The Dark Star - Aftermath Pt. 08

"Untie me Andrew .... please let me go."

"Logan" I remind her gently.

"Logan...Andrew.... Do I even fucking know you?" Rose Callaghan reasons pulling hard at the restraints "Just let me go .... let me fucking go"

"This doesn't change us" I reason.

"This fucking changes everything. every fucking thing" I watch as she determinedly struggles against the restraint in which I hold her.

"Nobody knows." I sit back beside her not daring to touch her, "Nobody knows about us ...I've not told a soul."

"Jesus fucking Christ" she states contemplating no doubt the enormity of the consequences. My connection to Jack, my connection to her and her connection to me crashing down heavily upon her once again gripping her in the paralysis I'd predicted "Jesus fucking Christ I've been fucking the Father of the Prime Suspect in the case I've been working for nearly twelve months".

"I didn't even know until he was arrested ...until the papers ...as soon as I realised, I wanted to tell you... I just..."

"And you fucking tell me like this" once again her wrists pull sharply at their restraints.

"Listen to me Rose..." I keep my tone neutral and calm. I need her to see reason I need her to understand I need to complete the web of deceit and I can't let go of her until I know I can trust her.

"Let me tell you what I know."

**********

Rose Callaghan lay there she lay there listening to his explanation, she didn't know when she fell silent with her mind confused and overwhelmed by the sharp twist her life had taken in the space of half an hour.

She listened as he detailed everything he knew about his wayward son, she listened as he attempts to explain how he'd no knowledge until the height of summer of what his Son had been doing with his life; how Jack had turned his back on him when he'd left his mother at the breakdown of their marriage. How he'd tried to reason with him how he'd tried to reason with his Ex-Wife on seeing how Jack was mentally deteriorating. He claimed to have been turned on, ostracised, removed from young Jacks life by his Ex-Wife's manipulation that had poisoned Jack's mind to him.

There were sincere tears in his eyes as he relayed the guilt he felt caught up with his own problems. How his own life has spiralled with the hopeless worry and despair. Detailing the crushing pain of having to forsake his only Son and the guilt that had burdened him and slowly crushed him over time.

At pains he described his time in solitude reflecting on who he'd become coming to terms with his demons. His frustration at the charges levied against him posthumously for his part in the deaths of Gemma Gregson and Roman Blackstock. Callaghan now all too aware as she lay there silent with shock, knowing now full well now where she'd previously heard the name of Logan Hughes.

There was an honesty to him though. She believed him when he spoke. There was a sincerity in his voice as he pleaded ignorance to events that had transpired; he alluded to a convenience to blame him on the assumption he was dead. He claimed to have no knowledge of either of the victims discovered in the basement of his former Club. Callaghan trusted no one, years of training had taught her that. She'd find it had to trust her own nearest and dearest inn such circumstances but somehow, she believed him. She had no reason to believe him as she lay there flat on her back staring up at the ceiling on which the shadows of glowing candles danced and flickered. In her mind as much as she wanted to doubt him, she sincerely believed him.

He could be being clever with his words she reasoned almost immediately, he could be verbally manipulating her, for his own gain. Rose Callaghan lay there questioning the reality of any of this situation, a situation she could never have foreseen herself plunged into when she entered the borrowed flat now a little less than an hour previously. All the while he kept her trapped here, restrained to the bed while candlelight now eerily illuminated their surroundings.

Her mind back to his innocence as he turned her head to him. She desperately wanted to believe him she wanted to trust him. The conflict for her feelings towards him was unreal. This man, this man she'd fallen for over time having become herself become unwittingly involved with him. The man she'd sincerely fought her conscience over leaving her fiancé for. She felt tears in her eyes at the emotional conflict. The corner in which she was unwittingly backed into.

Her mid raced. She couldn't reason with any scenario and logic at this moment in time. How had she allowed this? How had she become so embroiled with the sordid relationship; questioning all the signs she had might have missed but in truth there had been no signs. There were no red flags. On face value she'd done nothing wrong, beyond her promiscuity.

"I'm worried" he said turning to her as though he read her mind "I'm worried about how compromised I know I've left you."

She screwed her eyes shut a tear running down her left cheek.

He hadn't compromised her. She'd compromised herself.

**********

"No one can ever know" she whispered after what seemed an eternity "No one can ever find out."

"About us?" I softly state

In turn she slowly nods her head, her body held stretched across the mattress, her head simply nods.

"I did nothing wrong," she utters her eyes still closed.

