Rania Algafari never asked to be different, and when she escaped the war in Syria and moved to the UK, her only goal was to live her life in peace. Get up, go to work, avoid talking to the dead - that sort of thing.
But not everyone dies quietly, an...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Back when I was a copper, the brass had always been on our backs about response times. Well, they'd have been proud tonight. Only three minutes and twenty seconds between me calling 999 and the first police car screaming into the car park. Chris Turner took another half hour to arrive, and when he did make an appearance, I made a point of looking at his non-regulation slippers before meeting his eyes.
"Get dressed in a hurry, did we?"
He glanced down and went scarlet. "Why are you here, Lawson?"
"Picking up my girlfriend."
It took him three seconds to put that together. "The cleaner? I knew you were screwing her."
No, Lawson. Punching a police officer is a one-way ticket to jail. Especially if that officer was a prick like Turner.
"At least I'm not sleeping alone. How's the hand? Got RSI yet?"
For one delightful second, I thought Turner would take a swing at me instead, but then he caught himself and backed off.
"If I do, it'll be from writing the report that gets your woman locked up. Heard she killed a man tonight. Let's see how much trouble she's in, shall we?"
"Don't you dare take your problems with me out on her."
"Oh, I'll do things by the book. Always do. It's you who's got the problem with sticking to the rules."
The worst of it was, I could only watch as Rania got bundled into the back of a police car, still covered in Lloyd Weston's blood. I was a witness, to be questioned separately while she got interrogated. Same with Aiden. He sidled up next to me followed by a female constable. Young. Perhaps she hadn't heard about my reputation yet?
"They want us to go in for questioning," Aiden said.
"Give me a moment."
The WPC gave it a try. "Sir? I need you to come with us now."
"Am I under arrest?"
"No."
"Then you can wait for ten minutes."
I knew a lady in the legal aid office—no, not like that, Deborah was old enough to be my mother—and I wanted to find out who the duty solicitor was. Before the police arrived, I'd told Rania not to say anything until she'd got legal advice, but the quality of that advice varied hugely depending on the rota. A quick chat with Deb would tell me whether a big problem was about to get even bigger.
"Please, sir," the constable said. "Detective Turner wants me to bring you straight away."
"You do everything Turner says?"
"Not if I can help it," she muttered.
I flashed her a grin. "It won't hurt him to wait. In fact, he'll be grateful since he'll have more time to fill all his forms in."
