Chapter 18 Chapter Seventeen

Whenever Jackson went out, Aclan liked to be with her. As for why, Aclan felt that there was no need to explain.Jones released him (on bail this time) on the condition that he live in Bell's Bar and be available for arraignment at all times.There seems to be a radar hidden in his body, no matter what the doctor does, he can know it accurately.When she's at the bar, whether it's in the front or the back kitchen, he's in his room, but every time she walks to her car, day or night, she finds him standing in her car beside.If it was a visit to a patient's home, he stayed out on the sidewalk, and if there was nothing inappropriate about walking with her, he would.

Daisy had begun to find his attention on her partner unacceptable.She said he acted as if to hold Jackson accountable for his bail conditions. "It's not your job to make sure he behaves," she said angrily. "Tell him to stop being so boring and start a new life without bothering you." "I'm glad he's with me," Jackson said nonchalantly. "He's not in my way." Daisy was even more upset, "You two act as if I don't exist!" Ackland is well aware of the tension he's creating, seeing Jackson coming around the corner as he walks away from the BMW: she's walking and flicking on her phone as usual, but he's beginning to understand that she's doing it because Just to avoid eye contact with passers-by.

His cynical side acknowledges her right to choose her appearance.Yes, she's tall, but there's no law forcing her to emulate Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude Van Damme, the so-called "muscle from Brussels."On the occasional few occasions when he was alone with Daisy—which he tried to avoid—he asked her if Jackson had ever competed in a female bodybuilding competition.Daisy's answer was embarrassing, "Don't be an idiot! Haven't you seen pictures of them online? They're romping in bikinis, wearing artificial tans, and their breasts are stuffed with silicone. You Ever seen Jackson do that?"

He hasn't seen it.Jackson is too unique, she can not be changed to please the public aesthetic. As she approached him, he tried to imagine her in an orange three-point swimsuit, but it wasn't an image that easily jumped into the imagination. "How's your luck?" he asked. "Not much. He partly admits that what he told the police was bullshit, but that's only because I pointed out some holes in his story, and in half an hour I'll be able to tell the truth from him, but it's in the heat of the moment His mother is back." "What flaw?" "Time. If he was sick when he got the phone, as he said, it must have happened recently, but he told police he stole it from a dark-haired man two to four weeks ago. Here." She smiled slightly, "Or a tall woman. He used diabetes as an excuse, saying that he was in a daze and couldn't remember clearly."

"Did he mention me?" "No." Jackson was surprised to see his shoulders relax slightly. "Did you expect him to mention you?" "He probably remembered me in the alley." "His job is not to remember," she scoffed. "The worse the memory, the fewer questions you have to answer." "What are you going to tell the Sheriff?" "I don't know. I'm in a bind right now. I made a promise that I don't want to break...but I think he's lying shamelessly." She grimaced wryly, "I want to convince him to come clean Admit it, but I don't see him doing it...especially not with his mother around."

"Can't you suggest that Jones interrogate him again? That wouldn't be a breach of confidentiality, would it?" "Yes," Jackson agreed, putting the phone back in his pocket, "but it would be a waste of time if Mrs Sykes was sitting by. Ben would just stick with his old story, or make up a new one. Pretty fast." "Did he say whether he still had a duffel bag?" "No...he denies having such a thing...along with the Rondis bag. He says he only has a rucksack." She shook her head. Gone because he knew what was in there. I'm pretty sure he'd actually known Ben for a long time and just wouldn't admit it."

Aklan looked past her at the river in the distance, "I'm curious about what's inside." Jackson inspected his stiff jaw, "Who knows?" She paused, "If this worried you, Ben wouldn't have told the police ... He couldn't, if he kept telling them that he I don't know." He met her gaze. "Why should I worry? That bag has nothing to do with me." She shrugged and opened the cab door, "Okay. Let's go find Jock then, what do you think? He seems to be evading the police, but he might be willing to talk to us and we could kill a few hours. There's a rescue center in Crane. The people there might be able to tell us where these lesbian friends of his stay."

"Of course," Akram said lightly, and opened the door of the passenger cab, "I have no objection." Jackson saw him sitting in the passenger seat, clenching his fists.So why don't I trust you?thought Jackson. A volunteer at the rescue center not only knew where the women were, but also Jock.When Jackson asked if she had seen him recently, she shook her head. "The police have been here asking the same question," she said, "but he hasn't been in weeks. He just shows up occasionally." "What else do you know about him? His real name? Where does he hang out?"

