She knows he wants to talk. She can tell by the look on his face: his eyes constantly shifting focus, the internal monologue desperate for escape. Two hard lines appear between his eyebrows as he stares at the tabletop.

He’s a detective, a sergeant in the Major Crimes Unit. She feels the anger growing. This isn’t what they do. Killing? Murder? They arrest the criminals; they don’t become one. But then these past few weeks have shown her just what she herself is capable of.

‘What did you do?’ she asks. ‘Tell me.’

He looks up. She can see the conflict behind his eyes.

‘Are you sure you want to know?’ he replies, softly.

Does she? Maybe she should walk away now, leave the disc and the video with him and pretend none of it happened. But she’s in too deep, with Jonathan, with everything she’s done already. And her professional curiosity can’t resist. She has to know what happened, on that fateful night in the rain.

‘Yes,’ she replies.

He nods slowly, then she watches in disbelief as his face collapses. His mouth turns down, his chin wobbles and he stares up at the ceiling, jaw clenching, trying hard not to cry.

‘What did you do, Robin?’ Freya asks again.

Butler meets her gaze for a second. His eyes are red-rimmed, his face tainted with grief.

Then he starts to talk.

And she thinks: I could never do that. Kill someone. Never.

But something in the back of her mind hesitates. She thinks about Jon. About his death, strung up in that hotel room, naked, all dignity destroyed. She thinks about Amy Miller. About the evidence they don’t have, the truth they don’t yet know.

And something whispers: Are you sure?

Are you sure?

50

Freya sits opposite him, quiet, her soft blue eyes fixed on his face. He expected anger, judgement, even fear. This sympathy is unnerving.

And now the confession is out of his mouth, he doesn’t feel as he thought he would. He imagined that if someone else knew, he’d panic. That he’d run, or cry, or— Something other than the way he’s feeling now.

All he feels is relief. A sense of calm. An inevitability that what will be, will be.

‘What did you do, Robin?’

She uses his first name. It sounds strange coming out of her mouth, but correct, like a level of familiarity has been breached. He killed someone and she knows it. There will be no ‘sarge’ now. She’s the one in charge.

‘You got anything to drink?’ he asks.

She nods and points towards the fridge. He opens it and looks at the bottle of white.

‘You got anything stronger?’ he asks, but she shakes her head. It’ll do. Robin twists the bottle open then pours two large glasses, handing one to Freya. He takes a large gulp, then another, sitting back down at the table.