Page 51 of Two for Joy

“And you hit him first?”

“He wanted me to stop visiting.”

“They all do, don’t they?”

“Yeah, but Gareth… It’s been building for months, and we came to blows yesterday.”

“He thinks he’s looking out for your best interests … he’s worried about you. People do odd things when they’re worried.”

Chad snorted, shaking his head. “You know it started out like that, worry, concern, but then it turned to fear. People fear what they don’t understand. It unsettles them, riles them up, frustrates them, and frustration builds into irritation, then anger. He made a comment, and I snapped.”

“What did he say that made you hit him?”

Chad looked at Fred, then Paul, then the camera. He couldn’t tell Romeo what their argument had been about, and that was enough of an answer. They’d come to blows over the copycat case.

Once Romeo could see beyond Chad’s sore eye, he did a double take at what he was wearing. Not his shirt and tie like he’d driven straight there after work, but a loose grey hoodie, and sat with his hands under the table.

“Why aren’t you in your suit?”

Chad shook his head and spoke as if Romeo hadn’t said anything. “I knew that people wouldn’t understand why I like visiting you, but I never knew it would be this hard. Walking into work, the hostile atmosphere, the whispers, the looks. It’s just—it’s shit.”

“You’ve got me, you know that, right? I get you.”

“But you’re in here, Romeo. I’m on my own out there, and it feels like the walls are closing in on me. I’m trying to hold it together, but why? What’s the point? Why do I even get up in the morning, why do I even go to work?”

“Because you’re a bloody good detective.”

“A detective that fell for a serial killer. A detective whose only reason for living is to see him once a week through a sheet of plastic. A detective who just got…”

“Got what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re under a lot of stress at the moment, things will get better.”

“They’re only gonna get worse as the weeks go by.”

“Stop talking like this.”

Paul cleared his throat. “No, better than that, stop visiting him.”

“Shut up,” Romeo growled at Paul behind him.

“But it’s true. You want your life to go back to normal, you want your colleagues to respect you again, you want the looks and whispers to stop. You want the public to trust you, then all you’ve got to do is admit you’re ill, and stop coming to this prison.”

“Ill?” Chad said.

“Yeah, this is some fucked up Stockholm syndrome.”

“I’m not ill.”

“Visiting a serial killer, one that almost murdered you. The only reason he didn’t was because your colleagues saved you. They got to that farmhouse and got him off of you.”

“That’s not how it was.”

“Maybe it’s not just Romeo who needs to be locked up.”

Romeo turned around. “I’m gonna headbutt you in a minute.”

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