Confirmations and Substantiations

"I want to see him," he told his sergeant when they reached the station.

Hathaway had searched his face, looking for what? Some kind of assurance he wasn't in a murderous rage? Some sign the news hadn't left him bereft and unable to carry on with the case? Forgiveness? Or, just curiosity? Well, there it was, wasn't it?

He didn't know his sergeant any better than the lad knew him. Only while Hathaway obviously didn't trust him, he trusted Hathaway. A good deal farther than he could throw him. Even after all the lies over the Will McEwen case. He might not know what was going on behind that inscrutable face, but he knew the kind of man the sergeant was. Just as he knew himself.

And, he'd come full circle…he wasn't going to assault Monkford, but it was easier to think about the old days with Morse and fume over Hathaway's distrust than it was to think about Monkford and what the man had wrought in his life.

"Do you want to speak to him?" Hathaway asked as they walked through the station's hallway toward the interview room.

Lewis didn't look at him to see if he could discern if there was some censure in the sergeant's voice or only sympathy. He'd gone beyond that for the moment. Somewhere between the college and the station he'd lost the shield of his anger and disappointment in Hathaway. And, now nothing stood between him and the devastation Simon Monkford had made of his life. That took all of his concentration just to survive; Hathaway and his betrayal would have to wait.

"Nope. Just want to look at him." Speak to the man…it was all he could do to be in the same building with him. He'd wanted to see the man caught and brought to justice. He had, but…not here, not in his building. Let him pollute and defile the Met. Lewis didn't even want to breath the same air as the man.

Lewis stared through the one-way glass at the man who had killed his wife.

'That's him?" he asked, his voice so low Hathaway wasn't sure if he was talking to him or only himself. "I don't know what I expected to see. So bloody ordinary. She deserved better." There was nothing Hathaway—or anyone else—could say in response to that truth. Lewis had heard how many next-of-kin say the same words, and there was never anything anyone could say to deny them. Even, he supposed, Monkford's sister might say the same words over her brother's body, and even then, they might still be true.

But, for his Val…there could be no doubt, she'd deserved better. But she hadn't gotten it, had she? The man on the other side of that glass had made sure she didn't. And, Lewis could stand there and stare at the man for the rest of his life, and it wouldn't give her what she deserved. He sniffed down the tears threatening to undo him, and said, "Come on. Let's do some proper work."

He couldn't though, could he? Not in the station with Monkford's stench filling the hallways, not with Val's memories filling his mind, not with unshed tears choking him…and not with the lad watching him as though he were afraid he was going to break or maybe break something—like Monkford's head. He couldn't work; he couldn't even think. He went off to speak to Isabel Dawson on her way to Venice in an effort to earn his keep and clear his head.

When he came back to the station, Chief Superintendent Innocent met him in the hallway…though when she asked if Hathaway had told him his news, he knew it hadn't been an accidental meeting.

She was worried about the team, of course. Dead wives and untrusting partners didn't help clear the boards and keep up departmental stats, did they? Had the lad told her he was afraid Lewis would go after Monkford? Did she believe him capable of that as well? He didn't want to know.

"So, you two still friends?" she asked cautiously.

"Interesting question," he answered. Were they? Had they ever been? They worked well together, but friends? "We're colleagues, workmates they'd say in the north. Now we don't swap comics every day of the week. And he listens to weird music. But he's a good cop. Just a bit young, and I suppose…enigmatic. He's private, you know."

"He says much the same about you," the chief superintendent said to his surprise.

"Well, that's ridiculous. There's nothing enigmatic about me." Which was why he hadn't quite come to grips with the lad thinking him capable of assault. Earlier he'd thought that maybe it was understandable in the circumstances…but, assault? Him? Hadn't the lad even a basic understanding of who he was? He had no more time to follow that thought for Innocent had only been working up to the real question.

"So, tell me honestly, are you okay?"

"Honest answer, I don't know. I'll just throw meself at my work and see if that makes me okay."

And that's what he'd tried to do. But, Monkford was still in the building, still plaguing him with his nagging presence; Hathaway was still throwing worried glances his way if he so much as moved; and Val…Val was still dead. The last wasn't going to change, no matter how this day played out.

