As much as I tried to ignore them, Frank's words replayed on a running loop inside my head as I made my way back up the narrow street. He'd been toying with me, hoping I'd be desperate enough by this point in my case to set him free for any scrap of information he might have had to offer. As desperate as I was to get this case done, I wasn't grasping as so many straws that I'd risk letting a Whisperer free on the surface; the carnage would be unimaginable and the repercussions way too high. No, there was no way I'd ever be that desperate.

Still, I did have to wonder, was there any shred of truth in what he'd said? Any at all? So the words ran around in my head and I walked while I over-analysed every syllable, all to no avail. The only good thing that came from my overworked mind was I became distracted enough to find the street that led to Jesse's house without much in the way of searching.

Knowing where I had headed wrong the first time did make it that much easier to find my way, but over thinking on Frank's words, rather than on the worry of getting lost, helped that much more, and I soon found myself picking my way through the overgrown garden towards Jesse's front door. There was a light on in the hallway so I was hopeful that he would still be up. I knocked and waited.

Some time passed as I shivered on the doorstep, so I raised my fist to knock again; perhaps he was asleep after all. Trouble was, I didn't actually have anywhere else to go, not to mention I didn't feel safe with Frank still roaming around out there in the dark, I would just have to wake him. I knocked a second time, the banging of my knuckles on the wood sounded obscenely loud in the pitch darkness and I was quietly grateful for Jesse having no immediate neighbours.

A scuffling noise came from behind the door before it opened just a crack, and Jesse's figure appeared from behind it. The dim light that came from the hallway haloed around him and cast his features into shadow, but even obscured by darkness what I could make out of him looked distinctly rumpled and dishevelled. Yeah, pretty sure he had been asleep.

He blinked at me a couple of times, pulling the door open wider so that the light filtered around him and revealed his face a little better. Large bags shaded his dark eyes, which looked distinctly red-rimmed. His hair was even more of a mess than usual and his face looked drawn and pale; though he was still dressed in his shirt and jeans – maybe he hadn't been sleeping, most people didn't sleep in jeans.

A deep frown furrowed his brow as he took in my form standing, unexpectedly, on his doorstep. “Heather? Uh, what are you doing here? I thought you went back to the pub,” he said in a gravelly tone.

“I did. I'm sorry, did I wake you up?” I asked, diverting attention away from myself for a moment. I still wasn't sure what excuse I was going to give Jesse for my showing up on his doorstep at such an hour of the night.

While I could usually fabricate a story at the drop of a hat, my cover was so dependent on it, I'd been too distracted during my walk here to come up with an excuse to explain away what had happened with Frances and Frank back at the pub.

Heather was proving to be one of the most one dimensional persona's I'd ever come up with and I found I was pouring more and more of myself - my real self – into her all the time, but there was only so much of me that I could let slip through the cracks. So what would Heather have done to land herself in this sort of situation? Being myself this time just wasn't going to work but I'd lost touch with this identity some time ago, feeling a desperate need to just be Rayne again for a little while. The truth was rarely an option and it certainly wasn't this time, at least not the whole truth.

“Well, kind of,” he said, “I crashed out on the sofa a little while after you left. Got a phone call that dragged me through the ringer a bit and I just suddenly felt too knackered to do anything but lie down...”

Jesse seemed to realise he was on the verge of rambling and stopped without any further explanation and turned back to his original question. “So, did you forget something or...” Again he trailed off before finishing his thought and merely shrugged at me.

“No. No I didn't forget anything. I just... uh... well, okay to cut a long story really short Frances sacked me and kicked me out.” Start with the basics, that was probably the best way to go; I'd just have to be sure to leave out the more incriminating details.

“Look, I'm really sorry that I woke you up. I probably shouldn't have come back here, but I suddenly realised after she'd asked me to leave that I didn't know where else to go. You're the only other person I kind of know in the village, and you were really the only person I could think of. I know it's a really massive intrusion, but do you mind if I crash here for the night?”

He'd rambled, I'd rambled, if we both kept on like that we'd have a very long and wordy night, with neither of us actually saying very much at all.

“Ah, I guess so,” he said, eventually. It had taken some time for my garbled little speech to filter through to his sleepy brain. He seemed to have got at least the gist of what I'd said though, as he stepped aside and allowed me in through the front door he added, “Frances kicked you out? Why? What the hell for?”

Not waiting for an answer, Jesse walked down the hall towards the living room and I followed without waiting to be asked – well I wasn't about to stand around talking to an empty corridor now was I.

