She was late but I had no doubt she would show up and the doorbell ringing was my proof. One time, briefly. She knew about my family and couldn't know Molly was away to meet with a friend and that she took Amelia with herself. The flat looked and felt deserted and I realised how used I got to the everyday noises that surrounded me here.
I let her in. "Greg." Sally Donovan said and nodded. I answered by calling her by her first name and stepping aside to let her inside. I couldn't remember if she had visited us here before. I knew she had paid me one or two visits when I lived alone after the divorce from my ex-wife.
"You are late, Sally." She smiled a little. "I'm sorry. I kind of…" her hesitation was obvious. "met someone on the tube on the way here. A nice place you have." I didn't object to the change of topic and offered her something to drink.

While I prepared coffee she had a look around. I never saw a copper who wouldn't inspect a flat he saw for the first time but all of them managed it to keep their hands off any drawers no matter how great the urge was to open them and go through the content. She picked one of Amelia's plush animals up on her way to the kitchen. "How old is she now? Your daughter?"
She wanted to give me a gentle beginning. "Ten months." I replied and picked the coffee mugs up and approached her. She scrutinized me as if she wanted to find an answer by observing me only. I couldn't put a finger on it, but there was something in her eyes that made me feel uneasy.

"Please, take a seat." I put the mugs down on the kitchen table and Sally sat down on the chair I usually claim to be 'mine'. The back to the wall, facing the open space of the room. She really was a good copper. Already taken to the typical police officer foibles.
It was quiet for a moment while she searched for the right words and I dreaded the moment she would find them. The fridge hummed in the background and I could hear Mr Cat jumping down from one of the bookshelves. Maybe he was heading upstairs to occupy my pillow again or he'd have a look at the kitchen, wondering who the stranger was. I would never get to know. Sally found her words. She didn't ask. Not a single question. She stated facts.

"This is the report from the morgue. It came in earlier shortly after you left." She put a folder on the table, opened the lid, turned it around and shoved it towards me. I saw the picture of the woman from the river and started reading: Evelyn Moore. My burden and my guilt got a name now.
Sally gave me time to read the report. Two times, three times. "I don't understand…" I said in a feeble attempt to keep the false image intact.
"Oh, I'm sure you do." She said and watched me. "Okay. What do you want to hear?" I eventually said, unnerved by her glance resting on me. "I want you to listen." she answered and took a sip from her coffee.

"Evelyn Moore had been stalked for a while, reported it two times to the police but whenever they looked into it, it stopped. She had a brother working for the same company as some certain Alistair Knell. She never met Mr Knell. That is confirmed."
I was wondering where she got all this from but didn't dare to interrupt her.
"You however met her." This time the icicle pierced my heart. "You left traces, Greg. You must have touched her." She gestured to her face, throat and shoulder.
"I…" I began, struggling to find /any/ word to begin my explanation with. Sally gestured for me to stay silent and I obeyed her order. "You hadn't done so when you saw her at the riverside. The patter of where your fingerprints had been found? You tried to calm her down. It /must/ have happened earlier." She gestured again for me to stay silent and I was grateful for that. I wouldn't have found the right words, if any at all.

"This one week you had taken off in November? You must have met her then. " Sally paused and took another sip from her coffee before she started speaking again:
"You were made a tool, Greg. Everyone gets made into a tool. Alistair Knell was one, as well. It was his task to abduct Evelyn Moore, but he refused. Twice." She looked at me and I saw pain in her features. It hurt her to state these facts and somehow it was a comfort for me. A terrible comfort.
"Sally…"
"No, listen. These cases are connected. This goes deeper and wider than any of us would have ever suspected." While she spoke and eventually fell silent again to finish her coffee I put a few other facts together. She had been unusually late. Being late was not typical for Sally Donovan. She had always been on time, had always made sure of it and if it was clear she couldn't make it due to circumstances that were out of her control, she called or texted. Not this time.
She knew facts that she hadn't known yesterday or earlier today when I left the office. Many of them and with such a sureness that it was almost impossible for them to be wrong leads.
What happened?

I watched her, this time it was me who scrutinized her and she frowned. What did she say? She met someone? I must have winced slightly when it finally dawned on me. Sally gave me a quizzical look.
"What else have you got? What is the point?" I asked calmly, torn between my guilt and a growing anger about her betrayal for which I yet still needed confirmation. She I wanted her to be better than me. Someone had to be.

"The point is, that I want you to know that you are off the screen. I made sure of it. But we won't solve this case. Not Evelyn's and not Alistair's." That was the cost. I abandoned my mug.
"Go on." I said and Sally Donovan unfolded the net, tore it apart, bit by bit, string by string, knot by knot.

Alistair Knell was an adulterer. He had an affair with his secretary Mrs Culver. She was one of his many weak spots. His pressure point. He also had seedy contacts to certain branches of London's underworld but remained a small-timer. This must have been the surroundings where 'Uirlis' made a first approach and from where everything in his life went fatally wrong. Sally kept those points vague, probably because she hadn't got any further information about it herself.
Evelyn Moore was the sister of one of his coworkers and 'Uirlis' was what connected them all. Alistair, the delivery person, Mrs Culver, Evelyn, me … and now Sally Donovan.
"Who provided the gun?" I asked and she gave me a name that rang a bell. Surely not unknown to us. "It was one of those foldable guns. Explains the calibre and why no one saw anything. The delivery guy just had to shove it into his pocket. No waving about with huge rifles." She sounded acrimoniously. "There is a lot that is not clear yet." I remarked and she smiled bitterly. "And it will stay like this. As I said, we won't solve those cases. Not officially."

The deeper you get yourself into it, I mused when Sally had left, the more it seemed less worth it and the tighter the fetters got. How was it possible for one man to play us all so well.
Uirlis.
A name that described all of us so very well. Under the bottom line none of us was better or wiser. We all got trapped. We all fell for our ideals and beliefs, for what we thought was our duty.
I had asked her why. Why she did this, made this bargain.
She had looked at me and said a single sentence: "Because I trust you." and I knew there was no lie in it.

I cleaned the mugs away, got rid of my cold coffee, ignored and abandoned hours ago; picked up the plush animal, made it sit on the sofa next to one of Molly's books. My fingers lingered on its soft fur. 'What have you done?' I asked myself and was not sure whom I was addressing.
I knew the name of the other. The one who told her all this and who she sold part of her conviction to in order to help me, to keep me safe.
Sally Donovan, you steadfast martyr.