Her expression shifted — not surprise, but recognition, the kind that suggested she'd been waiting for someone to say that name. “What do you want?”
“Access to sealed files. Cases Harrow prosecuted personally in the last five years where the investigation timeline was compressed.”
“That's asking me to violate court orders.”
“I'm asking you to help expose corruption.”
She was silent for a long moment, stirring coffee she hadn't touched. “Harrow is careful. If he finds out someone's been accessing his cases, he'll destroy them.”
“He's already noticed me. I'm past the point of careful.”
“Then you're an idiot.” She pulled a keycard from her bag and slid it across the table. “This gets you into the basement archives.Third floor down, east wing, rows K through M. You have two hours before the evening security sweep — after that, the cameras reset and anyone in the building without authorisation gets flagged.”
“Thank you.”
“Don't. If this goes wrong, I'll deny ever meeting you.” She stood, left her coffee untouched, and walked out without looking back.
I pocketed the keycard, finished my own coffee, and ran through the route I'd take through the Old Bailey — camera positions memorised from public floor plans and educated guessing, blind spots mapped, exit options ranked by risk.
I enteredthe building in the early evening, after most staff had left but before overnight security increased. The keycard worked on a service entrance I'd identified from the building's exterior layout. Taking the stairs down, I counted floors, listening for footsteps or voices, any indication that I wasn't alone in spaces designed to be forgotten.
The basement archives smelled like old paper and disuse, rows of filing cabinets stretching back into shadow, organised by year and case number, each one holding evidence deemed too sensitive or too compromising for standard circulation.
Row K. Row L. Row M.
Lily Rourke's case file sat in M-17, buried between sealed domestic cases from the same year. The folder was thicker than it should have been for something that had closed in six weeks. I spread the contents across the nearest table and started reading.
Crime scene photos. Witness statements. Forensic reports. A husband's confession. Everything neat and organised and absolutely wrong.
The timeline didn't work. Lily had bruises weeks old, suggesting ongoing abuse, but neighbours reported no disturbances until the night she died. The forensic report showed blunt force trauma consistent with a fall, but blood spatter told a different story — she'd been struck while standing, not falling.
And buried in the witness statements, I found something that made my chest go tight.
A notation from the first responding officer:
Victim's brother arrived on scene at 23:47. Attempted to access victim. Restrained by officers. Distraught. Kept asking “what really happened.”
Dom had been there that night. Had seen his sister's body. Had asked the question he'd never stopped asking, three years on, because nobody had ever bothered to answer it honestly.
The case had been sealed before he could get answers. Before anyone could question the narrative Harrow had built. Before the inconsistencies in the evidence could be examined by someone who cared more about truth than closure.
I photographed everything — every page, every statement, every piece of evidence suggesting this case had been closed to protect something beyond a grieving family's peace. Then I heard footsteps on the stairs.
I packed the file away, returned it to its cabinet, and moved toward the far exit, calculating routes that would avoid whoever was coming. The footsteps split — one set continuing down themain corridor, two branching toward the east wing where I'd been working.
Coordinated. Not random security on a sweep but a targeted search. Someone had reported my presence, or someone had been waiting for me to make exactly this move.
I hit the service exit, pushed through into a stairwell that smelled like concrete and old damp, and climbed fast and quiet, listening for pursuit and hearing it behind me like a drumbeat that wouldn't fade.
They were good. Better than street-level security.
Out onto the ground floor, through corridors I'd memorised, avoiding cameras, using blind spots, turning the building's own architecture into cover. They stayed close — not gaining, not falling back, just testing me, watching where I went and what routes I knew.
I exited through a side door into an alley three blocks from the main entrance and walked, not ran, letting foot traffic swallow me, becoming invisible through ordinariness. Running signalled panic, and panic got you caught.
They stayed on me regardless. One ahead, two behind — a classic box formation designed to funnel targets toward predetermined points. I recognised the tactic from surveillance training, from the years I'd spent on the other side of exactly this game. I broke the box at a Tube station, entering through one entrance and exiting through another, moving like water through spaces built for flow. Lost the first tail at Oxford Circus. Lost the second at King's Cross. The third stayed with me for another twenty minutes before I finally shook him through Camden Market using a route that required local knowledge and a willingness to climb fences most people didn't know existed.
By the time I reached my flat, I was certain of three things.
One: the tail had been professional. Not police, not private security, but something in between that suggested resources and training most people couldn't access.
Two: they'd been waiting for me specifically. Had known I'd go to the archives. Had known exactly where to position themselves.
Three: Harrow had noticed me. Had marked me as enough of a threat to deploy assets, had decided I was too dangerous to ignore.
I stood with my back against the door, breathing hard, ribs screaming from exertion I shouldn't have pushed. My phone held photographs of Lily Rourke's case file — evidence her death had been handled wrong, proof that Harrow had sealed it in a way that suggested protection rather than justice.
And Dom's name in the witness statements, asking the question he'd never been allowed to answer.
