Page 45 of Now Comes the Dark

“You’ll be entirely blameless. Don’t worry about that.”

Ashley was being overly dramatic, as usual. Roman had no concern that Mallon was dangerous or The Strangler, but he was a dark horse all right. He wanted Roman available at the click of his fingers but was unwilling to reciprocate. The bastard couldn’t even tell him he was back in town. Roman needed to take stock of his life, and if that meant not jumping when a sullen Frenchman demanded a booty call, then things could only get better.

He raised his empty beer bottle. “I’ve had it with this stuff. I need something stronger. I’m getting a vodka. What do you want?”

Ashley shrugged. “The same.”

Roman saw no better prospect than getting shitfaced tonight. The alcohol would numb his pain and might help with the nightmare visions that haunted him. It was better than nothing.

He got up and walked unsteadily to the bar.

Chapter Seventeen

“Don’t say it’s over.”

Roman’s mother sent a text early on Monday morning to tell him she was coming to Blyham. When he explained he had to go to work, she made arrangements to meet him at lunchtime in a coffee shop close to his office. Despite the alcohol he’d consumed the day before, his low mood had nothing to do with his hangover. He’d had a fitful, nightmare-plagued sleep, and when he woke up, all he could think about was Phil’s lifeless body on the bed.

His mother was waiting when he entered the coffee shop just after one and leapt to her feet, hauling him into a tight embrace. “Oh, son, you look terrible. Have you even slept?” She pressed kisses to the side of his head, the way she used to do when he had been little.

“I did, yes.” A lie, but the truth was something he didn’t want to discuss.

She stepped back to look him over more carefully. “You’re ill. The shadows under your eyes are as black as coal. You shouldn’t be at work today.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I had to go in.”

She furrowed her brow. She seemed on the verge of making an argument before she apparently softened her stance and tried a different approach. “Then you need to eat. Sit down, and I’ll order for you. You need feeding up as well as everything else.” She picked up her purse and went to the counter without asking him what he wanted.

Sophie Ballentyne was a no-nonsense woman of forty-nine. She had been a nurse at the local hospital for as long as Roman could remember, and the firm-but-fair attitude she delivered to her patients was mirrored in her parenting. Roman didn’t argue with her. Right now, he realised he needed some of those home comforts.

He checked his phone while he waited for her to return, but still no messages from Mallon. There was nothing to stop him from calling Mallon himself, but given how the Frenchman hadn’t bothered to tell him he was back in the UK, Roman didn’t see why he should make the first move.

The local news sites and Facebook groups were full of stories about the latest murder. Roman had skimmed them at breakfast time and couldn’t bear to read them again. There had been no further developments, and it annoyed him that Phil barely got a mention. The Strangler was the sensation everyone wanted to talk about. His latest victim was little more than a side note.

His mother returned carrying a tray with two massive cappuccino mugs. “They don’t have much to choose from here. I’ve ordered you a ham and cheese panini and a chocolate brownie. They’ll bring them over when they are ready.”

He thanked her. “I’m really not that hungry.”

“Try to eat as much as you can. Please, darling, do it for me.” She settled herself in the chair across from him, and he immediately felt the scrutiny of her professional eye.

“Aren’t you working today?” he asked, emptying a sachet of brown sugar into his coffee.

“Long weekend off. I’m not back on the ward until tomorrow.” She put her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her hands and looked him straight in the eyes. “So, why are you at work? Given the circumstances, surely they’ll allow you some time off.”

He busied himself stirring the coffee, avoiding her intense stare. “I can’t afford to take any time off. They’re going to make redundancies at any minute. I can’t give them the slightest excuse.”

She caught her breath. “Do they know what happened to you?”

“They do.”

“And they still made you work today? Any decent employer would have sent you straight home on full pay.”

“That’s not the way it works. If you’re not there, you don’t get paid. I’m on a rolling temporary contract. They can terminate it at any time.”

“You didn’t go to university to work for a bunch of unethical shits. Tell them where to stuff their job. For God’s sake, you discovered a body less than twenty-four hours ago. If they can’t give you time off for that, they don’t deserve to have you.”

He sipped the hot coffee. His mother had been in the same job for almost thirty years. She didn’t have the first idea about current employment methods or how cutthroat the market was. “I’ve got to pay my share of the rent. I have responsibilities.”

She grimaced. “I’m not sure what you find so appealing about this city. It’s a dump. It uses people up and spits them out. You’re scraping by in a job you hate. What’s the big attraction? Come home, and you won’t have to worry about paying rent.”

---