Chapter Three

'Can you tell us how you know Mr Glover?' asked Inspector Reid for the umpteenth time.

'We just got talking on the train,' I answered numbly. I was in shock, but no one seemed to care. I'd been escorted out of the train and eased into the back of a police car, then driven to the police station in silence. I was checked for any wounds by the resident doctor.

'And the shooter was definitely a man?'

I shuddered, recalling his dark form, the blaze of anger in his stark green eyes, the way he held the gun with a sure confidence that he was to get the job done. I wondered why the phrase came to mind. Job. Was it a paid shooting? Was he sent to do it? Why him? Chad? Was he a killer too? They were sure to be enemies. I wasn't sure why I felt certain of this.

'Miss Travinni?'

'What? Oh … He … Yes, a man. Tall, broad, with large, booted feet.' I remembered looking down at them as he ran for the train door to press the emergency stop button. He'd glanced at me as if to bid me farewell, then leapt onto the platform and pelted across the station, his gun still in his hands as people continued to scream in the carriage.

It echoed in the interview room, bouncing off every dull grey wall. To my left there was a large window. No doubt it was where I was being surveyed without my notice. I had the urge to get up and take a closer look. I'd always wanted to in such a predicament. My first time in this place was new and intriguing, but also riddled with disbelief. I'd witnessed a shooting inches from my face. His blood was still all over me. My hands. My new work pumps. Why hadn't I noticed?

I panicked and shot up. The metal chair fell back with a loud chink. I pressed my back against the cold concrete wall behind me. Somehow it was soothing. I felt overheated and trapped. Trapped in a nightmare and a room too small to pace.

The other detective rose, his hands raised as you would to a wild animal. 'Miss Travinni, please sit down. You're fine here. We assure you.'

Inspector Reid had reached me. I yelped, but he simply tugged at my arm. I relented and fell back into my raised chair.

My plastic cup was refilled with water. The screaming in my head started up, but was dampened by what Inspector Reid began to say to me.

'There's an issue with the body.'

I trembled, my panic getting worse.

'It's, well … How can we put it? Not normal.'

I shook my head. It was all I could manage.

'You see,' he continued, 'he was shot in the head.'

His brain, I thought. His brain had exploded and hit the window. I could see it, bits similar to worms in thick gloopy paint. I bit down the bile that had risen in my throat and covered my mouth.

'The man, as you so witnessed, has only half a skull; the rest remains on the train, yet …'

My eyes darted up to his. There was that typical, strange, quizzical look in his that I had only ever seen Jack give to patients who weren't completely telling the truth.

'What are you trying to say?' I spat out, insulted. I wanted to know what they thought I was lying about.

'I'm saying that the body – Mr Glover, as you call him – is brainless, yet still … has a heartbeat.'

Both inspectors glared at me as if only I had the answer to something so unexplainable.

'I doubt it.' I laughed. It was either that or cry.

'So did we until we took a look for ourselves. The heart monitor shows a pulse and a rapid, but firm, heartbeat.'

I laughed again. Maybe this really was a nightmare. Random impossible things could only happen in them.

'Why would you connect a brainless man to a monitor, anyway?'

'Because he still had vitals. A nurse was about to place him in the morgue when she felt a heartbeat against the palm of her hand.'

The other inspector – I'd forgotten his name – took a folded piece of paper out of a plastic bag with gloved hands, opened it up, and placed it onto the table in front of me.

I gulped and read the words. Check if she is one of us before initiating the execution.

I looked to them then the paper several times, trying to figure out what it meant, why they were both looking at me with suspicion.

'I … I … I need a lawyer.'

'We'll see to it,' said Inspector Reid with a tight smile. 'First we need to check your arm.'

'My arm,' I griped, involuntarily clasping the top of it.

'Yes, exactly. Right there,' said the other detective, his voice dripping with insinuations.

'I don't have to let you do anything to me.'

'You had passed out for most of the night and today. We managed to get a court order to detain you until further notice. Now … Miss Travinni, please lift up your sleeve.'

'But why?!'

'We need to see if you have a mark on your arm like Mr Glover. We need to see if this is related to the 'one of us' section of that note we found on him.'

'One of what?!' I grew hysterical. 'What could I be?!'

'That's what we need to find out,' he added, ushering in the resident doctor. 'We need to see what this means. We need to know why a dead body is physically still alive. It's beyond reason and scientific logic, and you, Miss Travinni, may have the answer without even knowing it. Now please, stay calm and cooperate.'

It took half an hour and a lawyer present to make me roll up my sleeve. I had nothing to hide, yet I didn't want to give them the satisfaction of thinking they could make me jump when they said.

My father would often say the police were scum. His vexation towards them always seemed personal, as if they had betrayed him, used him as bait, or asked for more than they should have. I often wondered if some of the phone calls to clients in high places were to members of the force, if the 'deals' he forged with them were as illegitimate as they sounded. I was always warned to keep out of Father's work.

'It gives you more than you'll ever need, remember that,' he'd say.

Mother would add, 'That's what matters. What it gives you, not where it came from.'

It was suspicious as hell, but I'd had that line drummed into me for so long, I'd grown bored of questioning it.

The doctor lifted my sleeve and no one moved. I was surprised to see a dot on my arm, a pink dot, perfectly round as if it had been a template coloured in with a neon marker.

'Interesting,' said the doctor. 'His is blue. Hers pink. It's as if they differentiate their sex.'

'This has been drawn on me,' I lashed. I looked to my lawyer, who sat up straight and said, 'I want this removed now.'

'Be our guest,' said Inspector Reid. He looked to the doctor. 'Please get whatever removes permanent markers.'

The doctor rushed away in a beat and returned with everything from surgical spirits to possibly even bleach.

The dot was dabbed, rubbed, massaged; but nothing made it budge.

'It's clear it's a part of you,' came the annoying, slick voice of the other inspector.

'Just like it's attached to him,' offered Inspector Reid. 'Now. I wonder, would you survive a gunshot?'

'You're going to shoot me now too?!'

He paused as if to consider it, then picked up the file and got to his feet. 'Leave it with me. I'll think of something. We'll send you something to eat, Miss Travinni. Can I get you a tea or coffee in the meantime?'

He smiled at my angered silence, then left with the doctor and the other inspector. I turned to my lawyer. 'Get me out of here now!'

He gathered up his sheets of paper and shoved them into his briefcase. 'Yes, of course.' He swiftly left. It was just me. The nightmare, the dot on my arm, the remains of the strange beating body at the hospital on my mind.

Who was I in all this?

What was my place?

What was supposed to have happened to me last night?

It looked like I was supposed to be executed. By whom?

Chad? Had the man got to him first?

Was the man saving me?

He'll be back, said my thoughts.

I didn't even trust they were mine anymore.

Find a way out.

I couldn't stay here, that was for sure.

Like my mind commanded, I had to find a way out, and fast.