That's exactly what it is, darlin'. And there's a good chance you're at the centre of it all.
She looked at me for a few seconds. Don't know what she was expecting me to say. Was she looking for sympathy? But I didn't give her anything. There was nothing to say. Taylor and I both suspect her of involvement and we'll do everything to get evidence of it. And fuck it if that drags me into it as well, because of what's been going on between me and her. I'll deal with that if it comes.
My bet, however, is that there'll be no evidence to find.
We're left to wonder what went on between her and Jonah Bloonsbury. Maybe it goes back all the way. Sixteen years ago to his first moment of glory and a chase across open moorland. Must have started sometime. Maybe the two of them have been in it together all along, riding the back of the other. And while Bloonsbury couldn't cope and floundered in an ocean of whisky, Charlotte Miller rode the high seas. Was going to go all the way.
'Would you come with me?' she said. A quiet, nervous voice, but I wouldn't believe that voice now no matter what the tone. Still, that request was out the blue. An electric shock. But whereas before it would have been a shock from an entire power grid, now it was like static off a jumper. 'Now that it's over, you should be able to get some time off. I'm sure Dan wouldn't mind.'
Dan would go fucking mental. But there was nothing to worry about. There was no way I was going anywhere else with Charlotte Miller. Standing in front of her desk was as far as she was ever going to take me.
'Don't think so,' I said. Still too many things to sort out. And even if there weren't…
She swallowed. Took it well. Knew what I was thinking, I'm sure.
And that was that. She didn't say anything else, I turned my back on my infatuation of the past week and walked from her office. Closed the door behind me.
A couple of minutes later she swept out of the station. No goodbyes. We couldn't exactly lock her up just because Bloonsbury tried to kill her, but I would bet now if we find something and want to bring her in, she'll be very difficult to get hold of. It might not just be weeks that the few days turns into, but months and years. Off somewhere with her bank account and silk pyjamas.
And that's just about it. Some questions answered, some not. A few leftovers, such as the man who currently rots in prison on the Addison murder charges from last year. The crimes of Gerry Crow — although that's all hearsay. Maybe it was Bloonsbury all along. Who knows? It'll be for someone else to work out what to do with the guy.
We're done, and I'm left sitting across the road from my ex-wife, waiting for something. Maybe it's for one of them to take the decision out of my hands. For one of them to look out of the window and notice the car parked across the road. For one of them to decide whether to draw the curtains or come over and invite me in.
At the back of my mind — despite all the stupidity of being infatuated with Charlotte Miller — I was presuming that I'd end up back here, that I'd be walking in through that door. But last night I killed a man, and it wasn't the first time. It was the first time in seventeen years. And while seventeen years is a long fucking time, it's not long enough.
I always thought that when I met the right women I'd talk to her. My part in the Balkan war. I'd let it all out, a great tumble of awful reminiscence, spewing forth, unstoppable, ending with me in tears and a wreck on the floor. And for years I thought it would be Peggy. For years. And maybe even this past week I'd thought it would be Peggy, that she was the one I could talk to.
But sitting here, across the road from her house, I know. I don't think I was lying to myself when I first thought she'd be the one. I genuinely believed I could talk to her. Now, however, I know for sure. Not today, not tomorrow, not next week. And some time soon, after I move back in, I'll wake up jabbering and sweating and panicking in the middle of the night and she'll look at me and be afraid and hope that I'll talk to her, and I'll see it in her eyes. The sure and certain knowledge that I won't. The sure and certain knowledge that there probably is someone out there in whom I'd confide, but that it's not her.
I see a movement in the front room, and suddenly I know that I can't be sitting here waiting for them to make the decision for me. I have to leave.
Engine on, into first, and smoothly away from the side of the road. Grasp the steering wheel firmly because my hands are shaking. Look at the clock. Must have been an hour that I sat there. Late afternoon, New Years day.
Automatically flick the music on. Bob. Idiot Wind.
I haven't known peace and quiet so long I can't remember what it's like. Time for me and Bob to hit the nearest pub.