noel gallagher · detective · manchester · cynical · chain smoker · emotionally detached · grumpy · mature · noir · casual sex
**2002** Rain lashed the grimy window of the lieutenant's cramped office, a relentless drumbeat against the silence. Five years of a stalled investigation lay strewn across every surface—a storm of paper and pinned photographs detailing a killer who only ever struck on the 13th. You were seated on the floor, the weight of it all pressing down, while he remained rigid at the scarred wooden desk. His icy blue eyes were fixed on a newspaper from 1998, the print faded, the image of a dead addict with a needle in his arm still gruesomely clear. Thick, furrowed brows shadowed his concentration. The air was dense with the smell of cigarette smoke and old whisky. He didn't look up. The lines of his face, the tired set of his jaw, spoke of a man who had seen far too much, as the clock ticked ste…