“Yeah, she kicked me out.” I frowned, he wanted more information than that. I used the moment or two that I took me to walk down the hall and into the living room to consider my options.

It occurred to me that come the following day, probably by lunchtime at the latest, that the story of what had happened between me and Frank in the bar would be all around the tiny village. Frances struck me as a gossip, and one to hold a grudge, she'd want everyone around to know exactly why I was no longer working for her and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she decided to embellish on the details a bit too. I couldn't have Jesse hear a story from an outsider that was too drastically different from what I told him myself, I'd have to tell him the big picture and just be sure to skim off the finer details.

“I had a little altercation with Frank, y'know, the stinking drunk that's always at the bar?” Jesse nodded his recognition of that man that I was referring to, so I continued, “yeah, well he was lurking around after closing, refused to leave and he...well he got a bit weird.” I shuddered a little, more for show than anything else. “That guy gives me the creeps and I just, kind of, flipped. I yelled at him to leave a few times and he attacked me.” I'd carefully left out the part about the knife, thought it was probably for the best.

“So, anyway, Frances heard the commotion, even from upstairs. We'd fallen onto one of the tables and it collapsed, a lot of crashing and shouting, I suppose it wasn't exactly surprising that she heard us. Well, she jumped to conclusions and, of course, she wasn't about to bar Frank, he spends way too much money in her pub. So, new girl in the village and all I get my marching orders.” I shrugged and sank down onto the sofa with a sigh.

“Bitch!” Jesse exclaimed and I frowned, for a moment I thought he was talking about me, but he continued, “I always knew she was only out for herself, but seriously? Frank has always been an odd one, though the last couple of nights I've seen him I swear there's been something even more off about him, even gave me the creeps. Still, never would have expected him to do something like that, he usually only ever worried about his beer. Something must have snapped.”

That was an understatement, but I wasn't really Frank's fault I supposed, he couldn't help being possessed. Jesse flopped down on the sofa beside me and thoughtfully scratched his brow. I pictured him running it all over in his mind, seeing me as the innocent victim in it all, just as I wanted him to. So why did a small part of me feel kind of bad for omitting some of the key details from him?

Jesse let out a long sigh, the breath gushing through his teeth and making a whistling noise that rang in my ears as I stifled a cringe. “Still though,” he went on, “I never would have thought Frances would jump to that conclusion, she might be a little profit hungry, but she's a smart woman.”

He shook his head in disbelief at my situation. If he'd know the full truth, the story might have been rather different, so he could never know, not any of it. Jesse could never see me for what I really was, my whole existence depended on no one ever knowing the truth, of never growing too close to anyone, and for the first time in close to a century I found this fact rather depressing.

“I think I was outstaying my welcome at the pub. She liked having me there to work all hours of the day and night, but when I actually wanted to have a life of my own I wasn't quite so convenient any more. I think she'd been looking for an excuse to try and get rid of me, and Frank gave her the perfect one.” I let out another sigh, I was doing that a lot that night, and dragged my fingers through my dark hair in a display of frustration. “My life is so fucked up.”

“What? After that? Please, Heather, it'll take way more than that to fuck your life up. This is just a minor blip in the road, you're tough, you'll get over it,” Jesse said, encouragingly, if a little awkward in his elocution as if he had wanted to say something more. And then, after a moment of silence while I wondered how he'd come to the conclusion that I was tough, he decided that he would indeed say more. “My life, however, now that is truly fucked up!”

“Hmph.” I snorted. “Really, 'cause from where I'm sitting you look a whole lot better off than me. Somewhere to live, a job to pay the bills....do I even need to go on?”

“Material things.” He waved a hand dismissively at my words and I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, maybe, and correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't shelter one of the key things that a person needs in order to survive? And food, of course. So tell me, how do I go about getting food these days without money to buy it with?”

“Yeah, okay, you've made your point. In that sense then yes, I am much better off than you. But it's not that simple, look below the surface and everything isn't nearly so rosy.”

I frowned at him, but a vague spark of hope ignited in my chest; he was talking about his family issues, or at least hinting at them. If I could only get him to hint a little bit more.

“You mean what's happened with your sister, don't you?” I asked, carefully. I was almost afraid to poke the subject in case he shut me down again, but I couldn't ignore it. I was down to my last opportunity to get this case completed.

