Case Closed

• Twelve •

When they eventually broke apart, his eyes were again filled with tears. "I'm so sorry," he choked. " I should have told you, I should have asked for- for- no, no. I don't need your help, I don't need you, I don't need anyone!" The two sides were clashing, tearing him in two, and it hurt him. It hurt Lucy, too, to see how desperate he was, yet how his Potty side resisted any kind of attention. Now she came to think of it, Potty Prof had kept well hidden for at least 24 hours now. She wondered whether he'd intended that.

"You do need my 'elp," she said gently, looking up at his torn face. Just like that, his whole body softened and relaxed. He stood up and walked over to the desk, opening a draw and pulling out the red case file. Lucy's heart skipped a beat. He was going to tell her everything.

He brought it back to the sofa and sat down again with it on his lap.
"Firstly there's something you must understand. Do not think badly of me for it. But this- this will change everything." She nodded in acknowledgment.

"Good. My family is not like yours. They don't care for each other, and they don't care about anyone but themselves. We're all the same. Every one of us."

The dark scowl on his face made her flinch away. "But you-"

"Don't interrupt."

"Sorry."

"When I grew up, my father never cared about me. I was the obsessed one, following a line he had very little interest in. He tried to force me to go to collage, to learn, to join my perfect brother. It would be best for me, they said. So I went, and I tried, but it was never enough. All that learning, never any action. Needless to say, I did not last long at collage."

Lucy pictured a young Prof, studying, among normal people. It was a strange image, to say the least.

"So I left, and became an apprentice of sorts. Here, at Scotland Yard, working with the Commissioner. He, naturally, knew everything, but he never... judged me. My background was of very little interest to him, but my work was a different matter. You could say he was 'obsessed' in his own way - my deductive 'powers' as you call them, shocked him."

Lucy smiled, "I can imagine."

"I was almost happy. Almost. But no one can be happy when they're alone."

She noticed how he'd missed the part about Hilda's attack, thinking he'd probably rather not talk about it at this time.

"I became withdrawn, focused only on what I was doing every day and loving my work. I pushed aside the desperate want for company, and devoted myself fully to putting as many criminals as possible behind bars. It was lonely, yes, but I was content. I would have liked to have said the people here were my new family, but they didn't want anything to do with me most of the time. I think I scared them off."

Chuckling slightly, he flipped the pages of the file forward. Each held either a photo, or a page of notes. He stopped at a faded, crumpled picture of a family. With a jolt of suprise, Lucy recognised the unruly red hair of the Prof standing at the front on the group. The scowl on his face suggested that he would have much rather not been there. Next to him, was a slightly taller boy, also with red hair, which was combed back tidily. He wore glasses and looked the spitting image of his father, yet also bore a strong resemblance to the Prof. Around the pair stood Hershel, Flora and Katrille, who was laughing at something Alfendi must have said. Her eyes kept drifting back to the two boys at the front. It was weird imagining him with a brother. One he looked pretty close to at that. They looked in their early teens, so the photo must have been taken before the family had fallen apart. Prompting him to continue, she stared and stared at the picture, letting it fill in the blanks in her imagination.

"I was here when he came looking for me. It scares me how he had the power to do this, as I had left no indications as to where I would be going and how they would contact me. With his friends high up in Cambridge, though, he did it with ease."

"He found me here, in this very room in fact. I yelled. I cursed him for what he had done to me. He didn't care. He ignored my death threats and vows to... to kill him."

"It wasn't his fault," Lucy murmured under her breath.

"What?"

"It wasn't his fault. He was just doing what your father put upon you both, except you chose not to follow his path."

For a moment, his eyes flashed an angry scarlet, which was quickly masked by a sigh. "I suppose you're right. As usual, I'm afraid. He wasn't the one to blame, but he was the one who found me first. I could not pile all the hatred on my damned father, so instead did so on his messenger. On my brother. I only wish I could regret what I said to him. "

Confused, Lucy said, "But you've just said it's not 'im, so why do you still hate 'im?"

"A part of me knows the truth," Potty Prof grinned, "The other wants to kill him on sight."

"Right. Well, what's this got to do with that case?"

Flicking through the stacks of paper in the file, he stopped at another photo, which appeared to be a driving license belonging to... she checked the name, Charles Layton. From the detail of the picture, she could see how his wire-framed glasses hid the Prof's lime-green eyes. His red hair was a Potty Prof shade - if it wasn't for their separation growing up, they could have been twins.

"Right. So why are your family photos in this case file?"

He flipped back to the front and unclipped a sheet of paper. It had a photo in the top-left corner, of what seemed to be an empty jail cell, and then, another of a large, muscled, vaguely familiar body. Next to it was a paragraph that read,

Victim: Justin Lawson
A recently jailed member of London's Scotland Yard, arrested for murder and attempted murder, July 2012/July 2016. Killed 13th December 2016. His body was found floating in the Thames with a stab wound to the back.

She froze. Looking back at the cell, it was obvious now who it was. "Oh my God."

"I know," his face didn't show any emotion.

"Why did they give you this? All the people here... sorry, I didn't mean- we don't need this right now."

"There's more." Below the picture were three more paragraphs.

Suspect: Jacob Smiths (27)
Cooks for the prison's inmates. Delivered food to victim on day of murder. No previous history is available.

"No previous 'istory? Why's that?"

"They can't find anything on him. Even worse, he disappeared a week ago. Not a trace."

"Sounds like 'e knows what he's doing..."

"It does."

Suspect: Eli Cattermole (47)
An apparent friend of Justin's family since he was a child. Visited the afternoon before the murder, but claims no correspondence with Justin since university.

"A friend?"

"Yes, they grew up together, were very close - well, they still are."

"And why's he a suspect?" She frowned. "Sounds like a nice guy, to be 'onest. Even if he's fallen in with the wrong people."

"He visited Justin the afternoon before he died. No one else had visited for over a month. Needless to say, he's not all that popular anymore. I... doubt his family even care," Potty Prof snarled.

"Ok, calm down."

"Sorry."

"And the last suspect?"

Reluctantly, he turned over to the reverse of the sheet.

Suspect: Charles Layton (31)
Professor of Neurology at Cambridge University. Visited the previous week to interview Justin about his progress for research.

"Oh."