"You didn't.... we didn't"

She remains silent. Her chest rising and falling in that moment she couldn't look any frailer any more exposed and innocent. Her anguish all too apparent.

Leaning over her I drop my body weight across her feeling her tense. My right hand pulls at the buckle that holds the restraint around her slender left wrist. I begin to free her.

Moments later I set her free of the restraint. I sit on the edge of the bed my head in my hands. I sense her climb slowly up off the bed. I hear the collar fall heavily to the bed behind me. I don't react. I hear her pulling on her black dress and the sound of her heels on the solid oak floors of the apartment. I look up as she heads for the top of the stairs that leads from the bedroom mezzanine level to main apartment below us.

"Rose" I state, and she turns to face me slowly her eyes wet, the anguish all too apparent.

"Don't" she says.

"Rose I..." Rising I move deliberately slowly towards her, as her hand hovers on the bannister "I need you..."

"Don't... don't..." she shakes her head "I need time ... fuck knows how much time.... I just need time."

"No" I say "Not like that .... I know in my heart how I've fucked up ...how I've lost you."

She simply stands there facing me and the bed behind me on which still drape the restraints in which she'd willing let me hold her.

"I need you to save Jack."

"You can't ask me to do that" she exclaims. "No... No... No... You can't ask me to do that."

"Not like that" I find tears back in my own eyes, I deserve a fucking award for this performance I think fighting the urge for a sardonic grin to form on my lips.

"Jack has done vile terrible things ...I don't believe he's been alone in carrying out what he's done .... but I need you to save Jack from himself ... Whatever happens I need you to put Jack and whoever he's operating with away .... you need to make sure Jack is locked up for his own good... that's the only way to save him."

"I know" is her only response.

"Then... then there's something you need..." I hesitate. "Something I discovered... you can't ask how... if it's the last thing I ever ask of you please...."

Her eyes narrow, I hold up a finger indicating her to wait, turning my back on her I head to the wardrobe and the safe within the bottom of the wardrobe that's built into the wall by the side of the bed. I stab in the four-digit pin code that electronically unlocks the small steel safe. Retrieving what I seek."

"This will help you join the dots .... this will help you prove his guilt."

I keep the item by my side, still wrapped in the clear plastic food bag that I'd placed it in having discarded the old cloth in which it had been wrapped.

Stepping close to Rose Callaghan I press the object into her hand wrapping my hands over hers.

"I didn't know what to do with this until tonight... now I do."

Rose pulls her hand away looking down at the object I thrust into her hand. She unravels the plastic bag but does not remove the contents. Her face draws back level with mine, her eyes look into mine.

Rose Callaghan doesn't know it, but she holds in her hand the flick knife covered in dried blood and the DNA of multiple victims, covered in the fingerprints of Chloe Macready. And covered in the fingerprints of my Son.

She says nothing, her expression speaking a thousand words.

My own heart beats heavy in my chest

Her left hand tucks her hair behind her left ear.

She takes a half step forward, rather than in retreat.

I lean forward my hand into the small of her back, I kiss her.

She kisses me back.

**********

The bar was empty, she didn't even know the Irish Bar existed until tonight, this City was still so unfamiliar to her.

"Troubled" the fresh-faced girl in a black t-shirt and skin-tight black jeans said to her as she approached Callaghan, Blonde hair tied back off her slightly gaunt heavily made-up face.

"You wouldn't understand" Rose Callaghan offered.

"Man trouble," the girl offered assuredly.

"If you don't mind, I'd rather not.... What Red's do you serve?" Callaghan's enquired looking past her to the plethora of bottles along the bac of the bar in order to change the subject.

"I'm afraid we only serve liquor and liquor-based cocktails."

A dark smirk played across Callaghan's face at the irony "In that case it'll have to be Brandy."

The barmaid tilted her head with her own wry smile, Callaghan sensed there was something about her something she couldn't immediately put her finger on.

"Sorry" the barmaid offered on the briefest of pauses "Brandy reminds me of the best and worst trouble I ever knew."

"You and me both then," Callaghan honestly offered as she watched the generous measure poured free hand over ice.

"Seeing as I'm the Boss.... then this ones on me" the barmaid said sliding the glass towards her, Callahan tried not to react but couldn't help but notice the long scar across the back of her delicate thin wrist.

"Thank you" Callaghan said slipping away from the bar looking for the remotest of solitude even in the empty bar.

Finding a high legged chair sat around a barrel that doubled for a table Callaghan sat nursing the brandy trying to place the song she recognised that played quietly in the background. It's lyrics seeming somewhat ironic even if they were maudlin.

