Calum had always been the smug kid, the smart arse, the sarcastic one, and was coming to realise how unnecessary it was in a line of work so serious.
He'd had no right criticising Tariq – it was just Calum's instinct to say something smart and cutting in order to provoke people. It wasn't bullying or teasing, it was just testing people out – that was his excuse anyway. Tariq had snapped though, and Calum had instantly felt bad: he knew he was a decent bloke really. Although, in their line of work, affording decency was something of a luxury, and the fact that Tariq had the good grace to grin at him later, warning him to avoid a mugging on his way home, showed Calum that Tariq's easygoing nature was rather admirable. He was grateful to have been forgiven.
Calum would have cut back on his harshness if he knew that a mere twelve hours later, his friend would be dead.
Anyone who had experienced something traumatic like a car crash always said it happened in slow motion – of course, Calum had snorted at the notion. But watching his friend stumble from a taxi just metres ahead, connect with the ground, choke for breath... it could only have been seconds but Calum felt like he had spend hours of his life there, trying to help Tariq who was already beyond help, desperately struggling to pound the life back into him but unable to hear breathing when he leant his ear to Tariq's mouth.
He had called the ambulance, hugging his knees as he sat on the kerb, unable to tear his eyes away from his dead friend strewn out on the pavement, with not one person glancing over in concern. It was a late night in London and no-one was going to stop for a second to see if the man on the ground was dead or alive, because they had places to be and people to see and wouldn't know that the corpse in the street helped to protect their ungrateful lives.
Calum pounded the pavement with a fist, feeling the hurt and the blood trickling across his knuckles. The gesture was petulant but it felt good to release his anger on himself. Earlier that day he had accused Tariq of behaving childishly – "Woah, what are you getting out your pram for? I'm the one who took the kicking" – and now he felt nothing but immature, sulking on the pavement for his wrongdoings against a man who deserved to be alive. His little digs and jibes felt like nothing when he was saying them, and usually people just rolled their eyes. But Tariq was the kind of guy that was up for some banter but was genuine enough to tell you if you were pissing him off – he had put Calum in his place, and rightly so.
At least Tariq hadn't died thinking that Calum couldn't stand him, because the truth was quite the opposite – Calum was somewhat jealous of Tariq's determination and passion, and felt a little bit honoured to have worked with someone so skilled.
He'd gone in the ambulance, answering the nurse's questions sharply, unable to conjure up the effort to be polite. He didn't have to wait for Tariq to be seen to know what the doctor with the frown would tell him.
Calum had already rung Harry, who told him to go home and rest. The very idea seemed utterly laughable, so he dragged the hours of the night out after escaping the hospital by buying a coffee and pacing around London, willing for his mind to forget Tariq's face and lifeless form just for a little while so he could maybe even enjoy the evening; as absurd as it sounded, the night was clear and alive with stars, and Calum felt it would be selfish to not make the most of it.
He parked himself on a bench down a windy path where there were no other pedestrians and cursed himself and his petty squabbles and his attempts to seem better than everyone else. It would stop now.
When Calum woke from the roar of the pub across the road and checked his watch, he knew that he should go home because that was the norm - but he also knew that the mere half hour of sleep he had claimed tucked up on the bench, the cold iron biting his legs, was the most sleep he was going to get on the night that he had lost his friend.