal poker beside the archway before good sense has time to ask what exactly I intend to do with it.

‘Who’s this?’ I ask, skipping pleasantries as though I’ve long forgotten the taste of them.

The man sitting in my kitchen glances up and adjusts the spectacles before taking me in with a contemplative frown.

One flick of his gaze to the poker in my hand, and his spine straightens.

He glances at Anna, then back at me as he rises from the edge of the chair like someone facing down a feral dog.

Or a woman on the brink.