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‘Armed police,’ Aden bellowed. ‘Stop. Stand still!’

Another set of footsteps, just behind them but gaining fast, and Aden threw a glance over his shoulder, adrenaline spiking. Tony, weapon out, squinting into the rain.

‘He fell.’

‘Who fell?’ asked Imogen.

‘The boy.’ Aden gave an almost smile. ‘I don’t say his name. I should. I know I should. Dylan Lowe. Dylan fell. I heard him. I didn’t know what it was I was hearing – you know, at the time. Just splashes. Shouting. I know now that it was him, Dylan, falling. His mates – I’m guessing they were his mates, the other kids or whatever – they left. We, I . . . I never saw them, not up close. Just figures, running. They left him there.’

There were shrieks, cutting through the darkness; it had seemed like they were bouncing off the alley walls, rebounding, coming from everywhere at once. Aden had drawn his gun, tracking the sound, heart pounding so loud it seemed that his eardrums would not be able to stand it.

Then a figure, large in front of him. Seemed to rise up out of nowhere. A jolt of electricity shot through Aden. ‘Armed police. Don’t move.’

Aden couldn’t see; was trying, squinting through the rain. But no matter what he did, he just couldn’t see, not really. And he hated that, his adrenaline spurting, higher, higher.

‘Freeze! FREEZE,’ Tony had screamed.

‘He stopped running,’ Aden said, voice soft.

‘Dylan?’ Imogen was watching him, her green eyes fixed on him like there was nowhere else she’d rather be, and no one else that she’d rather listen to. Even though she must have heard this story a hundred times before.

‘Yeah.’

‘He stopped?’

‘Yeah. I thought . . . I thought he was giving himself up. At least, I think that was what I thought. But then maybe I’m just telling myself that.’

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Because of . . . you know. To make it better. If . . . if he was giving himself up, if that was what I thought, then it was okay that I didn’t shoot.’

The figure had stopped, so they stopped, Aden and Rhys and Tony. There was shouting. They were shouting. Because sometimes people freeze and they can do stupid things, even without intending to, so you yell at them and tell them exactly what to do, loudly. Anything to break through the freeze.

‘But then,’ said Aden, ‘he turned.’

They were standing, yelling at him to put the fucking gun down
now
. And then there’s movement. A pause as the world draws a breath. Then sound, so much sound that it seems like the world will end in it. Later, he would try to remember the shots, but no matter how hard he tried, he would only ever remember the one – that first crack, the sound wave racing through the air, burning against his eardrums. It would later turn out that there were three shots. Two from Tony. One from Rhys. From himself, none.

And Aden, finger on the trigger, willing it to move, willing it, but it won’t, and it’s like the finger doesn’t belong to him.

Then it is over.

‘I keep playing it, over and over again. What’s wrong with me? Why couldn’t I pull the trigger?’

He was stuck there, gun still pointed, only now it was pointed at nothing because the boy had slumped to the ground, a motionless pile in a yawning puddle. The air thick, dense, like a sudden fog had descended, the smell of cordite burning his throat.

‘Why do you assume that something is wrong with you?’ asked Imogen, forehead wrinkled into a small frown.

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Tony’s voice had come from a long way away. Aden had felt Rhys, the new boy, his pupil, darting past him, felt the cold water splash from the puddles, saw him dropping to his knees beside the figure. If you looked hard enough, really squinted, you could see the blood beginning to pool. Had stood there and watched, useless, as Rhys began to give CPR.

‘I just stood there, staring at the boy.’ Aden had leaned back again, was staring up at the ceiling. ‘At Dylan. I couldn’t . . . I mean, it took me for ever to lower the gun. Seemed like my arms were stuck. I just couldn’t move. Rhys, I mean, he’s little more than a kid himself, and he was giving first aid. God, there was blood everywhere.’

