Page 71 of Don't Shoot Me Santa
Persistent bastard.
Any other time, Aaron would’ve told him to shut up. Not even rudely. Flat. He’d rather sit in silence sharp enough to cut skin than make small talk with men like Blackwell. Why hadn’t he thought to shove his earbuds in like Jonathon? But as Blackwell paid his wages, signed his ID card, allowed him entrance to the dog shelter, and the one who’d decide whether he got the higher paying job, Aaron felt as if he couldn’t be…well, himself. And while Aaron wasn’t desperate for the money, it funded the real work. It meant mornings like the one he’d had, crouched in the kennel with Lucky, the trembling lurcher he’d named on instinct. She’d taken a crumb of food from his hand today. Only the one piece. But it was a start.
That alone was worth swallowing his pride for, listening to his inner Kenny telling him to play nice and speak.
“Couple of years.”
“What brought you here?”
“The boat.” Aaron watched sleet smear across the windscreen as if the sky was spitting at them.
Blackwell chuckled. “What a coincidence.”
Aaron didn’t bother replying. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. On the sleet-streaked windscreen, the grey sprawl of water giving way to the familiar lines of town. Buildings hunched against the weather. Traffic lights blinking through the rain. The sea, somewhere distant behind it all, a murky blur existing more as a threat than view.
Thankfully, the car slowed. Turned off the main road.
Tyres crunched over gravel laced with old grit and ice. Two streets from where Luke Wells had last been seen alive as Aaron had learned that morning, the shelter came into view. A squat, two-storey building tucked behind the covered market, beside the edge of a former churchyard. It looked as though it had once been something else. An old parish hall, maybe. Now it wore its repurposing like an ill-fitting coat. Streaked paint, fogged-up PVC windows, a sagging front door that opened and closed too many times without ever really welcoming.
Christmas had done its best.
Plastic holly zip-tied to the handrails. Battery-powered fairy lights blinking around the lintel, half dead, the rest flickering like a failing pulse. A pop-up artificial tree slouched beside the entrance, its foil base flapping in the wet, tinsel drooping as if it couldn’t quite commit to joy. And above the door, a torn banner readHope Starts Here.
Aaron couldn’t comment if that were true.
The crowd had already assembled. Volunteers in branded hi-vis handed out thermal mugs and leaflets, breath misting in the cold. A news crew adjusted tripods under tarps, shielding cameras from the sleet. A reporter with blow-dried hair and too-clean boots recited lines to a man in a mayoral chain, whofumbled a folded speech while two aides clutched branded donation tins.
Aaron watched it all through the fogging glass.
The theatre of it.
The performance of compassion.
Festivity layered like tinsel over hardship. Decorative, temporary, and ultimately, hollow.
It reminded him of the halfway house in London where he’d spent four Christmases. Four years of paper hats, institutional tinsel, and staff paid to pretend that maybe next year would be different. That someone might see him. That a family might take him in. That he’d bechosen. That someone might believe he was worth saving.
Never happened.
No one came.
He was also unrehomeable.
So he stepped out of the car, heart already pulling back behind walls he thought he’d left behind. The cold hit first. Sharp and slicing. Then came the noise. Laughter, movement, greetings exchanged. Jonathon joined him at the back of the car, gave a smile and retrieved the Labrador puppy he’d brought. Aaron unclipped Chaos and both dogs bounded out eagerly, tails wagging, utterly unaware they were props in a Christmas photo op.
He envied them that.
“Big turnout,” Blackwell said, straightening his coat, smoothing his tie. “The right balance of grit and hope. Should make the evening bulletin.”
Aaron crouched to adjust Chaos’s lead, stroking through the dog’s thick coat, grounding himself.
He hated this.
The press. The staged charity. How something as ugly and complicated as homelessness was being dressed up like afucking Hallmark card. He knew it brought money. Knew it saved lives. But it still felt like theatre. And a little grotesque considering someone connected to the shelter had been murdered a mere day ago. He’d half expected the place to be in mourning. Quiet. Muted. Draped in black.
Oh wait, hang on…
The annex doors swung open and a man emerged. Large. Full of life. Cheeks as red as his cranberry lips, with his long black cassock flaring in the wind like a cape, more superhero than saint. The white clerical collar pressed neatly to his throat marked him as clergy. Priest? Chaplain? Pastor? Whatever the proper term was. Aaron didn’t know the right formality. He avoided people like that on instinct. Hard to trust anyone draped in robes when his bloodline traced back to a cult who preached salvation while practising control.