Chapter Four

Rory opened his eyes. Instead of staring up at a grey ceiling, a light buzzed above his head. The overly bright room made him wince each time he woke up, it was too white, too clean. Rory shuffled, then curled forward in pain. No longer sharp and stabbing, a dull ache throbbed in his side. Sometimes it felt far away and he could ignore it, other times it demanded his attention until he called the nurse and she drowned it with morphine. He’d been in prison six days and in the hospital for seven, not a record he was proud of.

He’d been stabbed. Rory didn’t know by whom. The doctors were worried about infection, not from the stab wound, but the broken glass in his thigh.

Rory had failed in his mission, and could have lost his life in the process.

He saw the inspector pass by the window and braced himself. The door opened, Inspector Hamish stepped inside, and fiddled with his moustache. He hummed as he glared at Rory, then clutched his brow. He was in his sixties, but his hair was brown, not a single grey. Rory knew he dyed it, some days he could smell the peroxide when he spoke, not from the hair on his head, but the furry slug on his top lip.

He pressed his lips together in a grim smile. “That didn’t go as planned.”

Rory averted his gaze. “I wanna see my sister.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

Hamish gestured to the window, and the officer stood outside. “You’re still undercover.”

“It’s pointless. I wasn’t getting anywhere, and now all I want to do is go home, get better, and see my sister.”

“What about Sebastian Claw?”

“What about him!”

Hamish flared his nostrils. “We know he’s planning something.”

“Do we?”

“Yeah,” Hamish rushed forward, and collapsed on the bedside chair. “All his old gang members have reappeared. Hovering around the city like a bad smell.”

“Then let them do something incriminating when he gets out, then arrest him.”

“Let him do something incriminating? Did you not read the file I gave you about him?”

Rory lowered his gaze and didn’t reply.

“He went down for murder, but he did a whole lot worse. Selling illegal firearms to gangs, complex explosives to terrorists. He’s a danger to society, we need to be one step ahead.”

“I can’t do it, I’m not your man.”

Hamish pointed at Rory’s side. “That’s taken all the fight out of you.”

“Yeah, it has. I don’t wanna fight anymore.”

“I know you can do it, Rory,” Hamish mumbled, then he edged closer, “And you owe me, remember.”

Rory bit his lip and frowned. The door swung open, and inspector Morris stepped inside. Her salt and pepper frizzy hair was tied back, and her lashes were coated with black mascara. She looked at Hamish, then at Rory.