Page 36 of Veiled Justice (The Other Detective #1)

Krieg held the car door open for me and I slid in. I was almost getting used to the door-opening thing. Loki fluttered onto his spot. ‘Where to?’ the ogre asked.

‘The police station. Or to my home where I can pick up my car? You really don’t have to drive me,’ I started awkwardly.

‘I’m in until the end. I need to see justice for Helga. Einar was the tool, but he wasn’t the one who was ultimately responsible.’

I nodded. ‘Fine.’

My phone buzzed with a text from Kate. You won’t guess who the rich dead guy is! Magnus Carnforth. Louisa Carnforth’s father.

Please tell me cause of death was suspicious, I replied.

No stab wounds. No pinky finger missing … but I’m doing toxicology now. I’ll keep you posted.

You’re a saint!

I looked up from my phone. ‘Louisa’s father died last night.’

‘She got cocky.’

‘Damn right she did.’ I grinned and punched the dashboard. ‘This is going to be the nail in the coffin. I need to speak to the DCI. Can you keep quiet a moment? I’m not sure how thrilled he’d be if he knew I’d swapped Channing for you. You too, Loki.’

Loki drew a wing across his beak and it took me a beat to realise he was miming zipping it closed. Wise-ass avian.

Krieg grinned. ‘I’m more handsome than Channing.’

‘That’s not saying much. Channing is about twelve years old.’

‘He’s twenty-two.’ He shot me a sideways glance. ‘No denials about how handsome I am?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Don’t fish for compliments, Krieg, because all you’ll get is tough old boots.’ He was drop-dead gorgeous and he knew it; the last thing his ego needed was further encouragement. For god’s sake, the Carnforths’ housekeeper, Hannah Belham, had fainted at the sight of him!

‘Ship has sunk!’ Loki chuckled.

‘Sailed,’ I corrected. ‘Hush now, I’m calling.’

Before an arrest or kill, I supposedly needed a green light from on high but most Inspectors applied for a kill order retroactively.

Where possible, I tried to get mine in advance but sometimes events ran away from me.

Today, however, I wasn’t applying for a kill order but one to arrest with a view to imprison.

When Thackeray answered, I dived right into it. ‘I need D9 arrest warrants for Cameron Quintos, Louisa Carnforth and Caspian Katz.’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ His tone was thick with disbelief.

‘No, sir, I’m not.’ As I laid out the case, I modified Einar’s involvement and extended his confession to point fully at Quintos and Carnforth. ‘Unfortunately,’ I said, my tone regretful, ‘the footage got corrupted and only a portion of the confession remains.’

‘You can’t arrest them without that.’

‘I’m going to have more.’ I outlined my plans.

He grunted. ‘Get me more evidence and you’ll have your warrants.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ I paused. ‘But I already have enough to arrest Katz.’

He considered then said, ‘Okay. I agree. Get a statement drawn up and sent to the CPS for your D9.’ In the Common realm, the Crown Prosecution Service is the government body responsible for determining who is tried for what crimes.

In the Other, things were simpler because we didn’t do juries and judges, just power-hungry Inspectors.

We still used the CPS as a small check and balance, though.

They assessed our cases and gave us our warrants.

They also assessed our judgement calls; if too many died who shouldn’t have, eventually we’d come under fire ourselves.

It took a long time to get to that, though; even someone as senior as Inspector Stone had been questioned but he’d never faced charges.

It was when Inspectors chose to arrest rather than kill their guilty targets that the CPS stepped in. They checked our case was airtight and took over the battle if there were any appeals or recanted statements.

‘You have sixteen hours left, Wise,’ Thackeray grunted.

‘That’s all I’ll need,’ I said confidently.

After we rang off, I drafted a quick statement on my phone, e-signed it, attached the shortened clip of video evidence from Einar and fired it off to my favourite person at the CPS office who dealt exclusively with Other crimes.

Edith Bodsworth was older than dirt, though nobody knew quite how old she was; she’d been part of the CPS since before my dad had joined the Connection.

