Page 21 of Veiled Justice (The Other Detective #1)

On the drive over, Krieg confirmed that he’d spoken to Helga’s friend Katrin.

She’d denied any knowledge of Helga’s movements but confirmed that Helga had been dating Einar without her parents’ knowledge.

He didn’t think she was lying, but if we came to a dead end I’d speak to her myself just to make sure – not because I was a control freak.

We rolled up to the elaborate iron gates, which had been flung open to accept guests. As good as her word, Louisa had left our names at the door and we were let inside without question.

All the hours of primping and beautifying herself had paid off and Louisa looked Hollywood-ready as she played hostess from an honest-to-goodness throne. Around her a cluster of young women were paying homage, hoping for some sign of grace and favour.

In the centre of the room, remarkable ice sculptures were being made and controlled by water elementals.

At first sight the sculptures appeared to be of human wizards, but as I looked closer I saw creatures – ogres, dryads, centaurs, trolls kneeling at their feet.

Anger ripped through me; this wasn’t art, it was a political statement celebrating the subjugation of the creature elements of the Other realm.

The urge to stride over and smash it was overwhelming.

‘Steady,’ Krieg murmured.

‘How can you bear it?’ The words burst out of me.

‘I’m used to it.’ He tipped up my chin so I was looking into his eyes. ‘But I find myself grateful for your rage.’

‘It’s not right,’ I snarled.

‘Much of the world isn’t right. In some places women still can’t vote. Some can’t own land, others can’t control their own bodies. Injustice is rife.’

‘That doesn’t mean we have to accept it!’ I hissed back.

‘No, we don’t. But we start small and we start local – and we make a damned difference.’

‘How?’ I demanded and gestured around me. ‘This is our locality.’

He smiled grimly. ‘And we’re going to turn their world upside down and inside out.’

‘We can’t affect change like that overnight!’

‘You’re right. Sustainable change takes time. I have that. And I have the will to do it, too.’

Whatever else I might have said was cut off as I spied a cage in the corner of one room.

Inside it was a chimera, a tri-beast with three heads; she had a lion’s head in the centre, a goat’s to the left and a snake’s to the right.

She also had sharpened cloven hooves and a goat-like body with a lethal scaled tail.

As I watched, she roared an angry purple fire that didn’t extend beyond the bars of the cage.

It was obviously a magical as well as a metal one. I ground my teeth.

‘Later,’ Krieg counselled calmly.

I looked around for something to calm me down and spotted the maid who’d fainted dead away at the sight of Krieg. ‘Stay here,’ I ordered Krieg and moved off to talk to her.

‘Where is Mr Carnforth?’ I asked bluntly.

She blinked her large doe-like eyes at me. ‘He’s indisposed.’

‘What does that mean? Has he got the shits?’

She flushed. ‘He’s elderly, infirm. He stays inside the main house these days.’

I frowned. Louisa had definitely implied we were being invited to annoy her father. Why had she invited us if he wasn’t even going to be here? What was the point of a ‘fuck you’ that he didn’t know about?

‘Where did the chimera come from?’ I asked.

The maid shrugged. ‘Miss Carnforth has many friends in high places.’

‘Did she arrange the gala?’

‘Absolutely. She oversaw every decision.’

Then why had she been acting like this was all her father’s work? To keep up with the competition with Quintos? I smiled. ‘Thank you. You’ve been helpful. What’s your name?’

‘Hannah Belham, miss.’

‘Thank you, Hannah.’ I paused. ‘What are you?’ It was a rude question in any social circle but I didn’t have the time or energy to fathom out the answer.

She didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘I’m a witch,’ she replied, ‘but I’m not particularly adept at it. I’m far better at cooking than making potions.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘And I’m not a good cook.’

‘We all have our strengths.’

She brightened. ‘Mine is cleaning.’

I wondered if she did laundry as well as housework. ‘The dress Miss Carnforth wore last night – where is it?’ I asked casually.

She looked confused. ‘The dry cleaners, of course.’

‘Which ones?’

‘Dry ’n’ Fix, miss. They pick up and drop off laundry to your home and they fix any rips and the like.’ She pressed her lips together disapprovingly. ‘There was a tear in the bodice, courtesy of Mr Squiggins.’ She glared heavily in his direction.

I thanked her again then stepped aside and Googled Dry ’n’ Fix.

