Silence covered the flat like a blanket over a raging fire. Morton appreciated it’s stillness: it gave him a sense of grounding, gave him a sense of calm. It was as though the silence anchored him to this place, with it’s wallpapered walls and thick, old fashioned carpet. The art deco fireplace had several cracks in it’s deep red tiles, but the grate had been scrubbed within an inch of its life, as had the outdated but fully installed kitchen. He wasn’t too sure whether his brother would even like living here, but he had no choice.
His brother stirred but didn’t get up. Morton shifted from his seat and got up, going to the kitchen to flick the kettle on. His arms and shoulders were starting to ache from the lifting and pulling that he’d done to get Ade out of the hell hole he’d been in, and his feet felt dirty. A shower was in order… but not yet, he decided. He needed to make his brother eat something first.
Adrian Reid had always been difficult, Morton remembered. He’d been born in the dreadful year of 1987, when storms hurled themselves across England on a spree of destruction. U.S. President Ronald Reagan underwent prostate surgery, causing speculation about his physical fitness to continue in office, and the King's Cross fire on the London Underground killed thirty one people. Ade had been a quiet baby, screams almost non-existent. A mop of dark hair appeared quickly, and his wide, pale green eyes watched the movements of everyday life with ease. Morton had been born three years previously, and, much to his family’s delight, had been a screamer, but when Ade was born, Morton’s attention turned to his brother and to his brother only.
Ade had bonding problems, as their grandparents had put it, but Morton, by the time he was seven, could see that Adrian wasn’t the only botheration. Turning to drugs, however, when he was fifteen, caused an irreparable rift: their mother was already dead and their father had been ambivalent at best. Grandparents and other family slowly withdrew, and Morton had felt a weight descend on him- he was the controlling factor now. He decided what happened and what did not, just like he was now.
His gaze hovered over his brother through the archway that lead into the living room. He was flinching, arms wrapped around himself in sleep; the water had finished boiling and Morton poured it into a dirty cup, sloshed a tea bag around in it, and dropped a few glugs of milk as well before returning back to the comfortable chair. His eyes lingered on Ade, who was awake now, and he sighed.
“You’ve made tea?” Ade asked sharply, his words angled to sound untrusting and angry. Morton raised his shoulders and nodded.
“I have.”
“Why haven’t you made me any?”
“I can go and make you some.” Morton took a deep, calming breath. “Maybe you could eat something too?”
“No.” was Ade’s answer, but he added “A cup of tea wouldn’t be bad, though.” And Morton went to make another cup.
II
Her name was Vinna Shaw and she’d been a sergeant in the City of London police force for nearly four years until today. Well, she hadn’t had her dismissal yet, but she knew it was coming and she was sure it was worse than having a surprise.
Ever since she was young, Vinna had hated surprises. Her mother had been keen on giving her large, expensive presents as a part of a birthday gift, but even the idea of unwrapping a present in front of someone was off putting. When she joined the police, her mother had given her a diamond necklace that she couldn’t actually wear on the beat, but she wore it on special occasions, which now included odd birthdays of colleagues that she didn’t really know: last year, she’d been given a Chanel top that instead of saving for awkward birthdays, she wore every Friday and treated it like every other garment. And today was a Friday.
Vinna’s top had a small coffee stain on the neckline where she’d been bumped into on the tube, and the edge of her grey trousers were stained with a small amount of mud from when she’d walked through Hyde Park two nights ago. Positioned at her desk near a small window, Vinna could feel agitation growing in her stomach. She was waiting for that call, just waiting for-
“Shaw?”
Vinna froze, her throat clamming up. She turned to see Detective Inspector Gully at the front of her desk, his blonde hair windswept and his coat drenched from the cold, blistering rain outside. He placed an item on her desk which was neatly wrapped in dark blue tissue paper with a small silver ribbon wrapped around it. There were the DI’s wet fingermarks over it, but overall, it was preserved. A gift?
“I’ve got something for you.”
“I can see that, sir.” Vinna replied with a smirk, her stomach relaxing a little.
“It’s not actually from me. It was left overnight, so I thought I’d give it to you before I forget.”
“... how long has it been sitting on your desk?”
The DI blushed. “A week.”
“Oh,” was all Vinna could manage before she laughed. “Well, at least you’ve given to me.”
“Yeah,” Gully shuffled on the spot, his shoes rubbing against the worn cream carpet. “Look, come into my office for a minute, yeah?”
Vinna’s heart sank. Oh God, it was happening.
“Of course, sir.”
“It won’t take long.”
III
Morton noticed that Adrian’s eyes were a little watery, and he’d finally gotten on his feet and was pacing around the flat in an agitated manner that resembled a frustrated bird whose wings had been cut.
“How are you feeling?” Morton kept his voice soft, and he moved towards his brother in a slow manner, taming his movements, attempting to appear calm. Ade was standing by the large open window now, sticking his hands out into the open air which was littered with rain drops.
And after a single blink, Ade was pulling himself out onto the large Victorian window ledge through the slim gap.
