Love Can Conquer All

chapter 85

Chapter 85

The older one of the two spoke first. He was pale and tired looking with deep lines etched into his forehead. Friendly eyes looked at me; they were dark blue, the only youthful thing about him. His grey hair was fluffy and wild. His voice was nothing like I expected. I thought it would be soft and gentle, like his hair, yet it was deep, powerful and immediately conveyed his authority.

'I'm Chief Inspector Owens and this is Inspector Morris. We're here to talk to you about anything you may remember from this morning.' He flipped open his notepad before looking back to me. He held the smallest pencil ever; the top was chewed and nibbled. For some reason this endeared him to me. 'We're going to ask some questions, just tell us as much as you can.'

Inspector Morris finally spoke. He was a thin, spindly man with bright ginger curls. His face was decorated with freckles and his eyes were constantly frowning. His lips were pulled into a tight line that looked painful. 'Tell us everything you did this morning.' His voice wasn't as commanding as the other guy's but the fierce expression on my voice made me nervously clear my throat as I pulled myself into more of an upright position on the bed.

'I got up, went to work and got shot.' I winced inwardly, realising I sounded too bitter, although there wasn't really much else to say other than that.

'We got that.' He clearly wasn't happy with my response. 'What we mean is did you stop anywhere else before getting to the courts? See anyone? Speak to anyone?'

I cleared my throat again and linked my shaking hands together. 'No, I spoke to nobody, saw nobody and went straight from the apartment to work.'

He nodded once, a sharp, single action. 'What time did you get to the court?'

'About 9am. Possibly just before as I was early.'

'Why were you early?' He asked.

'There wasn't as much traffic as I thought there would be and it's a big case, I wanted to get there to speak to my client, to run through what would be happening today.'

'Okay.' He crossed his arms and sat back. I couldn't tell if he was finished or just thinking, but before he could speak or whatever, Chief Inspector Owens spoke.

'So a witness tells us you were walking up the steps, stopped at the top, turned around and were shot. Why did you turn around?' He tapped his stubby pencil on the notepad.

'I heard someone call my name.' I admitted. 'It sounded like a man, but I'm not sure.'

'Your name? Your surname, first name, both?' Morris asked, he was obviously ready to talk again.

'First name. Just Aria.' I shakily reached for the cup of water next to my bed and took a shaky sip.

'This may seem like a silly question' Owens smiled apologetically, 'but can you think of anyone that would want to shoot you?'

That stumped me. I sat there frozen in thought as I racked my brain for something. Anything. Then I remembered what Dr. Stein had said. 'It could be a relative of a witness or someone involved in the trial.' They both nodded as they scribbled away.

I heard Louis suck in a breath. We all looked at him. 'Um...could it be a fan or something?' I could see he was nervous.

'A fan?' The ginger one frowned.

'Er, yeah. I'm in a band.' He was blushing now. He still couldn't consider himself a celebrity even though he clearly was.

'Ah, yes!' Owens gasped. 'I thought I recognised you! One Direction is it?' When Louis nodded he carried on. 'Yep, I took my granddaughter and a few friends to your concert the other week! I thought I recognised you. It was very good, I must say.' He realised he was rambling a bit and cleared his throat, trying to become authoritative again. 'But yes, that's another possibility. They could be jealous or something.' He wrote again in his notepad.

'Do you think you'll catch whoever it was?' I asked.

'We've got a few ideas of who it was. There's CCTV footage we've got people collecting and checking. Hopefully we'll see a vehicle or a person, and then it's just a case of finding or identifying them. We have high hopes that we'll find them; it was a very public area. Someone must have seen something.' His fluffy grey hair bounced as his head moved whilst he spoke.

'In the mean-time' Morris began. 'You'll need to stay with someone as much as possible. Avoid being on your own at all times if you can. If you suspect anything ring the police, they'll be aware of the situation and will have someone involved in the case there for you in minutes.'

'But you hope you'll have found the person soon?' Louis asked.

'Yeah, all things being well, we should know soon. That is if the CCTV is helpful.' Morris nodded. 'That's us done here.' He stood up and dropped something into my lap. 'That's our card. If you need us or remember anything call us.' He shook my hand, dropped it and headed to the door.

'Anything, just call us.' Owens smiled. He shook my hand gently and placed it back on the bed, instead of dropping it like the other guy. 'Oh, and son, fantastic concert! I love that new song.' He smiled at us both before joining Morris. 'Get well soon Aria. We hope to have this all sorted for you as soon as possible.' They left as quickly as they came, both of them gone, their big black shoes squeaking on the floor as they left.

'That ginger guy was awful!' Louis gasped. 'I can't get over that.' He shook his head as he thought about it.

'The other guy was nice though. If I need to ring them I definitely won't ask for Inspector Morris!' I took another sip of water and placed it back on the table. I reached out to Louis who was looking through the window and took his hand in mine. 'Thanks for being here.'

'Of course, with you being in here there's nowhere I want to be than with you.'