"And you didn't see anything else?"
She shakes her head, tightening her grip on her backpack. Watches him as he makes another note. Glances around. "No, I just ran out of there as soon as possible. You understand, right?"
Kyran nods. "Yeah, I don't blame you for escaping as soon as the opportunity arose. Thank you for your account, though. You've been helpful. You can leave now, if you'd like. May I provide an escort?"
She shakes her head, glancing around again. "Ah, no, thank you. I'll manage." She stands up, stumbles, and awkwardly walks out of the interrogation room, and Kyran thinks.
It would be terribly hypocritical of him, going around blaming other people for being awkward considering how much of a mess he is, but instead of putting the woman's file away like he normally would, instead of not giving it a second thought, he keeps it aside. Just in case.
He looks over his notes a couple of times, and finds nothing inherently useful. Her account of the theft was detailed, something that usually gets solved within a day or two of investigating and probably a few hours if it was with her witness report. The amount of details given would make any tracking officer faint in disbelief.
But inevitably, in the end, he still needs more witnesses to figure out what exactly was going on. One piece of information she had given was somewhat useful, Kyran thinks. If only she had given him a location.
Cliona, her name was, and above everything else, all things aside, she was important. Kyran doesn't realise the full extent of her role right now, because people usually don't pay attention to these sorts of details, do they? And it isn't necessarily their fault. Nevertheless, Kyran tucks that name into the back of his mind until the opportunity presents itself.
He picks up another name from the plethora of documents. Ormond was a photographer in these parts, and he has an automatic camera that takes a picture of everything. Walking over to the file cabinet and flipping through the folder of Ormond, Kyran relaxes briefly with the fact that his memory still serves him well.
Ormond had been involved in another case in the past. A serial murderer case where the culprit was found thanks to Ormond's camera taking a picture of the killer's shoes. It's admirable, Kyran thinks, how much a simple camera photograph can do.
Just an off-handed click can mean life or death and if not for that single frame, the killer might have gotten away scot - free. Because it's always like that, things you hadn't even considered or acknowledged end up as the most beneficial and contributing factor to situations you had never dreamed of getting yourself in.
Take Kyran for example. He got shot by an extra.
The file doesn't really have much, other than the usual report and crime documents. There isn't much, because this is a closed case long since forgotten. No one should care about this, really. Except Kyran does, because he's an overpreparer like that. There's a picture in these documents, tucked inside because it shouldn't be relevant, should it? Except Kyran thinks it is.
He pulls out the picture, and there, in one of the photos that had been taken for investigation due to the location, in the background, is that very same woman.
He almost doesn't notice someone walking in the office, except he does, and that proves his training is still taking effect. Ivica looms over him to stare at the picture and Kyran lets him.
"You think that's important?" he asks, and Kyran nods.
"I know it is."
Kyran stares at the picture, and tucks it in the file he's holding. He stands up so abruptly he stumbles a little, but hurriedly drops the files on his desk. Ivica shakes his head at him, but goes back to doing his own work after he earns a well - deserved glare from Kyran.
Kyran's wafting through the pictures, desperately looking for another clue before he moves on, because if he spends too much time on this one woman, then he'll drift away from his real task, from his real case. If he wastes time on this, he might lose vital information.
After researching the building the woman was found in, other than the murder case that Ormond was a part of, there had been nothing. Nothing. So Kyran sits there with the pleasant feeling of wasting five hours researching a dead end. Simply wonderful.
"Gosh, tiring, isn't it? I saw you work on that the whole day. All those efforts, useless. Good for nothing."
Kyran cranes his neck to look at Conley, who is shamelessly smirking at him from the partition. It's annoying, because he's right. Kyran had no reason to do such extensive analysis of a few pictures just because of a slight irregular feeling. It's irrational, because it was useless.
"Shut up, Conley." Kyran groans, dropping face - first into his desk in frustration. He thought he had got something there, that maybe he finally had a lead, but he supposes he had not.
"Do you have any more suspects to interview?" Conley asks, removing the partition between their desks.
"Suspects?" Kyran asks, his face still planted and voice still muffled. "What suspects would there be? I don't even know what exactly the crime is!"
Conley hums. "You're looking into a crime organisation, right? There shouldn't be any specific crime. You gotta get your hands dirty and join the gang!"
"Wha—"
"I'm kidding! Don't join the gang. Or do, whatever. Point is, you gotta research the area before you go there."
Kyran finally lifts his face up, then. "Are you stupid?" he half - scowls. "I don't have a death wish. I don't plan on waltzing into the area and declaring myself a part of the police on my own without the slightest hint of an idea of what to do." He stops to breathe for a moment there. But Conley stops him before he goes any further.
"Okay, look. I'm not telling you to march in like that, but I am telling you to investigate the place in-person. How much are you going to learn from shaky interrogations and weak informants?"
"Just because you're somewhat right, doesn't mean I have to agree with you." Kyran says. "I need more data on the area before I try going there undercover. I need to know what they expect."
Conley huffs. "Do what you like then. You know I'm right."
The worst part is, Conley's right. Kyran can't possibly find out more information until he actually goes to the street where the reports are coming from. If he interviews the locals, they might provide him with a description of the main organisation members, or at least the ones that are most active.
