Rowan

by Tilly Delane

  It’s Rowan.

  I would recognize the sound of him moving any day, but it’s more than that. The quality of the air in the house changes with his entrance. And for the first time in hours, I feel truly safe.

  There is a second set of footsteps, which must be his brother’s.

  As they draw nearer, coming up the stairs, I wake fully from my research trance and my heart flips out in my chest with anticipation.

  I get up from my perch on the floor and open the door to meet them on the landing.

  I don’t even get to take a real look at him before I’m scooped up in Rowan’s arms and he does that thing that I’ve seen mothers do to children after a fall. He runs his hands all over my back to check me over then takes a small step back to skim them over my head, my face and down my arms. I want to burst into tears at his tenderness.

  At the edge of my vision, I see Silas squeeze past us into the room, while Rowan runs his palms back up my arms until his search stops on my shoulders. His eyes zoom in on something on my neck, and my breathing stops when I realize what it is he must be seeing.

  I checked myself over in the mirror when I dashed to grab the gloves earlier and I know I’m sporting a healthy set of bite marks that Rothman left there. I’m lucky he didn’t pierce the skin. Human bites are more susceptible to infection than animal ones. They can be lethal.

  Rowan’s already dark eyes turn even darker with anger.

  “That him?” he asks, his jaw setting.

  I nod and put myself between him and the door.

  “No killing,” I say, only half joking.

  Because it takes me one look into his face to understand that he absolutely would. This man, my man, is a hell of a lot more dangerous than I remember half the time, and it gives me an unholy thrill along with a healthy dose of naked fear.

  “Say it, Rowan,” I demand.

  He doesn’t answer immediately, searching my eyes for heaven-knows-what first, then sighs submissively.

  “No killing the cunt, got it,” he answers.

  There is a twitch around his mouth when he says ‘got it’ that reassures me enough to step aside. It seems to be just in time because we can hear Rothman groan, and a second later Silas’ voice floats over to us.

  “Guys, we got a live one.”

  Rowan

  He bit her. He fucking bit her.

  I wanna rip the cunt to shreds and feed him to the pigeons.

  “Do pigeons eat meat?” I ask Silas as I walk through the door to Simon’s old room, after I’ve already begrudgingly pledged the no killing policy to Raven.

  “I think they’re vegetarians. But we could always ask the Bensons if their pitties need a snack,” Silas answers, while he pushes the blade of his flick knife harder against Rothman’s jugular.

  I love this guy so hard it’s fucking unreal. Silas is the most peaceful fucker in the universe, yet he’ll beat people to a pulp for a living to protect his mum from losing her house and play the part of ruthless killer to help me avenge my woman.

  “I don’t think they keep pit bulls anymore,” I respond. “They’re all gentrified now. It’s packs of hounds and flat caps these days.”

  Silas shrugs.

  “Hounds need to eat, too.”

  Rothman is pissing himself on the bed. Literally pissing himself. He’s covered by a duvet, but you can smell it through the feather down. It’s hilarious because he doesn’t know the only reason Silas carries a knife wherever he goes is because he’s seriously into picnics. It’s basically his travelling cutlery. Last thing he cut with it was probably an apple or some cheese.

  I go over and rip the covers away to reveal Rothman’s shame. The cunt whimpers. He’s not said a peep since Silas has come in here, but now he takes a breath as if he wants to say something, while he looks at me with the kind of terror I want him to feel for the fucking rest of his life.

  “Guys,” Raven says appeasingly behind us, and I turn around to look at her.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I trust you not to cut him up while I go to the bathroom? Frank just reminded me that I’ve needed to pee since before I caught him sneaking around.”

  She looks at us sharply and we both nod.

  “Great, glad we have an understanding, gentlemen,” she carries on. “If you want to do something positive while I’m gone, ask him what’s in the inhaler.”

  Rothman fixes her in his stare as she approaches him with a clear plastic freezer bag, dangling from her hand. Inside is a bog-standard blue asthma inhaler.

  “That’s what he came to swipe from the room,” she explains. “But Simon wasn’t asthmatic. I looked it up, because I was second guessing myself. Although that kind of thing doesn’t normally escape my attention. There is nothing referring to any bronchial issues in his medical records. So, Frank,” she says, stepping up to Rothman on the side opposite Silas to lean right into Rothman’s face. “What is the police lab going to find in the canister, huh? Because it sure as shit ain’t gonna be salbutamol, is it?”

