Oh, my love, my darling…

The room came up at him. He put a hand to his eyes. 'Lord,' he whispered.

Blind-sided, he found himself over on the couch, wondering what had hit him. At the same time knowing what it was. Finally amazed in some way that these bouts occurred as infrequently as they did.

It was Elaine's death, he decided. Stirring up all the other gunk.

That, and the Treya Ghent interview this morning. That still nagged at him too – not only the lack of any tangible result about the Burgess case, but the reaction he'd had to her.

The door to his office.

The foolish, immature way he'd handled the visit from Hardy, who deserved better than that.

He wasn't under constant attack here at home. He couldn't be seen, didn't have to work so hard to hide whatever might be troubling him. So all of it – Flo and the older kids being gone, Elaine, everything – all of it had bubbled over for a minute. Here, where it was safe. That was all it had been.

OK, now he had himself back under control. He was in his TV room. It wasn't some loaded mnemonic weapon. It was four walls, a window, door and closet, some inexpensive, durable new furniture. In three steps, he was back at the VCR, where he inserted the tape and turned on the television.

Frannie reached Hardy before he'd left the office. She'd heard of a great new restaurant that they needed to try and she'd been able to get last-minute reservations. So instead of the Shamrock, for their date could he meet her at the Redwood Room in the Clift Hotel?

Since this was less than a dozen blocks from where he worked, he told her he thought it might be possible. 'No promises, but a pretty good chance.'

'Well, I shall arrive in ribbons and curls at seven sharp,' she said in her most cultured high-British tones. 'If you're not there to meet me, someone else will ask for my company and I expect I'll have to go off with another escort.'

'I expect you would,' he replied drily.

'It's the great curse of a certain superficial charm, the swarms of men.'

'I can only imagine.'

'Though one's heart is set on one's husband.'

'Of course. He shall then redouble his efforts to be prompt.'

'In that event, sir, I shall reward those efforts.'

'One's heart soars at the possibilities. Until then, then?'

'Until then. Ciao.'

Smiling, he put the receiver in its cradle.

He hadn't moved a muscle when the phone rang again. He snatched it back up – 'Dismas Hardy' – and Glitsky was on the line, speaking without preamble. 'What are you doing?'

'Just a moment, let me check. I seem to be talking on the telephone.'

'Are you going to be there for a while?'

'I'm meeting Frannie in an hour and a half.'

‘That's enough time.'

'For what?'

'To see the Burgess tape.'

Hardy sat forward, his hands suddenly tight around the receiver. 'What about it?'

'I brought it home. Just watched it through for the first time. Compared it to the initial incident reports. I thought you'd like to take a look at what I've got.'

This was highly unusual. Hardy and Glitsky might be friends, but the police did not make evidence available to defense attorneys. That role – called discovery – was the exclusive providence of the District Attorney. But Hardy wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. 'The video of the confession?' he said. 'You could probably talk me into it.'

There was an emptiness in the line, then Glitsky cleared his throat. 'I also wanted to apologize.'

'All right. If that was it, it's accepted. You should know that I've got a few questions of my own.'

Glitsky responded with a long silence. Then, 'I can be there in a half hour.'

The confession was near the end of the sixth hour of tape. Cole was speaking in a voice thick with fatigue. The camera was on him the whole time – one continuous shot of an exhausted man sitting at a table in a small room, patiently reciting his part without any animation.

It took seven minutes to watch it once. They immediately rewound and were midway through the second viewing when Hardy stopped the picture. 'Here,' he said, 'right here.' He pressed play again.

On the screen, Cole was answering an interrogator's question about the actual moment of the shooting. 'I don't know, I'm maybe ten feet behind her. She's just turned into the alley.'

The interogator asked what he did next.

'She just got in the shadow, so it was real dark.'

'Go on.'

'What do you want me to say?'

'Just what happened. Tell us in your own words what happened.'

'OK.' A long hesitation. 'I shot her?'

'Is that a question? I don't know if you shot her. You tell me. Did you shoot her?'

Cole's confused eyes flicked somewhere out of the camera's line of vision, then came back. 'Yeah, I did. I shot her then. When she got in the shadow.'

'And what did you do then?'

'Well… she fell and I, I remember I walked over to her. She was this shape on the pavement, so I crossed over to her. And then the purse and the necklace and so on.'

'What about the gun?'

The gun? Oh yeah. I put it down on the street for a minute. The necklace… I needed two hands. Then the cop car hit me with the light and I remembered I had to get the gun.'

'And then?'

'Then I started running.'

The two men were watching, maintaining an uneasy silence on either end of the couch. Hardy hit the remote and the screen went black. He spoke into the air in front of them. 'Close contact wound. The gun was right up against her head, right. And she didn't fall hard. She was wearing hosiery that would have ripped or run or something. Somebody did her right next to her, then caught her and laid her down.'

'Not somebody,' Glitsky answered. 'Burgess.'

Hardy threw him a skeptical look. 'Maybe. Maybe not. But if Cole was ten feet behind her and as drunk as we know he was, how did he put one shot perfectly into the exact base of her skull in the dark with a gun just three inches long?'

Hardy thought he'd serve his client better by being straight with Glitsky than by keeping the letter of the attorney-client privilege. 'He told me he didn't remember shooting the gun, but thought he must have.'

'Thought he must have.' Glitsky dipped into his own well of skepticism. 'There's a phrase. Did he mention why?'

'They ran GSR' – gunshot residue analysis – 'and he had it on his hands.'

'I'm not surprised,' Glitsky said drily. 'He fired the gun, that's why.' A pause. 'Probably twice, in fact.'

'Probably twice. Talk about a phrase.' Hardy looked him a question.

Abe gave it up. 'You'll find out anyway. One of the arresting officers, Medrano, says in his report that the gun went off when they were chasing him.'

'Went off?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, Abe, while we're talking fascinating turns of phrase. The gun went off? That's a funny way to put it, don't you think?'

No response.

Hardy continued. 'You're a street cop in a dark alley with one body already down. You're on foot after a fleeing suspect, the adrenaline's off the charts and you're on full alert, right? You're telling me you hear a gunshot but you're sure the gun just went off? It wasn't a shot at your own self. But you're positive! Enough that you don't shoot back. I don't think so.'

'It's a stretch,' Glitsky said.

'It's more than that, Abe.' Hardy was fiddling with the remote again. 'Now on top of that, we've got this – this is the part I really don't like.'

Cole was back up on the screen: 'I, I remember I walked over to her. She was this shape on the pavement, so I crossed over to her.'

Hardy stopped the tape, gave Glitsky his full face. 'Notice he's says "I remember". What I think is that right here suddenly Cole came back to what he really remembered. Not what Ridley Banks wanted him to say. Did you hear? He says he crossed over to her. Does that sound like something you'd say if you'd just shot somebody point blank from behind? And while we're on that, how does a drunk junkie get close enough to Elaine Wager in a dark alley to press a gun to the back of her head? If it was a street mugging, he grabs her purse and runs.'