Once I’d found their number, I left a voicemail asking them not to dry clean and repair Miss Carnforth’s dress.

Louisa might not want to press charges against Tom Squiggins right now but maybe she could be persuaded to later.

If Squiggins had gone so far as to rip her dress then whatever had happened had been more than the grope she’d tried to shrug off.

I looked for Krieg but was distracted by a constantly changing dance floor decorated with a mesmerising array of flowers. To one side a pair of dryads were encouraging them to grow and ripple in time with the music, as if Nature itself were dancing.

Anger seared through me as I recognised one of the dryads: Ash Aspen.

Ash Aspen was the name that he was currently going by, but his real name was Jude Jingo and he was the Al Capone of the Other realm.

It was a little-known fact that he was one of the rarest Other beings that existed: a doppelganger.

I’d come across his corpse and had been investigating his murder when it transpired that he wasn’t dead at all.

At the moment of his death, he’d transferred his soul to the nearest supernatural, which had been the dryad who was trying to kill him: Ash Aspen.

Now Ash was dead and Jingo was wearing his skin. Because he had access to Ash’s powers, Jingo had used them to kill the local dryad elders and get away with the murders under the in-house principle: the Connection couldn’t investigate same species murders unless we were invited to do so.

Needless to say, fearing for their lives the other dryads didn’t invite me to investigate. It burned me every day that Jude Jingo was swanning around wearing another man’s skin. I started towards him without conscious thought. Krieg caught sight of me and joined me.

Jingo smiled as we approached him. ‘Inspector Wise,’ he greeted me, eyes roving over my dress. ‘How delightful to see so much of you,’ he drawled.

I smiled tightly. ‘Fuck you.’

Next to me, Krieg gave a warning growl. Jingo looked at me and then studied the ogre’s bow-tie. He gave a little laugh and held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘She’s all yours, old boy.’

‘I am all mine,’ I hissed. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Enjoying fine food and wine, just like everyone else.’ To prove his point, Jingo snagged a floating canape and devoured it in one bite. He took a leisurely sip from his champagne flute, which remained full no matter how much he drank.

‘Were you at Quintos’s party?’ I asked. Neither his name nor Ash Aspen’s had appeared on any of the guest or staff lists I’d seen, or in Channing’s notes.

Jingo raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you need to caution me, Inspector? Read me my rights?’

‘This is the Other realm,’ I snarled. ‘You only have the rights that the Connection grants you.’

His smirk widened. ‘Lucky me that they give their citizens so many.’

‘Were you at Quintos’s masquerade ball?’ I repeated.

‘No, I had another engagement. Besides, I understand the Carnforths’ shindig is the party of the season. I couldn’t miss this.’ He gestured at a man leaning at the bar next to a beautiful woman. ‘That,’ he lowered his voice conspiratorially, ‘is Mr Cantle. He has a doting wife and three children.’

The man had a handlebar moustache, middle-age spread and a stunning woman on his arm.

I didn’t need to ask her what type of Other she was: even from this distance I could see that she was a succubus, a woman who fed on sexual energy.

Her eyes all but rolled back in her head as the man at her side stroked her in places he shouldn’t have done in public.

‘That,’ Jingo said, amused, ‘is not his wife.’ He set the champagne flute down and rubbed his hands gleefully. ‘I love these soirees.’

Next he pointed at Katz. ‘That’s Caspian Katz. His father, Dean Katz, is a narcissistic piece of shit. He owns one of the biggest PR firms in the country and little Caspian wants a slice of the pie but Daddy Dearest keeps saying no. Caspian is not used to being told no.’

He indicated a pregnant woman with voluptuous lips next to a far older man. ‘And that is Pamela Rollings. The man next to her is her husband, Billy Rollings, and that is not his baby.’

‘Is that why you come to these things?’ I asked. ‘To collect blackmail material?’

Jingo laughed. ‘So cynical for one so young.’ The comment gave me pause.

If he could swap bodies ad infinitum, just how old was he?

‘I’m here for fun, Inspector Wise, just like you.

I’m just whiling away the hours with a little gossip.

’ He raised his champagne glass again, looking entirely too pleased with himself.

I couldn’t let him get under my skin but, as I moved away from him, I couldn’t help feeling I was missing something.

‘Goodbye, Wise,’ he called mockingly, much like I had done to Hanlon.

Like Hanlon, I didn’t look back.