Page 14 of Veiled Justice (The Other Detective #1)

After Krieg and I had eaten our fill, Mum made tea with milk for me and black coffee for Krieg. ‘So,’ I said as I held my steaming cup and eyeballed Rupe and Ava, ‘do either of you remember anything else from last night?’

‘Stacy—’ Mum started reprovingly.

‘It’s fine,’ Rupert insisted. ‘It’s why she’s here.’

I blinked. ‘It’s not the only reason I’m here,’ I objected.

He frowned. ‘What other reason is there?’

‘I was hungry,’ I said blandly. When Mum shot me a glare, I sighed and relented. ‘I was checking on you, dummy. It’s not every day someone finds a dead body.’

‘It is for you.’

‘Yeah, but that’s different. It’s my job. And it’s not every day.’ Maybe once or twice a week.

Rupert gave me a half-smile. ‘Aw, you care about me.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Not that much.’

Rupert’s smile widened but then faded as he turned his mind to the business of murder and corpses. ‘I’ve been wracking my brains, really I have, but I can’t remember anything I haven’t already told you.’

Ava interjected, ‘I’ve been thinking too.

I definitely saw Helga at the start of the fireworks and I remember thinking that maybe she’d been drinking on the job.

She was staggering a bit.’ Her frown deepened.

‘I think she was leaning on someone, a taller guy, but I couldn’t see who he was.

I don’t remember seeing her after that.’

I felt a fizz of excitement. This was new. Helga had been over six feet tall so if the man she’d been leaning on was taller, that certainly narrowed the suspect field. ‘How much taller was he?’

She frowned. ‘I don’t recall. Sorry – I just remember he was taller than her.’

Damn. ‘Was the other guy in a suit or a tux?’

Ava shook her head slowly. ‘No – I assumed he was staff because he was dressed casually. I think he was wearing a hoodie but the hood was up and I couldn’t see his face. Like I said, he was tall.’

‘And she was staggering?’ Krieg pressed.

‘Not loads, just like … I saw her stumble.’ She wrung her hands. ‘I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it earlier. Was that tall guy her killer?’ she asked anxiously. ‘If I’d said something at the time, gone over and checked on her … ’

‘You couldn’t have known!’ Rupert said instantly. ‘How often do you see someone staggering at a party after too much drink? All the time. You didn’t give it a second thought because it’s normal. Don’t go down the shoulda, woulda, coulda route, baby. It won’t do anything but upset you.’

‘I agree,’ Krieg rumbled. ‘Don’t blame yourself. Her death is firmly at the hands of her killer.’

But Ava was right: a hooded man walking away with a staggering Helga? She’d seen the killer all right, and now we had a little more to go on. The new lead revitalised me almost as much as the food and drink.

‘Thank you, Ava, this will really help. The ME will give us a more precise time of death but I think it’ll be around then. In all of the statements, no one mentioned seeing Helga after the fireworks.’ I leaned forward. ‘Do you recall anyone being missing during or after the fireworks?’

We had asked Louisa the same question but she hadn’t been able to pinpoint anyone in particular. It would have been all too easy for one of the male guests to chuck on a hoodie, though I hadn’t seen one in the bins. Then again, neither had I found the murder weapon or the severed finger.

Quintos was pretty tall and so were Katz and Squiggins; one of the vampyrs I’d spoken to had been tall, too. There would be other tall guests, ones that I hadn’t interviewed personally.

Rupert shrugged. ‘I didn’t know the guests well enough to know if someone was missing.’

I looked at Ava: she knew the scene. She pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘This is awkward,’ she said finally. ‘I know all these people – most of them very well. I can’t believe any of them would be the killer. It must be someone that wandered in.’

‘Either way, a young woman is dead,’ I said softly.

Loki let out a trilling noise and flew to Ava’s shoulder. He nuzzled her neck and she gave his breast an absent-minded stroke. ‘Be yourself,’ he advised. ‘Everyone else taken.’

I stared. Had my bird just quoted Oscar Wilde?

Ava sighed, then straightened and nodded decisively. ‘You’re right. Even if I’m ostracised, it’s still the right thing to do.’

‘I can anonymise your name in my report,’ I offered. ‘No one has to know that you were my source.’

She brightened. ‘That would be great. Okay, well, being a siren, sometimes I’m a little more …

attuned to the room. I noticed the energy shift just before the fireworks.

