He’s the middle child. Enough said, right? His older brother is the parent’s biggest pride, his younger sister is their sweet little princess and Noe... well, he just is. He tried to get his parent’s attention in many different ways. First, he studied so hard that he was almost as good as his brother, then he took drawing lessons and almost caught up with his sister’s talent. But almost was never quite good enough so Noe turned to causing as much trouble as possible. It was fun at first, mom and dad finally noticed him, they even talked with him more, trying to make him change his ways, his siblings seemed to be a bit scared of him and the kids at school suddenly respected him. He liked it so he kept going.
But then, all at once, his brother finished school, became a lawyer and moved to the States, his sister got married to some painter and went to live with him in Paris, and Noe still just was. He was annoying, that is. So he tried to get his life together and do something important but all he managed to accomplish was a lousy degree in finances and a very mediocre job in a nearby bank. It's probably karma for all of his wrongdoings while he was still just a kid but he’s not ready to accept that.
Selwyn Harold Tracey - by his family, friends and most of the time almost every single co-worker called Winnie, as if it was anything but a not-really-outside-of-the-box nickname for an adult man - was twenty seven. Twenty seven, workaholic addicted to caffeine in any available form and, worst of all according to his mother and a her of still alive and kicking aunts, terribly, horribly single. The last time he brought a girl home was probably... a long time ago. At least eight years if he had to guess, maybe even more, when he was still a highschooler living with his parents and desperately trying to play soccer but not really succeeding. Right now he was living in a rather very small apartment suitable for exactly one person, survived on coffee and McDonald's takeaways alone, and when his dear mom called him from San Francisco to ask if he's found some nice young lady at last, he repeated the same thing every time - that the one and only woman in his life is his cat, the little beast treating him like her personal minion. Or a moving toy she can sometimes dull her terribly sharp claws every once in a while.
OdpowiedzUsuńHe was twenty seven, turning twenty eight this year and consistently getting closer and closer to the magical, mythical border called "being thirty", and if someone asked him twenty years ago what he wants to do in the future or who he wants to be when he grows up, he'd probably shout a lot of things. An astronaut, a scientist, a sorcerer, a soldier, a doctor, a cowboy, a knight, damn, even a fairy. A lot of things, really, but a policeman most definitely wouldn't be one of them. And yet there he was, sitting in his police car, taking care of his daily patrol. Funny how in some cases the life decides the choices the person makes are clearly dumbass decisions and so it'd be way better if the life itself would take the wheel.
It wasn't a bad week for him - really. In fact, it was pretty similar to the previous one, and the one before that. None of them was exceptionally bad, or even bad just in general, because even if there was a lot of things to do and a lot of paperwork to take care of, Winnie somehow still didn't mind doing them. He was one of those people who go through their life with a smile on their face for most of the time; for the rest of the time they're usually sleeping. He liked his job, even when he had to almost do all-nighters; his co-workers, even when a normal person would have bitten their heads off literal years ago; his uniform, even if it was a bit heavy and a bit dark for the sunny days and he was coming back home with sweat stains on his shirt. It was way too easy to call him an optimist, even though he wouldn't call himself one, probably out of sheer lack of need to actually label himself. Or anyone really in that case.
It wasn't a bad week per se, because none of the weeks were bad for Winnie "I like my job" Tracey. At least until one ill-fated Wednesday when it all went to shit.
He barely even managed to actually get to wrok, being a bit late because of goddamn heavy morning traffic, when they got a call from the central. There was someone reporting a serious injury, blood loss, unconsciousness, and possibly attempted murder. Winnie has seen a few victims of careless thiefs who have been caught red-handed by the owner of the flat and stabbed them before running off in panic, but it was never too serious - nothing a few stitches couldn't fix, so he didn't exactly expect this to be any different. Oh boy, was he wrong.
UsuńThere was blood. A lot of blood everywhere, almost as if someone's poured it purposefully all over the floor to get the horrid effect of a psycopath's crime. And in the middle of this crimson pool, grimy with sticky redness, there was a young man desperately trying to do the impossible and CPR the dead victim back to life. He shouted something over his shoulder the second he heard footsteps on the staircase, in French probably - definitely not a language the policeman had a chance to ever study.