The problem with Hathaway? Was it really a problem? The lad was concerned about him…well, he should be. The case wasn't moving forward, and his boss was floundering. It was the sergeant's job to worry about his inspector.

He'd worried plenty about Morse that long ago day after Susan Fallon had died.

It hadn't been Lewis or Chief Superintendent Strange that had finally put an end to the whole mess in that interview room. It had been Marriot himself. After Lewis had pulled Morse off of him, while the chief inspector still struggled against him, fighting to get at the man.

"How could I have stopped her, Morse?" he'd asked. "If she couldn't live for you, why would she listen to me?" The words had cut through the chief superintendent's shouted admonitions and Morse's inarticulate rage. And they had devastated Morse in almost the same way as Mrs. Fallon's death. The fight had died out of him, and he'd sagged against Lewis' arms.

The chief superintendent had tried to offer an apology for Morse's frenzied attack.

The doctor had needed none. "It's perfectly all right. Nothing happened here," he said because whatever else the man had been, he had known what his actions and words had done to the chief inspector. His anger and revenge had been aimed at one man, and he could and did feel remorse for the man who had accidentally been caught in its crossfire and devastated as a result.

Strange had turned then to glare at the two officers: Lewis, still wide-eyed and running on adrenaline, and Morse, dejected and empty beside him. Strange had had no desire for this sorry, ugly affair to become an official incident. "Get him out of here, Sergeant," he had ordered.

At the last instant, before Morse had gone through the door, he had turned and looked at Marriot. The doctor, unable to meet his piercing gaze, had turned his face away, and whatever else they might have said to one another had remained unsaid.

And then Morse had just walked away. And Strange and Lewis had let him. What else could they have done? He would have lashed out at whichever one might have attempted to stop him, doing even more damaged to his reputation than it had already suffered that afternoon.

There had been nothing for it but to see to Marriot's release and finish out the day. And ache for Morse. And worry about where the man had gone and what he'd gotten up to. He'd been so dejected, so defeated as he had walked out of the building. Morse had never been one to look out after himself. Lewis had considered that part of his job, and he hadn't like leaving the chief inspector to himself in such a state.

But. "Leave me alone!" Morse had told him when Lewis went to lead him from the interview room. If Lewis wouldn't have been so ashamed of his own part in the day's events, he might have not taken those words so personally…it certainly hadn't been the first time the chief inspector had rejected Lewis' help and concern, and he'd never taken it as meaning anything much at all. But, that had been before. When he had known—or thought he'd known, as it had turned out—the sort of man he was. Then Morse's abuse hadn't mattered, but now? When he actually did know what sort of a man he was; and he didn't like that sort of man at all? He'd taken Morse's words to heart.

He'd gone home to the family. Days like those…what a blessing it had been to have a family to go home to. His Val had been an anchor, and what was the saying? The wind beneath his wings. Yes, she'd been that, keeping him from crashing down to the depths of despair on nights like that one had been.

"I couldn't do it," he'd confessed to her after the kids were tucked up in their beds. That horrible truth had followed him home. It would, he believed at that moment, haunt him all the rest of his days. He was the kind of man that would allow an innocent—or, at least, not guilty—man to suffer if it meant his friends, his loved ones, didn't. He was the kind of copper who would allow justice to go unserved if that's what it took to protect his own. He was a man he did not know and did not want to know.

His Val had always known just what to say and how to say it to make him see things clearly, and that night had been no exception. "Of course, you couldn't! Not when it meant hurting him like that…not after seeing him so happy and…alive."

"And what of the doctor? I had the…well, he shouldn't have been in that interview room to start with—not if I'd been man enough to do me job. He didn't do it, but I…what kind of copper does that make me?"

"A good one, Robbie. And a good man, too," she had told him. He'd heard her sincerity and her belief in him, but he hadn't shared it.

"No, Lass," he'd said sadly, shaking his head. "No."

"Yes. You can't see yourself, Robbie. Can't know yourself, can you? But I know you. You may not have been able to stop Morse from bringing the man in—"

"Stop him—I made the call meself, man!"

She'd put her hand up over his mouth to stop his outburst and gone on, "but you did what you needed to. You made sure it didn't go too far."

"I came this close, Pet…this close to letting him do whatever he was going to do. I did. I almost got back in the car…almost just drove away and let it happen."