Tony had moved forward, Glock still raised, kicking away the dark-grey gun that Aden could see now, because lights were flicking on in the surrounding houses, people awoken by the noise, so that now the gun was surrounded by a patch of light, almost like a spotlight on a stage. Aden forcing his arms down, Tony shouting at him, eyes glaringly large, flecks of white spittle flying from his mouth. Aden would not remember what it was Tony had said, just the thick rolling vowels, the accent so Welsh it had seemed that he was speaking a different language, the fury in him. Aden’s hands were shaking, could barely force the gun into its holster. There were noises coming from the body on the ground, sounded like coughing, but like no coughing Aden had ever heard before. Rhys looking up at him, wild-eyed, blood dripping from his chin, in some macabre vampiric tableau. Sirens, sirens, coming from everywhere. Aden knew there were things he should be doing, a list of tasks to be completed, but for the moment he just couldn’t think of them.

The boy had been shot in the torso, the bullets – three of them in all – landing exactly where they were supposed to land. It would later transpire that he hadn’t been standing on the ground, that the darkness had concealed a low wall, that Dylan had stood on that, so when he was hit with the force of three bullets in his chest he was flung backwards, his head impacting the ground with bone-crushing force, the blow to his brain causing contusions, bleeding. The ambulance had arrived quickly, the speed of the medical intervention saving his life. Too late for his mental faculties, though, the damage there proving irreparable.

‘I didn’t do it, see.’ Aden followed the thread of the Artexing, the peaks and troughs, knew in his conscious mind that it was white. Also knew why it appeared red to him. ‘That’s the thing that I just can’t shake. I mean, I knew the job so well. I’d been doing it for five years. I was . . .’

‘What?’

‘I was one of the best. I know that sounds cocky, and I don’t mean it like that. But I was supposed to be going for the Tactical Unit, the top team on the department. My sergeant was pushing me, saying that I was born for it. And so, you kind of think that if the shit ever does hit the fan, then of course you’ll handle it, you’ll do the job properly, cos everyone says that you’re good at it. But that night . . .’

‘Go on.’

‘I don’t know. I was waiting for something. Some sign that pulling the trigger was the right thing to do.’

‘But you didn’t get one?’

‘No. But the others did. Rhys. Tony. And the thing is, if they hadn’t done what they did, if they hadn’t shot, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here. If they had been like me, if they’d hesitated in pulling the trigger . . . Jesus!’ Aden pushed himself up on the sofa again, looked at Imogen. She looked tired, he suddenly thought. Felt a flash of guilt that he was here, again, that she was listening to him, again. How many times had she done this, how many different versions of this same conversation had they had? Months-worth. Too many to count. ‘The thing is, I know I made a mistake. I know I didn’t do the job properly. But I keep twisting it around in my head and, whichever way I turn it, I just can’t get to the point where I would have pulled that trigger.’

‘So, isn’t that your answer then?’ asked Imogen.

‘How do you mean?’

‘You’ve blamed yourself for your actions – or, as you’ve phrased it, your inaction. But if you are saying that your perception of the scene, what you were seeing unfold in front of you, simply didn’t support you pulling the trigger, then why would you have? How could you have? What you have to remember, Aden, is that there are a number of different perspectives on this event. At least four that we know of – yours, Rhys’s, Tony’s. Dylan Lowe’s. No one person had a full view of everything that was unfolding. And I think it is dangerous to automatically assume that your reaction to the event is in some way faulty. The IPCC didn’t think it was, the firearms commanders didn’t think it was. You behaved in a way that, based on your information at the time, appeared most appropriate to you. The fact that others behaved differently means that they perceived something different.’

‘So . . .’

‘So, the world isn’t a simple place. And sometimes, in order to understand what has gone on, we have to understand what those surrounding us were seeing.’

Aden nodded, thinking about the stationary figure lying in the bed, unseeing eyes studying the ceiling. Thinking about Dylan Lowe and the decisions he made a year ago that led him to be lying here. And then, inexorably, thinking about the ward, and the glass-panelled door, and, even though he wasn’t there and even though he can only imagine, thinking about looking through it, from the inside out: a figure standing, waiting, gun in hand. And Dylan Lowe, in his deep and dreamless sleep.

I PUSH THE
car door open, squeezing out of the space that is, in truth, too tight. My hair is still damp to the touch, swinging around my shoulders, but the heat of the day is beginning to build and soon it will dry. I leave my swimming bag on the passenger seat, push the door closed behind me.

I called the office, spoke to Dave. ‘I’ll be a bit late in, okay? I’m chasing a lead. Just let Lydia know, will you?’