He contemplates getting a gun to go along with him. Because on one hand, having a gun on hand is always useful, because he is a cop and you might never know what will happen. He's also going to an incredibly shady area with largely criminal based organisations that are reported to have gotten drastically active within the past few months. That's one hand. On the other hand, he might be caught, and his gun could be pointed at its owner, and having it along might do more harm than good.
Kyran looks at it for a long moment, decides the might, might, might, of it all, and promptly stuffs the gun into the pocket of his trench coat. It's no doubt risky, but Kyran's life is full of risks, and that gun has nothing to do with it.
Because of course it doesn't.
The streets are quiet, because of course they are, even though it's evening and normal people are usually outside instead of cooped up in an empty house or boring classroom or a stuffy office.
Kyran tucks his sports cap over his head, because his fashion sense is as distorted as this case is going to be. Nothing in this world is going to change the fact that while investigating is fun and bravery is praised to hell and back, courage is still the same as recklessness in a different shade.
He contemplates going back, but realises he's gone far enough anyway. He puts his hands in his coat pocket and tightly clenches his hand around the gun. It doesn't make him feel safe, not in the least, but it gives him something to hold on to.
Something physical, not hope, because Kyran doesn't hope. Stopped hoping long ago, started expecting instead. There's another shadow that looms over him. Kyran assumes it's another stupidly tall building, and moves onward. Nothing else is going to get those interviews done. He passes by another dark spot and curses out the area members.
Where are all the normal people?
There's got to be a gathering somewhere, because there's no way that in an area this big, no one normal is walking around the streets.
Then finally, finally, he sees a man walking around with a boy, assuming he's his son, and holding grocery bags. It feels so intruding, walking up to them to interview about a case. Because they're family and they're enjoying their time and Kyran knows, in the back of his mind, that he's really out of place when it comes to family.
So he's breathing and he's moving on, and he's walking until he isn't, because the man has stopped Kyran by the shoulder. The same Kyran that hisses in a breath at the touch but hides it. The same Kyran that startles, and smiles at the two of them.
"Hello," he says cautiously, always cautiously. "Are you well?"
"Hey, son," the man says. "You look serious. Like.. Like you're on police - level business. Is everything alright?"
Woah, Kyran thinks, this man is sharp.
"Yeah– Yes, sir. I'm interviewing people in this area for some— activity? That had come to my attention. So I was. Ah. Looking for some, people? Yeah. People who might want to give any.. Accounts, to the strange. Ah. Occurrences happening here."
After delivering that with about as eloquence as a child choking on its own spit, Kyran silently curses himself half a dozen times and throws out all hopes of successful interviewing out the window. If that was one of his first interviews, then he has no more hopes for more successful interviewees, more successful assistants, and more successful successes.
The depth of embarrassment is so strong he very briefly considers quitting and hiding himself away from the world forever. Unfortunately, he is an adult and he has a job, Kyran has to squash down that dream and focus on talking to the man he just humiliated himself in front of. Kyran doesn't particularly care, but it still stings.
Thankfully, the man doesn't look condescending, only amused by Kyran's words, and the rest of the interviews goes by not in information, but in small talk.
It does give Kyran some details, however, so he continues to keep searching for people and interviewing them one after another after another, until he has a file he's proud of with descriptions of people he's going to burn into his retinas later, and Kyran stares at the pictures as he goes to the station, certain they could mean something, something, or something, or anything at all.
-
Kyran peeks through the windowsill, the one with a direct view of the parking lot. He grips the picture in his hands like his life depends on it as he sees Cliona get into her car and prepare to move out of the driveway. He pulls his gaze away, just for a moment, to look at Ciar, noting down all the observances.
Kyran nods, and Ciar nods, and they both switch places. Kyran starts documenting, and Ciar starts looking over at Cliona's location.
"Where is she now?" Kyran asks, clicking his pen.
There's a pause before he gets his answer. "She's in the car."
Kyran nods slowly, and drags his pen over the paper, writing in small jargon with the status and the date and the time stamp.
Of course, until a resounding sound of a large, large explosion shakes everything to its core.
A large explosion from the window.
A large explosion from the driveway.
Kyran rushes over to the window, only to see, with the kind of horrified panic that comes with everything going terribly wrong, that Cliona's car had been reduced to nothing but ashes.
There was a bomb in her car.
He spins his head to see Ciar at the exit, and Kyran expects to see anything, maybe shock, maybe surprise, anything. Except on Ciar's face, he only sees smiles, smiles, smiles. That everything has gone right. That this was only part of a plan. Kyran reaches out, out, out, but it's far too late. He's already gone.
"You know how I said she is in the car?" Ciar says slowly, perhaps as a parting gift, perhaps as rage bait, because Cliona is dead.
"Well, she was in the car, now!"
And Kyran is standing there, hand hovering over where Ciar once stood, and he's thinking and he's thinking and he's thinking. Because Cliona is dead, and her death was intentional, and now there are changes to factors he hadn't even known could be changed. Kyran rubs his hands over his face, and sighs. He has so many things to do.