Echoes of Us

Eight

Harrison was sat in an interrogation room at the Rellington Police Station. The police needed his full testimony of what had happened this morning; June had come with him but had been put in a separate room.

"I need you to tell me what happened before Avery was shot," a police officer was sat opposite him, a notebook in one hand and a recorder on the table between them both.

Harrison had been in this room since 12pm, it was now 5:36pm and they had been asking him the same questions.

'What happened this morning?'

'Did you see anyone suspicious at the venue?'

'Did Avery have any enemies that would a motive to kill her?'

All these had been answered the same way each time too.

'Someone shot Avery. No, I don't know who it was.'

'I don't know.'

'No.'

Two different police officers had come in and questioned Harrison, this one was the third one.

"I told Sergeant Adams everything this morning, why do I need to tell three separate officers the same thing?"

He was fed up, he hadn't even had the chance to mourn Avery, they had dragged him in here immediately after the coroners had taken her body away to investigate the cause of death.

He couldn't believe it.

The image of Avery covered in that white blanket, being dragged away on the stretcher and loaded into the back of the van like an inanimate object, another case, haunted him.

His heart throbbed with a pain so deep it felt like it would swallow him whole. All he wanted was to grieve, to make sense of the horror that had unfolded, but instead, he was trapped in this room, forced to relive the nightmare over and over with every question they hurled his way.

He stared at the table, the wood grain patterns blurring together as his thoughts spiraled.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Avery; her smile, her laughter, the way her eyes lit up when she talked about her work. And then, the image would shift, darken, until all he could see was her lying on the stage, blood pooling around her, her life slipping away while he stood there, helpless.

Harrison clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white as he tried to push the memory away. But it was useless. It kept replaying in his mind like a broken record, each loop tightening the knot of despair in his chest.

“I need to know what happened before Avery was shot,” the officer repeated, his tone a little more insistent this time.

Harrison lifted his head slowly, meeting the officer’s gaze.

His voice came out strained, barely above a whisper. “I told you everything already. We were late…we got there just in time. She was giving her speech and then…”

His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard, trying to hold himself together. “And then someone shot her.”

The officer didn’t flinch, just kept scribbling notes in his book, like Harrison’s world hadn’t just been shattered into a million pieces.

"Her boss, June was it? Did she act any differently that day?" the officer asked without raising his eyes from the notebook.

"I don't know her well enough to answer that question, I only saw her on occasions like this," Harrison sighed and he placed his head in his hands again.

He heard shuffling in front of him, and as he looked up, he saw that the police officer had placed his notebook and pen on the table and stood up while looking at him.