Truth or Die

by Katerina Diamond

  He was holding his breath, trying to stop himself from crying, but his eyes brimmed over and the tears fell. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and then winced, the turpentine fumes on his hands obviously aggravating his eyes.

  Imogen tied the black bag up and pushed Adrian towards the staircase, both hands on his back, then up the stairs, along the hallway and to the bathroom. She left him slumped against the wall and went inside to turn the shower on. The bathroom was a mess. She picked his clothes off the floor and put them in the laundry basket, then waited until the water was warm before sticking her head back outside to find Adrian nodding off against the wall. She grabbed his arm, pulling him in, and yanked his shirt over his head.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said, giggling.

  ‘Get in that shower. You stink of turps. You can’t sleep like that. The fumes will probably kill you.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he barked before putting his own finger to his lips. ‘Shhh.’

  Imogen shook her head and smiled. She stared at his jeans. He could take those off himself.

  ‘Take your trousers off and get in the bloody shower.’

  ‘Fine.’ Adrian fumbled at his flies and pulled his jeans down to reveal a pair of Spiderman underpants. He stepped into the shower and leaned against the wall.

  Imogen watched for a few moments before she realised he may have actually fallen asleep in there.

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ She kicked her shoes off and pulled her own jeans down. Yanking her jumper over her head, she decided she didn’t care if she got her tank top wet. She stepped inside the shower cubicle and turned the showerhead towards Adrian before turning the hot water off.

  Adrian jolted awake with the feeling of the cold water against his back. He became breathless instantly.

  ‘What are you doing? Turn it off!’ He shrunk into the corner of the shower.

  Imogen put the warm water back on and he relaxed again. She grabbed the shampoo and poured some onto Adrian’s head, then reached up and started to work the soap into a lather, trying to get rid of the smell of turps. The water was cascading between them, drenching her, and she leaned away to stop it from going in her mouth. It occurred to her that she was half naked in the shower with him. It hadn’t even registered before, but here they were. Noticing this development made her instantly self-conscious. She looked at Adrian; he had obviously noticed it too, the drunken look replaced with another look altogether. Oh shit.

  Imogen was confused. She had been thinking about Adrian a lot lately, not in the same way that she normally did. The accusation against him made her feel defensive of him, his loss made her feel protective of him. Concern for him had pushed most other things out of her mind; even her mother’s death had taken a second seat to Adrian recently. Not to mention the kiss, the kiss she had tried to push out of her mind a hundred times. Standing here, wet and half naked, his head in her hands, she realised that maybe she had feelings beyond anything she had admitted to herself before. He wanted to kiss her, she could see it, he couldn’t take his gaze away from her lips. She looked down at his hands to see that his fists were clenched. She pulled him forward, so the water washed the shampoo out of his hair, and he gasped for breath under the showerhead that beat down on his face. Imogen grabbed the shower gel and handed it to him.

  ‘You can do this bit yourself.’

  She got out of the shower and grabbed a towel; they had already gone too far. She had slept with someone from work before and it hadn’t worked, not in the long term. She couldn’t risk losing her best friend over what could just be a desperate need for companionship. Losing a person you love made you feel your own mortality and the need not to be alone. She had lost her mother; he had lost Lucy. They had been through so much together already, and she couldn’t take a chance on something that may be fleeting.

  Imogen picked her clothes off the bathroom floor and left the room, then went downstairs and put the kettle on. She made two coffees and slipped her jeans back on over her underpants.

  ‘Why did you come here tonight?’ Adrian said as he walked into the kitchen moments later, his hair still wet from the shower.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep. Can’t stop thinking about this case. We need to figure out what the hell is going on. We also need to find Parker before anyone else does, before he kills again.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ Adrian said.

  He took the coffee from the side and sat at the table; she could see he was sobering up fast. The air was thick with the things they weren’t saying. Was there any way past this without talking about it? Imogen had come here to discuss the case, but if she was honest with herself then that wasn’t all she was there for. It wasn’t about sex. Although sometimes she thought they should get that part out of the way because, until they had, this feeling wasn’t going to go away.

  ‘We should talk,’ she finally said, the awkward silence a little too awkward to ignore.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About us.’ There was no avoiding it any more. If they didn’t deal with it, they wouldn’t be in control. Although it felt like control went out the window a long time ago.

  ‘What about us? I mean, I know what you want to talk about, but why are we talking about it?’ Adrian asked.

  ‘Because I’m worried that we are going to do something stupid and regret it. I’m worried we are going to ruin … this … us. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have an abundance of friends, and I’d hate to lose you, too.’

  ‘Who says you would lose me?’ Adrian said.

  ‘I think I will unless we start being open and honest about what is going on here. I know neither of those things come naturally to either of us, but it’s important. However uncomfortable this feels, I think we need to stop pretending it’s not happening.’

  ‘OK. So, let’s talk.’

  Imogen took a deep breath before speaking. ‘I like you, Adrian, we have something special. You are the person I turn to when I need someone. I think it goes both ways. We look out for each other.’