  She drops the bag on Rothman’s chest and turns on her heels.

  “Over to you, guys. Back in a moment.”

  Rothman strains against his ties, watching her back as she leaves the room. Tears start running down his face when he realises she’s leaving us to it. His eyes dart from Silas to me to Silas.

  Silas leisurely takes the knife blade off his throat and points it at the piss that has saturated Rothman’s underpants and has spread into the mattress around him.

  “Is that getting cold yet?” he asks. “Horrible feeling, isn’t it? I can’t remember the last time I pissed myself, but I will always remember the feeling of it slowly growing cold around me.”

  He shakes himself in disgust.

  “So here is the deal,” he carries on, smiling angelically. “The sooner you fess up, the sooner we can clean you up and do what needs to be done.”

  He raises his eyebrows at Rothman who escapes Silas’ scrutiny by turning his head towards me. Silas puts the point of the blade on the side of Rothman’s chin and forces him to look back at him.

  “Wouldn’t do that, mate. Don’t look at him. He’s pissed off as hell ‘cause you tried to fuck his girlfriend. Not a smart move. Not smart at all. The only thing that keeps you alive right now is the fact Raven said so. Are we clear?”

  Rothman makes an acquiescing sound.

  “Are we clear?” Silas repeats.

  “Yes,” Rothman answers, his voice like gravel.

  “It speaks,” Silas comments in my direction then looks down at Rothman again. “You thirsty?” he asks Rothman.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, then tell us what we need to know, and we can get you a glass of water.”

  “Drop the knife!” a voice interrupts us, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being cocked and startling all three of us.

  Mine and Silas’ heads spin around and Rothman lifts his up from the mattress, all of us staring at the door, where Alan Allsorts has appeared, games rifle pointing right at Silas. I stop breathing and hold up my hands. I watch Silas out of the corner of my eye as he slowly puts down the knife and copies me.

  “Where is Raven? What the fuck is going on here?” Alan asks, looking back and forth between all of us, bewildered.

  And with the gun still very much pointing at us.

  He lowered it away from Silas’ head as soon as Silas let go of the knife and is aiming it more in the region of his knees now, but I still don’t like it.

  “Raven is fine,” I reassure him, just as we hear the toilet flush. “That’s her on the bog, Alan. She called us. Rothman broke in and when she caught him, he tried to rape her...”

  “I did not try to rape her!” Rothman shouts at Alan. “She came on to me. They’re nuts, Alan. Shoot them.”

  I can see the cogs turning behind Alan’s eyes. He’s weighing up what he knows about me against what he knows about Rothman. And then he lets the gun sink. Silas and I exhale in sync.

>   “What are you doing, Alan?” Rothman whines at him. “You’ve got to help me. These guys are thugs.”

  Alan nods pensively.

  “I can see that,” he says, and then he grins. “But you’re a slimeball, Frank. And I’ll take my chances on thugs telling the truth over slimeballs telling the truth any day.”

  Raven arrives behind him.

  “Alan! Shit! It’s not what it looks like...” she starts, but he shuts her off immediately.

  “It’s alright. I gather you had a nightly visi–” he stops abruptly mid-word when he sees her neck. “What on earth? Who did that? Did Rothman do that?”

  She nods.

  And up comes the gun again, this time pointed at Rothman.

  “Stop!” Raven commands, sounding only mildly panicked.

  I guess guns really don’t freak Americans out the way they get to us.

  “Put the hardware down, Alan. He didn’t come here to hurt me.”

  Her voice relaxes when Alan lets his hands sink, though not completely.

  “He came here to steal something from Simon’s stuff,” she carries on calmly. “An inhaler that I bet has some kind of substance in it that’s supposed to help with the alcohol craving but actually freaking kills people.”

  Rothman sinks down back onto the bed with a groan that tells us all she’s hit the nail pretty much on the head.

  “But he hurt you?” Alan reiterates.

  “Yes.”

  “Who tied him up?”

  “Me.”

  “Good girl. Tidy job. Why did you call on those two rather than me, Raven?” he asks, and he actually sounds hurt. “That’s what I’m here for. I’m here to protect you lot. And if there’s a rat, I protect you from the rat.”

  Raven puts a hand on his arm.

  “If you were in trouble, who’d be the first person you’d call?”