Callaghan took a heavy swig of the brandy; she was in deep; she couldn't even begin to consider just how her situation could have become so conflicted and compromised so quickly and so detrimentally. The reality she faced was being stripped of her role as lead investigator at a minimum, internal politics would become an issue not least with anti-corruption departments that always operated in the shadows of any Station. She needed to think. She didn't know which was the right course of action and which was the wrong. She could be committing career suicide, making a mistake either way her decision fell that would follow her and haunt her for years. Her stubborn pride immediately questioning why she should sacrifice everything she'd fought to achieve for the sake of one relationship she'd kept hidden this long anyway.

The easiest solution was to walk away from the man revealed to be Logan Hughes. An easy decision until she contemplated the way she felt towards him. If he spoke the truth, then while their relationship would be frowned upon in time it would not been seen to have compromised her.

She took another sip of the strong dark liquid. Her inner professional warning her to declare the compromise at the nearest opportunity.

She cursed her own naivety, her own weakness. She could offer a plethora of reasons for not recognising Logan Hughes when she'd first met the charming, slightly egotistical man in the Crown back in June. She'd not even lived in the city when his picture had been all over local rags, following the bodies discovered in the basement of his former club and the subsequent inquest. Her transfer had occurred several weeks after the furore surrounding the investigation and trial had died down.

It was therefore perhaps the secrecy of their relationship held the most simplistic of solutions to the problem. Walk away, turn her back on him. Forget Andrew Baxter or Logan Hughes or whoever he was. Could she though, would she?

Even after all that had transpired, she'd been weak with him. Fallen literally and figuratively into his arms. Even with the conflicting emotion they had made love, not the brutal charged sexual encounter the evening had initially held. Slow tender love making that had gripped her and mesmerised her. She looked down on him as she'd straddled him finding herself physically on top of him, clenching her body around him until he'd climaxed. The dull ache between her leg's testimony to their latest illicit consummation

Could she walk away? Should she walk away?

Callaghan couldn't settle her mind, she couldn't concentrate. Looking up she watched the slender barmaid heading for a side door clutching a packet of cigarettes. Slipping from her stool she followed her. Heading outside into the crisp dark November night

"Could I bother you for one of those?" Callaghan asked of the shivering blonde.

"Sure sure" she offered "I'm Jessica by the way."

"Rose" Callaghan offered as the blonde reached a lighter to the cigarette she pressed to her lips. Unable to not let her eye catch the heavy slightly diagonal scar on the back of her wrist.

"Another lifetime ago" Jessica answered Callaghan's unspoken question "The worst trouble I ever knew."

Callaghan offered a sympathetic smile hearing her reiterate words she said inside earlier. They stood in awkward silence smoking, silence punctuated only by the sounds of inhaling and exhaling smoke; neither of them knowing what to say to the other.

"People change" Callaghan offered sympathetically.

"Or they can be changed," Jessica offered rather ruefully as she stubbed the cigarette out under the toe of the black pumps she wore and headed back inside.

Finishing the cigarette that had done little to calm her Callaghan looked along the deserted back street bathed in the orange glow of streetlights, an urban fox nonchalantly heading along the pavement a little in the distance.

Callaghan leant back against the wall behind her plunging her hands in to the pocket of her black over coat, her left hand finding the hilt off the knife wrapped in a clear plastic bag.

"The worst trouble I ever knew" she said aloud,

**********

Stood in the window overlooking the partial view of courtyard beneath me I curse not for the first time, remiss about the lack of view compared to the lofty vantage point I'd once held over the city.

I genuinely wonder where Callaghan finds herself, I let her go trusting my judgement of her but acutely aware of her intelligence, her clever Detectives mind.

I was taking a risk, a risk on which now more or less everything hinged.

My thumb presses against the base of my phone and unlocks on recognition of my thumb print.

I scroll to the messages in my inbox, opening a thread I begin to type a swift message clear in my mind what I want to say. Moments later I hear the response land.

SENDER: AWS; Ok... let me know when xx

I know not to be thrown by the two kisses applied to the message but can't help compare to the thread of messages above, this being the first time such a message has ended with the suffix.

My thoughts distracted as the gentle chime of the front door echoes through the apartment. Looking back out the window I watch a taxi turning in the courtyard. Headed through the flat I ease open the main door.

She looks up at me from under the fringe of the jet-black wig and I press a finger to her lips firmly before she can say a word.

"I do hope you were discreet."