He wasn't that late for work, but being forever punctual, the fifteen minutes he'd missed irked him. The moment he'd walked into the bustling station, the place fell quiet. He felt eyes burning him from every angle.
''Morning sir,'' Goodfellow greeted him cheerfully, ''The report for the tractor theft at Graystone Farm is sitting on your desk.''
The Inspector nodded grimly. ''Thank you, Sergeant.'' Two days ago he was fighting the illuminati, today he was battling tractor theft.
''I'll bring you in a cup of tea.'' The sergeant watched as the younger man slouched into the office, so devoid of all his usual authority. It worried him.
By lunchtime Sullivan had had enough. The other men must be imbeciles- his office walls were as thin as paper, how could he not have heard them gossiping? He could hear every word they were saying, nattering away like old women over cups of tea. He'd never heard them this clearly before, either. Their voices were grating and so bloody loud, so clear...
They probably wanted him to hear. They all hated him after what happened to Albert. It was a wonder that he hadn't been run out of Kembleford yet.
'' He was always a bit odd, didn't think he'd flip though-''
''I heard him crying one night in the cells, least I think it was him.''
''Screaming like a banshee he was. Chilling, that.''''
''He'll never be right after that.''''
''Was he even right before all this?''
'' I dunno. Never heard a grown man scream like that before.''
''Scared me, so it did. Poor bastard, how's he gonna come back from that?''
"Don't know. Must have really shook him, being arrested and all. Feel sorry for him, I do."
Sullivan jumped up and pulled on his coat, fingers shaking and sweat starting to bead on his forehead.
He hurried out to the front desk, where he saw the two men who'd been discussing his mental state for the last ten minutes.
Naturally, they jumped at the sight of him. They hurriedly hid their mugs and tried to look busy.
''Everything alright, sir?'' One of them asked cautiously, as the other just stood there. To give him his dues, he was trying hard not to stare.
''I need to go home,'' Sullivan could barely hold back tears as he spat out his excuses. ''Tell the Sergeant he's in charge.''
''Oh, well, of course, sir- I hope it's nothing too serious.'' The constable replied, his face full of concern.
The young man was pale, haggard and sweating. His skin had a grey tinge to it and the shadows around his eyes made them look sunken, like a corpse.
"Sir-" The officer asked worryingly.
Sullivan had already fled.
As soon as he got home, he set about closing every curtain and blind in the house, ignoring two gossiping WI ladies who were obviously trying to look through his living room window. God, he was sick of this. He'd always been a private person, but this; a whole sodding village viewing him as some kind of freak. No, he was just sick of it.
His uniform still lay in the corner of his bedroom, as well as the empty whiskey bottle from last night. He kicked at it and rolled under the bed, ringing metallically.
He pulled the ratty curtains closed, and surveyed the room in the half light.
He could still see the outline of the room - the thin, cheap fabric barely masked the midday sun. The cast iron bed sat in the middle of the room, covers and pillows still in a heap. Clothes were strewn across thin grey carpet. The mess of the place appalled him, but he didn't have the energy to tidy.
He dug his old grey and red pyjamas out from the mass of blankets, and changed quickly.
Putting everything was away would be too much effort- he scrunched his clothes into a ball and chucked them into the corner beside his uniform.
He crawled into bed and buried his head under his pillow, in an attempt to block out the daylight.
Darkness. Like being back in the cells. Or under that Black Mariah.
He opened his eyes and stared the flaky plaster of the ceiling. His ceiling, in his safe house.
There were children playing somewhere nearby- he could hear them. He clamped his hands over his ears, trying desperately to block them out, hearing the blood pounding furiously in his ears.
He just wanted everything to be quiet. Nice and quiet, the conditions the bloody countryside are supposed to be famous for.
Yet he could still hear children playing outside somewhere, their joyful chatter and petty disputes could be heard clearly. He could picture them out frolicking in the golden fields of prickly shorn grass, kicking footballs and tugging pigtails. Probably some of the other police's children. He tried not to think about what they would hear about him over their evening meal.
