Page 48 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

Aaron stayed quiet.

Blackwell let the silence stretch, then added, “You need to come.”

Those words lodged under Aaron’s skin, because wasn’t that what he’d been telling Kenny for days. It was too smooth right then. Too intimate coming from someone else and his stomach twisted. Because they weren’t just words, they were an echo. Of Kenny. Only Kenny. And all he could think of was Kenny’s hands pinning him, Kenny’s voice dragging him to the edge, deciding when he broke, when he came. And now this bastard was using the same phrasing. Too precise to be casual. Deliberate. Designed to slip past his guard and force a reaction.

Aaron’s jaw locked. His body screamed to recoil, but he didn’t move.

But Blackwell, of course, stepped closer anyway.

“You’ve got a way about you.” Blackwell tilted his head. “Something I think the kids might respond to.”

“I don’t handle outreach.”

“But you’ve applied for it, no? And I’ve been watching. You have a way with trust. And, if I can be frank…” His smile sharpened. “You’ll photograph far better than Tessa for the glossy PR shots. Let’s call this a trial run.”

Aaron’s skin prickled. He wasn’t sure what landed worse. The compliment or the suggestion beneath it.

“I’ll think about it.”

Blackwell nodded once, as if that were a victory. “Let me know by end of play today so I can confirm. And not to worry, I can drive us both there. With whichever dog you choose.” He glanced back to the lurcher shaking in the corner. “Perhaps not that one.”

Then he turned and walked away, and Aaron watched until he was out of sight.

The lurcher was watching him from the corner, tail tucked. Still wary. Still wounded.

“Same, girl,” Aaron said, kneeling again. “Same.”

Chapter nine

Perfectly Broken

Newport Police Station looked more like a post office than the centre of an active murder investigation.

Built in the seventies and never quite updated, brick façade chipped, the signage dull, at least the front entrance flanked with two wheezing potted trees wrapped in tired tinsel was trying to be welcoming. Along with the sagging“Merry Christmas from the IOW Police”banner hung above the reception desk inside, its cheerful Comic Sans font doing little to distract from the smell of instant coffee and institutional carpet.

All police stations were the same.

All murder investigations, too.

Kenny signed in, then followed the civilian desk officer through the tiled corridor. The halls were narrow, the walls plastered in laminated posters—Domestic Violence Doesn’t Always Leave a Mark,Keep Your Body Cam On,Shift Calendar: December-January—and somewhere down the corridor, Mariah Carey’s voice bled faintly from a radio in a back office.

“Second on the left, Dr Lyons. She’s waiting for you.”

DS Imogen Parry stood from behind a desk as he entered the small meeting room. She wore a plain black jumper, ID clipped to the pocket, and a Santa pin incongruously blinking red on her lapel.

“Dr Lyons.” She gestured to the chair opposite. “Thanks for coming in.”

Kenny sat. “I assume there’s more than what we saw at the scene?”

Parry nodded, sliding a thick folder across the table bearing a red corner tab andCONFIDENTIAL – ACTIVE HOMICIDEstamped across the front. The first page was clipped with a yellow sticky note statingForensic Psych Consultation Copy.

Kenny hesitated before opening it.

Because once he opened that, he knew he’d have a hard time closing it.

Parry tapped her fingers onto the tabletop then stilled. “Name was Luke Wells. Seventeen. No fixed address. The shelter confirmed he drifted in and out over the past few weeks. Kept his head down. Quiet. Last confirmed sighting was around six-thirty p.m., two nights ago. He was loitering near the market square in Newport.”

She slid a grainy CCTV still across the table. The image showed a thin, pale boy hunched beneath a battered parka, hood up, posture defensive, outside the charity shop beneath the broken security light, barely illuminated by the flickering glow.