Page 36 of These Tears

A horn blares. The bird doesn’t even lift its head. It skitters closer to my shoe, steals another crumb and carries on as if two tonnes of metal haven’t just thundered past a few metres away.

Ahead, office blocks loom in alternating greys, their glass panes flickering beneath a dull sky unlike the one over the prison yard yesterday.

Just as the robin flies away, Simon Cromwell chooses to grace the street with his detached elegance and a suit three shades too dark for summer, cut precisely to look severe rather than fashionable. His mirror-polished shoes somehow remain untouched by the grime of the pavement.

I throw the rest of the bun to the flock that has begun to gather around the bus station, absorbing an elderly woman’s reprimand for it, and scurry over the road after him.

The city thrums around me in layers. Engines roar, brakes screech, fragments of conversation blur together.

‘Mr Cromwell!’ I call after him when I’m close enough.

He pivots, sunlight flashing across the immaculate line of his spectacles, almost matching the sheen of his bald head. He’s surprisingly young up close – I’d expected someone closer to Arthur’s age, thinking the pictures online were old.

He takes one look at my plain grey tunic and jeans and turns away as if he can’t be bothered with me.

‘Press appointments go through the office,’ he throws over his shoulder.

‘I’m not press!’ I say, catching up to him. ‘I need a word about Elias Crane!’

He stops abruptly, and I nearly bump into his slender frame.

Turning sharply, he pegs me with a cold set of dark eyes, giving me another once-over.

‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Elias Crane’s friend. I’d like to ask you a few questions.’

The words barely leave my mouth before he starts walking again, forcing me to match his long, rushed stride.

We pass a brass plaque bolted to the brick at the edge of his building – Cromwell & Haines, Solicitors – the engraving so clean it almost hums money.

‘I act for Crane Logs & Timber, miss. My job is to defend the company, not the Cranes,’ he murmurs. ‘And even if I did, I wouldn’t be at liberty to discuss legal affairs with a stranger on a public pavement.’ He bites out the last. ‘That’s what we call professional privilege. You may have heard of it in one of your crime dramas.’

‘I’m not asking for privileged details,’ I lie, keeping pace as we cross at the lights, exhaust fumes assaulting us. ‘I want to know whether the family has found someone to represent him.’

A bus wheezes past, rattling the glass of the shelter beside us, but his composure doesn’t so much as flicker.

‘You’re out of your depth, miss,’ he says lightly, bored – as if commenting on the weather. ‘Digging for narratives around an active matter, speaking to journalists, approaching solicitors in the street – those things come with consequences. For you.’

A coldness slithers around my spine.

How does he know I’ve spoken to the journalist?

He stops, fixes me with a look stern enough to bruise. ‘And your friend.’ Then he carries on walking. ‘Courts take a dim view of interference with active proceedings, and Cranes take an even dimmer view of unfounded insinuations.’ He glances at me as I reach his side for the third time. ‘Stop playing detective and leave the law to those of us paid – and insured – to handle it.’

‘That’s just it!’ I counter, already huffing as he starts moving again and I try to match his long strides. ‘Elias Crane owns half of Crane Logs & Timber. Surely the company has some obligation to make certain he is adequately represented—’

This time I faceplant directly into his chest when he turns. My heel slips off the kerb, sending me stumbling towards the nose of a growling bus.

His hand clamps around my forearm and hauls me back onto the pavement. Relief barely has time to register before the look he gives me wipes it away; severe enough to make me wonder if he might shove me straight back onto the road.

‘The company is my client. Elias Crane’s ownership stake does not make him one.’ He shifts the weight to one foot. ‘Elias—killed—his own—father,’ he grits out. Not a flicker of humanity follows the words. ‘The Crown calls it murder, the people call him a monster, and God would call him a sinner. Not even his mother wanted him. That is the end of it.’ Then he takes a step towards me and dips his head a little. ‘If I were you, I’d walk away from that friend.’

Glancing to the side, as if to make sure no one is listening, he adds, ‘Elias Crane is a loose cannon. A cracked egg. He’s been under psychiatric care since he could barely walk. You have no idea who you are dealing with.’

My fingers curl into fists.

As if needing help as a child were evidence of what he’d become as a man.