Chapter Text
His shoes echoed against the concrete floor. Clack, clack, clack – too loud, too conspicuous. No way to not draw attention. Kim never liked being the centre of attention, and especially not in a place like this.
Ignoring the surroundings was a matter of keeping his eyes on the notes, on the back of the guard escorting him, or on the flickering lights on the ceiling; anywhere but on the rows of cells, or on the men scattered within them, watching him pass. Ignoring the catcalls was harder, but he let it slide. Each insult, each question, each threat was something he’d heard before, and from people far more of a concern to him than these.
The only thing that was hard to ignore was the smell. It lay like a thick miasma, permeating every centimetre of this place: a mix of the stench of a thousand bodies, of strong cleaning chemicals, of mould and pure despair; a clinging, cloying smell. Last time he was here, he’d fancied being able to smell it for weeks afterwards, despite how well he cleaned himself and his clothes. It was probably psychological.
He frowned as the guard unlocked the doors to the section marked ‘Solitary confinement’.
“Why is he in isolation? Is he violent?”
The guard unlocked the second set of doors. “Well, no, not as such... not more than any of the others,” he replied. “But you know. Sometimes you have to sequester them to keep them alive.”
When Kim didn’t reply, he soldiered on, trying to fill the awkward silence with more explanation. “He was a cop. And he killed a kid. There were three attempts just the first week. We've tried to keep him with the others now and then, but... eh. Less work this way.”
“Hm.” Kim made a note of it.
They stopped in front of a door, no different from the others, just a scuffed plaque that read ‘22’. Kim slid the little hatch open and craned his neck to try and see inside. The light was off, and the blinds drawn – he couldn’t make out much more than the faint outline of a person, lying on a bed, back to the door. The rest of the room was depressingly bare, windowless, with nothing but a desk and a shelf that seemed to contain a few books. He slid the hatch back with a little thunk.
“So.... basically, what you’re saying is, he’s spent five years in isolation?”
“Yep.” The guard started toward the other end of the corridor, thumbing through the keys as he walked. “Except for the psych visits. The visitation room is over here.”
“No other visitors?”
“A couple. There's a guy that comes around every few months, sits in on the psych visits sometimes, talks to him alone sometimes…” He hesitated. “Also, he talks to himself, constantly. Even when the others weren't picking fights, it freaked them out. He's bad for morale. Better that he stays in here for everyone's sake.”
Kim gave the guard a more careful look over. He was fidgeting, jangling the keys back and forth on his index finger and tapping his foot. The nervous tics contrasted strangely with the callous demeanour he’d shown so far – the typical behaviour Kim was used to in Reunion guards – and with his obvious interest in weightlifting and probably little else. All that and still – he was nervous. Afraid, even.
“For everyone’s sake. Yours as well?”
The guard gave an embarrassed half-shrug. “What can I say? The guy's fucking creepy. No offence.”
“So... he doesn't interact much with the guards either?”
“Look, we know they're supposed to get some mental health time or whatever.” He pocketed the keys with an irritated gesture. “But you don't know this guy. You'll see.”
Kim made himself comfortable while he waited for the guard to return. The visitation room contained nothing but a sturdy table, bolted to the floor, and two chairs, just as securely fastened on opposite sides of it – as bleak and bare as the cell he’d seen earlier. Not even a single motivational poster, not that that would have made things much better. Still.
Eventually, the guard came back with a colleague and the man Kim had been sent to talk to. As the guards escorted him into the room, he took some time to study him. He did recall him, vaguely. His hair was noticeably longer now, and the unruly mutton chops had evolved into a full beard that stretched all the way down to his chest. His hands and legs were cuffed together, making him shuffle awkwardly rather than taking full steps.
Kim had met prisoners in this setting before. Sometimes, the guards were tense, hair trigger reflexes poised to spring, always on the verge of grabbing the person they were escorting; sometimes they were relaxed, chatty even. With this man, they seemed more bemused than anything. A light hand on his shoulder to guide him, and nothing else, like they were trying to touch him as little as possible.
He sat down without looking at Kim and obediently held his hands up as the guards connected his handcuffs to the table. He kept his eyes downcast until Kim cleared his throat.
“Monsieur Du Bois?”
He finally looked up and stared at Kim, green-grey eyes clear and piercing through the curtain of hair. Then he frowned slightly and tucked it behind one ear, handcuffs clinking against each other. The silence stretched out longer as he studied Kim.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said finally. “I know, Books.”
Kim raised an eyebrow. “Books?”
“I remember you,” he continued, without acknowledging Kim’s question. “He tells me... You're Kim. No.” His eyes wandered slightly, as if looking at something on the far wall. “Yeah. Sorry, Imperator.” His eyes flitted back, disconcertingly direct again. “No, you didn't like that. You wanted to be called lieutenant. Lieutenant Kitsuragi.”
Kim fought down the impulse to turn and see what he was looking at. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi, yes. From precinct 57. You remember me, then? I recall you had some... trouble in that department.”
“Yeah, I remember you. Hard to forget.”
