The Ashes of an Oak by Chris Bradbury

into the living room and found Steve with his head under the sofa cushions, his arm down the side of the sofa up to his elbow.
    ‘Anything?’ asked Frank.
    ‘Nothing. You?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Which leaves us with the fact that someone threw an old lady off a fourth floor landing for no apparent reason.’
    ‘There’s always a reason,’ countered Frank. He crossed his arms and leaned against the back of the door. His eyes roamed the room in the hope that they’d fall upon something. ‘We just don’t happen to know it. It was probably some asshole who hated women ‘cause his mother was mean to him or he felt more comfortable in his sister’s underwear.’
    ‘Or it might’ve been a junkie caught in the act who panicked.’
    Frank wagged a finger at Steve. ‘I’m not sure about that. That’s the weird thing. If it was a junkie or a burglar, they’d crack her head open where she stood or stab her or strangle her. Either way, the door would be closed and they’d go out the way they came in.’ He pointed at the window. ‘When you’ve got a way out, you don’t open the door, drag an old lady onto the landing and throw her four floors down. Too much noise, too much effort and not a single ounce of panic. This wasn’t a spontaneous killing. This guy had purpose.’
    Steve put the cushions back, straightened his shirt sleeve and rolled it back up. ‘Which was?’
    ‘No idea. Why would he turn up at crime scenes? He led us to the old factory. Why? To boast? To show us how clever he is? To taunt us? That would fit with him standing outside my apartment and across the street yesterday. None of which gives us a motive.’ Frank looked at his watch. ‘I’m tired. Let’s get back to the precinct.’
    ‘You’re going to share this with Emmet, right?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘I’m going to share it with Emmet.’ He opened the door and ushered Steve out. ‘Come on, Mom. Let’s go see Dad.’
     
    Emmet Diehl was playing politics when Frank and Steve got back to the precinct, so they did the paperwork first and, in doing so, regurgitated the memories of spilled insides, blue cheese skin and the tropical heat of that broken down factory.
    Frank understood the need for paperwork, but hated it just the same. There was a part of him that was always going to be, one way or another, on the beat. He could have been a desk-jockey like Emmet Diehl, taken the money and the prestige and the headaches and the ulcer and the slow decline into cardiac atrophy that came with the inertia of office, but that wasn’t him.
    Granted, he hated people – the cynicism, the dishonesty, the disloyalty, the willingness to retreat, at the slightest prompt, into the beast that lay beneath the surface - but he needed to be among them. He needed to react to them. He needed to feed off them the same way they fed off the death of Robinson Taylor or the Superbowl or the news of yet another massacre in the Middle-East. He came alive when he bounced off someone else. Their energy fed his depleted cells and sparked him into life. He hated to admit but, without others to annoy him, he felt useless and alone.
    Steve was different. Steve rolled like a tumbleweed, happy to drift wherever the draft drove him. He was patient and kind and had a sharp sense of humour. He hadn’t yet descended into the bitter sarcasm for which Frank cursed himself. Steve hadn’t developed the need to react as a form of self-defence, as a way to be aware that he was still alive. He wore his skin as a passport, not as armour, like Frank.
    Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Captain put down the phone and run his hand tiredly across the top of his head. How does he do it? wondered Frank. How does he negotiate with those self-serving sons of bitches in City Hall and come away feeling clean?
    He caught Steve’s attention and they headed for the office. Outside, through the triad of glassy eyes that reminded them there was an outside world, the day was coming to an