Sullivan was still lying in bed when the mothers called their little ones in for dinner. As soon as the last chirpy little voice was gone, he missed them.
That's just typical, long for quiet and as soon as you get it, regret it. He resented the silence - if it weren't the for the occasional footsteps on the pavement outside (and they were few and far between) he may as well be back in his jail cell.
No, no, don't think of that-
He got up and wobbled towards the bathroom, pretty sure that this could be counted as an emergency. He felt about in the gloom of the bathroom cabinet. His fingertips brushed the cool glass, and he pulled out his quarry. Damn - nearly empty. He almost wept with disappointment.
Returning to bed, he downed the bottle in three long swallows, then set it on the dresser. His hand was (naturally) askew, and the glass of water tumbled to the ground and broke. Groggily, he hoisted himself up on one elbow to see where it had landed - there it was, in two clean halves, a dark stain bleeding through the carpet. He fumbled with the cap for the bottle, eyes clouded and blurred by exhaustion and alcohol, before losing heart and dropping the cap onto the floor beside the glass. He shrugged indifferently, and managed to leave the bottle upright on the dresser.
Once he'd calmed down a bit, he rolled over on his side and really tried to sleep. He couldn't for the life of him think of what he'd been doing that afternoon - just lying in bed, not even trying to sleep. He was exhausted; he hadn't slept at all the night before, and his whole body ached with fatigue. He longed for the emptiness of sleep.
He grabbed it twice, but both times, the bottle remained empty. There was drink downstairs but he couldn't bear the action of going down to get it. Still, sleep would be better than drink anyway - sleep didn't make you sick, or dizzy, or forgetful, and it certainly didn't make you tired.
Somewhere in the depths of his conscience Sullivan realised this might be a good thing.
After hours of increasing desperation, Sullivan glanced at the clock.
Twenty five past nine. It wasn't even dark outside yet.
He buried his face in his pillow and screamed in frustration.
Why couldn't he sleep! He had so much work to do, and if he appeared into the station with bloodshot eyes there'd be about six million questions, and all of bleeding Kembleford would be gossiping and interrogating.
God, he wished it would all just stop! Nothing mattered anymore! If it would all just stop, if he just get away from it all; the whispers, the staring, the endless onslaught of his own thoughts. If he could just drift off to sleep.
If he could just...
They'd manage perfectly well without him at the station - he was useless anyway.
If he'd done his job in the first place, Albert would still be alive.
Goodfellow could step up; he'd be great at it. He'd do brilliantly until they got someone else in - some amicable chap who went to church and had a lovely wife that went to the WI, and lovely children who went to Sunday School, someone who everybody (including Father Brown) got on well with.
Anyone would be better at it than him. He was just an irritating outsider who didn't understand anyone, and after Albert's murder? Probably the most hated man in Kembleford.
There was a time when he would have done so much more: dug in his heels, bit into the investigation and hounded it like a dog with a bone. There was a time when the young, dashing Inspector Sullivan was famed for his 'dogged pursuit of justice'. So devoted he was to the task he would hardly eat or sleep until the criminal was caught, and he certainly didn't drink.
Nowadays, he went through at least three bottles of scotch per week. He hadn't even realised it at first, not until he'd met Goodfellow one warm evening coming out of the off-licence, bottles clinking shockingly loudly in the flimsy paper bag. He'd nodded at him grimly, agonisingly passed the time of the day, before striding off purposely. The bottles (five in total) bounced off each other and sang shrilly. He could feel his cheeks burning as he'd struggled into the car with the offending package. It was none of Goodfellow's business, after all, so why did he feel so guilty? Why should he feel guilty about having a drink or two in the evenings to relax after a hard day's work? So what if he couldn't sleep without it?
God, what had happened to him?
The more he thought about him (and he thought about him a lot) the more his admiration for Albert grew, the same way his guilt did.
He'd have been a great detective. He wouldn't have sat at home and drank with killers on the loose. Hell, Albert shouldn't even have been there. He was only a bloody kid, and Sullivan was meant to be looking after him. Albert had had an incredible future in front of him, as dazzling and promising and Sullivan's was dull and meaningless.
