CW: This chapter has some depictions of racism and mental health issues including a brief reference to self harm. If that's not something you can read right now, don't worry.

The following morning, Rita picked some toast from the buffet and sat down in the canteen. She did a double take when she saw a chalk outline of a body on the ground. The bad-taste prop added to her unsettled mood. A banner overheard said 'True Crime Unlimited'. The text was splattered with 'blood'. A broken wooden sign on one of the exits to the canteen said 'Free Hugs This Way' in red paint. In the corner of the room by the door was a fake skull and a fake axe with red 'stains' on it.

'What's happening, mi amor?' Alfonso said, as she was reading the news in Spanish. To Rita's shock, she had been asleep by the time he had come to bed. She had wanted to ask him about what Matteo's deal was, but hadn't been able to keep her eyes open long enough to think about how to ask.

'Seems I'll be several thousand euros worse off at the end of the year and some of us are losing our jobs. We can't go on strike, so they're taking the piss.' Along with other first responders such as firefighters and paramedics, the police in Castilla y Leon were having their pay frozen and their pensions cut. Her best friend, Jesús Dominguez, was livid. He'd even changed his profile picture on WhatsApp to a shield.

'Jesús has added us all to a WhatsApp group about these cuts and I'm going to have to mute it, there are like 700 messages since last night, most of them are just...memes from ten years ago about how everyone hates the police until they actually need them.' She forced a laugh. She saw Donna across the canteen, sitting alone, her ear pressed to her phone, and quickly looked away. Hoping to avoid being cornered again, she asked Alfonso, 'Never mind. Are you going to anything now?'

'I think so. It's 9.25. The forensics workshop starts at 9.30. Matteo was pretty keen to go,' Alfonso said. 'You're not going, are you?'

'No. I'm going to Subeera's talk. I'd like to catch up, she's only here for the day. We haven't spoken much since...they got me out of the hotel. With the news what it is, I hope she's doing all right.' Rita squeezed Alfonso's hand as she looked at the Guidebook app but the tension didn't leave her.

Something had changed between them and she didn't know if it would change back.

'Oh! I'd have liked to go. You'll have to tell me how it was. Let's go to the interactive murder mystery workshop at 12.30. That's my kind of escapism.' Alfonso looked at his phone. 'Matteo probably isn't up yet. I knocked on his door as I went down to meet you, and he didn't respond. These texts aren't being delivered either.'

'So, where is he?' Rita asked Alfonso. Erica's warning lurched back into her mind. And then there were the weird questions about Pepelito and Javier Castella. Can you shed any light on why he did it? Why did he think?

'Asleep, probably,' he said through a mouthful of toast. 'You know what they're like at that age.'

Rita took a deep breath. 'Only...someone said a weird thing to me last night. A podcaster.'

'This is the place for weird podcasters,' Alfonso laughed cautiously. 'What happened.'

'It was a young woman. She stopped me in the corridor, and told me in no uncertain terms to be careful of Matteo. Who knows if it is true, but I have to tell you. Do you know anything more about it?' Rita left out Erica's warning about apples not falling far from the tree and running away and never looking back. She hated giving such an edited version. But who knew if he would laugh or if it would hit a nerve?

She did not know what would be worse.

'Oh...people say all sorts of stuff.' Alfonso tried to laugh but he seemed agitated. Evasive. 'Maybe she mistook him for someone else.'

'She seemed sure. In my line of work, when people say certain things, you learn to pay attention.'

Alfonso's gaze softened. He looked Rita in the eyes for a lengthy moment and she felt a sense of dread at what he might say. He shifted in his seat before finally speaking. 'Well. Look. Keep this to yourself, but Matteo has had... a chequered past.'

'What sort of past?' Rita said. 'Tell me, please.'

'I...don't know, but I can guess. Basically, my brother has often - how can I put it - struggled with sobriety. Matteo has had some issues over the years, and Federico doesn't think he has been a good dad. He reckons he needs a good male role model besides him and thought I should be it.'

Rita swallowed. A chill went down her spine. What exactly had Matteo done? She wanted to believe Alfonso, but why was he being so cagey? 'I thought it was a little odd, your brother was so keen that you and I should both go.'

'I don't think there's anything...because I have a successful career as a vet, and because I'm dating a police officer, Federico thinks I can be some kind of stabilising influence. I hope so.' Alfonso sighed. 'He's not a bad kid. He's just...can we talk about this later?'

'Of course,' Rita said, a sense of dread rising inside her. She was sure he had sensed it too. 'If there is something else, you can tell me. I hope you know that.'

*

The talk was in a small meeting room down a maze of passages, near a creche and a temporary cafe. Rita's chair looked solid but it wobbled as she sat down on it. She rummaged for a napkin in her bag and stuffed it under one of the legs. more people walked in. Most of them looked like they were in their 20s, but some were older. She recognised the tall man with cropped hair and leathers from last night.

'Hey, everyone,' Subeera said cheerfully as she walked in. She wore a black hijab with white polka dots, a black top and jeans. 'Thanks for coming to my session today. I'm DI Subeera Sabbagh. I am a detective with the Metropolitan Police. Myself and my colleague DS Alex Mackie are attending today's Crime Convention as part of our public outreach initiative. I'm here for the day afterwards, so come and talk to me.'

