Page 7

Chapter Five

OCTOBER 2095

Josiah

“Please perform your examination, Doctor Baumann,” Josiah ordered. “Send Alexander’s clothes to forensics and give him scrubs to wear. Remember to check for firearm residue on his hands. I’ll wait here.” He sat down at her desk and took out his holopad.

“If you want to go back upstairs, I can call you when I’m done,” she said, her eyes flickering with annoyance.

“And leave you alone with a possible killer? I don’t think so. I’ll remain here. You can perform the exam behind the screen,” he said politely, gesturing.

She shot him an angry glare, but gestured Alexander behind the screen.

Leaning back in the chair, Josiah took a small silver box from his waistcoat pocket and flicked it open to reveal two dark chocolates nestled inside. He never went anywhere without a small supply of good-quality chocolate – he wouldn’t touch the crap they sold in the Inquisitus vending machines. Selecting a raspberry cream, he savoured the flavour of the rich dark chocolate melting with the tangy fruit.

He gave the other chocolate a longing look, but decided to save it for later. His little break over, he checked his holopad to find that Reed was doing his usual efficient job; there was already a sizeable file on their prime suspect, as well as one on their victim.

He hesitated for a moment, torn between the two files, but then decided on Alexander first.

So far, the file was composed of only the initial data retrieval, edited into an easily digestible format by the AI bots, but even in its limited form it was bigger than most complete files – and it made for startling reading.

He came to the end and sat back, trying to digest what he’d learned. He’d suspected the IS’s blank facade was hiding some kind of mystery, but the more he found out about Alexander Lytton, the less he understood him.

He added a file note about the injuries on Alexander’s body, then stood as Baumann ushered his prisoner out from behind the screen.

Alexander was now dressed in plain blue medical scrubs, and Josiah was startled by how different he looked without the fancy clothes. The scrubs suited him far more, allowing his natural beauty to shine through.

Josiah studied him, trying to reconcile what he’d just read with the demure figure standing in front of him. According to the file, this man must be haunted by the most colossal demons, and yet he looked perfectly serene.

Becoming aware of his gaze, Alexander raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing you’ve been reading up on me, indiehunter.”

“Yes, I have – and you’ll address me as Investigator Raine, please.”

“Or what? You’ll beat me?”

“We don’t beat our detainees at Inquisitus,” Josiah said firmly. “But it’s certainly time for you and I to have a long chat.” He gestured towards the door.

Alexander hesitated. “Investigator Raine,” he said, and this time the challenge was gone from his voice. “Would you mind… um… I was wondering… could I see the body? Elliot’s body?”

This unexpected request brought Josiah up short. “Why?”

“I’d like to say goodbye.” Alexander raised his chin defiantly. “Elliot deserves that. He was my houder for three years, and he wasn’t a bad man. I liked him. ”

“You said he was selfish,” Josiah pointed out.

Alexander smiled. “Oh, he was. He was vain, too. He wore his toupee when we had sex, even though I knew he was almost completely bald – and he could be demanding, self-absorbed, and occasionally very silly. But he was good fun, and he often made me laugh. I’m sad he’s dead. He kissed me when I left the house this morning…” Alexander brushed his fingers over his lips. “I didn’t know that was the last time I’d see him, and I wish I’d had the chance to say a proper goodbye.”

Josiah wasn’t sure if he was being sold a crock of shit or if Alexander meant every word he said, but he saw no harm in the request – in fact, it could be illuminating.

“Very well.” He nodded at Baumann, who opened one of the refrigerated units and pulled out the sliding metal tray containing Dacre’s corpse, still in its body bag.

Alexander approached the tray slowly.

“Have you ever seen a dead body before?” Baumann asked kindly. “If not, you should prepare yourself. I know people say that the dead look like they’re sleeping, but in my opinion, they don’t. They look very different.”

“I have seen a dead body before,” Alexander said quietly.

Josiah remembered the car crash that had killed his mother. How had he coped, as a seventeen-year-old boy, with the fact he was responsible for his mother’s death and his brother’s life-shattering injuries? How had that warped and shaped him?

“Okay, well then, here goes.” Baumann unzipped the body bag to reveal Elliot Dacre’s cold white form, with the shocking red hole in the forehead. The body hadn’t been cleaned, and there was dried blood on the corpse’s face.

Alexander swallowed hard, his gaze fixed on the bullet hole. “You’re right,” he said softly. “The dead don’t look as if they’re sleeping. They just look… dead.” He put his head on one side and studied the corpse. “Elliot isn’t there anymore.”

