“What have I done,” he moans. “I—”
“Stay here,” she barks at Taylor, then points toward Sean. “And clean him up.”
Sam quickly turns off the digital recorder, then leaves the interview room, closing the door behind her before entering the adjacent room, the one where she’d hidden to watch Tina and Harry interview the Mathers men. Sitting at the desk, Sam logs on to the server and navigates to the recording of the interview they’ve just done with Sean Lister. She hesitates for a second, then deletes it. A pop-up warns her that the recording has not yet been uploaded to cloud storage. She swears under her breath, then hits “Permanently delete.” Next, just to be sure, she reaches for the jug ofwater on the desk. The backup to the server runs every night, so if she destroys this drive, it’ll mean at least twelve hours’ worth of missing evidence. Entire cases could fall apart. The whole building shares interview rooms, so this server contains recordings from all kinds of investigations. Sam looks up and through the one-way mirror. Taylor is wiping blood from Sean’s jacket, his hands shaking. This will end his career before it’s even really begun. She braces herself and pours all the water over the drive. The machine flickers, hisses, then all its lights turn off.
Sam strides back to the closed interview room door. She takes a few deep breaths, wipes sweat from her upper lip and enters. Sean Lister has reseated himself and has twisted tissues sticking out of each nostril. Taylor is pacing back and forth, his hands in his hair.
“Mr. Lister,” Sam tries, but her voice doesn’t work. She swallows, clears her throat and tries again. “Mr. Lister. As, er, a result of your use of homophobic words and your behavior…” She pauses, thinks for a second, straightens and begins once more. “Mr. Sean Lister, I am arresting you under Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense—”
“Wait, what?!”
“… if you do not mention when questioned—”
“He hitme!”
“… something which you later rely on—”
“Don’t you dare!” Sean seethes.
“It is a Public Order Offense to—”
“Buthehitme!”
“And Officer Smith here will be disciplined for his actions and likely fired. But you will be charged for—”
“All right! Stop!” Sean yells. “Let’s work something out.”
Sam sighs dramatically and sits down. Taylor is frozen to the spot. She leans forward and holds Sean Lister’s eyes.
“OK, Mr. Lister,” she says calmly, “I can drop the charges against you. I would simply ask that, in return, you consider saying nothing about what my colleague, PC Smith here, has just accidentally done.”
Sean’s nodding before Sam has even finished her sentence. She gives him more tissues and he carefully removes the ones sticking out of his nose, dabbing to see if the bleeding has stopped. She escorts him to the custody suite’s fire exit to leave unnoticed, then makes her way back to the interview room. Taylor has sat down at the desk and is sobbing like a child. Silently, she places her hand on his shoulder and feels the damp of his shirt.
“I screwed up,” Taylor whispers. She barely hears him over the pounding of her own pulse in her ears.
“It’s OK.” She tries to smile, tries to sound calm. “That homophobic loser would tip anyone over the edge. I understand why—”
“It wasn’t the homophobia that did it,” Taylor says, but Sam isn’t listening as she pulls him gently upright, so that they’re standing squarely, facing each other.
She drops her voice low. “Look, Taylor, I doubt Sean Lister will come back. I’ve deleted the interview recording and destroyed the hard drive, but—”
“Wait, ma’am,” Taylor objects. “We need to report this.”
“No, Taylor,” she soothes. “You fucked up, but you’re a good person. A good officer. Now, we just need a backup story in case that prick does shout his mouth off or tries to press charges against you.”
“Backup story?”
“Yes, we’re going to say that he punched me and you were forced to restrain him, and accidentally burst his nose in the process.”
“Punchedyou?”
“Yes. So, I need you to… I need a bruise…” Taylor’s face whitens as he understands her meaning, and he shakes his head.Sam nods, gently pulling his right arm out of his hair and closing her hand over his to make it form a fist. “I need you to hit me, just hard enough. Right here…” She points to her cheekbone. “I bruise like a peach.”
“No. I will not.”
“Taylor, your career is on the line here, you have to—”
“Absolutely not,” Taylor snaps. “I’ll take my chances.”
