The cafe was small and warm and smelled like cinnamon, which felt wrong for the kind of conversation Elara had come to have.
Dr. Lena Marsh was younger than Elara expected — early thirties, natural hair pulled back, the kind of careful stillness that came from years of managing crisis in controlled environments. She had a coffee in front of her she wasn't drinking and her hands were flat on the table, which Elara had learned to read as someone trying to project calm they didn't quite feel.
"Thank you for coming," Marsh said.
"You said I didn't have the full picture." Elara sat down. "So give it to me."
Marsh looked at her for a moment — assessing, deciding. Then she nodded.
"The night of the accident, I was beginning my shift at eleven p.m. Standard handover. Fifteen minutes in, the paramedics called ahead — incoming trauma, male, head injury, critical. We prepped." She paused. "The patient arrived at eleven twenty-two. Mr. Reid. He was unconscious, stable but serious." She looked at her coffee. "What was not standard was what happened in the twenty minutes before he arrived."
Elara waited.
"At eleven-oh-four — eighteen minutes before the ambulance — a man came through our emergency entrance. Not a patient. Not family. He spoke to the charge nurse on duty, Brendan Cole, for approximately four minutes. I saw them but didn't think anything of it at the time. We get walk-ins asking about incoming patients, especially in high-profile cases where news travels fast." She looked up. "What I noticed later — much later, when I started paying attention — was that after that conversation, Cole's behaviour changed."
"Changed how?" Elara asked.
"He was the one who recommended Victoria Ashford be allowed in outside visiting hours. He was the one who made the note in the system describing you as a distressing presence. He was the one who arranged that your access requests were reviewed slowly — slow enough that by the time they were approved, the critical early conversations had already happened."
"Cole was the paid staff member," Elara said.
"Yes. I confirmed that last week when your case went public and I started doing my own digging." Marsh folded her hands. "But here's what I'm telling you that isn't in any file, Ms. Voss. The man who came in and spoke to Cole at eleven-oh-four — eighteen minutes before the ambulance — I know who he was."
"You recognised him?"
"Not at the time. But I have an excellent visual memory. When Marcus Webb's face appeared in the news coverage yesterday, I recognised him immediately." She held Elara's gaze. "Marcus Webb was at Harmon Medical before the ambulance carrying Callum Reid arrived."
The café was very warm.
"Which means," Elara said carefully, "that Marcus knew exactly when and where the accident would happen."
"At minimum. Yes." Marsh paused. "And Ms. Voss — he was not panicked. He was not distressed. He came in, had his conversation, and left. The way a man leaves when he's confirmed that something is going according to plan."
— ✶ —
Elara called Garrett from the car.
"I need you to find out where Marcus Webb was at eleven p.m. on the night of the accident," she said. "CCTV, phone data, anything."
"Already working on it," Garrett said. "I had the same thought when I saw the hospital admission timestamps last night." A pause. "There's something else. The shell company Victoria used for the payments — I traced another transaction. Smaller. Made two weeks before the accident." He paused. "To a locksmith in Aldgate."
Elara frowned. "A locksmith?"
"A locksmith who, according to his business records, did a job in the week before the accident for a client in the Aldgate area." Garrett's voice was careful. "A job that involved access to a private car park. One with CCTV that happened to malfunction the same week."
"The CCTV in the area was deliberately killed," Elara said.
"It looks that way."
"They planned every detail," she said. "Months in advance."
"At least six," Garrett said. "This wasn't impulsive, Ms. Voss. This was a project."
She sat in the car and looked at the street outside the café window.
"How are you holding up?" Garrett asked, which surprised her — it was the first personal thing he'd ever said.
"I'm fine," she said.
"You've been fine for two years," he said. "You're allowed to be something else occasionally."
She almost laughed. Almost.
She was driving home when her hands-free rang.
Not Callum. Not Mara. Not Nathan.
Victoria Ashford.
Elara's grip tightened on the wheel. She pulled over. She answered.
"I'm going to give you one opportunity," Victoria said. Her voice was the same as always — smooth, composed, calibrated. "Drop it. All of it. Walk away from the case, withdraw your cooperation with the police, tell them you've reconsidered. Do that, and I will make sure certain information — information that would be deeply painful for you — never reaches the press."
Elara said nothing.
"I know about the pregnancy," Victoria said. "I know about the loss. I know the dates, I know the hospital, I know all of it." A pause. "It would be a terrible shame for that to become a public story. For Callum to read about it in a newspaper rather than hear it from you."
The street outside was very quiet.
"Victoria," Elara said.
"Yes?"
"Record everything you've just said and send it to my attorney."
A silence.
"Because you just added witness intimidation and blackmail to your charge sheet." Elara's voice was completely even. "Thank you. Have a good evening."
She hung up.
She sat in the parked car for three minutes.
Then she called Callum.
"She knows about the pregnancy," she said, when he answered. "And she's going to use it."
A long silence.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
She pressed her lips together. "No," she said. "Not really."
It was the first honest answer she'd given anyone in weeks.