To Live and To Breathe (Could Be #2)

Chapter 45

When Sam returned with the cab, Timothy climbed into it with an awkward lurch, and settled into the worn leather cushions, arms crossed. The act of bracing himself in the corner came as naturally as if he'd never left off using crutches. Pity nothing else came that easily.

Sam sat down opposite him, picking at his thumbs, shifting his weight, and inspecting all the cobwebs in the dark recesses of the musty cab, exhibiting a painful need to say something he didn't seem to be able to find words for. "I know you don't want to hear it," he began, "but I am so horribly sorry. I cannot tell you how much. You were right, we shouldn't have gone. There were other ways maybe, less dangerous—"

Timothy covered his face with one hand. "No, Sam, there weren't."

Sam stopped in the middle of the sentence, mouth open.

"You're trying to make me say I told you so to make you feel better, but it isn't going to work." Timothy shifted, bracing himself more firmly as the cab lurched over a bump. "I'm only tired, and my head hurts, and I'm the idiot that knew we shouldn't come and did anyway."

"But—your leg!"

"A piece of wood." Something like hysterical laughter threatened to bubble out of him, but he clamped a lid on it. "I'll get another. Someday."

Sam didn't seem convinced. "You saved our lives."

Timothy was unwilling to be saddled with such undeserved heroism. "Right, well, new plan," he said, changing the subject. "We both go to the police."

Sam sighed, but didn't argue. Instead, when the cabby stopped at the police station, he informed him that no further assistance would be necessary, and they both hobbled inside.

Timothy sank gratefully into a chair in the lobby, squinting in the placid, flicker-free electric light illuminating the place like a scene from a bad dream. Sam went to the counter, and the same clerk that had showed them the prison records stared from Sam to Timothy and back again, as if they had once again become the most interesting part of his day.

"I've got a murder to report," Sam said, and provided Mr. Webb's address.

The clerk's eyebrows lifted even higher. "I'll ring up the chief inspector." He turned to the telephone behind the counter and bid Sam have a seat.

Sam slumped into the chair next to Timothy with a groan, and both sat in exhausted silence until the clerk told them the force would be investigating the murder and would they be pleased to wait for questioning.

Timothy felt as if he'd been awake for days, but the wall clock ticking behind the desk told him it was only a quarter to one. He let himself slide down the chair, and remained in a state of stupor until shouting in the streets woke him up just in time to see Mr. Hund—Jack Bradley—get shoved through the door by several policemen.

Sam sat up like he'd been electrocuted, and Timothy jumped as Mr. Hund lunged at them, red-faced with rage. "I had them! I had them, I tell you!"

The constabulary dragged him into the back shouting profanities, and protesting that the boy "out there" was his employer's nephew and therefore just as guilty until a door slammed and cut him off. Sam turned to Timothy with wide eyes, and Timothy hid his face in his hands. The worst was true. Oh, Lord—how could they move past this?

Footsteps nearby caused him to look up, and he found himself face to face with the chief inspector. The large, sober-faced man regarded them without saying anything for a moment, and then presented a pair of crutches and asked them to accompany him to his office for questioning. Timothy's heart sank.

Sam still had enough life in him to fidget and exclaim and answer earnestly, but Timothy sat in silence and stared at the sleek wooden trim lining the ceiling behind the inspector's desk, and the fly that kept buzzing in the window below it. There were shelves of books on either side of the heavy oaken desk, but Timothy couldn't even muster the energy to be interested in them. His whole head throbbed, and all he wanted was to go home and go to bed. Maybe this was all a bad dream. Maybe he could go to sleep and wake to a blissful reality where none of this had happened.

"Is it true that you're Mr. Astor's nephew?" the inspector asked suddenly, turning to Timothy.

Had the inspector given them his name? Timothy squinted at a plaque on the desk bearing the inscription Montgomery, and decided that the information was totally unfamiliar to him. "It's true."

The inspector made a small noise of acknowledgement, then wrote something on a pad of paper. "I've sent men to bring him here."

Timothy stared at him, sitting up so suddenly he knocked the crutches out of reach with a clatter. "You can't mean to question us at the same time!"

Mr. Montgomery arched an eyebrow, and continued making notations on the paper. "Do you have any other family?"

Timothy wrapped his arms around himself, afraid of where the inspector was going with the question. "Yes—both parents."

Mr. Montgomery looked at both of them significantly. "I think we had better call your immediate family members here now. What are their addresses?"

If the prospect of being the focus of his uncle's fury didn't eat up what little remained of Timothy's courage, explaining to his family what was really going on after being called here by a man in uniform did.

Sam laughed nervously. He must feel the same way. "My mother knows nothing of this. She can't possibly—"

The inspector snorted as if he'd heard a similar excuse a thousand times. "Well young sir, she's about to. Addresses?"

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When I knew I'd be writing a mystery I wanted to make sure that it was a character-driven one. Too often, the "whodunit" outweighs the human element, but I wanted my characters to react to the story in the ways that I believed they would if they were real people.