Too many.
“You look like shite.” Fletcher’s voice rippled across the room.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Jackson winced. The effort of smiling made his swollen eye throb. He should have been checked over. Could he have a concussion? Was that why he’d slept so long?
Was that why he hadn’t woken up that night?
Fletcher once again stabbed the silence between them when he said, “I went to see DI Grimsby.”
Jackson clenched his jaw. Then forcing himself to breathe, to calm, to tame his thrashing pulse, he made two cups of coffee whilst ridding himself of the intrusive memories of his time sat opposite DI fucking Grimsby. The mere name gave Jackson the shudders.
“Well,” he said, forcing his game face on to offer Fletcher a mug. “I didn’t know that.” He nodded at the cup. “No milk. No sugar. I have neither. But you Irish all like a bit of the black stuff, right?”
Fletcher accepted the drink, downing a hefty amount regardless of how it might have scorched his throat. Now Jackson understood Fletcher’s pained expression. DI Grimsby had obviously worked him over. He’d given him the prosecution case. What a convincing one it must have been as Fletcher clearly thought he was allying with a murderer.
But he had come here. To Jackson’s hotel room. Unaccompanied.
That had to mean one of two possible scenarios...
Jackson pointed from around the mug. “Take off your shirt.”
Fletcher widened his eyes. “What now?”
“You come here, asking me to spill the beans and you don’t expect me to think you’re wearing a wire. What is this? Has he sent you to convince me to tell you I killed her? Is that it?” His head pounded. “Fuck you, Fletcher Doherty. I came to you! Why do you keep going elsewhere first? I promised to give you everything. The story of the fucking millennium.”
“I’m not wearing a wire. I’m not on anyone’s side.” Fletcher slammed the mug behind him. “I still have to work. My editor sent me to get the details of the case. So I had to get the official version from the detective in charge. No one knows I’m also doing this.” He gestured between the two of them with an unsteady hand.
“And ‘this’ being?” Jackson stepped forward, invading Fletcher’s personal space. He saw Fletcher hitch his breath.
“Fraternising with the subject,” Fletcher said, voice now aquiver.
Jackson trickled out an amused laugh. “Where I’m from, this isn’t fraternising. Not even close.”
Fletcher remained silent, blank, his eyes searching Jackson for God knew what. Was that fear in those eyes? Concern? Or was there something more. Something like confusion. Jackson was losing him. He was losing his one hope at getting his voice heard, authenticated, endorsed. The time had come. No more playing around, no more putting it off, no more going back to the beginning.
Because the single, most important thing that mattered was telling the truth.
“I don’t know what happened.” Jackson sighed, then downed his coffee. He stared into the abyss of cheap porcelain where the black coffee stains emulated the smears of his broken soul. “I don’t understand why I can’t remember, or why I passed out that badly. Yes, I was drunk. Yes, I’d had a sniff of coke. Both were not uncommon for me.” He peered up, meeting Fletcher’s gaze. He didn’t say anything. He just waited, not breathing. “The most I can remember is taking a swing at you, ‘cause, fuck, I was pissed at you. You are all I remember.”
Fletcher pushed away from the dressing table, worrying his bottom lip, his gaze searching Jackson. Perhaps he was trying to sort the truth from the lies. The honesty from the fabrication. Jackson would give it all, if he could. But something made him look away. His temple pounding and eyes stinging, he choked back a sob as the blood burned through his veins like lava. Fletcher’s hand landing on his shoulder was the grounding weight he needed to affix himself to the present.
“Maybe you should speak.” Fletcher was calm when he spoke, barely a whisper. “I mean really talk. About all of it. Stop hiding behind the deflections, the persona, the no-comments.”
“It’s what I’m trying to do. I tried to do. No one wants to listen. No one wants to know the truth. Not really. Because it doesn’t fit to what they can sell.”
“Who can sell?”
“The media. The media can’t know the truth.”
“What do you mean ‘can’t’?”
Jackson inhaled, shaking his head. That was too much. “I meant don’t want to know the truth. No one does.”
“I do.” Fletcher held his gaze. “And it’ll kill you if you keep it all in.”
Jackson snorted. That was a little too close to the whole truth. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said, lowering his gaze to the floor.
“I don’t know what you know. That’s why I’m here. I’m ready to know and you need to be ready to tell.”
Jackson growled, stepping back. He couldn’t have Fletcher so close to him. “What I need is a cigarette. And some air.” He snatched up his bag, unzipping it and rummaging through.
The contents within smelt so implacably like him. Like the hotel. Like Tallulah. He screwed his eyes shut, balled fist at his lips to stave off the retching.
Fletcher stood closer, his comforting presence bringing Jackson back from the brink. “You okay?” he asked, voice laden with concern.
“Yeah.” Jackson levelled up and wiped his mouth. “I just need out. I’ve been cooped-up too long.” He shoved a hoodie on, followed by his trainers, then headed for the door. “Let’s get a decent coffee.”
There was a coffee shop over the road, next to a convenience store where Jackson spent the money he didn’t have on the necessary evil. He sparked up, leaning against the wall next to the B&B and sipped the coffee through the lid. He felt better. But he knew Fletcher was waiting for it all, notepad or not.
“I remember bits and pieces,” Jackson admitted, sucking in a drag of smoke. The only vice he’d had in six months and it felt good. Too good. “I remember you. I remember swinging for you. I remember being so fucking mad. So angry.”
“At me? Or was there something else? Something between you and Tallulah?” Fletcher was walking a fine line, and Jackson could see him nudging closer to step over it, to get into Jackson’s headspace.
“No.” He narrowed his eyes, blowing out the smoke to the ground. “Tules and I were fine. As fine as fine was for us. The only thing we had stern words on before the awards ceremony was you.”
“Me?”
“The article.”
“Do you often get angry at criticism?”
Flicking the cigarette to the pavement, Jackson snorted then stamped out the butt. “Yours was more than criticism. And, I don’t know, felt personal. Like you really, really meant it.”
“Okay…” Fletcher looked as if he was going to say something. Sorry, maybe? But whatever it might have been, soon changed track when he said, “So you had words about my review of your shoddy performance. Was that all?”
“Yeah. She told me to get over it.” Jackson scraped his foot along the pavement. “Said it was probably written by some subjective ex-fan who’d jacked off to me as a teenager and realised he’d never get a taste of the real thing.”