“Jesus, look at the state of you,” he said, brushing some of the dirt off me. Where had that come from?
“Go wait in the car and I’ll come see you in a minute.” He beckoned for his fellow officer, PC Lauren Trescothick, to let me in. Lauren opened the door silently and then did a double take when she recognised me.
A few minutes later they returned to the car where I sat in the back staring into space.
I have no idea what they said or what they were asking me. Ade called my name several times and even waved his hand in front of my face before eventually giving up.
I couldn’t speak. The idea of making conversation, of answering questions, was too much.
Riz was dead. Dead. Simon’s Riz was dead. His fiancé.
Bullet to the side of the head.
There was the sound of more cars arriving. An ambulance. Another police car. More vehicles. Tape went up, tents were erected. Radios were spoken into. All the time I sat there staring into space. Eventually, the door opened, and Ade appeared with a bottle of water. He crouched beside me. “Drink,” he commanded.
“I …”
“Drink.”
I guzzled it and then managed to swallow half down the wrong tube and coughed violently. Ade patted my back. “Who should I call for you?” he asked.
“No one,” I said a little mournfully.It’s happening again. Maybe this time Tarquin will finish the job.
Ade pursed his lips. “C’mon, mate,” he said.
“I wanna go home. My dog needs me.”
“Okay. Well, I think they’re gonna want to speak with you down the station.” He drummed his fingers on his knee for a second and then took his phone out. He dialled a number.
“Hi, babe, it’s me. Listen, sorry to wake you on your day off. I know, I know. Yeah, it’s a bit of a situation.” He covered the phone with his hand and addressed me. “Do you have a spare key to your place?”
I nodded. “In the shed on the windowsill.”
“Hey, can you go to Arden’s place and see if his dog is okay? On the windowsill in the shed. Yeah. I’ll explain later. We’ll drop him off in a while.”
He hung up and gave me a weak smile. I stared into the distance.
“Does Simon know yet?”
Ade shook his head. “Don’t worry about all that. We’ll sort it.”
Another car pulled up beside us. Out hopped the person I wanted to see least in the world. DI Neuberger glared at everything in front of him as he made his way over toanother officer and got the lay of the land. DS Maslin followed him from the car.
Neuberger beckoned for Lauren to come towards him. She spoke for a second before pointing me out. He gave me a look of pure venom.
Ade stood and patted me on the shoulder. “Everything’ll be alright, Arden,” he said. As he departed, he gave a nod to Neuberger.
“Mr Forrest. We meet again,” the DI said as he approached.
He and Maslin stood beside the car and glowered down at me.
“Quite the habit you’re making of this,” he continued. “One could become suspicious.”
They both stood waiting for me to speak.
“I’d like to go home, please,” I said eventually. A bit more plaintively than I would have hoped.
“Yes, I think we can see to that. But first, why don’t we have a chat down at the station? Sound good? Jack.” He flicked his hand at Maslin and walked off to inspect the scene.
