Nemesis: Soulmates Never Die - Prologue. Prologue

PROLOGUE

Detective Sergeant Richard Javelin pressed the record button. ‘This is D.S. Javelin, interviewing a primary witness in the case against Craig Spencer, on the twenty-sixth of April.’ He looked at Dave with deep green eyes. ‘Please state your name.’

‘David George Thompson.’

‘Please tell me what happened on the twenty-fifth of March.’

Dave drew a deep breath. ‘I was home alone with my cousin, Jason. Nick showed up at my house in the evening. It must have been about six or seven. It wasn’t dark yet. It was raining, and he was wet. I asked him in and he told me that Craig overheard a phone call we had about an hour or so earlier. Craig attacked him, calling him queer. It wasn’t the first time Craig hurt him; back in October he beat him pretty badly, too. I took him to my room, gave him some dry clothes. I saw the bruises when he took his shirt off. It looked awful. I tried to ask him what happened. After a while, he told me that Craig had come into his room, punched him in the stomach until he couldn’t breathe and then—’ Dave heard his own voice crack and swallowed. His heart was racing in his chest and he felt a little bit sick. He took a sip of the glass of water that stood on the table in front of him.

‘Do you need a moment?’ asked Javelin. Dave shook his head.

‘No, I’m fine.’ He took another deep breath before continuing. ‘Nick said that Craig pushed him face first down on the bed and held him down. Said that if Nick liked taking it up the arse so much—’ His voice broke again and he cleared his throat. ‘Well. You get the picture, probably. That’s all he said at the time. Then he just broke down, and a bit after that he ran to the bathroom and vomited.’ He picked at a hangnail and stared at nothing for a while, trying to clear his mind of the image.

‘Anything else you can tell me?’ Javelin asked him after a few seconds.

Dave exhaled heavily and looked at him. He looked like a nice man, reasonably young, mid-thirties maybe, well dressed with chestnut hair. He wore a kind and sympathetic expression on his tired face. ‘I don’t know,’ said Dave. ‘I guess just that, for that whole week he’d wake up at night, all sweating and shaking, just terrified. I’d try to hold him and soothe him and calm him down, but sometimes it would take hours before he was able to go back to sleep. Sometimes he’d cry and cling to me. Other times he would just lie there, shaking, with eyes wide open like he was afraid to close them again. Scared me, seeing him like that.’

Javelin nodded. Looked through the notes he’d been scribbling while Dave gave his evidence. ‘Have you got contact details for your cousin? I may want to talk to him as well.’

‘Yeah. Of course.’

Javelin pressed the stop button. ‘Thank you, Dave,’ he said, and smiled, though the smile looked more like a grimace. ‘This is very helpful in building our case.’

‘Good,’ said Dave. ‘I just want to help Nick.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ said Javelin. He shook Dave’s hand, and showed him out of the room.

Nick was waiting outside. When Dave appeared in the doorway he stood up, and Dave immediately rushed over to hug him.

‘How did it go?’ asked Nick softly.

‘All right, I think,’ said Dave. ‘It was scary.’

‘He’s a champ, your boyfriend,’ said D.S. Javelin kindly. ‘Best behaved witness I’ve ever spoken to.’ He clapped a hand on Nick’s shoulder and then turned to Dave. ‘Look after him.’ Then he vanished into an office with his notes and his digital recorder.

‘He’s the good sort,’ Dave remarked.

‘Yeah,’ Nick agreed. ‘Thank you so much, for doing this.’

‘Of course. I want that bastard put away for a long time.’ Dave kissed Nick gently on the lips. ‘That’s worth all of this. You’re worth it.’

Nick smiled. ‘You think we’ll get him?’

‘Definitely,’ said Dave, though he felt rather less certain than he sounded. ‘They’ve got evidence from multiple sources, and they’ve got his DNA. They’re definitely going to charge him. Don’t you worry.’

Nick nodded. ‘Okay. I trust you.’