Define Stalker

The first murderer I ever met wanted to know when he was going home. He was a kid. I didn't have the heart to tell him his twenties wouldn't be on the outside.

It took a while, maybe weeks, but the interviews became easier; predictable almost. I numbed myself to the hour after hour of no comment, the endless stream of sweet coffee, concrete thumped by standard issue plimsolls until hell became appealing. Even tears sometimes, caustic mainly. Usually at around five in the morning when the last breath of fight faded.

That first killer was a scrawny seventeen-year old, and judging by the unkempt mess above his forehead, barely able to comb his hair. The hands were still swathed in blood. He'd been put in a dry cell but still tried to lick it off before the SOCO arrived to swab him. This job, life, existence; it was technically known as being thrown in at the deep end.  

This was branded to my DNA; criminals, cops, conspiracy to commit. I was an Assistant Chief Constable's son. There'd been no say in the matter. No discussion. Now at the grand old age of twenty-nine I had a trophy girlfriend, a golf membership, a Sergeant's exam looming and a father brimming with pride.

I had it all. 

But it wasn't enough.

Not until I met her, Julietta Fentone, did I acknowledge that which was voided. Work, sleep, binge on booze, accompany Hannah to whichever lame eatery was flavour of the month. 

I deserved more than everything. Surely someone understood.

Julietta was a girl, that was all; an exotic visage across another bland 'edgy' bar on Deansgate. Inspector Freemon's birthday; longtime pal of said ACC dad. I was out with B Relief, my old partners in (fighting) crime. Putting the banter, brews and burglary stats aside, these brothers from another mother were my true family. Never alone, not really, not in that uniform. Even in plain clothes you stuck out a mile. Even in the same shirt and tie as the next nondescript office worker people must know you're different, see through that thinly veiled disguise to the red cape; or just understood you had the right to wrestle them to the floor. With due cause, of course.

Maybe it was the burrowing frown lines or North Face jacket or blue Banner book tucked under my arm. Maybe it was the 'smell of bacon,' as a young sociopath once spat in my face. That's not a stench you can wash off, but then, it's not something I want to. 

That night there was someone else, a girl in a yellow dress, lingering by the bar. 

She was pretty, maybe more. Dainty. Cute. Not curves and allure and darkness. She glowed, diamond dust on her cheeks. Shoes like Cinderella's, a carriage surely waiting outside. Though she'd not made her excuses, not answered an un-ringing phone to escape my clutches. She told me her name, the lilt hiding a trace of Italian. I couldn't remember much of the play but was sure I could muster a line of Shakespeare or two. 

It worked. She smiled; one of those long, lingering, keep-you-warm-at-night beams. And then she was gone. I'd turned to my line of well-trained observers, watching in disbelief as the phone number on the napkin felt like liquid gold off my fingertips. They all knew what it was like. No one passed judgement, fire and damnation, not from my boys. The DI though was a force to be reckoned with, in the station and the bar. It didn't take long before the gruff tones were chomping my eardrums, recalling Hannah expectant at home, a bottle of rosé fast approaching empty. This man, the authority on everything I didn't want to hear.

I searched for the girl again, Julietta in the yellow dress, though she was mere shadow. The sunflower hue, a promise of more, the unhealthy obsession manifesting as missed jokes and half-heard stories. The girl already under my skin. By the window I'd tried to edge closer, pray she was catching a taxi in the rain, her coat a shelter.