Her face was lined and craggy, her hair was greying and always in a bun, but no matter her age she was still sharper than a dragon’s claw.

She’d get me a warrant for Katz – I’d marked it urgent and asked for it to be expedited – and in the meantime I could talk informally with Katz.

I texted Channing. Get Katz in for a casual chat. And Verona too.

Yes, ma’am.

I smiled. Things were cooking. My phone rang. I grimaced at the screen. Rupert. ‘Hey, bro, how are you doing?’

‘How am I doing? How am I doing?! Exactly when were you going to tell me that I’m a prime suspect?’

‘You’re not!’ I assured him. Frankly, I was surprised the thought hadn’t occurred to him earlier. I guess he was too involved to see things clearly. His solicitor’s analytical brain had taken a backseat to emotion; I could hardly blame him.

‘Well, that’s not what my boss thinks. I’ve been suspended! Effective immediately, pending charges!’

‘You’re not going to be charged,’ I promised evenly. ‘I’m on it, okay? Fuck your wanker boss. Go home, have a duvet day on his dime.’

‘I need you to solve this, Stacy,’ Rupert pleaded.

‘I’m on it. Trust me.’

‘I do, but I’m scared as hell.’ That hit me right in the gut.

My brother obviously felt that all this talk about feelings was too much because he recovered with, ‘I’m too pretty for prison.’ The joke was weak and, if anything, it made me feel worse.

‘Go home, Rupe. Everything will be okay. I promise.’

He hung up without saying goodbye. Krieg reached over and lightly squeezed my arm. ‘He’ll be okay.’

I blew out a breath. ‘He will, because we are going to nail these arrogant fuckers to the wall.’

‘To the mattresses!’ Loki screeched in agreement, making me grin. My bird spoke Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and mob slang. He was multilingual.

By the time we arrived at the station, Channing had roused Katz and ordered him to come down in an hour’s time. I pulled him into my office and gave him the full rundown of everything that he’d missed. His jaw worked. ‘Ma’am?’

‘Yes?’

‘Next time, I’d prefer to come with you when you go undercover.’

‘Me too,’ Loki asserted firmly. I ignored the bird; going undercover was hard enough, without trying to smuggle in a fancy pigeon.

Channing, though? I couldn’t imagine anything worse than strolling into the Lust room with my uptight, inexperienced partner. Tiredness made me snap, ‘You can prefer all you want. I needed one of us to be sharp. When I wrap this up with a fucking bow, you’ll be doing the paperwork while I sleep.’

Channing didn’t look impressed.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. I had a headache from lack of sleep. ‘I’m not used to having a partner,’ I said finally. ‘I forget to include you.’

‘And Loki,’ Loki muttered mutinously.

‘You had no issue including Krieg!’ Channing objected. Then he slid a glance to the ogre, blushed and stammered, ‘No offence, Your Excellence.’

Krieg looked amused. ‘None taken, detective.’

‘Krieg had skin in the game.’ I looked at Channing. ‘Anyway, would you like to say no to the High King of the Ogres?’

‘No,’ Channing conceded.

There was a knock on my door and DS Roberts stuck his head round the door. ‘You’ve got a “Verona” in reception for questioning. Apparently she’s refusing to give her full name.’

‘I’m just glad she showed up,’ I muttered.

‘Trust you to have witnesses with only one name like bloody Cher.’ The DS left with an eyeroll. He wasn’t my biggest fan.

I turned to Channing. ‘Show Verona into Interview Room One. Recording protocol X.’ He nodded and left briskly.

‘Recording protocol X?’ Krieg asked.

‘It sounds ridiculous, I know, but he’s new and I didn’t want him recording with the wrong cameras. There’s both Common and Other equipment in the room. The cameras back up automatically and we don’t want this shit going to the Common realm police archive instead of ours.’

‘Right. Can I sit in?’ Krieg asked.

‘And me!’ Loki demanded.

I considered it. ‘You can both come in with Verona. For Katz, the pair of you will need to be on the other side of the glass.’