Some part of Winnie screamed at him to turn around and run away from the terrible sight before him; pushing it deep down and ignoring it's shouts, he bursted through the open door, grabbing the French by his shoulders and forcibly making him stand up and move to the side to let the medical lifeguards who arrived a few seconds after the police take care of the victim.
"I need you to calm down, sir," he stated, slowly and clearly, as if he was talking to a child. "The lifeguards are going to take over now and you should not interrupt them."
Not waiting for the man to actually calm down, he guided him to the staircase; the farer from the body the better for him. Winnie himself was shocked by the signs of violence he's found at the crime scene and very careful not to let his voice shake; it was his job, after all, to be the calm and nearly emotionless officer here. And staying there would not serve the French any good, especially in him current state.
Most of the time Winnie thought his job was a quite good one. He wanted to become a policeman since he was twelve after all, and he thought it all through at least five million times before actually going to the academy, so really, had to be content with what he was doing. Helping people, being the guardian of peace and harmony - oh yes, that what he wanted to do, it sounded glorious and heroic and had this tiny little spark of a Superman deeds in it. The reality was a bit more... mundane - catching shoplifters, drinking way too much coffee and filling reports, tons and tons of them, with every day looking almost exactly like the previous one - and the next one was always going to be just like today. He didn't hate it, he didn't even dislike it; he was doing the right thing after all, and even if he didn't ever catch a serial killer or discovered where are the dangerous gang's headquarters, it was all fine. He didn't need all of that to be happy with his job, with his responsibilities, and at the end of the day he always knew he was the good guy.
OdpowiedzUsuńIt was hard, though. As hard as they get probably, and honestly, as far as he could tell, it was never getting any easier. He got better at it - at looking at massacred bodies and calming down whoever found the victim - but it would never get easy. It just couldn't. That piece of meat lying on the floow, red with it's own blood? That was a human being once. A breathing, talking, living human being.
He tried his best to calm the young French man down, but she was in too much shock, screaming in anger and frustration at the paramedic, though Winnie suspected he didn't even fully understand what the man was telling him. He didn't manage to catch him before he sprinted back to the apartment and soon they both heard sounds of vomiting. The paramedic gave him a meaningful look.
"I'm surprised he managed to not throw up when he first walked in there," the man said. He was right - Selwyn himself would be on the verge of puking if it was his first time at a crime scene. Fortunately, it wasn't. He walked into the apartment as well, his shoes leaving bloody footprints on the floor when he headed towards the kitchen. The young foreigner was still bent over the sink, but apparently finished already.
The policeman looked around the kitchen quickly, almost mechanically; it was small and everything seemed to be in order, no signs of fight or whatsoever. He tore off a piece of paper towel, then another one, just to be sure, and handed it to the younger man.
"Here," he was doing his best to sound as calming and soothing as he could, while keeping his discance and not touching him in any way. A person in shock should always be considered unpredictable and he didn't want to trigger any sudden outbursts of aggression. "How about you tell me your name, huh? I'm Selwyn Tracey, but everyone calls me Winnie. You know, like the cartoon character."
He leaned against one of the kitchen cabinets. Gaining trust was very important right now, and asking for a name could provide the man an anchor that'd help him with calming down his own mind.
Winnie knew very well that whatever it is that he was doing right now just wasn't very... policeman-y. Not at all to be precise; talking to the witness like he was nothing more than a random stranger who only happened to need some help, was feeling bad after, for example, eating some old burger or drinking too much - nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that couldn't happen to literally anyone. No blood, no gore, no bodies, no murders involved. And yet there were, very much involved, and he knew that, according to the protocol, he should be driving the young man - Noe, he corrected himself, or rather Mr Margaux - to the police station instead of standing with him in the victim's kitchen and handing him some paper towers to get rid of the water on his face and the not very metaphorical blood on his hands. They were very red, and so were the clothes he was wearing.
OdpowiedzUsuńWell. Some days you just had to flip the protocol off.
It was apparently one of these days.
"Okay," was literally the first thing that came to his mind, and being the man he was, there was absolutely no filter between what he was thinking and what he was saying. "Listen, I'm terribly sorry for your loss and what you had to- have to go through, and if it was up to me, I'd let you go to your own apartment, take a shower, change, maybe nap for a bit or something, you know, call your parents... but the thing is, I can't. I have a strict set of rules here that I have to follow, you get me. It's now officially a murder case. We shouldn't even be here right now. That sink? You're leaving your fingerprints all over it. Not very allowed at this point, sorry. We should be on our way to the police station about ten minutes ago, so how abou we get going?"
