“You’re a dick,” Ren scowled as Gabriel walked up to him holding a coffee. The interview had finished around an hour ago but Ren had still been made to stick around and fill in various bits of paperwork. Aurora was waiting on one of the blue plastic chairs, her phone out and a half eaten Mars bar from the vending machine sat on her lap.

“Yeah,” Gabriel nodded, looking unaffected but slightly weary. “Look are you sure Professor Möller didn’t say anything else to you? You seemed like you held back in there.”

“Well maybe I figured you didn’t want your partner knowing only seconds before I ran into Möller, you had your tongue down my throat,” Ren snapped back. He felt his blood boil further as Gabriel’s amused grin returned.

“Oh, that omission was for my sake was it?” Gabriel snorted.

“Maybe they should be questioning you too?” Ren huffed, “You were only round the corner.”

“Maybe,” Gabriel nodded thoughtfully, a contemplative expression on his face. “Maybe I was so frustrated my first intended victim got away that I simply chose the next guy I came across.”

“You’ve got a pretty sick sense of humour for a police inspector,” Ren grimaced, “a man was killed.”

“Relax kid,” Gabriel sighed, looking tired again, “men get killed every day in this job. Besides, my partner’s aware of where I was on Saturday. As soon as we found out the movements of the vic I let him know.”

“Did you…” Ren trailed off awkwardly, a flush threatening his cheeks.

“Did I tell him who I was with?” Gabriel arched an eyebrow, “Nah, didn’t figure it was relevant enough, there’s plenty of other witnesses that can vouch for your whereabouts, there were enough eyes on you that night.”

Gabriel dug into his pocket and drew out his wallet before handing Ren a contact card. “Look, just if you do remember something, give me a call okay?”

“I was pretty drunk,” Ren shrugged, “but sure.” He reached out to take the card and shoved it in his backpack next to the document folder.

“Is your friend going to take you home?” Gabriel nodded in Aurora’s direction. She was still engrossed with reading something on her phone and hadn’t noticed their conversation. “Otherwise I’m sure I can get a car for-“

“I’m fine,” Ren interrupted curtly. “I get myself home every day just fine like a real grown up.”

Gabriel huffed and threw up his hand that wasn’t holding the coffee, “it’s just standard procedure to offer after something traumatic has happened okay?”

Ren nodded and chewed his lip, he wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of the station as far away from Gabriel as possible and deliver the folder to Jabari. The trouble was, how on Earth was he going to get a hold of his professor if classes were cancelled?

“Do you know when the Institute will reopen?” Ren asked, shuffling on his feet. His sneakers were an old, ratty pair that were starting to disintegrate at the soles.

“Keen student huh?” Gabriel asked with a smirk. “Probably tomorrow.”

“Right,” Ren nodded, “so I can go now then?”

“Well you’re not under arrest,” Gabriel replied, cracking his neck from side to side and massaging his right shoulder with a wince. Ren guessed the other man hadn’t slept much last night.

“Hey kid,” Gabriel called out as Ren began to walk away and get Aurora’s attention.

“What?” Ren asked grumpily, turning back round.

“You sure about that translation you gave us?” Gabriel frowned, lifting his cup up to swallow the last dregs of his coffee before scrunching up the cup and tossing it in the trash. Ren hated the way he tracked the movements of Gabriel’s throat. Sure, the other guy may still be hot but he was also an arrogant jerk.

“If you doubt me just Google it,” Ren shrugged. “Why? Is it relevant somehow?”

“It talked about the heart,” Gabriel murmured, stuffing his hands into his pockets, moving to go back into the main area of the station before he paused. “That’s one of the organs they took.”

***

Ren let out a massive groan of relief as he closed the apartment door behind him. He was utterly thankful that he lived alone. It wasn’t usual for students to get their own place but he had found this attic studio on Doughty Street at a good price and it just made all the transitioning side of his life easier if it was done in private.

Ren walked over to the deep blue sofa and chucked his backpack on it before clawing at his T-shirt, the entire back of which was drenched in sweat.

He drew the blinds before walking into the bathroom and hitting the shower. The water was too hot at first, making him hiss and draw back before fiddling with the knobs. Ren closed his eyes and tilted his head back so the water hit his face like cooling, cleansing rain.

He stayed this way for a while before taking the time to wash himself thoroughly and then towel himself off. The towel was rough and scratchy despite it only having been purchased last month. All the towels back home had been so soft, it was something in the way his mama dried them. No matter what Ren did they ended up stiff as a board. He changed into pajamas before sagging down next to the backpack, eyeing it like a bomb.

“Fuck,” Ren sighed, reaching out to rifle through the contents and pulling out the mysterious folder. He began twisting absently at the white string holding it together but it was no good, he would need scissors to cut through the knot that Möller had evidently tied. That somehow felt too much of a commitment to looking into something that wasn’t even meant for Ren. He huffed again and threw the folder down before sinking forwards to rest his head in his hands.

Why the hell had he lied to the police? Why hadn’t he told them about the folder? Surely Jabari was going to think him insane if he turned up to his office tomorrow and tried to explain?

“Fuck,” Ren repeated, noticing that Gabriel’s contact card had come out with the folder and was now lying on the floor.

“Inspector Malzieu,” Ren read woodenly. “Why the fuck should I trust you either?”

Ren let out an annoyed sound before reaching back for the folder and snagging his apartment keys from the table, using the jagged edge to saw through the thread. It fell away as he lifted up the card flap and frowned at the contents.

It appeared to be a manuscript, original if Ren was assessing it correctly. It was written in German but for some reason the chapter titles were in Italian and there were handwritten notes across nearly every page, crossing certain words out and replacing them with Italian ones.

“It must be a German translation of an Italian original,” Ren murmured, gasping as he finally found a date in the top left hand corner – 1562.

“Fuck I should be wearing gloves,” Ren groaned, realizing his fingertips were still slightly damp from the shower. He couldn’t understand why Professor Möller would be so desperate that a German 16th century manuscript made its way to Jabari? Maybe he needed help with some of the Italian parts of it or perhaps it was key to some joint research they had been doing?

Ren moved over to the breakfast table, his curiosity getting the better of him. He picked up his phone and carefully took a photo of each page, having retrieved some tongs to turn between them. He realised after handing the manuscript over to Jabari that he might not get another chance to look at it. Some of the pages contained meticulously drawn illustrations of various plants and rocks, a lot of the labels were Latin or Italian so Ren could read them.

“What the hell is this thing?” Ren frowned, none of it was making any sense, it almost read like a set of instructions but there was no clear product at the end of it. The Italian notes jumped around erratically in tone, some of them written in the Venetian dialect, some seemingly just unintelligible gibberish.

“Nigredo…” Ren read one of the chapter titles before glancing down at the illustration of a skeleton. The background of the page was a thick brushed, black ink and the bones had been picked out with a white powdered paint.

Ren jumped violently as there was a loud slamming of doors somewhere out in the hallway. Another resident of the building had obviously returned. He yawned widely and stretched out his limbs, it had been a long day and the clock was already signaling he had been pouring over the manuscript for three hours now.

Ren moved to switch off the lamp and crawled into bed to let sleep take him.