She’s going to be pissed off at me. I feel it in my gut. But then Lydia’s default setting seems to be pissed off these days. I pull my handbag onto my shoulder and duck between the cars, can feel the sun reflecting off them, bouncing against my cream trousers. There are murmurs around the office. Talk that the paper isn’t doing well, that redundancies are inevitably going to follow. I do my best to ignore it, just get on with the job. Because, in the end, that is all I can control.

The tarmac is starting to heat up, and even this early in the morning is becoming sticky. My slip-on shoes graze at the back of my heels as I hurry along it. I’m hoping that he’ll be alone. That it’s early enough for me to catch him on the tail of a night shift. I duck in through the doors of the hospital lobby, feeling the gasp of air conditioning, and the first thing that I see is a gun, staring me right in the face. I start, my heart racing for a moment. Then my gaze tracks up, and I see the firearms uniform: Tony, his face set into a heavy frown as he looks at me. I smile, even though I have a sneaking suspicion he doesn’t like me. Rhys stands behind him and I give him a nod, my face flushing slightly, even though I am fully aware that this is ridiculous. He is terribly young, but God, the kid is good-looking.

‘All right, guys?’

Rhys flushes as if I’ve just asked him to strip naked and dance a tango with me. Tony shrugs, a heavy movement that leads to the artillery shifting. ‘Supposed to have finished an hour ago, but no. Bloody bosses want one more sweep. Got to be back in again by six this evening for training too, don’t we?’ He gives me a sharp look. ‘Don’t go putting that in your paper, mind.’

I suppress a sigh. If only the mundanities of people’s lives were as interesting as the people themselves thought they were. ‘Scout’s honour, Tone. Well, hope you guys get to finish soon.’

Rhys mumbles something that I miss, and turns sharply away, heavy boots scuffing loudly against the linoleum floor. I suppress a smile, turning into a service stairwell. It is quiet down here, industrial and cool. But then I suppose it is an area few people have cause to visit. I pull open the door to the basement, slip inside the long narrow corridor. The security office is the third door on the right.

I know before I get there that I am right, that he is still here, hasn’t gone home yet. Kenny Rogers croons, the music set low but inescapable. I rap smartly on the door, duck my head around without giving him time to answer, the fleeting and uncomfortable thought occurring to me that one day I’m going to catch someone naked if I keep doing that.

But Ernie is not naked, thank God. He is sitting in an office chair, one that looks like it is struggling to support his weight, is leaning back so that his head is almost lost behind the belly on him, and I wonder if I have woken him. He has that look about him, that vague sleepiness as his eyes struggle to focus on me. I grin, give him a small wave, trying not to let my face know my thoughts. That he looks old today, older than I have seen him before.

‘Well, young Charlotte. Now this is a pleasure.’ Ernie pushes himself up in his chair, the movement straining the fabric on his shirt so that it seems impossible the buttons will hold, and runs his fingers through his grey hair. I smile at the vanity of it. His fingers finish their work and the hair stands further up on end than ever it did before. ‘Come in, good girl, come in.’

I move around the door, leaning to avoid the dachshund calendar. Ernie loves dachshunds. ‘Do you ever go home, Ernie?’

He gives a rough bark of a laugh. ‘Now then, you know how it is here. Thin blue line, that’s me.’ He glances down at the mound of his belly. ‘Well, thick blue line.’

I fish in my bag. ‘I brought you a present.’

He grins, catches with one hand the chocolate digestives I throw him. ‘Aw, Charlie, love. How did you know?’

‘I know everything, Ern. It’s my job.’

He pushes a second chair towards me with his foot, the lion’s share of his attention caught on unwrapping the biscuits, freeing the top one from its cover. He studies it for a moment, the way a wine connoisseur would study a fine vintage, and then eats it in two swift bites. ‘Ah, tha’s good. Yourself?’

I wave away the proffered packet. ‘Got to watch my waistline. How am I going to catch myself a husband otherwise?’

He laughs, a shaking, silent kind of laugh, and swallows another digestive. ‘You? You’re a scrawny little thing.’

I glance around. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d still be here. Bit late after a night shift, isn’t it?’

‘Well, aye. I just wanted to have a final walk-through – you know, dot the i’s, cross the t’s.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose you know what’s been happenin’? That fella with the gun?’