  ‘You’ve been there for me a lot more than I have been there for you lately.’ Adrian’s lips were trembling slightly and the excess water from his hair dripped onto his shoulder. He shivered a little and clasped his hands around the hot mug.

  ‘It’s not a competition, it’s just … nice. It feels good to care.’

  ‘It does, and I’ve got to admit that it makes me a bit crazy seeing you flirt with other guys.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I don’t flirt with any guys. Name one guy you’ve seen me flirting with,’ she said, racking her brain to try to think who he might be talking about.

  ‘Constable Jarvis for a start.’

  ‘We have very different ideas of what constitutes as flirting. I am not interested in him.’

  ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’

  ‘Blimey Miley, do you always quote Hamlet when you’re drunk?’ Imogen said.

  She was deflecting; the truth was, PC Jarvis had asked her out on a date and she had refused. She hadn’t told Adrian about it and she had assumed he hadn’t noticed anything. At the time, she hadn’t acknowledged the reason why she had said no or the reason why she hadn’t told Adrian. Now, of course, it seemed obvious – it was because of this unspoken thing between them. Her feelings for him had been growing for some time.

  Adrian put his cup down and stood up. He walked over to Imogen and reached for her arm. He took her hand in his and ran his thumb across the back. She wanted to kiss him, but she needed to think, too. It was against the rules for colleagues who worked side by side in the department to date. That’s not to say it didn’t happen, of course it did. But Imogen was already on thin ice and had lost out on a promotion because of her relationship with Dean. She had to tread carefully. All she knew right now was that her feelings for Adrian had changed.

  ‘So, what do we do, Imogen? I know what you’re saying and logically it makes total sense. I’d like to be grown up about this an
d say we can turn it off if we want to. But it doesn’t really work like that, does it?’

  ‘How does it work then?’ Imogen said, frustrated that she didn’t have an answer that meant everything could stay the same. She pulled her hand away from him and he went and sat back down; she sat opposite him and watched him drink his coffee.

  ‘Maybe we should go on a date,’ Adrian said, staring into his drink, refusing to look up. ‘Get to know each other, maybe change perspective.’

  ‘A date? Are you joking? I see you all the time. If it got back to the DCI, we could be in serious trouble.’

  She wasn’t sure what she had been hoping for. All those nights they spent together in the dark, in the morning, pretending it wasn’t happening – it wasn’t healthy. Maybe she wanted him to say it was all a big mistake and he was just using her to get over Lucy, but of course she knew she didn’t want that. She didn’t know what she wanted.

  ‘There’s something else we need to talk about, of course,’ Adrian said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Adrian looked at her. ‘Dean. What if he comes back?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if he comes back or not,’ she said, not entirely convincing herself.

  She had finished with Dean because of his criminal tendencies being incompatible with her career choice. He wasn’t about to change and neither was she, so there was nothing more to think about when it came to Dean.

  ‘But you still have strong feelings for him, I know you do.’

  ‘That’s all in the past now, the relationship is over.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘What about you?’ Imogen said.

  ‘Do you have feelings for me?’

  ‘You know I do. I don’t know what they are yet, but yes, I do.’

  ‘I don’t think I can just pretend I don’t feel the way I do.’ Adrian looked up. ‘At first, I thought that I was just hurting and didn’t want to be alone, but it stopped being about Lucy a while ago. I don’t think this is going to go away.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Imogen asked.

  ‘I’m saying I want more.’

  Flustered, Imogen wasn’t expecting it to go this way. ‘You’ve been drinking, maybe we should talk about this when you’re sober.’

  Adrian reached his hand across the table and put it on hers. ‘It won’t change anything. Cards on the table, I’ve thought about this, about you, for a while – well, more to the point, I have avoided thinking about it, but in the back of my mind this has been coming for a long time. But, like you say, I would rather nothing happened if it means it’s going to mess up what we already have. You’re too important to me.’

  ‘I thought maybe talking about it would make it clearer, but it hasn’t.’

  ‘I know. I want to wait until it does. Now that we have talked, maybe it will change, maybe the feelings were a manifestation of all the secrecy, maybe now that it’s out in the open the idea will lose its shine.’

  Imogen hesitated. ‘What if it doesn’t?’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Imogen woke up early at home, alone. She had left Adrian’s with her head swimming. If she couldn’t sleep before their chat, she certainly struggled last night. The last time they had met Parker she had almost died; maybe his return had made her feel vulnerable again. Perhaps that was what was bringing those feelings for Adrian to the surface. Imogen had seen enough of his behaviour around women to know that he was treating her differently, he usually jumped in and out of relationships without thinking, if you could even call them relationships. Until Lucy, of course, but she was gone now. Then there was the small matter of Dean, a man Imogen wouldn’t be able to resist if he turned up on her doorstep. The only reason they weren’t together was because he was strong enough to stay away for now.

  After her morning run, Imogen showered and dressed for work. She paused when she realised she was looking through the chest of drawers and actually considering what suited her most. In an act of defiance against no one but herself, she pulled on a dark blue hoodie and a pair of cords. She hadn’t cared yesterday, why should she suddenly care today? She pulled her wet hair up into a ponytail and checked her face. She looked fine. Imogen locked her flat up and got in the car; it took her a minute to compose herself before driving to the station. Normally she would swing by and pick Adrian up, but he had expressly told her that he would meet her at work after ushering her out of his house at one in the morning.

