I do as I’m told, laughing as my mouth is stuffed with potent garlic bread. As I’m slowly churning through the mouthful, the intercom to the apartment rings.
With furrowed brows, Gregory eventually goes to answer the intercom. ‘Ryans.’ The colour drains from his face, leaving a grey, concerned man in its wake. ‘Send him up.’
He hangs up the receiver and before I can ask who’s here, he’s pressed his phone and he’s pacing as he waits for the person on the other end to pick up. ‘Jackson. Yes. Did you know? Now.’ He hangs up and I hear Jackson making his way into the apartment from his self-contained wing. ‘Baby, I need you to do something for me.’ He lifts me from the stool and plants me on my feet. ‘I need you to go upstairs and stay up there until I say otherwise.’
‘What? Why? Who was that?’ I sound concerned and I am. ‘What’s going on, Gregory?’
‘Scarlett, please don’t challenge me on this. I don’t know what’s going on yet.’ He grabs my wine glass and plate, holding them out for me to take. I’m gripping the bed sheet around me with one hand so even if I wanted to take both things from him, I couldn’t, but refusing is the one thing I can control. His stern, set jaw is telling me he won’t relent.
With a scowl, I snatch the glass of wine from him and stomp through the lounge and up the stairs.
As much as I don’t want to, I try to do as I’m told. I exchange the bed sheet for leggings and an oversized jumper and tie myhair into a rough knot. I make up the bed. But the distractions are short-lived. I want to know who’s downstairs and why our night together has been hijacked. Silently tiptoeing to the top of the stairs, I hear male voices. Gregory. Jackson. And a voice I recognise but can’t place. Taking another three stairs, I pause and listen.
‘I told you to tell me if there was anything else I should know, Jackson.’ The third man’s words are low and controlled but there’s no mistaking the anger driving them.
‘I told you everything you needed to know,’ Jackson says.
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Gregory’s tone is clipped. ‘The pair of you need to stop trying to pull the fucking wool over my eyes.’ The stranger is growling. ‘NABIS have told me the story doesn’t add up. Their report is on the record. I’ve done what I can but now I don’t have a choice; I have to investigate it properly. No matter how this ends, it won’t end with me losing my fucking job so what’s on the record needs to be looked into. I need to bring people in for questioning and it would be a lot fucking easier for me to fix if I know what I’m dealing with.’
‘NABIS have got it wrong. It happens,’ Jackson snaps.
‘What the fuck is NABIS?’ Gregory’s pissed but there’s something else in his voice: concern, I think.
‘Ballistics,’ Jackson and the stranger say together.
The stranger starts to speak again, now composed, matter-of-fact. I know who it is. ‘The report is back from Ballistics,’ DI Barnes explains. ‘Ballistics are?—’
‘I know what fucking ballistics are; tell me what the report says.’
‘Sit down.’ Jackson’s words are softer now.
‘I’m fine where I am.’
I need to hear this. I slide down two more steps to where I can see them in the lounge. Gregory is standing in the window,his back to the other two. Jackson’s perched on the end of a leather chair, his recovering leg outstretched in his stonewashed jeans. DI Barnes sits back into the sofa.
‘Calm down, Greg.’ Jackson attempts to placate him.
DI Barnes pulls a hand through his greying, black hair then rubs his dark stubble. ‘Ballistics say the gun was fired head on and that it was fired from a distance of at least two meters.’
The room falls silent. Gregory stands deadly still in the window and all I can hear is my own laboured breathing. Even when I thought the worst, I managed to convince myself on some level that the report would show Pearson was shot, then the CPS would agree with a finding of self-defence. It didn’t occur to me that NABIS would implicate me.
‘I’ve done my best with what you gave me. I thought we might be able to stop it but consider this your advance warning. When Trina gets this tomorrow, she’ll be over it like a hawk.’
‘You said she was off the case,’ Jackson snaps.
‘She is but she’s hovering. She’s got a point to prove. She doesn’t like me; she hates the system. She’s looking for a big case to make her mark. She transferred to the city from the regions and she’ll stop at nothing if she thinks there’s a scandal.’
‘There is no scandal.’ Gregory is measured as he unfolds his arms from his chest and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. ‘That report proves nothing when three people are telling you what happened. So I shot the bastard on an awkward angle. What does that prove?’
DI Barnes rises from the sofa, glaring at Gregory’s back. ‘There were four people in that room. One is dead. One was locked in a tussle with the victim, making it impossible for him to take a shot from two meters. That leaves two others. Jackson was shot and bleeding. Did he get up, retrieve the gun, walk from the door to the middle of the lounge, and shoot yourfather?’ He takes two steps forward so he’s closer to Gregory’s tense back. ‘Now I know that didn’t happen, because there was no blood between the door and the lounge. That leaves one other person in the room and only one conclusion to be drawn.’
Gregory turns now, fast and furious, his entire body tensing, making him seem taller and broader than normal. ‘She had nothing to do with it.’
I did. And I can see clearly now. This was supposed to happen. Gregory made me follow his plan when I wanted to tell the truth but now he can’t deny the evidence.
It’s time. It’s time to put a stop to this. It’s time to free Gregory from his past and tell the truth.
I stand and walk down the remaining steps, no longer worried about my presence being heard, mentally preparing myself for the admission I’m about to make.