A pause happened. Just... happened. Like that. Winnie took one look at the young French before him leaning against the kitchen countertop, and he just stopped. Noe was looking... bad. Which wasn't at all surprising considering that he just found his brother dead on the floor, but the paleness of his face and the way his eyes seemes to have a problem with focusing on one thing for longer that a few seconds...
"Look, I'm not a doctor, but you look like you're going to faint, every second now really," he moved, standing closer to the other man and gently grabbing his elbow to make sure he won't fall to the floor. "I'm going to give you a moment at the station, I have some spare clothes you can borrow, but right now we have to leave. Do you think you can walk on your own?"
Maybe they could have used that blanket after all. They probably would, yes; Winnie wasn't exactly sure how they worked, never got to understand that, but it was some kind of psychological safety placebo stuff, so maybe he just didn't have to. Not really a part of his job, right? All he knew was that they should get in the car, go to the police station, sit at his desk and talk about what happened. Or rather, Noe was going to do the talking; he was just going to ask questions and take notes of whatever the French was saying, however cold and unemotional that would sound. A job was a job, and his wasn't always the easiest one out there - but still a job.
Winnie shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to not look too nervous. This wasn't his first murder case and it definitely wasn't the last - or at least he hoped so, not because he liked the fact that people were being murdered on a regular basis, often for very trivial reasons, or for no reason at all (no, that he hated, of course) but because he simply didn't want to lose his job and no more crime would mean, realistically thinking, that he'd be pretty much useless to the society as a whole. The thought of being too emotional for being a policeman knocked on the door of his mind, but he chased it away very quickly; he just felt sorry for the poor guy who just lost his brother, that was it, nothing more. And even if there was more to it, he had every right to not feel good at the crime scene, even if he's done it before and was kind of used to it, the sight of a lifeless body lying on the floor in a pool of crimson blood would make anyone uneasy.
OdpowiedzUsuńAnd so he was quite relieved to get out of the apartment, already full of guys from the crime scene unit, and lead the victim's brother - Noe, he corrected himself again - out of the building. The witness was still holding the blanket over his shoulders and Winnie, lightly holding a hand on his back, or rather barely touching the blanket itself to steer the other man, felt him shiver; carefully, he chose to walk him to the police car as far away from the rapidly growing crowd of onlookers as possible.
"Of course, we're going to call the family. You don't need to worry about that," he said, opening the car door and letting Noe get inside; then he circled the car, sat behind the wheel and turned on the engine. The police station wasn't far and the whole ten minutes ride passed in complete silence. Which wasn't surprising at all, since witnesses rarely wanted to talk on their own, especially when they were so closely connected to the victim. It had to be one hell of a shock, to find your own brother dead in his own house.
It was still fairly early in the morning so the station wasn't too crowded; Winnie parked his car and led the still blood-soaked man between the mostly empty desks to the small room in the back, then opened his locker and dug out a spare t-shirt he kept there just in case.
"Here. It's clean, I've probably washed it two months ago but haven't worn it once ever since," he ensured, handing it to Noe. "Best I could do right now, sorry. To be fair, you shouldn't even be here, but it's not like I want you to be... uncomfortable. Even more uncomfortable, that is," he added, scratching his neck a bit awkwardly, knowing he wasn't very professional but his emotional "I'm sorry for your loss, what can I do for you" part was very clearly kicking in. He cleared his throat. "I'll show you to the showers."
It was a long wait in the locker room, with the not-so-distant sound of water running in the shower being the only thing disturbing the silence (and, of course, the sounds of the police station coming through all the cracks under the closed door, but Winnie was definitely more than used to those and has learned to ignore them a long time ago, to the degree when he didn't even realise they were there unless he tried very hard to notice the chatter and the footsteps). At first he wanted to open his own locker again and take care of the mess that lived inside it - he really never had the time for that, or at least was telling himself he didn't, because apart from the work papers he had a terrible tendency to leave mess literally everywhere - but have up the idea pretty soon, even before he got to acually move from his spot at the wall, next to the door leading to the bathroom. So he just crossed his arms and decided to wait.
