“I see.” He plonked himself into the chair he’d sat on so many times in his childhood, the one in Gran’s kitchen, where she’d tried to feed him up and find out how his life was going. Him not telling her, pretending everything was fine. “I’m glad you told me. Do you know who he is?”
Gran sat opposite. “I know his name, yes.” She picked up a white fabric napkin and scrunched it, opened it out, scrunched it again.
The action grated on his nerves.
“Will you tell me?” he asked. “Now she’s gone?”
“Oh, love, I don’t know if it will do you any good knowing his name.”
Hope surged inside him. Was this his chance to have a parent who cared? A chance at the rest of his life being good, where he was wanted, loved by someone other than Gran? Or would his father deny his existence, making things a million times worse? He might still be with his wife, and what the hell would he tell her after all these years? And there was a sibling out there. All right, it was a half-sibling, but that didn’t matter if they shared blood, did it? It was someone to call family. Someone to build a relationship with that might turn into the bond he craved.
“I can go and find him.” He heard the desperation in his voice but ploughed on just the same. “I can tell him I won’t let his wife know. I’ll keep it a secret. I just want—”
“No.” Gran slammed the hand with the napkin onto the table. “No, love.”
He widened his eyes at her, shocked at the way her words had sounded so…so bloody harsh. Shocked at the fact she’d done something so unusually violent in slapping her hand down like that. “Why not?”
She sighed. Bit her bottom lip. Held the napkin so tight her knuckles blanched. “Because he’s dead, my darling.”
Dead. The one word he hadn’t wanted to hear. He could have handled his father being alive, could have handled rejection, but to have no chance at any kind of relationship… Could he handle that?
“What?” It came out as an insipid whisper. Something prodded at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t grasp it to bring it into the forefront. “What?”
“He was killed. I’m so sorry.”
“Killed?” He didn’t understand. Didn’t understand at all. Did he?
“I think… Oh God, love, I never wanted to have this conversation. Especially not today. We’re meant to be celebrating.”
“But we’re having it, so you may as well tell me everything. I’ve never liked my birthdays, and neither did she, so celebrating wasn’t an option. Go on. Tell me what you were going to say. It can’t be any worse than what I’ve been through so far, I can assure you.”
“Don’t. I can’t bear to think of you being brought up in the way I suspect and I didn’t do anything much about it. I was weak. I should have—”
“This isn’t about you, Gran! This is about me. Fuck your guilt. What’s done is done.” He disliked himself for being so rude to her, so mean, but fucking hell, she needed to complete her sentence.
And she did.
“God forgive me, but I think your mother murdered him.”
He woke sweating, panic careening through his body. He was just the same as her. A killer. Wasn’t it enough that she’d fucked up his life—fucked him up in the head? Why had she also taken away his one shot at living a normal life? He wished he’d known this before he’d done away with her. He could have made her pay more, could have stabbed the hell out of her, showing her all his rage instead of letting her float to Hell with heroin in her veins.
A thought struck him then.
I’m going to find my sibling. I’m going to…
But how could he? He didn’t know his father’s name.
Did he?
Did Gran ever tell me? I don’t remember. Damn me for shoving my memories in a compartment and forgetting all about them.
What.
A.
Fool.
Chapter Fourteen
Shaw sat in the front row in the incident room, arms crossed over his belly. The rest of the team settled into their seats around and behind him. Burgess stood with his back to everyone, studying the whiteboard. Shaw didn’t envy him this part of the job, where all eyes would be on him.
Did Burgess just shiver then? It wouldn’t surprise Shaw, what with a picture of a tarantula being up there beside one of Anita Jane Curtis. Was the DI forcing himself to look at it in an attempt to rid himself of his phobia?
Shaw glanced around. The other officers from the night shift seemed a bit worse for wear, and the daytime lot appeared as though they hadn’t slept a wink. The case heavy on their minds, maybe. Insomnia—he knew all about that.
The air smelt of coffee, each copper holding a Styrofoam cup from the machine in the hallway, a Costa bought on the way in, or a mug from the break room. Shaw had nabbed another of Burgess’ precious stash, and it sat by his feet in a cup Burgess would want to strangle Shaw for using.
The bloody man had so many quirks it was hard to keep up with them. Still, he wouldn’t be Burgess if he didn’t have them. Shaw gave the man in question his attention, seeing by the set of his jaw and the rigidity of his shoulders that Burgess was on edge.
“Right.” Burgess turned to face the assembly. “Quiet, please.” He waited to be obeyed. “We need to all get on the same page, so the DCI has asked me to head this meeting. As you’ve probably gathered from the buzz and chatter, we have another victim. Unidentified as yet—that’s something one of you will