Kim looked at him coolly. Indeed. He’d been trying to, for the last five years. Trying to forget the moment when he turned Kim’s service weapon on the screaming child and pulled the trigger. Trying to forget everything that happened after that – forcing him into the muddy, cold ground, ripping the gun out of his hand, handcuffing him, calling his station in a panic. His precinct coming to take him away, the questioning, the disciplinary hearing, the trial. And everything else.
He masked his discomfort by pulling out his notebook and putting it on the table. “Regardless, M. Du Bois. I’m here to ask your assistance in an RCM matter.”
There was a little glimmer of interest in his eyes. “A case?”
“One of your old ones. You called it the SQUARE BULLET HOLE MURDERS.”
“The square gun… they never caught them? It's been five years.”
“And in that time, seven more people have been killed.”
Kim tapped his pen on the notebook in front of him. The case was a constant headache for the 41st, a blot on everyone’s resumé – the sequence killer that couldn’t be caught, that left no traces. Each time a new murder happened, the newspapers and radio shows had a field day with it; holding it up as another way the RCM was a failure, delighting in the details, speculating ad nauseam until it died down – and then, like clockwork, another happened, and the whole circus started up again.
The man in front of him was rubbing his knuckles absentmindedly, one eye twitching slightly.
“I thought Jean would...”
Kim hummed in surprise. “Your old partner? You remember him? You didn't recognise him, in Martinaise.”
“There's this guy that comes around every once in a while. Heidelstam.”
“Hm.”
Kim tried not to react on the irritation that welled up inside him. Trant had made no mention of the fact that he’d apparently met with the prisoner several times. That would have been a very good thing to know. That way, he would have been infinitely more prepared than he was now.
“He's writing something,” Harry continued. “Papers.”
“On you?”
Harry shrugged. “Something bigger. I think I'm part of it. He doesn't say much. Just wants me to talk. He's been helping me remember things.”
“I see.” Kim made a mental note to ask Trant what the hell he was playing at. “In any case. The RCM requires your assistance trying to solve the case. You’ve worked on it before, and your service record prior to your incarceration was stellar.”
Harry didn’t reply, just kept rubbing his knuckles. Maybe he was angling for something, playing coy to jockey for good terms? Kim soldiered on.
“We’re not asking you to do this for no reason, M. Du Bois. If you do this... you'll get a reduced sentence.”
“Huh.”
He looked out into thin air, just above and beyond Kim’s right ear. Kim tapped his pen on the notebook again. This strange lack of response was… not concerning, necessarily, but surprising. He had anticipated more of a reaction than this neutral acceptance.
“If you try to run, your sentence will be converted to life rather than the twenty you were originally sentenced to. If I decide that you've been helpful enough for the case, it'll be converted to probationary release.”
Harry tilted his head. “You decide?”
“I decide.”
“Hm.” He looked around a bit. “Yeah, yeah. Yes, Kras Masoch, I know. I’ll ask.” He looked back at Kim. “And do I get a say in that?”
Kim was unsure what all of this had to do with Mazovian theory, or whatever he was talking about. “In what way?”
“What if I don't want it?”
Kim stared at him. The long hair had slipped from behind his ear and hung across his face again, a curtain obscuring his facial features, making them even harder to read. For some reason, it was immensely irritating. The whole situation wasn’t playing out as Kim had anticipated at all, and the constant movement of his eyes, slipping away from Kim to look at something else, was unnerving.
“Won't want a reduced sentence?”
“Yeah. What if I'm a penitent cop?”
Kim couldn’t hide a little grimace of disgust. He leaned back slightly and looked at Harry from over his glasses. “M. Du Bois. Whatever else you are, you're not a cop. That part of your life ended years ago. I should know. I was there.”
The twitch in his eye increased, and Kim could see his left hand trembling – then he gripped it hard, and made a face like he was trying to will his muscles to cooperate. The twitching subsided. Kim continued, a bit hesitant.
“Of course, I won't pull you out of here kicking and screaming. But I'm disappointed, M. Du Bois. I understood that you had... some kind of moral backbone, despite your past actions. You had a very rigid work ethic, as I understand it. But I suppose the years have eroded that.”
Harry looked back at him, face returned to being impassive and calm now. “You misunderstand me. Of course I'll do it. I just don't want the payment.”
Kim frowned. This, he had not expected. For someone to spend five years in Reunion, in the situation he was in, and in complete isolation for most of the time… and not jump at the possibility to leave all that behind? He’d heard of prisoners that were afraid of the outside life, of course. It was one of the more common side-effects of long-term incarcerations. Some even returned to crime to be locked in again. But under these conditions…
“You'll help... and stay? Here. In isolation. Alone.”
“I'm never alone.”
“I don't know what that’s supposed to mean, M. Du Bois.”
Harry leaned on the table, far too close for comfort all of a sudden. He tapped his temple. “I have a lot of friends. I talk to them all the time now. Crownhead said I needed someone to talk to. So I wouldn't go more insane.”
“Ah.”
