Page 56 of Sixty Meters Under

“You said you didn’t do anything, but you slapped her. Are you sure that was all?” Lennart demanded.

“I’m telling you the truth!”

“Then where did this wound on the side of her head come from?”

The man turned pale, and his eyes went wide. “I didn’t do that to her!” He defended himself, realizing how the situation must look like. At that point, Lennart thought, the man knew he was screwed. “She got that during the party before we got to the room, she was with another guy in the men’s restroom. Yes! Y-you should ask him what happened. She probably got it while she was with him.”

“What guy?” Lennart’s eyes narrowed.

“That Chinese, or-or Japanese… I don’t know his name.”

It was true. Lennart remembered seeing Ryosuke enter the men’s restroom with a red-haired woman. It could easily have been Scarlett, but he knew that the guy had a fiancé with similar hair color, so he hadn’t looked closely. His guess was that they were going to have some fun in the men’s room. Then a thought struck him. “Did you slap your wife because you caught her cheating?”

Richard’s face reddened. It was a mixture of anger and shame. “Yes, but I didn’t kill her! I didn’t wish for her death!”

“You believe her death was an accident?” Lennart shot another question.

“I have no idea why she–!” The man trailed off, fighting his emotions. “It just happened. Okay? I have no idea why.”

“Your hand slipped, and you lost control,” Lennart persisted. He noticed that beneath the surface his own anger was bubbling up. He wanted the man to simply confess right there and then, but he knew the best way to achieve that was to act calm, to act as if she had deserved what happened to her.

“No. It wasn’t like that. I swear!”

Lennart straightened and turned to face the other three men in the room. Hugo, Nils, and Doctor Olsson looked at him, while the victim’s husband shook his head.

“Well, we’ll definitely have to find out what happened. Until then, we will put you in confinement.”

“What?”

“We have no other choice. If we prove you’re innocent, we’ll let you out. You were the only one in the room with her when she passed,” Lennart explained. “The last to see her alive.”

“I know. But I didn’t kill her. She was my wife. I loved her.”

“We have to prove that.”

The man hung his head.

“Take him to the cell, Nils,” Lennart added. “We’ll take care of the rest.”

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Lennart’s mind was fully awake, and he was hungry for answers. He entered his work room when they moved Scarlett’s body to the mortuary and decided to watch the monitor tapes in search for clues.

There were no cameras in the private rooms, so it would be a real challenge to prove what happened. Lennart decided to start from the end and go backwards. He found and played videos of Scarlett and her husband in all the places they could be seen for the last time that night.

The couple stepped out of the elevator on their level. It was obvious they were arguing. Richard was squeezing Scarlett’s upper arm as she stumbled trying to keep up with his pace. At the end, Richard unlocked the door and they both disappeared from the camera’s reach.

Lennart could only guess what happened behind closed doors. It was obvious that Richard had been violent towards his wife, and Lennart planned yet to question him about his actions. He switched to the elevator footage where he saw Richard yelling in her face. After that he found footage where they left the party; it was a similar scene to their corridor.

Lennart came to the part where Richard entered the men’s room and after a few minutes exited with his wife, visibly furious. Of course, there were no cameras in the toilets either, so Lennart went further back and saw the scene Ayame made in the bar which resulted with Ryosuke and Scarlett leaving together in the direction of the restrooms. Lennart replayed it a couple oftimes looking for more clues. Richard claimed Scarlett suffered a head wound while she was with Ryosuke.

Damn. Why of all people he had to be involved in this?Lennart bit his lip.Ryosuke… I will have to question you too,Lennart realized, feeling a rush of excitement wash over him.

He looked at the tapes with Ryosuke in them when all of a sudden, he felt tired. He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the watch in the corner of the screen.

“Shit, it’s almost five thirty,” he groaned, getting to his feet. Too tired to move, he slumped on the couch and fell asleep.

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