I realised that this whole time I hadn’t felt that red-hot scorching need to tell the truth. For years, I hadn’t been able to litter a can on the ground without having a moral crisis. Yet here I was, having just blackmailed a senior member of the police force, and I didn’t feel an ounce of guilt.
‘Thanks,’ I said, smiling through the pain as I strolled out of Vivian’s office. Steve and the security guards looked bemused, unsure whether to lunge at me or let me go as I yanked open the door. ‘I’ll let you know if I need anything else.’
‘You were such a good detective,’ was the last thing I thought I heard Vivian say before I left.
I woke up with a start as I heard yet another series of whacks against my front door. Mep bolted up to locate the noise as I desperately attempted to clamber out from the sofa hole I seemed to have sunk deeper into each night.
‘Shush,’ I said, lightly running my hand along Mep’s arched back, then drowsily stumbling my way into the corridor to place my eye against the peephole.
I groaned, wondering: if I left her out there for long enough, would she go away? I then remembered that this was somewhat unlikely for a woman with an inhuman amount of drive and determination. I unlocked the latch and Cis was stomping into the house before I had even fully opened the door, traipsing mud and rain across the floor of our home.
‘You threatened the witness, didn’t you?’
‘What?’ I mumbled, still groggy and disorientated.
‘You did, didn’t you? You threatened the witness.’
‘What makes you say that?’ I said, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes as I swung the door shut.
‘He pulls out of the trial the day before and suddenly wants to retract his entire testimony. He’s now saying he’s not a hundred per cent sure what he saw, or if it even was Fran throwing body parts into a river. Seems awfully inconvenient for the prosecution, doesn’t it?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said, leaving Cis in the hallway as I strolled back to the living room, closing thelid of my laptop. It was still open on an email from Andrew, thanking me for sending him Vivian’s case files on O’Neill and the rest of the funky bunch.
Technically, I knew this broke my promise to Vivian, but if it helped Fran’s defence, I wasn’t going to deny him evidence that could help her.
‘Maybe he strolled into a large sum of money which made him change his mind? Who’s to say?’ I whispered to myself.
I was going to be paying off that overdraft for years. But there was no way this guy would testify about seeing Fran toss body parts into the river now; that should make her defence stronger.
‘And I can’t believe you used my login to leak information. I mean, do you haveanyidea how much trouble you could have got me into?’
‘Shouldn’t have given it to me then,’ I said with a vicious laugh.
Cis gave out a small shriek, full to the brim with rage as she threw her hands out in front of her.
‘Gareth, I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here. But I know it and I know you know it: your wife murdered someone. Why is that so hard for you to accept?’
‘I don’t know that, and you don’t know that I know that,’ I said, trying to not to confuse myself with the mixture of words in the process. ‘Neither of us saw Fran kill anyone, Fran hasn’t admitted she’s killed anyone, and the last time I checked, the law says innocent until proven guilty.’
‘You really believe what you’re telling yourself right now?’ Cis said, scrunching up her nose and looking at me, disgusted.
I shrugged my shoulders and embarked back onto the sofa, hoping that the me-shaped indentation was still there to sink into. Cis paced around my living room, thoroughly incandescent with anger.
‘You’re throwing your career away. You’re throwing my career away. You’re purposely disrupting the course of justice. Do you know what that could mean for you?’
‘Cis, I’m going to be honest with you,’ I groaned as I pulled the sofa throw over my chest. ‘I can’t tell you how little I care about what you’re saying right now. But if you really do want to talk about this more, just give me your phone and then we can talk.’
She almost instantly froze up.
‘What? Why?’ she asked, immediately defensive.
‘Because I know your tricks, and I know what you’re like. If you want to talk about this more, then give me your phone,’ I said, outstretching my hand.
Cis tried to hide a grimace as she red-handedly pulled her phone out of her pocket, cupping it away from me as she pressed a few buttons before passing it over. I wasn’t going to be fooled by my own trick.
I held it in my hand and watched her eyes fixed on me handling the device.
‘Are we live on air right now?’ I asked with a sly grin, lifting the phone’s microphone to my mouth. She reached across and snatched it away from me. ‘What are you trying to gain here, Cis? What’s your goal?’ I called after her as she walked out of the living room. ‘Is it justice or what?’