Kim fought down the impulse of leaning back. There was a little shuffle of fabric near the door. One of the guards, the one he’d spoken to earlier, was fidgeting nervously, trying his best to look the other way. The other was shaking his head and rolling his eyes, his entire body language trying to convey his irritation. Ah. There it is. That’s why they’re so uncomfortable around him. Again, he cursed Trant for not telling him about his visits. This would have been a very good thing to be aware of. Kim decided to ignore it.
“All right. It makes no difference to me. All I want is your cooperation.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Good. These are the rules.” He put a finger up. “No drinking, no drugs.”
“No problem. I don't do that anymore.”
For the second time this morning, Kim was taken by surprise. If there was one thing he remembered about the former lieutenant double-yefreitor, it was his habits. During their short time together, he’d been perpetually high as well as drunk to the point that it was one of the things that kept him from being sent to the chaise rather than receiving a prison sentence. Hearing that he’d kicked the habit seemed beyond ludicrous. Besides, Reunion was a prison, not a health resort. If you wanted drugs and booze, you could get drugs and booze, enough to kill yourself.
“You don't?”
“Nope. I spent two weeks tied to a stretcher, screaming and pissing myself, and then four months on suicide watch, chained to a bed. I'm not going through that again.” He shrugged. “Couldn't do it if I wanted to, anyway. Nobody gives me stuff in here. I’ve been clean since I got in.”
He sounded just as unbothered as before when he said it. It was like he was talking about what somebody else had for lunch yesterday, like it was a thing that had nothing to do with him. Kim shot another glance at the guards. The one trying to ignore the whole situation didn’t meet his gaze, but the other one gave a light shrug and a nod.
At least this explained the beard. If this was the state he was in, he was probably not allowed to shave himself. Too insane to be allowed razors. Too unpredictable to be allowed drugs or alcohol. Kim had to supress a shudder. He’d seen people go through detox before. It was never pretty, but considering Harry’s heavy drinking, age and mental state, it must have been hell. To go through that, tied down, unable to do anything about it – with nobody to keep you company…
He frowned and gave him another look over. Underneath the unruly hair, his skin had a much healthier colour than the ashen, sallow complexion from five years ago, albeit pale from lack of sun. It was hard to see underneath the ill-fitting overalls, but it looked like he’d put on some weight as well as muscle. Not unusual, for prisoners.
“You do look less like a corpse than when I met you last.”
Harry tilted his head to the side. “Hm. You actually mean that,” he said after a while. “Huh.”
Kim raised his shoulders a fraction. “Yes.”
“Yeah, well. There's not that much to do but train and read. Coach's been really happy. Not about the reading. The other bit. I miss running, though. So no booze, no drugs. Are those the only rules?”
“No.” Kim put up three more fingers. “No talking to anybody unless I give you the go-ahead. No firearms. And you keep those on.” He nodded at the handcuffs.
“All right.”
“So we have an agreement?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
Kim hesitated. His first impulse had been to reach his hand out for a handshake to seal the deal, but… The prisoner just looked back at him passively, making no effort to do it himself. Kim stood up and nodded instead.
“Good. If you change your mind, regarding the… payment, tell me. That part of the offer is still on the table, and will be as long as you keep to the rules.”
The warden was waiting at the gates with a clipboard full of documents – probationary release forms, assurances of taking responsibility, liability clauses – arraignment of blame. Kim signed each on the dotted lines, then took the thick file of copies. The warden gave him a perfunctory handshake.
“All right, lieutenant Kitsuragi. He’s all yours.” He made a little grimace. “I hope it turns out to be worth the trouble.”
“Time will tell. Thank you for your assistance.”
He put a hand on Harry’s shoulder and pushed him gently forward. He froze up at the touch, then took a few shuffling steps beyond the gates, face upturned towards the sun. He blinked, rapidly, then sneezed. It was such an unexpected, deeply human sound that Kim almost jumped, hand on his holster; then he relaxed, embarrassed. Harry blinked again and rubbed his nose.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Kim said curtly, trying to hide his embarrassment. “My MC is over here.”
Kim helped him climb into the cage and affixed the cuffs to the little ring underneath the seat. Harry watched him do it without much curiosity. Kim supposed he must have done it himself countless times. When Kim was done, he rattled the cuffs experimentally.
“These are uncomfortable.”
“They are, yes.”
“Any chance you could take them off?”
Kim gave him a sharp glance in the mirror as he turned the ignition key. “Already trying to bend the rules, M. Du Bois? You'll keep the cuffs until I decide you can be trusted.”
“You're deciding a lot of things.”
“I’m deciding everything. As long as you're a part of this, I've been assigned as your handler. If you try to flee, I'm at liberty to do whatever I need to stop you.”
Harry’s eyes flitted to the holster, clearly visible inside his jacket. “Got it. Where are we going?”
“Your precinct.”
“Mine? Not yours?”
“No.”
Harry gave a full-body jerk. This was the second time Kim had seen him react with anything else than calm detachment or cheerful nonchalance, and the same kind of reaction, too. He shuddered, like someone getting an electric shock. His left eye twitched violently for several seconds before he shook himself off and sighed.