“No,” Baumann said sympathetically. “He’s gone, Alexander. I’m sorry.”

“He wouldn’t like it,” Alexander said as he gazed at the body .

“Being shot in the head? Yeah, most of us would feel that way,” Josiah said.

“I meant that he’d hate you seeing him this way. Not his naked body, because he was something of an exhibitionist, but he’d never let anyone see him without his toupee. Maybe it was dislodged when he was shot?” He glanced at Baumann for confirmation.

She nodded and reached into the body bag. “It’s here,” she said, holding up the brown wig.

“Would you mind if I…?” Alexander reached out to take the wig, but Josiah stopped him.

“You can’t contaminate the body,” he said, wondering if that had been the indie’s intent all along.

“No, of course not – although my DNA will be all over him already,” Alexander said. “We had oral sex this morning, before I left for my workout.” Baumann looked embarrassed by this news, although Alexander obviously wasn’t. “Doctor Baumann, would you…?”

He gestured at the wig.

“I’ll take care of it,” Baumann said gently.

“Thank you.” He shot her a grateful look.

“Time to go,” Josiah said briskly, unsure what to make of Alexander’s odd little display of affection for his dead houder. “It’s time for that chat now.”

Having escorted his prisoner upstairs to one of the Inquisitus interview suites, he locked him in a room dominated by a huge two-way mirror. Then he went into the adjacent viewing room to skim through the file on Dacre.

It was full of his iconic photos, but there was one in particular that caught Josiah’s attention – that of his husband, Christopher, who had died in the duck accident several years ago. The man had wavy dark hair, pale skin, and deep-set green eyes, and although he wasn’t as beautiful as Alexander Lytton, there was definitely a resemblance. Clearly, Elliot Dacre had a “type”.

There was a knock on the door, and Reed entered, holding a holopad. “You need to see this before you start the interrogation,” he said, waving it at Josiah. “I’ve been sorting through all the crime scene stuff and found this on the coffee table. ”

“Dacre’s holopad? You gained access?”

“Yup. I held it up to his face and scanned his retina – as I’m fairly sure the killer did when erasing the security footage from the house.”

“And? What’s on it?” Josiah frowned, still skimming through the files on his own holopad.

Reed grinned. “A possible motive,” he said, flicking a document from the holopad up into the air.

Josiah glanced at the holodoc, then did a double take as he realised what he was looking at.

“Look at the date and time – it arrived first thing this morning, and was the only document open when I logged in. Looks like this is an open-and-shut case, sir. I saw your file note, and between the bruising and this…” Reed gestured at the holodoc still hanging in the air. “I’d say we have enough to bring charges.”

Josiah gave a little grunt as he finished reading. “Still circumstantial,” he said, feeling oddly disappointed. Was it really going to be this easy? Surely this was too commonplace and obvious for such an enigmatic suspect? He glanced through the mirror at where Alexander was sitting, with his now familiar blank expression.

“Not if you get a confession out of him,” Reed insisted. “Should be enough leverage for that, surely?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Reed looked surprised. “Come on, sir – this is dynamite. The bastard must be guilty.”

“Maybe,” Josiah repeated stubbornly. “We don’t know if Lytton even saw it.”

“But if he did, then we have motive and opportunity.”

“But not means – unless you’ve found the murder weapon?”

“Not yet, but he could have easily disposed of it.”

“We’ll see.”

“What’s the problem?” Reed demanded.

Josiah frowned, wondering that himself. “Something doesn’t feel right,” he said uncertainly.

“Feel?” Reed laughed. “No offence, sir, but since when do you ‘feel’ a case? You’ve always mocked me for talking about hunches and feelings. ‘Feelings don’t win cases, Reed – facts do’ – that’s what you always say.”

“I know.” Josiah tucked Dacre’s holopad into his jacket pocket. “But the facts here don’t add up. It’s all too easy, too convenient.”

“Sir, the media are outside baying for blood, and the boss wants quick results. Don’t overthink it. Just take the facts and run with them.”

“Oh, I will.” Josiah stood up. “Just as soon as I’m sure what they are.”

Alexander smiled at him when he entered the interview room.

“I thought you’d leave me for longer,” he said. “To… I don’t know – sweat, or stew, or something.”

“I don’t play games, and you would be wise to adopt the same approach,” Josiah said, sitting down. Placing his own holopad on the table between them, he began recording.

