“Sensible. You’re good at holding it together until you’re alone. No one would know when you’re scared.”
“Yeah, well. Comes with the job, being composed in a crisis, doesn’t it?”
Shaw understood Burgess’ phobia of spiders. Not spiders specifically, but phobias in general. He had one himself. The thought of it brought him out in a cold sweat, his body shaking. But heights weren’t something he had to deal with very often, whereas spiders tended to show up at random moments. Like dangling down from the inside roof of the car and landing in Burgess’ lap that time.
“Are you all right now?” Shaw asked, the memory of the spider-in-the-lap incident and Burgess’ resulting scream breezing through his mind.
“Yeah. But that room in the zoo. If I didn’t have the lads’ interviews to deal with—Robin Gedman and Nathan someone or other—I’d never have gone in.” Burgess closed his eyes and shuddered.
“Can’t this be passed on to someone else? The case, I mean.” Shaw waited for an explosion.
One…two…three…
“What, and have everyone know I’m scared of fucking spiders?” Burgess shook his head. “You’re on another planet, you are. I can’t have them all knowing—and don’t you dare ever tell them either. They’ll put plastic ones on my desk, in my drawers. Only you and Marla know, and I told you because I thought you had the right to know, being my partner, working beside me every day. It wasn’t fair to keep it to myself if I happened to see one and couldn’t hold it together. And you’ve seen first-hand how I didn’t hold it together. So you’d better—”
“Why do you think I’m always a joker and untrustworthy? Someone who hasn’t got the first clue about respecting a man’s secret?”
Burgess glowered at him, cheeks growing red, fingers clutching his cup a little too tightly. “Because you mess around a lot. Don’t take things seriously.”
“And? There must be more. There always is with you.”
“You laugh too much at inappropriate times.”
What? “I see.” Shaw was hurt and, rather than keep it to himself, he thought it was high time he struck back instead of taking all this bullish crap from Burgess. “Ever considered that it’s my way of coping with the job? That a touch of light laughter is needed to release the tension when we’re dealing with horrific things? Things that should never happen to people but they do? Like kids being abused and beaten the shit out of. Men going round sexually assaulting people. Women being murdered and having tarantulas put inside their mouths.” He paused, but only for a second. “No, you didn’t, because you’re too busy blustering at me, thinking about yourself and your feelings—or lack of them. Being hotheaded. An arsehole. And, yes, I said it: Burgess, you’re an arsehole lately.”
Eyebrows raised, Burgess flushed a deeper shade of red. “I am. But I’m not sorry. You’re the one who’s made me an arsehole.”
“How so?”
“I’m not going there, so shut it with your prodding.” Burgess put his cup on his desk and pushed himself off. The desk jolted, and some of the coffee spilt over and onto the surface. “I need to go back to my car. The other kid gave me a copy of the CCTV. I left it in there. Stupid of me.”
Shaw got up and shot over to the door, pressing his back to it so Burgess couldn’t leave. “Stupid, yes. Big of you to admit to a mistake. But how about you admit to another one? How about you answer my question?”
Burgess glared at him—it was too hard and too uncomfortable for Shaw—then closed his eyes for a second or two. Opening them again, appearing as though he would erupt any second, he sighed out a long breath instead.
“Shaw, I’m warning you…” Burgess clenched his jaw. “I don’t talk about my past, so fuck off.”
“Why, because you don’t deal with emotions?” Shaw’s pulse throbbed in his neck. “Because you think you’re so deficient in the ability to show you care that you’re willing to go through your life on your tod?”
“I can’t do this.”
“Oh, you can. And you will. Eventually, you will.”
“I’ve got baggage, you know that.” Burgess’ breathing was out of sync. Ragged. The edges torn with everything he wouldn’t say. Probably couldn’t say.
“I know. That suitcase of yours is too heavy for you to carry on your own.”
“I’ve managed well enough so far. Now, I’m going to get that footage.”
Chapter Five
Goddamn that bastard to Hell and back.
Burgess strode through the station. The day had taken an unexpected turn—he’d thought he had a handle on keeping his past hidden inside him, but obviously he hadn’t. All his things were spilling out of that suitcase—dirty laundry, pristinely folded items, and those scrunched up into balls—and he loved and hated it in equal measure.
Outside, the cruel slap of the cold air thankfully lowered the heat level in his face. Anyone watching him stride through the station would most probably have thought he was in another of his famous bad moods, so having to explain the state of his cheeks wouldn’t ever be on the cards. He dug into his car for the memory stick, finding it plus a folded piece of A4 paper from Mr Clarke. And Burgess telling Shaw it had been stupid of him to leave the bloody thing in the car was right. There had been a spate of pilfering recently—didn’t matter that the vehicles belonged to coppers, the brazen thieves—and the loss of the footage would have possibly meant the loss of his job, or at the very least the threat of it next time he did something so ridiculous.
There can’t be a next time.
Truth was, this sock thing had rattled him more than he cared to