“Okay, okay, okay... I know it’s not mine, I just meant-” He jerked again, once, accompanied by a little grunt of pain. “Fine. You don't have to be so harsh about it.”
Kim eyed him suspiciously. “I don't feel like I was being harsh, M. Du Bois. It was just one word.”
“Not you. Them. Those Guys. They don't like me very much. They scream a lot.”
“... okay.”
Kim didn’t know how to reply to that. It was far too far removed from reality for him to be able to relate to it, much less formulate some kind of response. He concentrated on navigating the Kineema out from the prison parking lot and out into the morning traffic. Behind him, Harry was having a quiet argument.
“Yeah, I know. But he'll find out eventually.” He fell silent. “It doesn’t matter if he does, Honey,” he continued, after staring out into space for a while. “He might as well hear it. It's not like he's going to start liking me any time soon, either.” Another silence, then a sigh. “Mr Thespian, no, it’s- no, we’re not doing that.”
Kim didn't interrupt, just looked at him in the mirror as he continued having a calm back-and-forth with himself. He was beginning to see a pattern – any time he seemed to be talking to something inside his head, his eyes wandered, went unfocused, darted here and there like he was looking at an array of things, or people. When he was talking directly to Kim, his eyes were clear and sharp, almost uncomfortably so.
Suddenly, Harry leaned forward and fixed him with that sharp stare. “Bleeding Heart says you don't like me.”
“Khm.” Kim concentrated on navigating around a lorry.
“She says you think I'm insane.”
Kim looked back at him quickly, then shook his head and concentrated on the road. “I've never said that.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
Kim hesitated for a beat. Then he shrugged. What difference did it make? It might even help, if the prisoner knew where they stood with each other.
“I do think you're not particularly mentally stable, yes.”
Harry sat back and looked out of the window. “You're correct.” He was quiet for a while, then looked curiously at Kim again. “Did you solve it?”
“Did I solve what?”
“THE HANGED MAN.”
The case. The Martinaise case. “Oh. Yes. The union did it. The Hardie boys, you remember? It was a pretty open and shut case. They confessed to it, after all.” Kim frowned. “Although... no. Anyway. After your… after you were taken away, your former colleagues stepped in. It was decided it would be best to put a stop to that old… pissing contest. Martinaise has been under the jurisdiction of both precincts since then.”
“Good for you,” Harry replied distantly.
“No. Not good.” Kim grimaced as he recalled the events from a few years ago. “There was a contingency of security guards there – the victim’s old colleagues. After our precincts determined who the perpetrator was, they decided to take the law into their own hands. Slaughtered the entire Hardie faction. Things… exploded.”
“Exploded how?”
“The rest of the Dockworker’s Union retaliated. Wild Pines fought back, using more Krenel mercs. Martinaise was a literal warzone for four months, until the Coalition stepped in. We, ah… we patrol it in tandem now. Both precincts. But there’s not much to patrol, in truth.”
“I see.”
Kim looked in the mirror again, gauging his reaction. He was leaned forward slightly, twisting the chains of the handcuffs around his fingers with a thoughtful expression. Kim wondered what he was thinking, if he was regretful or just numb to the whole situation. It was hard reading anything from his face, other than when a strong emotion made its way across it.
“You can sit back and relax. It’s about an hour’s ride until we get to Jamrock. We'll meet up with your old squad there.”
There was that twitch again, more violent this time, bad enough to make the chains rattle. Harry gritted his teeth.
“Why?”
“Why? Because they’ve been working on the case, of course.”
“They have? I thought that you… no, you didn’t take it. Not by yourself. So why did you come?”
Kim didn't answer. It didn't matter, anyway. Harry stared out into space a few seconds, then nodded.
“Oooh. They haven't gotten anywhere. But nobody else wanted to come. So they asked you. Thanks, Puzzleface.”
Kim frowned. “What did you call me?”
“No, not you.”
Kim gave him a sharp look. “If it clears anything up, M. Du Bois, the 41st and the 57th has been cooperating on complicated cases for a while now. The Martinaise situation has brought about a more… solid camaraderie, I suppose you could say. I work in both precincts nowadays.”
“Oh.”
Harry fell silent again, staring out the window. Kim watched him from the corner of his eye for a while, then relaxed as he showed no signs of wanting to talk. Kim drifted off in his thoughts, stirred by Harry’s questions.
The years spent alternately working in the 57th and the 41st had lent him the unofficial rank of criminal consultant. It was an under-used practice, mostly used during times of scarcity, such as during widespread sicknesses or after catastrophes. Precincts loaned out officers to other precincts for short times, until they got on their feet again, usually by quickly promoting juniors or through recruiting campaigns. Once in a while, very rarely, an arrangement became semi-permanent – often when an officer found that they worked much better in their new environment than in their old, but didn't want to request a transfer for some reason.