Rita already knew that Subeera's family had come to the UK from Gaza when she was 6. She felt herself get a lump in her throat as Subeera described watching police dramas with her mum in their tiny rented flat in Edmonton, reading Agatha Christie books from the library, speaking to her uncle, a detective, over the phone and bonding with him over the cases he was working on. What kind of support had she got, Rita wondered. If it was anything like the Policia Nacional in the 2000s...

'...so, anyway. At the age of 20, I joined the police and fulfilled my lifelong dream. Some of my family were very against it because of negative experiences they'd had. Like, I honestly get it, because no matter what you do, as a Palestinian, someone is going to see you as a criminal. But in this career, even if I couldn't do anything about...back home, I could make a difference here, whether it is, say, stopping drug dealers recruiting young people into gangs, or domestic abusers...'

The tall man with cropped hair was sitting on the opposite side to Rita. His legs spread out in front of two adjacent chairs, and he was gazing around with a bored, disdainful look on his face. He made eye contact with Rita; she quickly looked away.

'...one of the highlights of my career was working with a team from across the UK, and indeed internationally, to secure convictions for multiple members of Henry Dixon's inner circle. This was the most harrowing investigation I've ever worked on, but it shows that if you commit a serious offence, no matter how rich or important you think you are, no matter how many friends in high places you have, you are not above the law.' Subeera took a breath. 'We're gonna find you.'

'But what I am most proud of was an arrest that I made many months ago. We received reports of a vehicle driving erratically. When I pulled the driver over, he told us a strange, convoluted story about visiting his mother in hospital. We took him in for driving under the influence and found high levels of benzodiazepines in his blood. But guess what? His license was fake! There was nobody by that name on our system. And then we discovered -'

Suddenly, the man with cropped hair cleared his throat and started talking. 'Subeera. If I can call you that. This is copaganda. Do you even listen to yourself? Why is someone like you bothered about a car driving erratically on a road? You're just perpetuating the same system that is oppressing your people.'

There was a shocked silence.

Rita could only imagine how Dominguez would react if he had heard this. She felt protective of Subeera, who was over a decade younger than she was, and clearly upset but fighting not to show it. 'I'm not going to respond to most of that. But long story short. We discovered he was an Israeli national, an IDF soldier wanted by the ICC. I can now say publically that this morning, after what you can imagine was a long, diplomatic struggle, we finally got him on a one-way flight to the Hague.'

The man snorted in derision. 'Ha. A convenient way to justify ruining someone's life.'

'Umm..if you think that's ruining someone's life, my gosh you've led a sheltered existence.' Subeera swallowed hard and took several deep breaths as the man continued staring at her. It was unnerving to watch. 'Nah. Not doing this. I don't have to justify myself to you.'

'Of course you won't.' The man gave an amused scoff, then got up and strolled out the door. Subeera looked shaken, and took several moments to recover her composure.

'Are you all right?' Rita asked her afterwards, when everyone else had gone. 'What a...'

'What? The 'professor'? Let's say, there's a history.' Subeera rolled her eyes. 'Trust me, this was nothing. Honestly, Rita. You should've been there when Mr IDF got his good news.'

As she spoke, there was a loud crash. The air was shattered by the sound of someone shouting and screaming in frustration, a door being kicked in rage.

'Dios mio, what was that,' Rita muttered.

'Uff. Never a dull moment, is there.'

*

Rita stepped out into the corridor. An empty hotel trolley lay on its side. Beside it, Donna hurled her phone at the wall and stamped hard on the fragments. When she turned round, her face was twisted in fury and streaked with tears, her glamorous dress changed for an old, maroon t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. 'Stupid, stupid. Why did you have to be so stupid? Now look what's fucking happened to you!'

'Donna?' Rita said cautiously, instinctively feeling for a weapon that wasn't there as she and Subeera approached the distressed woman. More people were starting to gather around. She remembered what Erica had said last night about Donna's mental health, regretted giving such a flippant response. Her arms were full of old scars.

'What happened?'

'I told you! I fucking told you, didn't I? You didn't listen to me. Everyone thinks I'm fucking crazy and you believed them instead of me! You think you're so fucking clever! Now you've gone and left me alone!' Donna kicked the wall hard, then slumped to the floor, sobbing. There was a small streak of blood on her arm and a dark stain on her top.

'What's going on? Have you hurt yourself?' Rita crouched beside Donna and laid a hand gently on her shoulder, but she didn't react at all. It was hard to know whether the other woman was 'just' having a crisis or if something else lay behind this. The more Donna spoke the more apprehensive Rita felt, dread seeping through her chest. 'We are getting you an ambulance. Should we contact anyone else?'

'No! I haven't hurt myself, I'm not mental!' Donna snapped, shoving her in the ribs with shocking ferocity. 'It's not me who needs an ambulance - I'm fine! Don't say I'm fucking mental because I'm not!'

Rita pulled herself upright and tried to regain her breath, while Donna jabbed a thumb towards the ceiling, sucked in a deep, wheezing gasp.

'It's Erica. She's in Room 407. She's not moving. Oh, God, I can't wake her up. Oh, God.'