Nine a.m. Monday morning, and in a joyless room in central Newcastle two men sit opposite each other. One is Detective Chief Inspector Theo Vos. The other is a trauma assessment counsellor.
‘So how is he?’ says the counsellor.
‘Alex?’
‘Yes. How do you think he’s coping? Be honest.’
‘Better than I would. He’s a strong kid.’
‘No nightmares? Flashbacks?’
‘He’s more concerned about getting to the next level of Call of Duty.’
‘And what about you?’
‘Me? I’m fine.’
The counsellor chews thoughtfully on the end of his pen. He has interviewed dozens of police officers in this room during the course of his work and knows that by nature they are a taciturn, emotionally retarded breed. Yet he has never come across anyone quite like Vos, no one as genuinely opaque. He looks into those dark eyes and he genuinely sees nothing behind them. Vos’s defences are total.
‘I’m sorry that you didn’t want to continue with our sessions,’ he says. ‘I thought we were making genuine progress.’
‘You make it sound like I need therapy.’
‘Well, therapy can be an emotive term. But we all need someone to talk to, surely?’
‘I talk to people every day of my life,’ Vos says. ‘Sometimes it’s just nice to sit and look at the view.’
‘And what view do you see?’
‘Depends. Sometimes I see me and Alex having a laugh. Father-and-son stuff. Sometimes I see him when he’s my age. Sometimes I see his mother with that stupid fucking dentist in Florida and I wonder what might have happened if we’d stuck it out.’
The counsellor sits forward. ‘Go on.’
‘Sometimes I see Vic Entwistle lying there in a pool of his own blood on the floor of Jack Peel’s casino. I see Peel bleating for his miserable life on that fire escape. And sometimes I see myself throwing him off.’
The counsellor has a startled expression. He swallows hard.
‘Did you kill him, Mr Vos?’ he says.
Theo Vos says nothing. Outside the rain is beating against the windowpanes again.
‘You’re the counsellor,’ he says presently. ‘You tell me.’