OdpowiedzUsuńNoe took his time, but honestly, he couldn't blame him; a hot shower was a real life-saver sometimes, especially after a long day of dealing with police stuff. Selwyn couldn't even begin to imagine how good it must have felt for the other guy - getting clean after finding his own brother dead in his flat, washing away the blood and focusing solely on the feeling of water hitting his skin. It might have been a small comfort, maybe no comfort at all, actually, but it was probably the best Winnie could do for him right now. If he had to be honest with anyone, he shouldn't have let the man into the locker room, but really, he was in far too much shock for any policeman to be able to get any sort of helpful information out of him. So fuck the rules. A hot shower and a relatively fresh t-shirt might have not been a lot, but they also might have been a lot, and it was worth it if there was any chance that they'd help Noe calm down just a bit.
Shit, he might have just developed some sympathy for this poor guy.
And then the door opened and Selwyn was handed the blood-stained shirt. He examined it and decided that it'd be better to throw it away after all, just not at the station. Then he looked at the Frenchman; the t-shit was a bit too big on him, his hair was wet and his eyes puffy, but he looked slightly more focused and in control. Slightly.
"Yes, I will, actually," he answered, going back to his locker and finding an empty plastic bag. He put the shirt inside and tied it. "We're going to have to do that at my desk, but I want you to know that if you feel like the station or the memories are becoming too much, we can always take a break. I'd offer a walk too, but to be honest I've already broken a few unwritten rules here," he smiled at Noe at that, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. He's been told he's good at making people trust him, but that was only because he really felt for them, and this one in particular.
The station was a lot quieter than Winnie had expected before they came back from the crime scene; it was a murder after all, and there usually was a buzz of hurried voices and even more hurried steps all around the place when a case like that had presented himself. He was pretty sure it was all because of the still relatively early hour - most officers taking care of the murder from this morning were still out (in fact, him and his witness were the first ones to get out of the victim's apartment, and he was thankful for that chance, because crime scenes were honestly an awful place to be at, even after years and years of work) and the usual flow of civilians wanting to report a theft or some bullying hasn't yet started. Granted, there were one or two desks occupied by people talking to policemen, one woman was weeping after her lost husband, but apart from that it was a nice middle of the day. Peaceful even.
OdpowiedzUsuńOf course, he was aware of the fact that Noe wouldn't exactly describe it as peaceful. Selwyn wasn't expecting him to hold himself together so well, really, he looked very young, barely a few years over twenty, maybe not a kid anymore, but still. It had to be a horrible day for him and now he had to sit there at Winnie's desk and tell him about it, re-living the memories over and over again. Quiet surroundings were extremely helpful in cases like that.
"Oh, yeah, of course," he opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a box of paper tissues, then smiled, handing it over to the young man sitting in a char opposite. "Sorry."
Someone once told him he had a British way of being, apologizing for even the smallest things, especially when he was stressed. Selwyn thought it was a very stupid thing to say, and a very stereotypical one too. He's never been to England but was fairly sure people weren't actually apologizing to everyone over there, and even if they were, what was so bad about the concept of not wanting to seem like an asshole? Being nice was a cheap gesture and one he could surely afford, especially since Noe seemed very stressed. Of course he was stressed, and scared, and angry, and a whole lot of other things all at once, people always were when someone close to them had died, it was natural, Winnie couldn't blame him and really just wanted to make it all as easy for him as possible. If the witness was felling like they were treated like a human being, the interrogation usually went a lot smoother.
"Alright, I'm going to need you to state your full name together with the date and place of birth," those were the easiest and most basic things to start with, they shouldn't really be a problem. And they weren't. Only then they've moved to the more serious matters; why and when did he come to the US, where he was staying, what happened at the crime scene before the paramedics and the police have arrived. Selwyn waited patiently when the other man went through a little breakdown in the middle of talking about finding his brother's body; he actually wanted to reach out and pat him on the arm, or at least say something like "you know, it'll get better, it always does", but he knew very well everything would go faster if he remained professional. He didn't want to stretch it out more than he had to.
One of his colleagues dropped a draft of the report on his desk, eyeing the French before walking away. Winnie looked through it very quickly.
"According to out team, your brother has been dead for about six hours when you've found him," he stated and took a deep breath. "This is just a procedure, don't take it personally, I have to ask that. What were you doing today around seven in the morning?"