  “My wife,” he responds without thinking.

  “Exactly,” Raven says, with a soft smile on her face in my direction.

  Alan looks back and forth between the two of us.

  “You two? You’re together?”

  We nod, stupid grins on our faces.

  “We’re together,” we both admit.

  Alan’s mouth splits into a full-on smile.

  “Hah. I knew it. That makes me happy. Now that’s settled, you,” he says, indicating to Silas by jutting his chin out, “go make a round of teas and coffees for everyone. Raven, go to Frank’s house and grab some clean clothes for him. Rowan, help me clean him up. Then we call the police. Agreed?”

  We all nod at him like compliant little children, and then we get to work.

  Raven

  The British Police don’t fuck around, that’s for sure.

  As I move to the front of Poole Police Station after my witness statement, I catch the tail end of a conversation that makes me believe they’re already seeking warrants to search Rothman’s family’s homes and the RoSt labs.

  And they’ve already started hauling in other witnesses from The Village, while I was in the statement room. When I get to reception, Gillian, the nurse who runs the house Rothman swapped clients around in, and two of her guests are sitting in the waiting area, watched by a young female police officer.

  The cops also asked me for contact details for Reece Miller, the guy who we nearly lost on our walk in April. My idea. He was an alcoholic and one of Rothman’s one-to-ones. It might be just coincidence, but I doubt it.

  I asked the detectives who interviewed me if I’ll get arrested for tying Rothman up, but apparently not. Unless Rothman decides to press charges, they explained, what I performed is what the British consider a citizen’s arrest. Obviously, I should have alerted them immediately once Rothman was bound, they reiterated, rather than call on my friends, but they reckoned any judge will understand that I acted irrationally in my terror. They really didn’t think Rothman will press charges, though. Because, to quote the older of the two, ‘we’ve explained to him that it’ll just look like sour grapes and that he’s better off fully cooperating with the law without making life difficult for any of the witnesses of the Crown Prosecution Service’.

  He winked when he said that.

  I think they liked me.

  Before I leave the station, I stop at the front desk and ask the officer behind it if he knows where Alan, Rowan and Silas are.

  We were all asked to follow the police car that picked up Rothman, but once we got here, we were split up. Before we called the police, Alan told everyone to tell the full truth, minus mentioning any knives or death threats.

  He took the knife off Silas and heaven knows what he’s done with it, but he’s reassured us it’s clean and gone. He also leaned heavily on Rothman, telling him to keep his fucking mouth shut about that part, or he’d find out just how many of Alan’s old SAS unit were making a living as prison guards these days. I think it was mostly bullshit, but Rothman nearly wet himself a second time, so I’m pretty sure we’re good.

  Alan was cool about the cops knowing about the gun. Apparently, he has a license and can’t see that he’s going to get arrested for pointing it at what he thought were intruders. It’s such a weird country. Shit themselves at the thought of a stiletto knife or a handgun but waving an Elmer Fudd in people’s faces is totally okay. Go figure.

  The young officer behind the desk looks at the visitors log and tells me that all three of them left the station over half an hour ago. I frown and turn toward the exit.

  The detectives told me I was free to go, after they took my email details, phone number and postal address in the States, so the court will be able to get in touch with me about trial dates.

  Things I learned today: British police need to release or charge a suspect within twenty-four hours. This makes them really shift their asses as soon as they have somebody in custody. Once they have charged somebody with something as serious as manslaughter, the Brit version of murder in the second, which is what Frank is looking at, there is no chance for the suspect of being released on bail. The accused is remanded in custody, and the way the guys in the building behind me are motoring, I’m confident Rothman ain’t coming out of here again if he’s guilty.

  Also, manslaughter has to go to Crown Court rather than Magistrates Court, no idea what the difference is, and that can take up to a year. I try to feel around the idea that I’m tied to this case, this place, for another twelve months of my life. It feels okay, right.

  I have a sneaking suspicion everything will feel right from here on out, as long as Rowan is involved. I wonder if he meant his offer to come home to the States with me and take care of John for a while. I really hope so.

  I’m allowed to go home, the cops said. Of course, I am, they can’t keep me here against my will just because I am a witness. But they were very clear they’d want me to come back and make my statement in court in person. It sounded like the Crown will pay for my plane ticket back to England when they need me. Although, if Frank really is guilty of getting Simon killed, I would have been happy to pay for the ticket myself.