Most times, departmental pride prevented the practice from becoming permanent. Needing help from another precinct was seen as a sign of weakness. In Kim's case, his more or less permanent position in limbo worked out fine for several reasons: the 41st was understaffed and desperate enough to not care about the stigma, and the 57th had enough personnel problems that having a unpartnered lieutenant consulting for another precinct neatly solved the predicament of nobody wanting to partner with the lieutenant in question. In truth, he spent more time in Jamrock than in the GRIH, nowadays. And so, criminal consultant Kitsuragi had spent the last four years building up a far better rapport with the C-wing at the 41st than he ever managed to during his two decades in the 57th. Rejects and losers, lieutenant Vicquemare had joked. Of course he fit in.
A soon as they turned in to the plaza in front of the old silk mill, he could hear the now-familiar rattling of the handcuffs as Harry tried to get his left hand to stop trembling. Whatever was going on, it seemed to get worse closer to his old workplace – disconcerting, but ultimately nothing Kim could do anything about. He concentrated on getting him out of the car and into the precinct without too much trouble. Luckily, they were in the middle of a shift, and most people were out on patrol. That didn't stop a couple of sergeants and a junior officer from stopping and staring as he herded the very conspicuously clad man upstairs to C-wing.
The floor was empty except for Trant, Jean, Judit and Pryce, all talking quietly. All of them fell silent as Kim opened the door and pushed Harry through. He took a few steps into the room, then shuffled to a halt, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast, right hand gripping his left hard enough to leave marks.
The silence was deafening, total and oppressive.
The captain decided to break it with a little cough. “Ah, lieutenant. I see you managed to convince him. Excellent work.”
He made no move to welcome Harry, who kept his eyes on the floor, fingers worrying at the skin over his knuckles, trying to supress the trembling. Trant however smiled broadly and came over, grabbed Harry's hand and began shaking it warmly.
“Hello, Harry! How have you been? It's been a while since we met last.”
“Trant. Yeah. Hey.”
Harry stared at his hand in Trant’s grasp like he was being bitten by a snake, until he finally let go. Harry quickly jerked his hand back and started worrying at his knuckles again. Kim gave him a glance, then over the others. Jean was resolutely looking the other way, refusing to acknowledge his presence at all. Judit gave him a hesitant wave. The awkwardness lay like a suffocating blanket.
“Well! Why don't we go into the interrogation room? I put out all the case details there for you to go through.” The tone in Trant's voice was light and easy, like he was talking to a fellow consultant and not a prisoner needing constant surveillance.
The captain nodded. “Do so. I'll leave you to it. Minot, I still need the rundown of that stabbing from yesterday.” He pointed at Trant. “I'll be wanting a report afterwards, yes?”
“Of course. Kim?”
Kim gave Harry a gentle push in the direction of the interrogation room, relieved to be rid of the oppressive atmosphere. Harry shuffled along in Trant’s footsteps, all the while looking around curiously as if this was the first time he'd ever seen the interior of the precinct he'd worked at for nearly twenty years. Kim wondered how much of it he remembered. Trant may have helped him recall people, but Kim doubted that he'd brought him photographs of places or anything like that.
The interrogation room Trant had chosen was the one with the big one-way mirror, the only one the precinct had – bare and empty except for the mirror and one large table, covered with case files and photographs. Trant pulled the single chair out and patted it encouragingly.
“Have a seat, Harry.”
He obeyed, then took one of the papers and stared at it. “This is my handwriting.”
“Yes! Yes it is.” Trant nodded proudly, like Harry had solved a wooden six-piece puzzle. “Well done! How much do you remember of this case, Harry?”
“Some. Not a lot.” He frowned. “This is… it’s gonna take a while.”
Kim cleared his throat pointedly. “Read through it. Take your time.” He locked eyes with Trant. “We’ll talk outside, in the meantime.”
Trant hesitated, then gave him a broad smile. “Of course! We’ll back in just a few minutes, Harry.”
They went over to the other side, to the soundproofed section on the other side of the one-way mirror. As soon as the door was closed, Jean let out an explosive breath.
“Fucking hell!”
Trant looked concerned. “Are you okay, Jean?”
“No, I’m not fucking okay! How can you be so fucking normal about this, Trant? He fucking killed a kid!”
“Yes, he did. It's very interesting.”
Jean's eyes boggled. “Interesting?! What the fuck is that supposed to-”
“Trant.” Kim interrupted mildly but forcefully, eager to derail before all of this turned into a shouting match. “Is there a reason you didn’t tell me you’ve been meeting with him for the last five years?”
The colour in Jean’s face tuned an even deeper shade of red. “You’ve what?!”
Trant waved his hands dismissively. “Well, now. I didn’t really feel that it was pertinent to the situation at hand.”
“Not pertinent?” Kim slapped his hand down on the table. “You tried to convince me that the only way any of you were going to do this was if I took responsibility for him, and you feel that it’s not pertinent to mention that you’ve been studying him for nearly his entire incarceration? You don’t think that maybe there already is that bond of trust that you talked about?” He took his glasses off and rubbed the spot where they rested across his nose. “I don’t appreciate this at all, Trant. Not one bit.”
“Kim, I apologise. I assure you, the work I’m doing has nothing to do with this case. In fact, I really think it could hinder things. Besides, I’m not a detective, you know that.”
