Page 16

Chapter 16

‘Speak!’ Liv commanded.

I looked at the headless corpse in confusion. The head was gone and the vocal cords sliced through, so how could Alfgar possibly speak?

‘Who did this to you?’ Liv asked, her forceful voice demanding an answer.

‘I did not see. My killer struck me from behind.’ A deep booming voice came from Liv’s mouth and filled the space. Oh, that was freaky. It sounded nothing like her.

If I was freaking out, I dreaded to think what Leif was doing. I looked at him and, sure enough, he looked beyond queasy as he leaned against the wall.

‘Where were you killed?’ Liv asked.

‘The tailings,’ came the response.

The blood had pooled around the dwarf where he’d been found – had it all been a set up, then? Was it even his blood? Because if not, we were dealing with someone truly sophisticated, and I couldn’t help but feel that was not Matilda. The hag wouldn’t know anything about forensics; she wouldn’t know enough about a crime scene to try and fake a pool of blood to make it seem like that had been the scene of death.

Everything, even down to the way the body had been positioned as if Algar had been running away, was a set up.

‘Why were you at the tailings?’ Liv asked.

I nodded approval, impressed that she remembered that Alfgar wasn’t supposed to be there.

‘I was given a note. If I didn’t come to the tailings by 5pm, they would kill my family.’

‘Who gave you the note?’

‘I don’t know. I found it in my locker. But they included a photo of my family and I was afraid for them. I complied.’

Liv addressed us hastily between gritted teeth. ‘I can’t hold him much longer – it is far more difficult without the body being whole. What other questions do you have?’

‘Where is the note now?’ I asked urgently. We might get prints. Liv repeated my words.

‘Still in my locker. I tossed it back inside.’

‘Was anyone else at the tailings site when you arrived?’ Gunnar asked and Liv echoed his words.

‘I saw someone from a distance. I don’t know who it was. ’

‘Who took your head?’ Leif asked urgently.

‘Who. Took. Your. Head?’ Liv managed; she was panting now.

Poor Alfgar freaked out. ‘My head is gone?’ His words were a panicked shriek. The body reached up to feel above itself then a bloodcurdling scream ripped out of Liv. We all jumped.

‘Did you have any enemies?’ Sidnee asked, but Liv didn’t repeat the question. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she crumpled to the floor. Alfgar’s body also went limp and slumped over. Leif leapt forward to stop it toppling forward and crashing to the ground.

Leif hurriedly arranged the body so it wouldn’t slip off the stretcher as I raced to Liv. Gunnar hung back, seemingly unconcerned about the necromancer’s faint. As Sidnee and I helped her up, her eyes flared open. There was a flash of annoyance in them when she registered that Gunnar had not come running, and I wondered if the faint had been a feint.

‘Did you get your answers?’ Liv asked.

‘As many as he knew the answer to.’ I looked at her admiringly. ‘That was brilliant,’ I said honestly. It had been totally fascinating and by far the least disgusting thing I’d seen her do. The last time she’d done something, she’d killed a goat .

She waved a limp hand. ‘I’ll bill you.’

‘Of course you will,’ Sidnee muttered sourly.

I didn’t blame Liv for charging for her time; she wasn’t one to do anything out of the goodness of her heart – I wasn’t sure she even had one. I just said, ‘Thank you.’ Liv nodded and took a deep breath. While she recovered, we picked up her supplies and put them carefully in her bag.

Leif returned a few moments later, shoved a broom at me and gestured at the mass of herbs scattered on the floor. Apparently, in his eyes I was an officer of the law and a cleaner. I had grown up with cleaners dusting every corner of my parents’ mansion and many of them had been far kinder to me than my own mother had been, so I had no issue with taking the broom from him and sweeping like a pro.

After I’d finished, I handed Leif the broom. ‘You heard Alfgar. He was killed at the tailings and moved here. That means the blood pooling around him probably wasn’t his. Let me take a sample from the blood in the sack so we can know for sure.’