The woman shook her head again. "I'm sorry. All I know is that he fought in the Falklands War. I've been told he has a bad temper when drunk - some guests are wary of him - but we're on a strict alcohol-free policy, so I haven't seen him drunk yet." She told them how to find the empty house that the group of women squatted. "I'm afraid it's a waste of time," she warned. "The police have talked to them, and they haven't seen him." She couldn't hide her curiosity. , "What makes Jock so popular all of a sudden?" "He helped a boy who was in a diabetic coma," Jackson made up a lie. "We thought he might want to know how the boy was doing. They seemed to have known each other for a long time."

The woman nodded, "The only ones talking to him here are young people. They don't seem to be as afraid of him as the older people." Aklan raised his head, "What do those young people want from him?" She looked surprised, as if she didn't quite understand the question. "I wonder if they thought his story about the Falkland Islands was interesting." Akram looked skeptical, but did not continue. Jackson picks up the woman's lead, "Do they always talk about this when they're together?" "That's the only subject he's ever said to me," she shrugged, "but we only listen to private conversations when we're invited, and I don't remember Jock ever doing that." She smiled slightly, "I'm afraid he has a lot of mistrust of us, which is why we rarely see him."

"What does he think you'll do?" Jackson asked. "Forcibly let him join the team of God's messengers," the woman said with a disapproving smile, "tied his hands behind his back, prevented him from drinking... tied him to a two-hour bath, and forcibly shaved off his hair and hair." Beards. Most older people think our motive behind the scenes is to wake them up and send them out to get jobs." Jackson was amused, "Aren't you?" The woman grinned wider, "We often have such dreams." On a back street planned for reconstruction, they found the abandoned house occupied by the group of women.It was a row house built in the 1960s, and they lived in the middle of nine units. The windows were all boarded up, and the paint on the door looked blistered.If it had been Aklan alone, they would never have let him in, but Jackson passed easily, not least because she held up "doctor on call" when they examined her through the diamond-shaped cracked pane of the door Card foresight. The door only opens 6 inches. "Who are you? What do you want to do?" A thin-faced, gray-haired woman asked.It's hard to tell how old this woman is from the way she looks, it could be 40 or 60. "I'm Dr. Jackson, and this is my friend Charles Ackland. We're looking for a man named Jock." "The police have been there. We've had the place for months and haven't seen him again." "I've heard that too," Jackson said, "but we'd still like to know if you have any information about him. Would you give us ten minutes... tell us what you know... where he might be going? We Need to find him and talk to him about a friend of his who is in the hospital." "Jock doesn't have any friends," said the woman contemptuously. "Everybody's going to disappoint him in the end. He turns into a wicked bastard when he's drunk." "This friend is a boy named Ben Russell." "What's up with him?" "He went into a diabetic coma a few days ago," Jackson said. "He's recovering. Maybe you know him? Ginger-haired, 16, as thin as a bamboo stick." "do not know." "We thought Jock might have something of him." "It doesn't surprise me at all. He's always going to steal some spirits or something when he's with us." She seemed to think this contradicted her previous statement that Jock had no friends. "We're in the same situation, he Do us a little favor every now and then... drive us away from those who think we're easy to bully. Are you really a doctor?" Jackson nodded. There was a gleam of interest on her thin face, "Can you see my partner? She's been having pain in her chest for days. I'm scared to death, but she won't go to the doctor. I'll let her Tell you the truth about Jock in exchange. She knows more than I do." "Of course," Jackson said cheerfully, pointing to Ackland, "but my friend has to come in with me, okay?" The woman glanced at Acklan, "As long as he doesn't get scared by loud lesbians. There are a few crazy people here who scream like crazy when they see a man. They won't worry about a sexy gay like you , but they might go mad at the sight of this pirate." "He's a soldier," Jackson said matter-of-factly. "He's dealt with worse in Iraq." She pulled the keys out of her pocket. "What's your name?" "Avril." "Where's your partner?" "Maggs." "Okay, Avril. My car is parked over there on the road. I need five minutes to get the medical kit." Avril opened the door. "Let your friend get it," she invited. "I'll have someone open the door when he comes back. You can talk to Mags about Jock while he's away." Jackson laughed. "No. He doesn't know what medicine to take... If he's alone, he might be persuaded by one of your crazy girlfriends to pass them the box while he stays outside." Avril immediately got angry, "None of us are thieves." "Well, the Lieutenant is here to protect me since the strongest drug I brought was aspirin. Are you still saying your partner has chest pains?" "You say I'm a liar?" "Just to make sure," Jackson said lightly. As soon as Jackson and Aklan entered the house, they found Avril Lavigne's so-called honesty was highly suspicious. They glanced at the downstairs room at random. They saw these women as if they had hijacked an IKEA van, full of