Chapter 281: Family, Part 12, Four Years Ago

The police station stinks of second-hand booze and disinfectant. A couple of drunks are hauled away in handcuffs while a woman in an overall mops up what they just deposited on the tiled floor. In the waiting area, a man in a three-piece-suit flicks through notes and files, checking his watch impatiently. A girl with cheap clothes and a black-eye tries to control the screaming baby she looks barely old enough to call her own.

Thin-faced and with pale flat eyes and nondescript sandy hair, the police officer looks bored and pissed off.

Natalie is bored and pissed off.

“When can I go? I’ve got a living to earn you know.”

“Don’t we all, Natalie. You know the routine.” The police officer picks up a clipboard, riffling through the pages. “You can go when we’ve settled this, not before.” He finds the sheet he is looking for, pins it open with an elastic band, then sits, pencil poised. “He says you stole his wallet.”

The girl slumps in her seat, pouting. “Did not.”