Nostrils flaring, Leif’s hands flew to his hips. ‘Absolutely not! We cannot risk it. I will not have him denied the afterlife because of your insatiable curiosity! We have done enough, been more than reasonable. It was the hag! ’

I studied him. ‘You don’t really believe that,’ I said softly. ‘We both know she isn’t smart enough, let alone to plant notes in lockers. Talking of lockers, which was Alfgar’s?’

Leif reluctantly walked me over to a locker that was closed and locked. He pulled out a cell phone and scrolled through something, presumably to retrieve a master code, then he unlocked the door.

I pulled on a new set of gloves and started bagging the contents. Refreshingly, Leif didn’t complain though that may have been due to the fact that there wasn’t much in there: Alfgar’s street clothing and shoes, a few pictures taped up, toiletries and the threatening note in an envelope with the photo of his family, just as he’d said.

The photo showed a dwarf whom I assumed was Alfgar on the arm of a human red-headed woman with three red-headed children of varying ages. My heart panged for them: they didn’t know that their father was dead and I was not looking forward to that conversation. I sealed up the note and photo carefully.

When the locker was empty, I turned back to the mardy dwarf next to me. ‘What will you do with the body?’ I asked nosily.

Leif squinted at me, as though wondering if I would come back and steal it. ‘We’ll keep it in the freezer until the head is found then we will complete the funeral rites. Now, I have to inform his family.’ He shrank as though the weight of the world were on him.

‘We can do that if you wish. It’s one of our duties at the Nomo’s office,’ I offered gently.

He shook his head. ‘It’s a dwarf matter. It is right that I do it.’

I didn’t argue because so far arguing with Leif had gained us absolutely nothing. I needed another way to get his help. ‘Do you have any CCTV at the tailings site?’ I asked.

‘No, because there’s nothing valuable there. We take the trucks back to the warehouse at night and lock up our gear. We’ve never had a need until now.’

‘What about the corridor where we found the body? Any cameras?’

He shook his head. ‘We usually place cameras where we are actively working. This is an old corridor – we mainly just pass through it.’

The murderer clearly knew the mine well; it was looking more and more like they could be another miner, though I still couldn’t rule out Matilda until I’d spoken to her. ‘Besides dwarves, who else works in the mine?’

‘Plenty of people,’ Leif groused. ‘We have mixed crews, not all dwarves. We have a few humans, shifters, vamps like you and even a couple of magic users. ’

So tonnes of people; this was going to be complicated and I’d be pissing off every group in town by the end of it. Yay. Making friends everywhere I went. ‘What can you tell us about his home life? He was worried about his family?’

Leif looked momentarily stumped. ‘I don’t know what to say. We usually keep our families private.’

‘He had a wife? Children?’ I’d seen the photo inside the locker so I knew that already, but I wanted to see if Leif did.

He pressed his lips together. ‘Alfgar was in a mixed marriage to a human woman, Sarah. And yes, they have three children.’

‘Are mixed marriages common?’ Sidnee added.

‘No.’ His face carefully blank, he gave no other explanation.

That piqued my curiosity, especially since Sidnee had experienced discrimination because of her mixed race. ‘Did he have trouble because of the mixed marriage? Any bullying of his children?’

Leif folded his arms. ‘A dwarf would not do this,’ he insisted. ‘To remove the head like that … it is the most heinous of sins.’

‘We have to start with the people familiar with the mine. We aren’t pointing specifically at the dwarves, but we need to look at everyone. Please answer the question. Did Alfgar face difficulty because of his mixed marriage?’

Leif blew out a breath. ‘Yeah, some. No one liked that he married outside of his race. It’s not natural.’

‘Is there anyone who was particularly vicious about it?’

He dragged his toe on the ground as he considered his options. ‘Yeah,’ he said finally. ‘He reported an altercation with Faran Ashton.’

‘Does he work in the mine?’

He nodded.

‘What race is he?’

Leif sighed. ‘He’s a dwarf.’ He looked up with fire in his eyes. ‘No dwarf would remove another dwarf’s head,’ he insisted once more. ‘They know what it means – the consequences. It’s impossible.’

Yet we had a headless dwarf. I wasn’t so sure that it was impossible.