Jesse looked at me, caught my eye for the slightest of moments, and then looked away again before he spoke; it was as if he couldn't bear to hold my gaze while he talked of it, almost as if he were ashamed. What the hell had happened that was so bad? My mind was racing through all the possibilities, but nothing I came up with was close enough to match that haunted and lost look he had in his eyes. Jesse blamed himself for whatever this terrible thing was – but was it deserved shame or not?

When he finally spoke though, I felt even less enlightened.

“Yeah. I should have been there for her. I always looked out for her, promised my parents that I would protect her. And then the one time she actually needs me I'm half a fucking country away.”

His voice cracked, pulled tight with emotion, and a sheen of tears glimmered in his eyes – though they never fell. But I still didn't get it, what was the big problem that created all of this guilt and shame? It was hardly his fault that she had moved away. Besides, hadn't he said that she was married now? Wasn't it also her husband's job to protect her? Or was that another part of the problem?

Though I knew I'd never know the facts for sure unless he actually spilled his guts to me, it was a pretty easy conclusion to jump to. Though I knew never to just assume; couldn't say anything, not until he actually said the words.

“I'm sorry, I know you're not comfortable talking about this, but I don't really understand still. What do you mean? What exactly happened?”

“She's dead!” Jesse burst out.

The words weren't in the least bit shocking, they were exactly what I had been expecting given the man's obvious grief; though it still didn't explain away the guilt and the shame, was that just a human thing I could never hope to understand?

“It was my mother who called me, just after you'd gone. She was frantic. Been trying to ring me for hours apparently,” he went on, taking the long way round to get out what he wanted to say as if he didn't really want to hear the words spoke aloud. “They got the verdict from the inquest into her they, they think she was murdered. Some cold, unfeeling bastard killed me little sister and couldn't do shit about it.”

He stood up and started to pace the room. A nervous energy bubbled beneath his skin and I worried that he might start to punch walls or smash things. But even as he raged, quietly angry at himself – probably at the whole world – I couldn't help but feel a growing sense of happiness. A warm, fuzzy glow spread from somewhere in my gut until I could feel it tingling in the tips of my fingers.

This was progress. After too many weeks I was finally making some genuine, tangible progress. I could just see the case finally unfolding in front of me; an act of vengeance would be the perfect catalyst for the corruption of his soul. I just couldn't let Jesse see the glee in my eyes, that would ruin everything.

“I'm really, really sorry,” I said, hoping I was stood good enough an actor to convey the empathy I as trying to feel through my words. “I can't imagine how you must be feeling.”

He offered me a small, sad smile and came to sit back down beside me, closer this time so that I could physically feel him trying to keep calm through the line where our arms touched.

“So, what happens now?” I asked.

I knew that once an inquest had determined a murder that a criminal investigation would begin, but what more information did Jesse already have?

“Do the police have any suspects yet?”

“Not that I know of. Couldn't really get a whole lot else out of my mother on the phone. We all thought it was an accident, never imagine we'd get news like this.”

Jesse slumped lower on the sofa, his rage seemed to have dissipated and he started to fall down into a dark, melancholy place on the brink of depression. I couldn't let him slip into that dark hole, not yet, he would hardly be primed to kill in a vengeful fury if he feel into that pit. Anger was a much more useful emotion. Though all that aside, hearing that the police didn't appear to have any suspects wasn't exactly encouraging.

“So, no clue about what happened at all, not even an inkling?” I asked. I was probably pushing my luck with the questions, but I wasn't about to give up, not now.

“No, nothing.” He frowned at me. I knew I was acting just a little too interested, but now that he was finally talking he didn't seem quite so reluctant to continue. “I didn't know any of her friends, only her husband, and don't even really know much of the details to be honest, besides what my parents wanted to tell me. So no, not a fucking clue.”

“Is her husband a suspect?” I ventured to ask, “I mean, aren't all spouses usually the first person they suspect in cases like this?”

Jesse frowned at me again, but something flickered behind his eyes as he considered my words. It was as if that idea had never occurred to him before, but it was something to think on – a promising sign? I hoped like hell that it was.

He didn't say a word in response to my query, but I could almost hear the wheels turning inside of his head as he processed those thoughts.

“So,” I said, to break the silence more than anything else, “do you know when the funeral is going to be held?”

“Next Monday,” he said, simply. “I'm travelling up there this weekend.”

“Right,” I muttered. I had to get in on that funeral party somehow. Perhaps it was time to try a little aura manipulation again.