The Identical Man

The Identical Man

The room was plain white containing only a dull metal table with a set of chairs. Charlie had been in that room for hours and had refused to speak, except to deny the charges the detective was accusing him of.

     “We know you did it. We have a statement and you videoed it you sick bastard,” said the detective.

     The senior detective, who was sat next to him, did not stop staring at Charlie but had remained silent throughout the interrogation. Charlie was getting irritated with the junior detective and felt it was time to end the interrogation.

     “Accuse me of such a foul act again and I’ll break your nose,” Charlie said.

     Charlie was more than capable of doing this, despite his hands being handcuffed behind his back. He was ex-SAS and knew exactly how to get out of the situation. He could even kill them both if he wanted to. But that would be stupid. He needed the police on his side if he was going to find the person who attacked Emily. She was his best friend and he had failed to protect her. But he could not dwell on the past. He needed to focus, to escape, to let her know it was not him. But most importantly, he needed to find who did it.

     Until today, Charlie had never been sure if he was in love with Emily. But now he knew. By god he knew. All he wanted to do was be with her. He wanted to hold and comfort her. But she had not only been attacked, she believed he had done it. That hurt most of all. He knew it was selfish to think that, but he could not help it. The thought that she believed he had done those sick things to her ate away at him. He had been trained to handle the most terrible and shocking of circumstances, but he could not handle this.

     “So as well as rape, we can add threatening a police officer to the charges,” said the detective.

     Charlie knew the junior detective was trying to antagonize him, and it was working. He had been warned. What happened now was his fault. He must have realised he was not going to brake, as the junior detective got up out of his chair and grabbed Charlie’s arm to escort him to a cell. As he did, Charlie head butted him as hard as he could. Charlie heard the nose crack and the detective fell to the floor and did not move. The senior detective was slow to react, which gave Charlie time to close the distance between them. As the detective stood up, Charlie kicked him in the groin and then swept his legs, causing him to fall on his back. Charlie then placed his knee over the detective’s throat and applied pressure until he too was still and silent. Knowing he would have company at any moment, he took the hand cuff keys from the senior detectives pocket and removed them.

     He made his way out of the interrogation room. He had to find Emily. Just as he was about to check the room closest to him, he saw her, sitting on a seat up the hall with a blanket wrapped around her. Her right eye was black and the left side of her face had a huge stitched up gash that stretched from her forehead all the way down her cheek. Charlie ran up to her and stopped as he caught her eye. It felt like someone had just hammered him in the chest. Her eyes were filled with terror. There was no doubt she truly believed he was the one who had attacked her. He fell to his knees. He felt sick and warm drops dripped from his face. He forced himself to crawl towards her. She did not move. He wrapped his arms around her legs. He would have preferred death to this. He forced himself to look at her. She still had the same look of terror in her eyes. The look he had only ever seen on the battlefield.