“Adrian!” Morton yelled at the top of his voice and scrambled, as quick as lightning, to the window where he wrapped his arms around his brother’s torso and heaved him back into the room. He dropped Ade onto the floor carelessly; the blast of cold air from outside slapped Morton in the face as he slammed the window shut, the noise vibrating through the flat. Turning to his brother, Morton started to shake with anger: why had he done that?
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he managed to hiss. Ade’s eyes came to rest on Morton’s burning face and balling his fingers into a fist, he thumped Morton across the face.
“You’re an arsehole!” Ade’s voice was barely above a whisper, but the spite still lined each word as they escaped his mouth. Morton clutched the side of his face with his clammy hands and pushed himself away from Ade, the friction of the carpet against his trousers burning his skin. Ade’s face crumbled into frustrated tears as he took several deep, cutting breaths which made his lungs scream with agony. His brother had stopped him ending his pain, his brother had foiled his plan- “I hate you!” He couldn’t suppress his anger any longer- he hated him! Hate hate hate hate!
“No, you’re the arsehole!” Morton spat back, his fingers struggling against the restraints of his suffocating tie. “You’re the arsehole! You’re the drug addicted, suicidal arsehole and I hate you more than you hate yourself! I fucking hate you!” He pulled himself up with the aid of the sofa and wobbled across the room, pausing at the doorway of the bathroom. “Go fuck yourself.”
IV
“Sir, I am sorry, I really am.” Vinna was determined not to cry in front of her boss. “I am, I-”
“Vinna, shut it.”
It was like a stab to the gut. Gully looked a little ill as he leant against his own desk, her file in his gruff hands.
“Yeah, you’ve mucked up. Yeah, you’ve mucked up before-”
“Once!” she interjected, her voice too loud. Gully frowned like an unimpressed school master, minus the gown.
“-Yeah, once, but we’re the police, Vinna! I forgave you for that, and I still don’t really care that one druggy escaped, but this is major! You somehow managed to lose a file! Why you had it in the first place I don’t know, and I’m not too sure I want to know… but Vinna, you need to understand that you’ve made a mistake. I’m taking you off the Bailey case.”
Vinna felt her insides flip. She gripped the edge of Gully’s desk for support: they were close to each other now, inches away and both breathing heavily, faces red and blotchy, Gully’s from anger and Vinna’s from embarrassment.
“No.” she managed to say, but Gully shook his head.
“Yes, Vinna!” Gully was exasperated, his eyes wide and lips parted. “Deal with it! You can have another case, but for now you’ll be on beat.” His face scrunched up into something akin to pain, but Vinna could feel a slow, rumbling anger build up inside her: it wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t her fault that someone had taken the file, it wasn’t her fault that they’d never solved the case, it wasn’t her fault that curiosity got the better of her- “Look, just get out of my office. Have the rest of the day off.”
Vinna couldn’t bring herself to say thank you, and with a fleeting look at her boss, she fled the room as quickly as she could, feeling her eyes burn with hot tears. Shamed, she grabbed her coat and her phone, and headed out of the station into the drizzling rain.
V
After his outburst, Morton had decided to take a shower. He entered the living room with damp hair, and he was clad in his crumpled suit once more: though his clothing had once given him power, it gave him nothing now, attempting to look at his mess of a brother. Actually, the suit was like a cord, wrapped around his body, pulling him further and further away from real people like Ade: not everyone could afford an Armani suit, and right now, Morton wanted to shed it and wander around in relaxed clothing, but he had nothing but the clothes he came in. He’d abandoned his shoes and socks, preferring the heat of the carpet burn to warm his toes, and with a few shallow breaths, he collapsed next to Ade on the sofa, where he was curled up with a book (The Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincey, which Morton despised since his school days).
His brother turned a page with a bony, milky finger and then rested the book on his flat stomach, turning to look at Morton with horrendously wide, wet eyes.
“What do you want?” he managed to whisper: it felt like the words were clawing out of his throat, each syllable a knife into his flesh. His legs spasmed momentarily, causing a pain to shoot up through his muscles, and with a sharp groane, the pain subsided as quickly as it had come. He shuddered, and his brother’s eyes weren’t locked on his face, but his thin arms. At the crook, where the skin was the most delicate, were tiny red pockmarks, littering the snowy skin like a disease, and like dripping paint, they’d slipped down his arms until they reached a wild sea of angry lines, paper thin cuts made by the edge of a pin, until they ended at the base of his large, spidery hands. He hated himself, and he couldn’t think of another way to show it best.
“I don’t want anything.” was his brother’s reply, but his head came to rest on Ade’s sharp shoulders; Morton’s brown hair tickled a little, and Ade turned to face the window before allowing himself a small, discreet smile.
“Really?”
“I promise: I don’t want anything at the moment.” Morton sighed. “Let’s just sit here until we fall asleep.”
Ade rather liked the idea: “You must be tired.” he said. Morton nodded.
“As must you be.”
“Yes, I suppose I am.”
“Then let’s close our eyes like we did when we were at home, and wait for sleep to come to us.”
Ade said nothing, but lent a little on Morton, whose face, as Ade shut his eyes, broke into a warming smile.