‘They really do two-way glass?’ Krieg sounded surprised.

‘Not everything you see on TV is bullshit.’ I pushed away from my desk. ‘Come on, we need to get some evidence on Quintos.’ I smiled. This was going to be fun. I loved it when I had an ace up my sleeve.

My phone buzzed with a message from Kate: Imbarum. Lots of it.

Make that two aces. And I was collecting more; I had other irons in the fire. Adrenaline poured through me, carrying me through the lack of sleep. I slugged back two paracetamol – as efficacious as any potion but far cheaper – and hoped they’d kick in soon.

I led Krieg through the station to the interview rooms where Verona was already waiting. BDSM Barbie was apparently off duty: today she was dressed in jeans and a bright white hoodie, her hair was tied back and her face was free of make-up. She looked almost approachable.

She remedied that by glaring as soon as I walked in. ‘You’d better have a damned good reason for dragging me in on my day off,’ she snapped.

I grinned at her. ‘Honestly? You’re going to love it.’

‘On cloud ten!’ Loki agreed. Verona blinked at his presence then, to my surprise, she extended her finger. After a beat, Loki flew to sit on it. She stroked him gently and he crooned. What the actual hell? Why was my bird fraternising with Dominatrix Barbie? And worse, why was I a smidge jealous?

I tried to set my feelings aside and turned to Channing. ‘Caution her and start recording,’ I instructed gruffly.

‘Detective Elliott Channing and Inspector Stacy Wise in interview with Verona of the Volderiss clan,’ Channing said. He rattled off the time and date for the camera then read Verona her rights. She looked at him, intrigued.

‘We need to take your statement,’ I started.

Visibly frustrated, she huffed, ‘You know that I can’t give you one.’

I smiled. ‘Au contraire. Although it’s corrupted and can’t be used, I was lucky enough to see some footage that shows without a shadow of doubt that you did not swear an oath.’

‘I did!’

I smirked. ‘No, you didn’t. Quintos phrased his oath request badly. What you said was, “I will give you my oath that I will not speak or communicate in any way about anything I saw here.”’

‘Yeah? So?’

I leaned forward. ‘You said “I will”, so you didn’t give your oath in that moment. You promised to do so in the future. You didn’t glow golden, Verona – the poor wording meant that the oath didn’t take. You can speak freely about what you saw without fear of an oath death.’

‘Cockwomble!’ Loki cackled in delight.

She bit her lip. ‘What if you’re wrong?’

‘Verona, I swear to you that I saw the oath didn’t take hold. My oath that I speak the truth. As I will it, so mote it be.’ I glowed golden as the oath took. ‘You did not glow,’ I promised again.

She looked at me then threw back her head and laughed. ‘Oh my God, that is too perfect! The absolute arseholes! Are you going to kill them or send them to prison?’

‘I rather think prison is the worst punishment for them, don’t you?’ I said drily.

‘Absolutely – they can all rot there.’ She beamed. ‘This is the best start to my morning. You’re right, it was totally worth coming in for on my day off!’

She leaned forward. ‘Tom Squiggins found me in Cameron Quintos’s office and said he had something important to tell me.

’ She blushed lightly. ‘Like an idiot, I let him get close enough to whisper to me – but he didn’t whisper, he jammed a syringe in my neck.

He used some sort of serum on me to induce my compliance.

Everything felt … floaty, like it didn’t matter what I did and it was best to just obey him. ’

She frowned. ‘It was horrible. I guess he wasn’t sure if the serum would work because he also held a knife to my throat to ensure my compliance. And then he walked me over to a secluded area in the gardens where I witnessed Quintos order an ogre to kill Helga.’

I leaned forward. ‘And who else gave the order?’ I pressed.

‘Oh!’ She grinned. ‘You’re right. Louisa Carnforth told the ogre to do it, too.’

‘Did you hear them discuss any other crimes?’

‘I heard Katz and Louisa talking about using a dryad assassin called Kane to kill another dryad.’

I smiled. Gotcha, you arrogant fucks.