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“Ah, the staple diet of a police officer.” I nudged him in the side.
“Don’t knock it. Some of the toughest cases have been solved on coffee alone. That and a few hundred cigarettes.”
“Sounds like my kind of diet.”
Before I could get to it, he’d paid for both, and we found a table towards the back of the shop.
“You’ll catch your death of cold. Here, take my jacket.” He removed it and held it up.
“I couldn’t,” I said, although I very much wanted to. The cold was burrowing its way into my bones, and my teeth were chattering.
“Don’t argue with me.” He wrapped his thick winter coat around my shoulders.
It enveloped me, and I gripped the edges, tightening it around me.
“Thank you. That’s much better.”
“Looks like you need some looking after, Liam. I said you looked good earlier, but if you don’t mind me saying so, you look like shit.”
I couldn’t disagree, but the bluntness of his words struck a chord, and tears formed, then slowly fell.
“It’s been hard, John. Harder than you can imagine. I’ll never be that person again, but I don’t know who I am anymore.”
Why I was opening up to him, I didn’t know.
“Let’s see if we can’t do something about that. Now drink your coffee and tell me all about it.”
CHAPTER TWO
JOHN
Meeting Liam after all these years was a shock. I hadn’t expected to see him again, but I would admit, he’d crossed my mind a time or two. Okay, more than that. I’d often wondered what had happened to him.
But if I’d thought he looked bad last time, he looked even worse now. At least the ugly scar was mostly hidden by his now bleached blond hair. You could only see it if you were paying attention or knew it was there. It had angered me so much when I’d seen it. How anyone could do that to another human being was beyond me.
Other than his hair, he had changed little. He was still small and thin, and his clothes hung from his delicate frame. I hazarded a guess he wasn’t eating properly. The scent of stale smoke lingered on his clothes, much the same as it did on mine. No amount of washing or air freshener could dull that smell.
I had hoped he’d be doing better. Hoped he’d turned his life around, but he was struggling. The dark circles beneath his eyes told a tale. He’d tried to hide them, but they were there.
I was a detective. I knew when someone was lying, and he’d done just that, told me lies, telling me he was fine. I knew better. His cheerful demeanour was fake, and as he wielded his scissors and comb, his hands trembled. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he was an addict or a recovering one. It wasn’t hard to spot. I was in recovery myself. Seven years dry.
My vice had been alcohol, as it was for a lot of coppers. A few pints at the end of the shift, a lock-in after hours, a drink when things got tough. One thing had led to another, and before I knew it, I’d been carrying a hip flask and drinking on the job.
Things had steadily gone from bad to worse, culminating in an accident at work. They suspended me without pay and ordered me to get clean or face a life away from the force. I had nothing else: little family and few friends. The force was my family, especially my partner, Sam Woods.
He’d helped me see the error of my ways, so to speak, and had stuck by me through thick and thin.
As Liam cut my hair, I’d watched him, noticing the dullness in his once warm, brown eyes when he thought I wasn’t looking. The guy had had it rough, and when we sat in the coffee shop and his tears slowly fell, I had to say something.
“So, what happened to you? I’ve seen you looking better.”
Once he started talking, he couldn’t stop, and the words tumbled from his mouth.
“When Stuart and Damian went away, I thought life would return to how it was. I’d find myself another Daddy. He’d take care of me and my every need. Instead, I struggled to get out of bed each morning. I couldn’t hold down a job. All the friends I did have seemed superficial and shallow. My family had already disowned me. What was the point?”
“You went through a lot, Liam. More than any eighteen-year-old should experience. I hate to break it to you, but you almost died.”
“Don’t I fucking know it.” He fingered his scar again. Was he even aware he was doing it? “You know, I often think it would have been better if I had died.”
