Page 52 of Dropping Like Flies

“You don’t need to.”

I ignored him, knowing he was too tired to argue. Sure enough, when I started back to the street and all the chaos we’d left behind, Ben fell in step beside me.

Chapter Nineteen

Ben

With fewer officers on duty, the station was always different enough at night to give me pause. Tonight was no exception, the news that a suspect claiming to be Satanic Romeo had been apprehended not having reached most officer’s ears unless they were already on duty. In a few hours, the rooms would fill, and no matter what other cases were ongoing, it would be all anyone talked about. Speculation would be rife. Is it really him? Is it over? How did someone as innocent-looking as Dougie Elrod get all those men to take him home? Although, that was probably an answer in itself. Who would ever suspect Dougie of pulling a knife and being able to overpower them? And that was one of many reasons that made it difficult to believe it could be that easy.

“It’s quiet,” Griffin said as I took him into the almost empty office, his voice almost a whisper. Oliver Barell raised his head from one of three occupied desks when he heard our approach. “Bennett,” he said with a nod.

The man should get a prize for keeping up the guess the name banter at… I checked my watch. Jesus! It was nearly three in the morning and I’d been up since five. Almost twenty-four hours. No wonder it felt like my thoughts were taking far too long to sort themselves into something approaching sense. I took a detour to the vending machine just outside the door in the corridor, feeding a bunch of coins into it with little regard for their denomination and slamming my hand down on the button. I had one goal and one goal only: to get hold of enough caffeine to see me through the next few hours.

“Bennett?” Griffin queried in the background. “His name’s not Bennett. It’s—”

I whipped around so fast that steaming hot coffee splashed on my hand, the paper cup containing it no match for the velocity of the movement. “Don’t you dare!”

Oliver had a smug look on his face as I made my way back over to them. “Interesting,” he said, his gaze darting between the two of us. “First person we’ve met that actually knows what it is.”

Shoving a cup of coffee Griffin’s way, I rolled my eyes. “Last thing I want to talk about tonight is my name.”

Oliver sat up straighter, his expression altering to something more professional. “Yeah, I heard you just happened to be in Eclipse when it all kicked off tonight. What are the chances?”

Not high. That was another thing that didn’t sit right with me. Maybe I just needed to learn to not look a gift horse in the mouth and appreciate that we’d deserved a break. “Yeah, we were lucky. Did you see him brought in?”

Oliver shook his head. “Do you think it really is him?”

My only response was a shrug.

“I’ll cross my fingers.”

Not wanting to get stuck talking to Oliver while there were more important things at play, I led Griffin away. He waited until we were out of earshot to ask the question I’d known was coming. “What’s with the name thing? Why doesn’t anyone know what Ben is short for?”

I drained the last of my coffee and tossed the paper cup into a bin as we passed. “Because if I admitted to it being Bendigeidfran, I’d get more flak, not less. I already get all the Welsh sheep shagging jokes. I don’t need them to find out that my parents saddled me with a name no one’s ever heard of, and that they can’t spell or pronounce. So I’ll stick to being called whatever name of the day they’ve chosen instead, thank you very much.”

Griffin’s lips twitched, but he didn’t make any further comment. I inclined my head to the coffee he’d barely touched. “Are you going to drink that?”

He pulled a face. “It tastes like something died in the vending machine.”

I pried it out of his fingers. “Something probably did. I don’t drink it for the taste.” I’d just finished Griffin’s coffee and gotten rid of the second cup when Baros’ office door opened, the DCS stepping out. A rare smile settled on his lips when he saw me. “Good work tonight, Weaver.”

I tamped down on that same niggle of doubt to accept the rare praise. “Thank you, sir.”

Baros’ gaze flicked Griffin’s way. “And we didn’t even need a necromancer to catch the bastard in the end. Just goes to show that sometimes the old-fashioned methods of policing are the best.”

I might have been against Griffin’s involvement in the case—although obviously most of that had nothing to do with him being a necromancer and everything to do with him being my ex—but I wasn’t about to let Baros rewrite history. “Actually, we were only there tonight because Rupert Shaw told us he’d moved on from The Jigsaw Bar to a club. Had Griffin not brought him back, Rupert couldn’t have told us anything.”

Baros didn’t comment, brushing over what I’d said like he hadn’t even heard it. “Douglas Elrod is in interview room one. Do you want in?”

My immediate reaction was to say hell, yes. If I led the interview, I could control the way it went. I forced myself to think it through, to weigh up the pros and cons. Despite the two cups of coffee I’d just drunk, I wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders. And then there was the fact that I’d lied through my teeth to get Dougie to let go of the knife. Standard practice, but not the best lead-in to getting that person to open up to you. I sighed. “No. It would be better if someone else did it. I want to watch, though.” Baros nodded his head in assent, already bringing his phone to his ear.

There were three other officers present in the observation room when we stepped inside. I offered them a nod, but didn’t engage any of them in conversation. Despite the curious stares aimed his way, no one questioned Griffin’s presence as we positioned ourselves in front of the one-way mirror that allowed an unobstructed view into the interview room next door.

The room was currently empty of anyone save for Dougie Elrod, giving me the opportunity to study him that I hadn’t had earlier when there’d been too much going on and people’s safety had been paramount. A dark stubble covered his cheeks, showing he hadn’t bothered to shave before going out. My analytical brain examined that fact before moving on, trying to come up with a reason. An attempt to look older? To look more rugged? Or nothing more than a lack of time or care? Maybe he was growing a beard.

He looked tired, but then it was three in the morning. Nobody was going to look that fresh-faced, even without being arrested and thrown in the back of a squad car. I moved on to what he was wearing. Standard club wear of jeans and a T-shirt. Just like me. Just like Griffin. “Where’s his jacket?” I said to no one in particular. “He might have handed it in at the cloakroom. If he did, we need it. I want to know what he had in his pockets. And make sure someone gets hold of the CCTV footage. I want to know what time he arrived, whether he was on his own, and what he did in the club before he pulled a knife in the middle of the dance floor.”

Someone left the room, presumably to chase up the things I’d mentioned. Griffin had his head cocked to one side and was studying Dougie as closely as I had. I moved slightly so that our shoulders touched. It was an innocent enough gesture that nobody would think twice about, but that still offered a measure of reassurance—a reminder that he was back in my life and I was no longer alone. “What are you thinking?”

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