  Things were awkward anyway; this was just a new level of awkward for Imogen. She walked into work and saw Denise, and for the first time she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Denise and Adrian had slept together. After hearing some detail about what had happened between them, she couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like. She said a quick hello and walked through the glass doors. Adrian was sitting at his desk, holding onto his head; she wasn’t surprised if he had a headache.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Hey.’ Adrian smiled nervously.

  It hadn’t been her imagination; the conversation they’d had last night was written all over his face. Was she seeing him in a new light or was he looking at her differently? They couldn’t go back to pretending that nothing was going on between them. That wouldn’t help anyone. The time had come to confront this thing head on.

  ‘Did you get any sleep last night?’ she asked.

  ‘I passed out as soon as you left. You?’ Adrian said.

  ‘I got about two hours. I went for a long run this morning to clear my head,’ said Imogen.

  ‘Is it clear now then?’

  ‘I think we need to tell Gary.’

  ‘Tell him what? About us?’

  ‘No, about the case, about Parker. I trust him.’

  ‘I trust him, too,’ Adrian said. ‘I also don’t want to put him in a position where he might lose his job.’

  ‘We need someone smarter than us to help find Parker. We didn’t find him last time; Abbey came to us. What makes you think we can this time?’

  ‘Fair enough. If you think he can handle it. Let’s go.’

  Thankfully, Gary was alone in the computer lab. Imogen explained as little as she could get away with, Gary’s mouth agog as she spoke. Adrian filled in the parts of the story that Imogen wasn’t familiar with or there for, and they described how and why they had come to find out Parker was involved in this crime.

  ‘Are you going to tell the DCI?’ Gary asked when they finally stopped talking.

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Adrian said. ‘I realise that may not be possible, though. If it comes to it, then I will. Maybe the fact that I was under extreme emotional stress at the time will make a difference to how they choose to deal with me.’

  ‘We need to find him. All we know is that he is really good at this. He was left a lot of money by his grandfather and so cash isn’t an issue. His wife is staying in town. We only know he has anything to do with this because his note told us he did. We hadn’t figured it out and there is no physical evidence that points to him,’ Imogen said.

  ‘So, he’s good. But he’s also dangerous. What if we get close? Are you sure he wasn’t warning you off with that note?’ Gary asked.

  ‘As strange as this sounds, I don’t believe we are in any danger from him. He’s not evil,’ Imogen said.

  ‘Right. He’s just fucked in the head?’ Gary added.

  ‘After what happened to him, who wouldn’t be?’ Imogen acknowledged, still feeling as though she should defend Parker. After all, he had saved her life.

  ‘So where do I start?’ Gary asked.

  ‘We have two problems. We need to find Parker, but what concerns me more is the person who killed Hugh Norris. That wasn’t him, so we need to know who it was,’ Imogen said.

  ‘How do you know it wasn’t him?’ Gary said.

  ‘In his note he said three down and one to go. We know that those three were Coley, Mitchell and Lassiter. It makes no sense for him to lie about Norris, so it must be someone else,’ Imogen sa
id.

  ‘I have a feeling that all has something to do with Owen Sager, that was the first death. I’ll find out if his parents have his phone or computer still. He wasn’t living in halls, he was still at home,’ Adrian said.

  ‘We’ll go back,’ Imogen replied. ‘Gary, you can dig into Hugh Norris more. We are missing something.’

  ‘What about the “one to go”?’ Gary asked.

  ‘We don’t know who that is. We need to find out the motive, what’s driving all of this. Without that I don’t see how we could figure out who the final person is. Maybe Owen Sager’s parents can shed some more light on the situation. Maybe they can tell us the connection between Owen and Norris.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me all this,’ Gary said.

  Imogen detected a hint of annoyance in his voice.

  ‘We didn’t want you to get in trouble before. We made the decisions we did, and it wasn’t on anyone else to lie for us. It was never about keeping secrets from you, Gary. It was about keeping you safe.’ Imogen felt bad for not confiding in him, but confident that it was the right thing to do.

  ‘OK. I get it. I’ll see if I can find anything.’

  ‘The wife’s name is Abigail Lucas, and she was a student at both Bristol this year and Exeter a few years ago,’ Adrian added. They hadn’t known anything about her before, bar the fact that she worked in the museum. Her name hadn’t been on any of the staff registers at the museum so she must have been paid cash in hand. After the case had ended they hadn’t been inclined to find her, until now. ‘See if you can find anything about her on any of the dead professors’ computers. Or maybe the uni social media forums, they go back a few years.’

  They stepped out of Gary’s lab and walked back to their desks.

  ‘We need to think of something to tell the DCI, she’s not stupid,’ Imogen said.

  ‘I don’t know how to tell her now. We’ve kept too much from her. There is no conclusive proof or material evidence pointing to Parker. So, at the moment, there’s nothing to tell.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six