“This is Investigator Josiah Raine from Inquisitus, interviewing Alexander Lytton, Indentured Servant of the late Elliot Dacre. Date: Tuesday, October twenty-fifth, 2095. Time: five-fifteen p.m. Do you confirm that you have refused legal assistance?”

“I do.” Alexander nodded.

“You might want to rethink that. You see, we found this.” He pinged Dacre’s holodoc into the air in front of his suspect. Alexander glanced at it, but he didn’t look surprised.

“Do you know what this is?” Josiah asked.

“Yes – it’s Elliot’s will.”

“That’s right – and it’s dated yesterday. Were you aware that Dacre changed his will?”

“Yes, he told me.”

“So, you know that under the terms of Dacre’s new will, you are to be set free in the event of his death.” Josiah leaned back in his chair, watching Alexander’s reaction closely. There was none.

“Yes. It wasn’t a secret. He received the revised will on his holopad this morning while he was eating his breakfast. He made a big deal about showing it to me, and then he told me he was taking me out for a posh meal later to celebrate.”

“So, he changed his will to free you in the event of his death, showed it to you, and once you were certain of it, you killed him?” Josiah suggested.

Alexander sighed. “That’s not what happened.”

“Where did you go immediately after you killed him? Where did you dispose of the gun?”

“I didn’t kill him,” Alexander insisted. “When I left the house this morning, he was alive. As I told you before, I went to the gym at nine a.m. for my regular workout session, and when I came back you arrested me.”

“You were gone for four hours. That’s rather a long gym workout, isn’t it?”

“Elliot insists… I mean, that is, he used to insist that I keep in good shape, so that I look good for him. He paid for me to have a personal trainer – D’Angelo Clarke. Ask D’Angelo if you don’t believe me.”

“Will he tell me that you spent several hours working out with him, accounting for all the time from when you left home to when you returned?” Josiah asked.

“No, you know he won’t, because I told you earlier that I didn’t spend the entire time with him.”

“So, where were you?”

“Like I said before, I went for a drive after my training session. Elliot didn’t mind me doing that – he gave me permission. I like driving my new duck across the lost zones, gliding over the water. It makes me feel—” He stopped abruptly.

“It makes you feel what?”

“Free,” Alexander said softly. “When I’m out driving, alone, I can pretend that I’m free again. You can understand that, can’t you, Investigator Raine?”

“Yeah, I can understand that, but I don’t think it’s what happened,” Josiah said. “See, I think you killed Dacre, and then you waltzed out of the house, threw the gun into the nearest lost zone, and went to your gym session as usual. You knew the housekeeper would find the body a couple of hours later.”

“No. He was alive when I left. He was happy. He kissed me goodbye and said we’d have fun later. That’s what he said – that we’d have fun. Whoever killed him must have broken into the house after I left.”

Josiah sat back in his chair and gazed at the IS thoughtfully. “Except there’s no sign of forced entry. Is anyone else on the house security system apart from you and the housekeeper? Is there anyone else the house might have allowed in?”

Alexander shook his head. “Only Elliot. Nobody else.”

“That’s what I thought. Also, Dacre was wearing only his dressing gown, and apparently felt comfortable enough with his murderer to open the door to him or her, and let them into his lounge. How likely is that?”

Alexander shrugged. “I’ve already told you that Elliot was an exhibitionist. He often didn’t get dressed until noon, and he frequently saw visitors while wearing his robe, or his swimming trunks, or some silly outfit from his costume collection. He was like that.”

“You have to admit it’s a huge coincidence,” Josiah insisted. “Yesterday, Dacre changed his will to give you your freedom in the event of his death, and today he’s shot dead.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Alexander repeated wearily. “I couldn’t kill anyone and certainly not that sweet, funny, infuriating man.”

“Really? Because I’ve been reading all about you.” Josiah gestured to his holopad. “And it sounds precisely like something you’d be capable of.”

“Does it?” Alexander drawled, leaning back in his chair. “What’s your reasoning?”

“I think I can piece together a narrative from the data available: Elliot Dacre’s husband, Christopher Lucas Dacre, died in a duck accident a few years ago, and Dacre was devastated. A little while later, he saw your contract advertised for sale, and noticed that you bore a passing resemblance to his dead husband, so he bought you. I think you got the measure of him pretty quickly, Alexander. You saw that he was a lovestruck old fool who’d do anything for the pretty face that reminded him of his dead husband.”

“You have a very low opinion of me, sir,” Alexander said tightly.

