Palm to Sternum

"Every copper has a morning where they shouldn't be working. The ones worth keeping are the ones who show up anyway."

I took my position outside Interview Room Three and waited.

Arms crossed. Back straight. Weight shifted off my bad knee onto the leg that didn't feel like it had broken glass rolling around inside the joint. The posture of a man who had nowhere else to be and all the time in the world—a lie, but a useful one. Everything in this job was performance to some degree, masks worn over masks until you forgot which face was underneath. But this particular performance was also true. I needed to see Karl before he went in. Needed to read what state he was in, what kind of detective I was sending into that room to face a woman who'd been stonewalling police for a decade and had finally decided to talk.

Sarah was already here, pacing a slow circuit near the door like something caged. Her pen tapped against her notepad in a steady rhythm—controlled, measured, each beat a small declaration of impatience she wasn't quite willing to voice out loud. She didn't look at me. Didn't need to. We both knew what we were waiting for, and we both knew what condition it was likely to arrive in.

The corridor stretched away in both directions, fluorescent lights casting their pallid glow across linoleum that had absorbed decades of footsteps, of officers walking toward difficult conversations and walking away from worse ones. The air tasted stale, recycled, carrying that particular institutional flavour of cleaning products and anxiety sweat that never quite washed out of buildings like this. Somewhere in the distance, a phone rang. Nobody answered it.

Karl appeared at the end of the corridor.

He walked like a man carrying something heavy and invisible across his shoulders—something that wanted to pull him down, bend his spine, drag his gaze toward the floor. The hangover was still there, written in the careful placement of his feet, each step considered and deliberate the way you walk when the world tilts slightly every time you turn your head too fast. I could see the tension around his eyes, the squint against light that probably felt too bright even in this dim corridor. But he'd pulled himself together well enough, given what I'd seen in the change room. The suit was pressed—probably a spare he kept in his locker for exactly these kinds of mornings. The tie was straight. From a distance, he looked the part. From a distance, he looked like a detective who'd passed his Senior exam two days ago and was ready to take on whatever came next.

Up close was a different story.

I didn't move as he approached. Didn't blink. Didn't shift my weight or uncross my arms or do any of the small things people do to signal welcome. Just watched him come, cataloguing the details the way I'd catalogued a thousand crime scenes over the years: the pallor beneath the forced composure, skin that had gone from healthy to the colour of day-old porridge sometime between last night's whisky and this morning's cold shower. The faint tremor in his hands that he was trying to hide by keeping them rigid at his sides, fingers slightly curled, knuckles white with the effort of holding still. The careful way he was breathing through his nose, controlled, shallow, probably fighting nausea that hadn't quite passed. This was the man Louise Jeffries had specifically requested. This was what I had to work with.

He stopped in front of me. Close enough that I could smell what the shower hadn't washed away—the sour undertone of alcohol still seeping through his pores, the chemical tang of whatever antacid he'd probably chewed on the way here. His eyes met mine, and I saw something there I recognised. Not defiance. Not apology. Just the grim determination of a man who knew he wasn't at his best but was going to do the job anyway, because that was what the job required.

I let the silence stretch for a beat. Let him feel the weight of my attention, the assessment happening behind my eyes. Two seconds. Three. Long enough for him to start wondering what I was going to say, what judgement was coming.

Then my hand shot out.

The heel of my palm hit him square in the chest. Not gently—gentle wasn't going to cut through the fog he was operating in. Enough to stop his forward momentum, to rock him back on his heels, to make him feel it through the layers of shirt and jacket and whatever else he'd wrapped himself in this morning. I held the pressure there, flat against his sternum, feeling his heartbeat thudding against my palm—too fast, slightly irregular, the heart of a man whose body was still trying to process the punishment he'd put it through.

"I'd normally tell you to go home," I said, pitching my voice low enough that only he could hear. Sarah was ten feet away, probably straining to catch the words, but this wasn't for her. This was between me and the man whose career I could end with a single report, whose future I was choosing to protect because I needed him functional more than I needed him punished. "But she has a unique story to tell. And she's determined to tell it to you, specifically."

I let that word land. You. Watched him process what it meant—the weight of it, the implication. Louise Jeffries hadn't asked for a detective. She'd asked for Karl. And that meant there was history here, connections I didn't fully understand, threads running between Karl and the Greyson family that went back years and had been buried deep enough that I'd never been able to dig them up.

Then I removed my hand.

"Now, don't screw it up."

He swallowed. I watched his Adam's apple bob, watched the muscles in his throat work around whatever response he'd thought about giving and decided to keep down. He nodded. The response of a man who wasn't sure he could deliver what was being asked but knew he had no choice in the matter. The response of someone who understood that I was giving him a chance he probably didn't deserve, and that chances like this didn't come twice.

I leaned in slightly. Close enough that he could smell the coffee on my breath—the cold, bitter dregs I'd abandoned in my office hours ago but which still lingered somewhere in my system, keeping me upright through sheer chemical stubbornness. Close enough that he could see the threads of grey in my stubble, the bloodshot edges of my own eyes, the exhaustion I was carrying just as heavily as he was carrying his hangover. We were both running on fumes. The difference was that I'd earned my exhaustion doing the job, and he'd earned his celebrating a promotion he hadn't yet proved he deserved.

"I'll be watching you closely."

Not a threat. Not exactly. More like a promise, and a warning, and a statement of fact all wrapped into one. I would be watching. Through the one-way glass, through the speakers, through whatever channels this investigation opened up. And if he stumbled—if he let his condition compromise what happened in that room—I'd be the one who had to decide what to do about it.

He turned and reached for the door handle. His hand was steadier now, the tremor either suppressed or genuinely fading. Sarah moved to open it for him, her face giving away nothing, though I caught the flicker of her eyes toward me as she passed—a question she didn't ask, an acknowledgement of something she'd sensed but couldn't name.

They disappeared inside together. The door swung shut behind them with a soft click that sounded louder than it should have in the empty corridor.

I waited until the sound faded. Until my heartbeat had settled back into something approaching normal. Until the adrenaline from that moment—palm to chest, authority asserted, chain of command made physical—had stopped buzzing through my bloodstream.

Then I walked to the observation room.

The door was unmarked, easy to miss if you didn't know it was there. I'd stood in that room hundreds of times over the years, watching interviews unfold through glass that showed everything and revealed nothing. Today I'd watch Karl Jenkins try to hold himself together while Louise Jeffries told him about her missing son, her missing brother, and the partner she'd never trusted.

Today I'd watch, and wait, and try to see the shape of whatever was coming before it arrived.

I pushed open the door and stepped inside.