The Anarchist

5. Autopsy

The darkness has, as it usually does, made everything quieter. Watkins and Eirian communicate only in directions as they make their way to the former's house. He tries to keep his eyes away from her as much as possible, while hers dart back and forth from the road to his face. For a moment, it looks like she might say something, but she thinks better of it. It is just as well, because Watkins's mind is fixed upon one thing and one thing only, and that is his old mentor.

The first thing about Wilson that Watkins always remembers is his nervous twitch. An odd thing to latch onto, granted, but it makes sense when you realise that Wilson was a guarded man. It was nearly impossible to know how he felt about most things unless he said so outright, and getting him to do that was pretty much out of the question. That said, Watkins had noticed, from the day that he met Wilson, that the chief had a tell. Whenever something got too personal for him, he would smirk, pinching up the right side of his face, and make a vaguely relevant quip, changing the subject. Others got irritated because they thought he wasn't paying attention, but Watkins knew that it was the act of a wounded man tossing up a shield, desperately trying to deflect a lethal blow. He never made much of this habit of Wilson's (everyone has secrets), but now he thinks of it, that must have been a sign that Wilson had hidden his real self away from everyone.

You would never have known that just by looking at – or listening to – him, of course. He was the kind of man who commanded authority through his presence alone. The way he stood was straight, firm, like he had been hand-made with the finest masonry. When he spoke, his resonant voice would arrest your limbs and hold you to attention until he'd quite concluded his business with you. Because of this tremendous presence of his, you might well assume that he never had the need to lose his temper, but you would only be half-right. Wilson did not suffer fools, and as such he would always let people know when they'd made a big mistake by bellowing the details of their faux pas back at them in no uncertain terms. His philosophy was simple. If you want someone to remember a mistake and not repeat it, then being nice and sensitive about it would not achieve the desired effect. Scare the ever-living bejeesus out of them, and they are hardly likely to forget the experience in a hurry. Watkins can personally vouch that this method never failed Wilson once.

There's movement from the seat beside him. Before Watkins knows what is happening, Eirian winds the window down and draws in every ounce of air that her lungs can cope with, letting out a satisfied sigh. Watkins cannot bear his own curiosity.

"What are you doing?"

Her hair, no longer tied-up, blusters about in all conceivable directions, practically blurring every feature of her face save for a single glinting eye and an absurdly joyous grin.

"I'm enjoying myself," she says.

He nods slowly, looking like a concerned parent failing to understand why their child has eaten a toy soldier.

"You've never been anywhere new in your life, have you?" she says.

"No," he answers, eyes on the road. "No I haven't. But what does that have to do with it?"

"That's a shame. No wonder..."

She brushes her hair back and, for the tiniest of instants, her smile fades away and she looks more visibly bothered by Watkins's answer here than she was by anything that had happened back at Wilson's house. She looks almost like an impressionist portrait of someone else, a frame frozen in place belonging to a completely alien entity. Watkins is about to ask her what the matter is, but the wild red mane swamps her again, and the moment is over. Her cheerful, energetic demeanour returns in full force.

"To answer your question, if you had ever visited somewhere new, you'd know that everything in sight suddenly becomes the most interesting thing you've ever seen. The colour of street signs, the length of the grass that grows up through the pavements... even the texture of the air you're breathing. You'd never pay attention to any of it at home, but for some odd reason, just being in a different place makes everything feel different, even if it isn't really. It's exciting. The best feeling, actually."