There was definitely a strong feeling of anticipation and excitement.

When we went outside, I didn’t see Verona or her companion, Ludwig.

The other three vampyrs were together, so I noted they were missing.

And Louisa Carnforth was off somewhere, probably canoodling with someone, but I didn’t see with whom.

Possibly Squigsy, but maybe Katz – I saw his eyes on her a few times. ’

‘Did you see Squigsy, Katz or Montague during or immediately after the fireworks?’ Krieg asked. He had good instincts; my eyes were on them too.

Ava shook her glossy head. ‘Not that I recall. And after the fireworks, Rupe and I only went inside for a short while before we went into the gardens to—’ she looked at my mum ‘—get some fresh air,’ she finished lamely. A slight blush graced her sharp cheekbones.

Mum snorted. ‘I was young once. Frank and I used to “get fresh air” regularly.’ Her tone was a little wistful and my heart twinged.

‘Mum!’ Rupert groaned.

Even though she was sitting down, Mum put her hands on her hips. ‘What? Sex is a healthy part of any relationship!’

Rupert let his head hit the table.

‘I thought we were talking about fresh air,’ I interjected firmly.

Mum smiled. ‘It was a metaphor for sex, dear.’

I couldn’t stop the smile. ‘Oh really?’ I said blandly, like I hadn’t known. I looked at Ava. ‘So you and my brother went out to bang and then …?’

Ava grimaced. ‘And then we found Helga, so we didn’t.’

‘You didn’t see anybody else on your way out?’ Krieg asked. ‘No one else enjoying the fresh air?’

‘The gardens are large, with dense foliage and lots of nooks and crannies. Honestly, there could have been a whole orchestra in there and we wouldn’t have known.’

‘Was anyone else missing?’ I pressed.

Ava tapped a manicured finger against her lips as she thought.

‘I didn’t see Quintos at the fireworks,’ she admitted finally.

‘That’s surprising because they were a big part of his show – costumes, dancers, peacocks and the fireworks were the culmination.

They went on for nearly fifteen minutes – maybe only ten.

It felt like quite a few people were missing from them. ’

She shrugged. ‘I guess they were still inside drinking. Not everyone cares for fireworks – I’m not a huge fan myself, and they had a tonne of those ones that scream.’ She shuddered delicately.

‘Thanks, Ava, that’s really helpful.’ I smiled warmly. Ava had given us more than we’d come with. I’d be taking another look at Louisa Carnforth and Quintos, and there was something off about the gang of boys that had definitely set my radar tingling. And we needed to speak to Verona and Ludwig.

My fingers found my dad’s old pocket watch in my pocket, and I turned it over and over, tracing the smooth metal like it might give me answers.

The way the scene had been set up had felt almost ritualistic: the torches at the points of a pentagram, the way the blood from Helga’s broken nose had been attended to as if it ruined the aesthetics, and yet there’d been no sign that the blood had been collected.

That ruled out a lot of dark witchery and the pools of blood around Helga made it unlikely the killer had been a vampyr. No, not a dark witch or a vamp.

Katz, Squiggins and Montague were high on my list of suspects.

Helga had been their bodyguard; she’d just wandered off and they hadn’t done anything about it?

Didn’t complain and stamp their feet, like the spoiled brats they were?

They’d paid for a service, and they would have expected her to complete it.

But what was holding me up was motive. Why would Squiggins kill his own bodyguard?

It made no sense unless Helga had failed him in some way.

Was stopping his assault on Louisa enough of an infraction to kill her?

I’d heard tales that some clients expected such complete service that their ogre bodyguards weren’t allowed to sleep or have pee breaks.

If that was the level of service they’d been expecting, then no way in hell would they have accepted Helga wandering off – unless they knew exactly where she’d wandered off to.

Yes, the boys were definitely on my radar.

‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Krieg whispered.

I smiled back grimly. ‘I’m thinking about murder.’

He returned my smile but there was nothing humorous about it. ‘Funny. Me too.’

I shot him a wry look. ‘I’m thinking about finding the murderers, not carrying out another one.’

‘Ah, well then. It’s good to have some differences between us, isn’t it? Variety is the spice of life.’

I shook my head though I couldn’t suppress the small smile pulling at my lips. The truth is that justice is rough and ready at best, violent and deadly at worst. I was at one end of the scale and Krieg was at the other, but either way we both served her.