Jean stopped pacing and thrust a trembling finger under his nose. “You could fucking well spread that apology around a bit, Trant! What the hell, fucking meeting with him on the sly? What are you even trying to do here?”
“It’s part of my treatise on pale exposure.” Trant gently pushed his hand down and adjusted his tie. “You know that he had a keen interest in entroponetics for quite some time before the… incident.”
Jean looked away. “Yeah. We used to… yeah.”
“Well, this is an excellent opportunity to study a case with multiple trauma sources, to see how pale exposure and obsession accelerates already existing mental problems – the interactions between them.”
Kim frowned and put his glasses back on. “And? What have you found?”
“Well, the most overt symptom is that he hears voices. I’ve counted no less than 24 distinct ones that he communicates with directly. In addition, there are others he refers to, as well as him acting out the personalities of everyday objects. And then there’s the shakes and tremors, of course, epileptic fits, psychotic breaks…”
Jean sighed and pulled his hands down his face. “Innocence alive…”
“The voices are less of a symptom and more of a trauma response, perhaps,” Trant continued. “And a coping mechanism. We need to do more research.” He held his hands up in a placating gesture. “Anyway, you’re welcome to ask me anything, Kim. I would be eternally grateful if you would tell me his reactions, during this case. How he interfaces with the world, the choices the makes, what he remembers and doesn’t. Would you be all right with that?”
Kim crossed his arms and studied Harry through the window. He was reading through one of the case files, fingers tapping nervously on the table. His lips were moving, silently – talking to himself, again, listening to whatever he was making up in his head.
When this idea was first brought up, Kim had been hesitant. Sure, THE SQUARE BULLET HOLE MURDERS were a tough nut to crack, but the prospect of bringing the former lieutenant double-yefreitor back was… unpalatable, to say the least. But Trant had been adamant that his assistance was the only thing that could help them solve it. Quite obviously, he had ulterior motives for wanting to have him around.
Kim glanced over at the special consultant. The way he talked about the prisoner was… interested, but the way someone would be interested in a fascinating and rare species of insect, one you’d study by sticking it up on a cork board or conserve in ethanol. It rubbed Kim the wrong way. Despite everything else, Du Bois had been a cop, and a good one. He deserved some kind of respect for that, if nothing else.
Trying to ignore the distinct feeling he was being manipulated, Kim turned back to Trant. “Fine. On two conditions.”
Trant beamed. “Name them.”
“Tell me this.” Kim nodded towards the mirror. “Is he dangerous?”
“In what way?”
“Can he be trusted around people? Or will I have to guard him constantly? Should I have backup?”
“No,” Trant replied firmly. “I honestly think he’s basically harmless to others. His reaction during the Martinaise case was… an aberration.”
“All right. Can he be trusted around himself?”
Trant hesitated, then made a grimace. “Well… it would really be a good idea to keep any sharp objects out of his reach. And, ah. To keep an eye on him at all times.”
Kim sighed. “Wonderful.”
“I’m sorry. But there’s really-”
Kim held up a hand. “Enough. I’ve already heard all the arguments. I’ve already said I’ll do it. The second condition is that you give me all of your documentation. If you have intel and theories, I need to read it.”
“Of course! I have a summary that’s perfectly good for a layman-”
“All of it. The summary and the deep cuts.”
“Of course. I apologise. I wasn’t trying to imply that you-”
“Thank you. If you could get right on that.”
Trant gave him another wide, nervous grin, and hurried away, presumably to go look for the papers. Kim sighed and adjusted his gloves. Interrupting him felt better than he liked to admit. Jean stared after Trant as well, then sat down.
“Fuck,” he said with feeling.
“Yes. Very much so.” Kim looked at the prisoner through the one-way glass. “I guess this is what we’re doing now, then.” He frowned. “He’ll need some clothes. And a trim wouldn’t be a bad idea either. He looks a bit… wild, like this.”
“Well, you fucking do it then.” Jean pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a jerky gesture. “For clothes… he can go down in the evidence locker, in the bin. There’s years of old shit down there he can rummage through. Take whatever you want.” He took a long drag of the cigarette. “Please try and make it something that looks at least halfway normal.”
After letting Harry go through the case files for a while and receiving a thick folder from Trant, Kim brought him down in the basement. He kept looking around curiously, taking in everything. Kim tried to keep him away from other people, but in truth, he didn’t seem to recognise or even acknowledge most of them. Kim knew that the rumour that he’d be brought in had spread like wildfire; he also knew that Jean had gone around threatening people for the last week in case anybody was planning some kind of ugly prank. So far, the worst they’d gotten was a couple of dark looks. It still felt like a relief to close the door to the evidence locker behind them.
“Jean said that there's clothes in here,” Kim said and gestured to the bins. “Pick out something that you like. I seem to remember that you're not a stranger to this kind of... thrifting.”
Harry hesitated, then started rifling through the bins, considering and discarding random items. After a while he’d managed to amass a little pile of clothes as well as a pair of shoes that looked to be somewhere around his size. Kim gave it a cursory glance. Most of it seemed to look normal enough, mostly sweaters and jeans.
