She wanted to tell him how badly he’d fucked up, but she guessed he already knew. Last night he’d been all apologies for leaving her at home alone right when she needed him, for bringing Walton to their door. There were endless apologies and promises but she wasn’t the person who needed them. The people who did were all dead.
The blender whirred into life, painfully loud in her tiny kitchen. She closed her eyes, seeing again the blood on the floor and the chemical burns across Walton’s face. Her own injuries throbbing harder now, the pain carrying the remembered fear through her bloodstream once again, flooding her with adrenaline she had no use for.
‘I’m going to get dressed.’
In the bedroom she searched through her clothes for something suitable, but there was no proper outfit for this. Or if there was it wasn’t here. Seeing the gaps on the rails, she realised how much of herself she’d moved into Billy’s place.
Eventually she would have to go back and collect some of it. But the thought of walking back through that door was unbearable. She wasn’t sure she would ever be ready to do it.
She pulled on a pair of jeans and a light T-shirt, stuffed her feet into a worn pair of trainers and laced them with her head swimming.
Dutifully she returned to the kitchen and drank the smoothie he’d made her, only distantly aware of the taste of banana and mango and honey running dulled over her tongue. A side effect of the painkillers, she told herself. Nothing more than that.
Billy kept up a monologue as she sat at the breakfast bar, his voice bright, saying nothing. Did he think she needed this relentless, upbeat talk? Or was he doing it for himself? Trying to keep his own dark thoughts at bay?
Last night as he drove her home from the hospital, he asked what happened. She’d told him already while Zigic was there but he thought she was holding back, wanted to ask if Walton’s attack had gone further than she’d said, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to shape the words.
In the end she said them for him, assured him that she’d already told him everything.
‘I’m going to sell the flat,’ he said, as he washed out the blender.
‘You don’t have to do that on my account.’
‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while.’ He put the jug on the drainer, turned back to her. ‘It’s too small and with you being over so much … it feels like the right time.’
‘In this market?’
‘It’ll sell,’ he said. ‘You could let this place go as well. Pool our resources.’
‘You are all about the romance,’ Ferreira said, giving him a smile that made her jaw feel freshly traumatised.
‘Will you think about it?’
She nodded. ‘But let me get this out of the way first, okay?’
‘Do you want me to drive you in?’
‘Yeah. I’m probably not safe with this much codeine in me.’
At the station she managed to avoid going into the main office, heard the focused quiet of people conscientiously cleaning up after a murder that needed minimal investigation. Forensics to be collected and collated, the grim business of the post-mortems that would happen this morning. Eyewitness reports and statements from PCs Green and Sands, who would be facing disciplinary action for managing to miss Walton as he went into the building through the entrance they were supposed to be watching.
When Ferreira had made it down to them, bleeding and battered, they didn’t notice her until she hammered on the roof of the patrol car.
Riggott’s secretary winced when she saw her face. ‘You can go straight in. He’s expecting you.’
‘I should see the other fella, right?’ Riggott said, rising from his desk and going to close the door behind her. He peered at her, not quite so sharp without his reading glasses. ‘You must have strong fucking bones, girl. Fella that size laying into you and you’re in pretty good shape still.’
‘Is there a commendation for that?’ she asked.
‘Ought to be.’ He smiled briefly, then took her elbow and steered her towards the sofa. ‘No messing now, how are you feeling?’
An involuntary sigh forced its way out of her. Something about the earnest expression from him knocked her flat. She’d intended to come in here all calm and poised, show him what she was made of, that she was tough enough to go through that and walk into work the next morning like usual.
As much as she pitied Billy for needing Riggott’s approval, she realised she felt the same way. Too many years working under his guidance, too many secrets shared and disasters averted; he’d made her what she was and even though she rarely stopped to consider what that meant, it swam up at her now. How much she owed him and how much she had to lose.
Her eyes started watering and she willed down the emotion.
‘Alright, girl.’ He patted her back lightly. ‘None of us get away from it easy, believe me.’
‘Fucking painkillers,’ she said.
‘Aye, they’ll do that to you.’ He went to his desk and fetched a box of tissues she couldn’t believe he actually kept in his drawer. ‘Getting a faceful of CS gas isn’t much fun either.’
She exhaled slowly, dragged herself together again.
‘You need me to make a statement?’
‘We’ll do that later. First up, I want you to tell me what happened. Not just last night, from the first time you saw him outside your flat.’
Ferreira went through it with him, from the moment she’d caught Walton standing under the street light across the road, staring up into her window, through the threats in the parking area and the ones on the phone, up to the second she realised that the whirring sound was someone – him – breaking into Billy’s flat.
‘He punched me in the face,’ she said. ‘I cut him with a kitchen knife.’ She gestured high up on her own arm. ‘He dragged me into the living room. We fought – I threw
