“Are you injured?”
“No. The blood’s not mine.”
“Where’s the gun?”
Newt didn’t think. He reached for the drawer and found himself hauled away and thrown down.
“Help him! Help him!” He kept saying it over and over. He was pushed face down on the floor and a foot on his back kept him there. But paramedics had come in now and they were looking after River. That was all that mattered.
“He’s recovering from a head injury,” Newt called out to the pair next to River. “Please be careful with him.”
Newt was pulled into a sitting position.
“What happened?” asked one of the policemen.
Oh God. Where to start?
A paramedic came over. “Are you injured?”
Newt looked at the blood all over his T-shirt and jeans. “No. It’s his blood.” Newt glanced towards Barney, but he couldn’t see him. Paramedics were in the way.
“What’s your name?” asked a policeman.
“Newt Jones. This is River Lawson. The other guy is Barney.” He couldn’t remember his other name. “River’s stuntman.”
“What happened?”
“I was trying to get the gun off Barney. He’d fired at River as I leapt at him and we were struggling and the gun went off. He’d broken in. River and I had just got back. Barney was in the house and he confronted us. He’s tried to kill River before.”
River was taken out of the room on a stretcher.
“Please don’t put them in the same ambulance,” Newt said. “Barney tried to kill him.”
The policeman started to read Newt his rights and as handcuffs were put on, his mind sort of froze and he shut down.
Newt was in a stark room inside a police station. The last hour had seemed like some horrible dream but it had gradually sunk in how much trouble he was in. They had his clothes, even his underwear, and he was wearing paper coveralls. His fingerprints had been taken along with his photograph. They’d swabbed his mouth and his skin, and through it all, he’d not said a word. He’d tried, he’d tried really hard, but nothing had come out of his mouth. He’d done nothing wrong but he knew that didn’t matter. They’d think what they wanted to think. All he’d done was try to saveRiver’s life.
If he hadn’t…If River was dead…No!He couldn’t let himself think that.
Nor could he stay silent with the police. Hehadto make words come out of his mouth. Once the police understood what had happened, then they’d let him go. Wouldn’t they? Barney had brought the gun to the house. He’d broken in. He’d threatened both of them. He’d shot River. Newt had acted in self-defence.
When the questioning started, the police were fine with him, settling him down, making sure he was comfortable, offering him a drink, asking if he was cold. Not like they’d been when he was arrested before, but then, after one of them went out for a moment, something changed when he came back. Newt found himself being spoken to and looked at differently. A coldness to their tone, a slight snap in their voices… It unnerved him.
Why hadn’t he tried to help Barney? Who was the more severely injured?
Newt knew better than to say what he wanted to. Why should he try to help someone who’d wanted to kill him and River? If River hadn’t been injured, then yes, Newt would have done something but in a choice between the two, River came first. Newt mumbled something about seeing that Barney looked too badly injured to save but River didn’t.
Did he intend to shoot Barney?
Of course he didn’t. He knew nothing about guns and safeties… But he caught the exchange of looks and guessed that the policeman who’d left the room had been told his real name. They knew he had a record and so believed him to be someone he wasn’t.
Their questions continued but no one would tell himanything. He constantly asked, “Is River alive?” and got no answer. Newt could feel himself falling apart, crumbling to pieces.
Then, his PO turned up. Mike’s first words were, “You’ve broken the terms of your licence.”
He probably had. But it wasn’t as if he’d had any choice. “Was I supposed to stand there and let Barney shoot us?”
“You’re a flight risk. A passport in your name was found in River Lawson’s postbox.”
