Doyle. Maybe this partnership wasn’t such a good idea. But he’s not going to be the one to give up on it.

‘You know what?’ says Doyle. ‘You’re right. I haven’t been telling you everything. Just don’t take it personal. I had some things I needed to do this morning. Stuff that doesn’t concern you, okay? From now on, I’ll try to bring you in whenever I can.’

‘Is that how you got the mouse? From these other activities you can’t talk to me about?’

Doyle touches a hand to his cheek. For a moment it seems to LeBlanc that Doyle’s expression is that of someone who has just been caught in a lie and is frantically trying to manufacture a way out of it. And when Doyle smiles, it seems to come far too late.

‘Yeah. Nothing to do with the Hamlyn case. Now can I go, please, Officer? I’m beginning to feel like I should ask for a lawyer.’

LeBlanc answers with a smile of his own. But it wilts as soon as Doyle leaves the room.

Fuck!

He wants to believe Doyle. He wants to trust him. But why does the man insist on making it so damned difficult? Why can’t he at least talk about this, for Chrissake? What’s he got to hide?

When he leaves the interview room, he doesn’t follow Doyle back into the squadroom. He heads the other way, out of the building.

Skinterest looks to be all closed up. The blinds are drawn and the lights are off. LeBlanc stands in the rain for a while, telling himself that it’s nothing. The man’s decided to close for the day, is all. Nothing to worry about.

He thumbs the buzzer anyway.

He hears nothing, so he buzzes again, then hammers on the door with his fist.

A light comes on. A shadow appears behind the blinds. LeBlanc hears a fumbling of chains, the drawing back of bolts, the turning of keys. As he pulls open the door, Proust shuffles backwards, maintaining the door as a shield between him and LeBlanc. Only a fraction of Proust’s face is visible, and even that is cast into silhouette by the light behind it.

‘Mr Proust? You mind if I come in for a moment?’

‘Is Doyle with you?’

Proust’s voice is faint, croaky and filled with fear. LeBlanc swallows. It worries him that Proust’s first question should be about Doyle. He seems terrified of the man.

‘No. No, he’s not. It’s just me. Is that okay?’

‘I. . it’s not really a good, unh, time.’

LeBlanc hears the slight grunt. Like Proust is in pain. Jesus, could he. .

‘Mr Proust, I promise this won’t take long. And I’m not here to give you any trouble. A couple of questions and I’m gone.’

Proust says nothing. Just stands there. Then the door swings open a little wider.

LeBlanc steps inside. Takes a quick look around. Nothing amiss that he can see. Everything in order. He turns back to Proust, who is closing the door. From the back he seems strangely bent and stiff, like an old man.

And then Proust faces him.

LeBlanc gasps. ‘Jesus Christ! What happened? What the hell happened to you?’

The man is a wreck. He looks as though he has just tumbled from the top of a mountain to the bottom. How is he not on a slab in the morgue?

‘I’m okay,’ says Proust.

‘Okay? You’re not okay. Have you seen yourself? How did you get like this?’

Proust limps past LeBlanc. ‘I was, uhm, I was mugged.’

As soon as LeBlanc hears the explanation he knows it is not true. And then he starts to feel sick with the realization of what the truth might be.

‘You were mugged? When were you mugged? Where?’

‘Here. Two guys came in this morning. They wanted my money. I told them I didn’t have any. So they beat the shit out of me.’

LeBlanc says nothing for a while. He doesn’t know what to say. Proust’s story is a crock, but he’s not certain he wants to drag the real one out of him. He watches as Proust sits himself down on a stool, wincing as he does so.

‘Have you reported this to the police?’ LeBlanc asks.

LeBlanc snorts a laugh, then follows it up with a cry of pain. ‘The police? Are you kidding me, man? After the way you guys treated me yesterday? Something tells me I wouldn’t get a whole load of sympathy from you people.’

LeBlanc looks him up and down. Jesus! This was no ordinary beating. Somebody wanted to give him a message. They probably didn’t even care if he lived or died.

‘These men. What did they look like?’

‘I don’t remember. They were big and they were mean. That’s all I know.’

‘They use fists or weapons?’

Proust shrugs. Winces again.

LeBlanc chews his lip. Break through the lies, or leave it be? This is a fellow cop we’re talking about here, Tommy. Do you want to know? Do you really, really want to know?

‘Did Detective Doyle come here again this morning?’

Slowly, Proust raises his head. Turns his battered, misshapen face full into the light. Through half-closed lids, his eyes twinkle as they stare at LeBlanc.

‘Detective Doyle?’

‘Yes. Was he here this morning?’

A long pause. Then: ‘No.’

Except that it’s a no which means yes. It’s a no which says, You’re a cop too and I don’t trust you and so I’m playing it safe, because all you cop bastards stick together and anything I say against one of you is said against all of you.

All of that in one word. That’s what LeBlanc hears. That’s what shakes him to the core.

And now he’s not sure what to do. A part of him wants to pursue this. A part of him wants to put the badge away and talk to Proust as another man, another human being. He wants to tell him that he will listen, and that whatever Proust says to him will be treated in the strictest confidence. He thinks that might work. He thinks that Proust might open up to him.

And then he takes a mental step back. He thinks, I am a cop and Doyle is a cop, and Proust is still a suspect. Despite the apparent fuck-up that Doyle seems to be making of this case and his own life, our roles haven’t changed.

It is not without some shame that he opts not to side with this man against one of his own, and so he offers to do what he can: ‘Get up,’ he says.

Again there is fear and suspicion in Proust’s eyes. ‘Why?’

‘I’m taking you to the hospital.’

‘I don’t need no hospital, man. I’m okay.’

‘You might have broken bones. Internal damage. You need to be checked out. Come on, I’ll take you in my car.’

Proust stares at LeBlanc’s beckoning hand for some time before making a decision. As he gets off his chair, he grimaces. If he wasn’t in so much obvious discomfort, it could almost be mistaken for a smile.

Doyle sees the glance from the man with the backpack. He knows the guy has seen him. Can tell by the way the man speeds up his rhythmic lope that he’s trying to put as many yards as he can between him and Doyle without it seeming too obvious.

Doyle pushes himself away from the window of the bodega and takes up pursuit. The man speeds up. Doyle speeds up. The man risks a quick look behind him and increases his pace a little more. Doyle decides he’s not in the mood for burning calories.

‘Freeze!’ he calls.

Coming from a cop, that would usually mean only one thing. It would mean, I have a gun

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