Free Fairytale of Headley Cross by Clare Revell

of the glass. “S’true wha’ they say. You canna take the bloke outta the east end, but you can take the east end outta the bloke.”
    “If you say so, Rev.”
    He looked up. “Or is it the other way around? And where’d that nickname come from?”
    “You’re a preacher now, right? Therefore you’s Rev.” One of the men at the table saluted him with a half empty beer glass.
    Someone shoved Carson and the glass shot from his hand. Beer flew over a bloke standing to his left. “I’m sorry.” He looked up, his vision blurring. “Do I know you?”
    “I know you.” A huge hand closed over his jacket, jerking him to his feet. “You’ll know me better.” A fist came from nowhere, sending him across the table.
     
    ****
     
    Carson pushed his handcuffed hands through his hair. The white forensic jumpsuit he wore chaffed his skin. He still couldn’t believe he’d been arrested. Again. This time for assault with a deadly weapon. “What else can I tell you?”
    “When the police arrived you were kneeling over the victim’s body, his blood over your hands and clothes, with this knife in your hand.” Detective Sergeant Lyons pushed a sealed evidence bag across the table. “Is it your knife?”
    “Yes it is, but I haven’t seen it in years. I didn’t hurt anyone. I wouldn’t.”
    “But you have done in the past.” DS Lyons opened the file. “You’ve done time for violent crime—eight years for armed robbery. Then there’s assault with a deadly weapon, GBH, ABH…”
    “Self-defense,” he said quietly. “That was proved in court. I’ve changed.”
    “So I see. Bible College, and now you are an ordained minister. But what’s a pastor doing, dead drunk in a pub on a Sunday night, when he’s meant to be preaching forty miles away?”
    Carson straightened. “What? You contacted them?”
    “I spoke to a very nice girl in the church office who put me in touch with a couple of your elders, including a Detective Sergeant Holmes.”
    Carson groaned and buried his face in his hands. If the elders wanted rid of him before, they’d have even more ammunition against him now. “But I didn’t hurt him. I don’t even know who the guy is. Why would I want to stab him?”
    DS Lyons slid a photograph over to him. “Troy Andros. Rival gang leader.”
    Carson frowned. “That’s the bloke I spilled the drink over. The one who laid me out across the table. But I’m not in the gang anymore. I haven’t been for years.”
    “You were sitting with them.”
    “No. They sat with me.”
    The door opened and a grey haired man beckoned to DS Lyons. “Excuse me. Interview paused at 11.20.”
    Carson watched him leave the room.
    I didn’t do it, God, You know that. I wouldn’t, I couldn’t have.
    The door reopened and DS Lyons restarted the tape. “Interview restarted at 11.21. Troy Andros died of his wounds fifteen minutes ago. Carson Armitage, I’m arresting you for the murder of Troy Andros. You do not have to say anything…”
     
     
     
     
     

8
     
    Maggie walked down the corridor into reception. What could be so urgent it necessitated dragging her out of a rehearsal? She’d just gotten all the foundation and year one pupils to sit in a circle and sing. She glanced at Nate and his partner DS Dane Philips. Now what? Had something happened to her parents or her sister? “You wanted to see me?”
    Nate inclined his head. “Sorry to trouble you at work, Miss Turner. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
    Miss Turner? Alarm bells rang in her head. “Sure.” Her voice trembled for a second, before she regained some measure of control over it. “You’ll need to sign in and wear visitor passes.” She pulled two red badges from the pile.
    “What does red mean?”
    “Non CRB’d and can’t be left alone with the kids.” She smiled at the irony of that. “Not even your own kids either.”
    “I’m hoping not to run into Vicky,” Dane said with a half-smile. “She’d only want to come