wicker chairs, straw mats and terracotta It would look like a normal house if it weren't for the hurricane lamps and candles that were lit because of the power outage and the battened windows. "Everything is made in China," Marceline preempted them, "so it's very cheap. A buddy got it for us." Holding a flashlight, she headed for the stairs, "My partner is upstairs , but I kept the other three in the kitchen. Those two schizophrenics are probably more afraid of the doctor than the man." She took them upstairs and opened the door to one of the bedrooms. "Maggs doesn't like it when men wink at her," she said to Jackson, turning her head to Ackland. "He'll have to wait outside." Over Avril Lavigne's head, Akram caught a glimpse of an overweight woman, sitting on a low chair, her puffy calves jutting out, her face the color of lard even in candlelight.Her wide-open eyes and anxious expression when confronted with someone showed that she knew she was going to be told something she didn't want to hear.From Akram's unprofessional eyes, death was already knocking at the door, and he instinctively stepped back, leaning against the corridor wall. "Call me if you need me," he told Jackson. "I'm right here." She nodded and walked into the room.After the door closed, the hallway was plunged into darkness except for a faint candlelight coming through the stairwell.For the first minute or so, Akram could only hear a continuous indistinct murmur from the room behind him, and as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, his ears began to adjust to the low-level noise in the other rooms.He could hear the buzzing of conversations in the kitchen—one was louder and grumpier than the others—but he couldn't make out what they were really saying.What was even more unexpected was that there was a fricative sound that was swallowed back from the room directly opposite him. He wondered if it was an illusion caused by tinnitus. He turned his head and listened with his good ear. Hold that smoker's cough until the desperate need to clear this mouthful of phlegm causes an uncontrollable spasm in the throat.There was nothing to indicate the man's sex—the raspy fricative was an atonal, guttural voice—but since there wasn't a gleam of light peeking through the crack of the door, Akram thought it impossible for a woman to sit like this in total darkness, As if afraid of attracting attention.He instinctively judged that it was a man.He folded his arms across his chest and continued to wait. When they got back to the car, Jackson shook his head in annoyance, "Maggs won't tell me anything about Jock, and she doesn't like to hear when I say she needs to exercise and lose weight. Her heart is as strong as a cow, The only problem is she's so fat. Avril wants her to stay that way." "I see she is very ill." "If you never saw the sun and your partner kept stuffing you with hamburgers and fries, wouldn't you be like that?" Jackson retorted dryly. "That's a very unhealthy relationship. Avril thinks Let this silly woman depend on her forever." "why?" "God knows. Partnership...self-esteem...misplaced motherhood. The best thing Mags can do now is to go out and go back to where he came from." Jackson pressed the remote control button angrily, "Avril is A typical control freak. She manipulates you by giving you what you want. It's like Ben's mother, that's how she manipulates." "So, you don't like Avril?" Jackson snorted absurdly, opened the trunk, and put the medical kit in, "I don't believe her at all. What about you?" "Same," Ackland said with a hint of sarcasm, "but I don't know women at all." He opened the car door for Jackson, stood back, and beckoned her to get in. Jackson frowned derisively, "You especially don't know this one. Do I look like a woman who can't open a car door for herself?" Aklan immediately took a few steps back, "I'm sorry, it's just a matter of habit." "The last person who insisted on me as a piece of Dresden china was my grandfather," Jackson said lazily, taking off his coat and throwing it on the backseat. "I was taller than him when I was 16, but he Decision made me understand what it was like to be treated like a lady, if only once in my life. He made a fuss and ceremoniously helped me climb into his battered Peugeot." "Sorry." With one foot on the door sill and one arm resting on the top of the door, "he told me lesbians have miserable lives, especially masculine lesbians, people pointing at them behind their backs, Laugh at them." "Has he admitted to being wrong now?" he asked cautiously. "I hope so. He died a few years later. That's one of the reasons I studied medicine. He was completely curable, but because his family doctor was an idiot and there was a long waiting list, So it wasn't diagnosed in time. He had colon cancer. By the time the poor old man was referred to a specialist, it was too late." "Really sorry." "Yes." She bent down to get into the car and sat down, "He is definitely a good man." She started the engine and waved to Aklan, "Aren't you coming up?" Aklan shook his head, "I will go back by myself." Jackson stared at him, "Is there any special reason why you don't want to go back with me all of a sudden?" "I can work out." She smiled slightly, "Lieutenant, you shouldn't have your eyes seen when you lie. Your eyes are much more expressive than you think." But whatever his intentions, she didn't try to convince him.Nodding briefly, she closed the car door and put it in gear. As Jackson drove away, he saw in the rearview mirror Acland crossing the sidewalk toward the house where the lesbians lived.