Prologue
After my shift, I sat in the back row of the courtroom and listened as Gavin Morris was allowed to walk free.
Insufficient evidence. Conflicting expert reports. A possible electrical fault. His solicitor picked the case apart piece by piece until there was barely anything left of it.
Morris stood nearby, staring at the floor. The right posture for a man who had lost his wife and two children. Even had his shoulders slumped just right.
When the judge finished, Morris lifted his head, shook his solicitor’s hand and gave the faintest smile.
The psycho in my head was already imagining how quickly I could wipe it off his face.
I just needed to be sure.
I could hate Morris as much as I liked, but hatred alone wasn’t enough. Keller had drilled that into me from the beginning: check everything you can get your hands on first. Decide what to do afterwards.
The police had checked too. The difference was, they had deadlines, procedures, warrants — and witnesses who suddenly forgot everything the moment someone asked them to repeat it on record.
Keller and I had more patience.
We dug up footage the police had missed, got people talking who had refused to give official statements, and found enough pieces for me to stop believing the fire had been an accident.
On the night of the fire, Morris came home carrying a petrol can.
Twenty minutes later, he walked back out alone.
His wife and children stayed inside.
Then he played the grieving husband and told the police he had woken too late to save them.
A week later, Gavin Morris was sitting in front of me with his hands bound behind his back.
At first, he swore at me. Then he offered money. Then came the threats — solicitors, police, everything he could think of.
When he realised none of it impressed me, he started begging.
“Please… I won’t do it again…”
You’ll lie again.
The second I cut you loose, the emergency services will arrive, the police will follow, and you’ll tell them the same story. Tragic accident. Faulty wiring. You tried to save your family and barely made it out alive yourself.
That story had worked once.
It wouldn’t work on me.
Morris jerked again, making the plastic ties bite deeper into his wrists. I checked my watch.
Keller and I had agreed on two rules a long time ago: don’t kill anyone, and always leave enough time for whoever comes after us.
Time.
I picked up the blanket from the floor and covered Morris’s hands. His breathing was heavy, his head hanging against his chest, but his pulse was steady.
Outside, I pulled off the mask and took out a burner phone.
“Fire service.”
I gave them the address and ended the call.
They’d get here quickly. Deal with the burns. After that, Morris would become the police’s problem.
Everything we’d dug up over the past few weeks was lying beside him.
He could tell them about the faulty wiring now.
I got into the car.
In a few hours, I’d have to pull on my uniform again and go back to Station Twenty-Seven. McGregor would start talking some kind of shit before I’d even had coffee. Keller would pretend we hadn’t seen each other a few hours earlier.
Then the call would come in, and I’d run into another burning building for someone I had never met.
Because Oliver Hawke saves people.
Dramatic?
Absolutely.
No one ever asks what I do after my shift.