“Good. If there's something that needs to be altered, I'm sure I can help you.”
Harry gave him an odd look. “... okay.”
He didn’t say anything else in the car, just sat with the bag of clothes in his lap, staring out the window. He looked tired. Kim supposed meeting so many people at once would be tiring after such a long time alone.
After coming home, Kim reheated some soup and stood at the stove, watching Harry eat it, then took one of the chairs and ushered him into the little bathroom. He stood passively as Kim put the chair down with a little scrape of wood against tile, and nodded at the bathtub.
“Take a shower. Wash that prison stink off. Then change to the new clothes.”
Harry looked at the shower, then back to Kim. “Are you staying?”
Kim sat down on the chair. “Yes.”
“Are you taking the cuffs off?”
Kim made himself comfortable, one leg crossed over the other, feigning nonchalance. “No.”
“Okay.”
Harry merely shrugged and started to unzip the overalls, just as unbothered as he’d been all this time. He stripped down, carefully folded the overalls and underwear before putting them on the floor beside the door, then got into the shower. He didn’t even try and pull the curtain for some privacy.
Kim leaned back, trying to watch without looking as he attempted to steel himself against the creeping feeling of wrongness. Harry pulled back a little as the water warmed up, then held his hand out to it, letting it run over his fingers. Kim watched him play with it before getting in with a little sigh.
“I’m guessing there wasn’t much hot water in Reunion.”
“No. Not unless it needed to be, for some reason.”
Kim winced at the implication. He fixed his eyes high, keeping his eyes on Harry’s hands and face, and nowhere else. Harry seemed not to care either way, judging from the almost bored way he washed himself, unselfconsciousness like a wall. It was the same passive acceptance he’d shown in the face of everything that had happened so far, at least everything except things related to his old squad mates.
Kim realised what it was – dissociation. A trained response to years of having no agency or privacy at all; rote repetition of the same casual abuse over and over again, denial of basic humanity as a baseline fact. Kim tried to steel himself against it, tell himself that it was a necessary evil. This time it wasn’t for punishment, not for keeping him in line, but for making sure he wouldn’t hurt himself. If he proved to be reliable, then maybe he could-
He stopped himself before he could finish the thought. If he behaves, I can grant him a little sliver of humanity back? I have that power, now. Oh, joy.
Not looking at him was hard. He just stood there, face upturned to the spray, rubbing the back of his neck, hands held awkwardly as he tried to untangle the wild mane of hair with his fingers without getting it caught in the handcuffs. Kim sighed and leaned his head on the tile.
“You can use the shampoo and conditioner, if you want. In fact, please do.”
There was a little non-committal grunt from the direction of the shower. Kim let his eyelids fall half-closed, eyes unfocused, able to see and not see at the same time. Creating some kind of barrier between them, small and ineffective as it was. The blurry figure in front of him took something from the array of bottles, then started to massage it into his head. He could smell the scent of his medicated shampoo, the one he used for the scaly patches on his neck. Kim nodded to himself.
He thought back to when he'd seen him last. He'd looked absolutely awful; bloated, haggard, wild-eyed. That wild look in his eyes was still there, partly, but his initial assessment in the visitation room had been correct. He looked much healthier, overall. The part about having lots of free time for training seemed not to have been an idle boast.
Suddenly, he realised he was looking, properly looking, not even pretending to give him any privacy, and shut his eyes tightly, rubbing them until he could see coloured spots behind his eyelids.
“Are you finished?”
Harry turned the shower off. “Sure.”
“Good. I’ll help you with your beard.”
Harry sat down on the chair, a towel wrapped around his hips, while Kim took out a razor and a pair of scissors. Suddenly, Kim realised that Harry was staring at the razor with disconcerting clarity, longingly – almost hungrily. He held it up.
“Are we going to have a problem with this?”
Harry looked up at him, eyes wild through the curtain of hair. “We might. There’s a vote going on. It’s twenty-one for, two against, one abstaining.”
Kim folded the razor with a decisive snap and put it in his pocket, making a mental note to lock it in his safety box. “Let’s skip it then. I’ll give you a trim with the scissors after I cut your hair.”
Harry sat back in the chair obediently, cuffed hands resting in his lap. Kim could feel him freezing up as soon as he touched him, breath coming shallower, fingers knotting together nervously.
Kim tried to work as fast as possible as he quickly went over his hair, checking it for lice. Nothing. The only positive result from isolation. Trying to minimise the time using the scissors around him, he gave his hair a perfunctory once-over, cutting away as much as he could of the split ends. Harry sat frozen still, looking at the strands of hair falling on the floor.
“There. I'm going to do your beard now.” Kim leaned in and frowned. “No sudden moves.”
He could see Harry's fingers twitching, but he nodded.
The scissors weren't made for this, and since he didn't have a beard himself, Kim couldn't do much more than trying to shorten it the same way he'd done with the hair. Harry stared at the ceiling as he worked. His shoulders were stiff, the jaw tight; the only thing showing any emotion was him twisting the chain around his finger, then letting it slip off, then doing it again, and again. Kim tried to zone out the clinking sound and concentrate on what he was doing.