It should have been him. He wished it had been.
He threw off the duvet covers and got up. His mind was oddly clear. He turned on the shaving light in the bathroom and rummaged about in the medicine cabinet. The sleeping pills - the ones he'd got off Doctor Crawford, the ones that hadn't worked - were still there.
He shook the bottle, listening to the metallic rattle of the tablets dancing in the little phial.
He took the bottle between his finger and thumb and held it up to the light, looking at the blue and white pills through the hazy glaze of the brown glass. It was still nearly full. There were probably at least twenty, twenty five tablets in there. He remembered the doctor's words as he'd prescribed them.
"These are as strong as I dare give you," He said, scribbling down the name on a piece of paper, "Take care; if they don't work within the first three nights, leave them. Never take more than one."
Never take more than one. If that was the case, that little bottle might just solve all his problems. He tilted it back and forward, watching the capsules bounce of each other.
That would nearly be enough to finish him off.
He set the little bottle on the bedside locker, and headed downstairs for the bottle of scotch that someone had gave him a few months ago for something or other. It was a brand he didn't really like, but it would do for washing down tablets. He didn't really want to choke to death - he'd seen those kind of corpses. No, drifting off into a peaceful slumber was much more preferable. Nice and tidy.
As he was making his way back upstairs, bottle clutched in hand, feet cold on the wooden floor, the phone rang. Instinctively, he answered it.
He may as well. Part of him was curious to hear who the last person he would ever speak to was.
"Hello? Is that Inspector Sullivan?" Enquired a well spoken feminine voice.
"Yes?"
"Lady Felicia here."
He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
"Oh. Hello."
"Yes, well, I just thought I'd give you a ring - I called at the station but they told me you'd gone home sick, so I thought it best to wait a while in the hopes that you'd recovered."
"I see."
"Its just - I'd just like to thank you, for what you did for Sid. I know you'll deny any involvement vehemently but - It really was very gracious of you, despite what you'd said earlier, and it really does mean a lot to us."
"It was nothing," Sullivan said, mouth suddenly very dry.
"Poppycock, it was far from that. And I know you can't really say anything about it but thank you, it really was very kind."
Sullivan very nearly teared up. A lump was rising in his throat.
"Thank you," He said thickly, "Thank you. You've always been lovely to me, your ladyship, and its been lovely knowing you. Goodbye."
"Inspect-"
Her concerned voice disappeared as he returned the handset. He walked back upstairs, shadow falling across the steps as he went.
The tablets (he didn't know how many to begin with) went down surprisingly easily, eased by the copper waves of scotch that washed them away. For a moment, he felt elecyrifyingly alive, before a sort of dull pain began behind his eyes and his head started to go a bit fuzzy.
He knocked back another fistful of pills and was mildly alarmed as the room began to spin, growing darker and darker. He took a final swig of alcohol, trying to combat the disorientating nausea that had suddenly overtaken him, as well as the pills that had dug their heels in and refused to go.
He dropped the bottle, but didn't hear it land on the floor. Suddenly fighting to keep his eyes open, he felt his body grow heavier and heavier, like he was turning to lead, or stone. He couldn't help but think about all the easier ways he could have went for - the gun would have been over in seconds. Still, the pills were working; he could feel himself slipping off into nothingness, an unsettling sensation that made him feel like digging his fingernails into something to check he wasn't floating away.
He had no idea what happened next. His eyes were still closed, but he was shaking, choking on something - someone was pushing something down his throat, drowning him. Why were they doing that?
His eyes flickered open a few times, and he saw blurry figures standing around him, making jumbled and confusing noises. He couldn't talk - not with this thing in his mouth. What were they doing to him?
He was scared. The earth shifted and he was suddenly being held over the side of the bed as some vile liquid came gushing up his throat. He cried out, trying to stop whatever awful torture they were inflicting upon him, trying to shout but retching and choking instead. He felt the world spinning around him, noises muting and being replaced with a hollow droning noise, and then it all went black.