“Maybe, but I think it’s pretty close to the truth. From the moment Dacre bought you, your sole aim was to get him to change his will. You traded on the fact you looked like Christopher, and Dacre was taken in by your little act. You worked on him relentlessly, and then the minute you’d convinced him to change his will you shot him dead so you could be free.” Josiah crossed his arms over his chest and waited for the IS’s response.

Alexander sat there for a long moment, nodding silently, and then spoke. “There is a flaw to this plan.”

“What’s that?”

“The fact that it makes me the number-one suspect,” Alexander pointed out. “Instead of being set free, isn’t it more likely I’d be arrested and tried for Elliot’s murder? Surely, if I was this clever, I’d have set up someone else to take the blame?”

“Maybe your smarts only extend so far,” Josiah hazarded. “Maybe you got greedy and couldn’t wait to be free, because you couldn’t bear to be an IS for another second. Perhaps you were afraid your houder would take you to another show, and that you’d have to endure another beating. Or maybe you were scared that Elliot Dacre would change his mind and make a new will to replace this one.” He gestured at the holodoc still hanging in the air.

“And maybe you’re grasping at straws,” Alexander shot back. “You’re not wrong about everything: I do look a little like Christopher, and Elliot did want me to be him. Poor Elliot – he really wanted me to love him.”

“And did you?” Josiah asked.

“You can buy many things,” Alexander said quietly. “Elliot bought my body, my attention, and my service, but you can’t buy love, sir. Even The Beatles knew that.” He grinned.

Sitting back in his chair, Josiah felt irrationally annoyed by the Beatles reference. Very few people listened to Pre-R rock these days, and it was irritating that Alexander was one of them; he didn’t want to have anything in common with this man.

“You’re used to getting your own way, though, aren’t you?” he challenged. “Sure, you might be an IS, but all your life you’ve used your looks to manipulate people into doing exactly what you want. Poor, stupid Elliot Dacre – he must have been easy pickings for someone like you. ”

“Someone like me?” Alexander raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that, exactly?”

“A spoilt rich kid who got expelled from three schools, who used Daddy’s money to buy drugs, and who killed his mother and paralysed his famous brother by driving while sky-high on croc.”

Josiah had always been good at wielding a killer blow in an interrogation, and he was sure this one would open up a chink in the IS’s impassive armour, so he was surprised when Alexander didn’t react.

“Oh, you know me very well, then.” Alexander shrugged. “And I know all about you, too, Investigator Raine.”

“Is that so?” Josiah crossed his arms over his chest.

“Yes. I’ve read quite a few articles about you. The media is as fascinated by you as they are by me, although in a very different way. First, there was your relentless pursuit of the IS who went on the run after witnessing the murder of that celebrity chef. Then you solved the mystery of Sir John Marcham’s murder and – surprise! – found that his IS was the culprit. You’ve made quite a reputation for yourself, and the media loves you.”

That was true. Josiah thought the press interest in him had died down lately, but this new case would no doubt dredge it up again.

Alexander leaned forward, putting his hands on the table.

“I’ve read all about the indiehunter – the grief-stricken investigator, dedicated to tracking down the evil indies who kill their poor houders. According to the press, you never got over the murder of your husband several years ago. Remind me, again – how did he die? Wasn’t he stabbed by an indentured servant on the run? No wonder you hate us all so much.”

Josiah returned Dacre’s holopad to his pocket in icy silence, then picked up his own device and rose to his feet.

“Reed’s right,” he said, looking down on Alexander coldly. “We’ve got enough to convict you on this evidence alone. There’s no need to continue this charade any further.” He strode towards the door.

“I’m sure there’s more to your story than those bare facts,” Alexander said softly behind him. “And there’s more to mine, too. Shall we make a deal?”

“And what’s that?” Josiah turned, his hand on the door. “You confess to killing Elliot Dacre, and I forget all about you and go home?”

“No.” Alexander gave a wry smile. “Although I can see why you’d like that. No, I suggest that we stop viewing each other as the people we’ve read about. I won’t view you as the sad, obsessed loner, hunting down indies to avenge the love of your life. In return, I ask you to see more to me than the spoilt rich kid who killed his mum, paralysed his heroic big brother, and then committed a fraud so scandalous that even his own father disowned him.”

“And why should I do that?” Josiah asked stonily.

“Because you said you only deal in facts, but I don’t think that’s true.” Alexander leaned forward, speaking in a sharp, urgent tone.

Josiah blinked, startled, because he suddenly looked like someone completely different.

“We are more than the sum of our facts,” Alexander stated firmly. “And those facts can themselves be deceiving – but I think that you already know that, ‘indiehunter’.”