"But, you didn't. And you never would have done."

"Wouldn't I?"

"No," she told him gently. "You would never have left that man to face Morse without you…and you would never have allowed Morse to…do whatever you were afraid he'd do to that man. And you didn't. You stopped him the only way you could.

"You know as well as I do, Morse would never have heard what you had to say…he would have brushed it aside and gone right on to do what he was going to do. You know." She gave him a small smile and added, "You may not know yourself, but you know the chief inspector…a law unto himself, isn't he? No, Robbie, I won't have it, you sitting here beating yourself up. Trust me, you did what was right. You're a good cop, a good man, and a good friend. Now, off with you. Go out and find your Morse before the worry eats you alive."

And he'd gone, hadn't he? With her words buoying him up and her belief in him allowing him to see his actions in a different light, he'd been able to go after Morse, been able to forgive himself the part he'd played in Marriot being in that room, and been able to be the man he needed to be for Morse.

So. There really wasn't a problem with Hathaway's anxious hovering. He was just doing his job. Trying to be whatever his inspector needed him to be.

And that left only Monkford. Whose power over him grew with every passing moment and would continue to do so until he faced him, spoke to him, until he met the man who had killed his wife.

"Right," he said to his sergeant. "I'm ready to talk to Monkford now. Coming with me?" And, of course, Hathaway had because, as Lewis had known even at his angriest, his sergeant was a good one.

Hathaway had led the way into the room. "Inspector Lewis," he'd said, and the uncomfortable, nervous posturing of the man in front of him told Lewis that Monkford knew. He knew he was looking at the husband of the woman he'd hit five years before, the woman he'd left to die.

There was an uneasy silence as they looked at one another. Monkford was the first to break it. "Would it help if I said I'm truly sorry?" he asked.

"No, nothing helps." There was too much truth in those words, and hearing it, Lewis would have called them back if he could.

Monkford though failed to hear it. He rushed on as though his question had simply been the opening niceties before getting down to business. His business though wasn't Lewis'. It had taken Lewis a few moments to realize what Monkford was about…did the man really think he cared about his more-than-useless testimony? Did he really think that all Lewis was concerned about was closing his case…that Val had been nothing to him and her death no more than a bargaining chip?

It wasn't until Lewis leaned over the table and glared into the man's face that Monkford seemed to remember he wasn't facing a cop but a husband. Lewis saw Monkford draw back in the face of his anger, saw him flinch and swallow, saw his eyes widen as adrenaline flooded his system preparing him for the worst.

Realizing his danger, the man tried to say, "Sorry I simply thought—", but Lewis' answer came hard and fast to override him.

"You no longer have the right to think! We'll decide on the charges. I don't do deals with people like you." For a very long, very ugly moment, Lewis stayed there glaring at the man, wondering if maybe he did have it in him, after all. But, the moment passed, and he found he was the man he'd believed himself to be.

And, this…this get was…just a man. He wasn't a cold-blooded killer who they had needed to hunt down and keep from killing again. He was just a stupid man who had done a stupid thing and ended up running over-oh, Val, oh, my bonny, bonny lass—running over an innocent woman quite by accident, and then, being too afraid to face what he'd done, he'd left …oh, dear God, she didn't deserve that, not Val…her there to live or die.

And Lewis, who had loved her and would love her all of his days, who had received her smiles and laughs and held her, who still woke up in the nights needing her and even now felt her loss as a crippling wound every moment, who would have given anything to be there in that moment and run a comforting hand over her face and whisper his love and do and say whatever else he could have done to ease her last moments of consciousness…that man—Lewis, wanted nothing to do with him. It wouldn't help Val, it wouldn't change that horrible moment or all the pain and suffering that had come after it.

"Take me away from this man," he said. And it was there filling the air of that room, and all three of them heard it. He'd spoken the word but he hadn't meant it. Simon Monkford was far less than a man. A coward, a selfish, uncaring coward.

And Lewis who just wanted to collapse into a heap and howl for his loss right there in the middle of the interview room needed Hathaway to take him away not because he feared what he might do if he remained but because he needed the sergeant's strength to keep him upright against the pain and emptiness tearing through him.

"Sir," Hathaway said, opening the door. Lewis turned from Monkford and walked away.