When he'd managed to get the beard down to a reasonable length, he tried his best to trim it a little. Doing so revealed a ring of uneven scars around his throat – some broad, some thin and jagged. He hesitated a little. Harry made no indication of having noticed it. Kim made a few more snips, then straightened out.
“There. I'm no barber. But at least you look a little more put together.”
Harry let out a deep, relieved breath as soon as Kim moved away from him, then stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. Curiously, he ran a hand through his hair, and then over his beard.
“The Centipede says good job, especially with those scissors.” He tilted his head, then chuckled. “The Critic says I won't be winning any beauty pageants any time soon, but she's... well. No, hush,” he added. “Yes, I know he doesn't. I said hush.” He turned to Kim, rubbing the side of his face. “Thank you, lieutenant.”
Kim frowned and put the scissors back in the cabinet. The way he talked to the voices in his head was so casual it was unnerving, making him feel like there was a crowd of people in the room, just outside his field of vision. He thought back to the thick file Trant had given him. Better to read it sooner than later, so that he could at least get some kind of idea on how to handle it.
“Right. Time for bed. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
Harry nodded and got dressed without comment, then followed Kim into the bedroom. Kim pointed to the camping bed he’d prepared next to the radiator.
“You’ll sleep on the camping bed. I’ll sleep in my bed. I’m going to fasten your handcuffs to this chain. It doesn’t reach my bed,” he added, just in case. “If you need anything, wake me up.”
Harry nodded. “What’ll we do tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, we’ll go to the latest crime scene. After that, go over the murders you weren’t present for. Now, get some sleep.”
He nodded again and got into bed. Again, Kim felt that creeping shame at how easy it was to get him to do things, how easy it was to tell him to do them. He watched him roll over and pull the comforter over his shoulder. After a few minutes, he started snoring.
Kim got into bed as well, leaned against the headboard and pulled out the file. One part seemed to be a summary, then a thick wad of papers that looked like typed-up interview notes. Finally, there was a sheaf of papers labelled ‘Analysis’, dense with tacked-on notes and margin scribbles – clearly a work in progress. He ignored the summary and the interviews, and adjusted his glasses as he started on the analysis.
had some initial troubles regarding detox, but these seem to have subsided around the time I made my initial interviews. The first six months he attempted suicide four times, once by a sharp object and three by hanging or asphyxiation. The warden tells me each time was accompanied by a reduction in allowed objects and an increase in isolation time. After the initial period, it seems that the suicidal ideation still remains but the attempts have stopped, possibly because of the influence of
got into several serious altercations with other inmates. Seemingly, none of these were initiated by him, at least not by him provoking the others. However, in my interviews from the other inmates, several of these incidents were triggered either by him being recognised by another inmate or by some type of aberrant behaviour, presumably talking to himself
does not want to talk about the incident that sent him to prison in the first place. Any time I bring it up, he goes silent and starts arguing with himself, then
a type of calm detachment, a dissociation of sorts that persists unless I touch on matters regarding the RCM or the incident. In those cases, it’s quite easy to provoke a response that
almost exclusively in solitary confinement at this point. I've been told he gets an hour of exercise outside per day, but judging from his pallor and excess weight I'd hazard a guess that not all of that time is actually allocated, if any. Overall, his physical health is as good as it can be under the circumstances; most of the physical symptoms are the effects of long-time alcohol abuse and post-polio syndrome, apart from
keeps himself busy by training and occasionally reading, as well as with long conversations with himself, according to the guards. I have several tapes of these conversation that I've transcribed
There was a clink from the camping bed as Harry turned over. Kim watched him until the snoring started up again. He leafed through several pages of the dense, dry, impersonal analysis until he got to a section labelled ‘Personas’.
the one he calls Crownhead seems to be in some way tied to mental fortitude or strength of character. He often refers to it as ‘the one who keeps me sane’. I’m not entirely sure if this means that he feels that all the others don’t, but
far as I’ve been able to understand, most of the personas seem to be representations of parts of his psyche, but two of them seem not to be. In a way, these seem to act as representations of
the one he only calls ‘she’ or ‘her’, and is connected to the city of Revachol somehow. The other one is referred to as Those Guys, with plural pronouns, and seem to be tied to his memories of his time in the RCM. This one seems to be the only one to be physically detrimental. Every time it comes up in conversation, it’s accompanied by facial tics and involuntary minor convulsions along the left side of the body. The more these thoughts are provoked, the more pronounced the convulsions become. I have spoken to a neuroscientist friend of mine that is prepared to try and analyse these reactions in a medical setting, as soon as I can arrange some kind of probationary release. It’s seeming more and more unlikely considering the
Kim slammed the file closed and put it on the side table, then pulled his glasses off and rubbed his face. There was another soft snore from the camping bed. One hand slipped from underneath the comforter, revealing the grey gleam of the handcuff and chain shackling him to the radiator. Kim groaned and flicked the light switch, hiding him from view.
Child murderer. Maniac. Lab animal.
Yeah. I sure hope it’s worth the trouble.