Page 39 of Veiled Justice (The Other Detective #1)

Louisa called for a whole team of lawyers; not one, not two, but three suits sat next to her.

‘Where’s that tasty beefcake?’ she drawled in that upper-class privileged voice.

She stretched back in the plastic chair as if it were a throne.

I was here to teach her she was no queen.

It was a lesson I was going to thoroughly enjoy.

I didn’t like her talking about Krieg that way but I didn’t want to examine why. I struggled to keep the glare off my face; I was planning on doing a good-cop routine. Her ego would be her downfall and I would pander to it.

I managed a smile. ‘High King Krieg is otherwise occupied.’

‘Shame. I do like some eye candy.’

‘Cameron Quintos isn’t exactly eye candy.’

‘No, darling,’ she tittered. ‘But he’s rich as hell and powerful to boot. And that adds at least a couple of points in his favour.’

One of the lawyers leaned forward and murmured something to her. She waved him away.

‘You’re pretty rich,’ I pointed out. ‘Richer, now that your father has passed away.’ I paused. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, by the way. It must have been hard losing him – and after all that mess with the dryad too.’

She dabbed at non-existent tears. ‘I’m crushed, of course.’

‘The interesting thing is that no one had seen him or heard from him in at least eighteen months. And I have a statement from your housekeeper that you kept him chained to his bed.’

When Channing had gotten Hannah Belham alone, all it had taken was a hint that she might have colluded in Magnus’s death and she’d told him everything.

She had no idea he’d been drugged constantly by Imbarum, kept conscious and immobile for months on end.

He must have been going slowly mad; his death had at least released him from that hell.

Louisa may not have cut or beaten him but she’d tortured him all the same.

Louisa had told Hannah that Magnus suffered from locked-in syndrome, but they couldn’t risk his board finding out so Hannah was to tell no one of his sad condition. Instead, Louisa attended meetings and communicated ‘his’ wishes.

Louisa sat up primly on her plastic chair. ‘Chained? How absurd! She’s mistaken, of course.’

Lawyer Two leaned forward. ‘Mr Carnforth was secured for his own good. He’d had some falls.’

‘Poor Daddy,’ Louisa said, her eyes wide and guileless.

Uh huh. I changed tack. ‘When you invited me to your gala, you said he was going to be there.’

She shrugged. ‘Well, he was on the premises, just in the house rather than the marquee.’

‘You’ve been running his company in his stead, haven’t you?

’ I kept my tone admiring, bordering on awestruck.

‘I did a little digging into Carnforth enterprises. Since you took over, the company has been doing very well.’ Too well.

‘I was interested to learn that it works in potion development and that’s why Quintos and your father are such rivals – science versus magic. ’

Louisa waved a hand dismissively. ‘They’re silly.

Both have their place, and science caters to the Common realm which is a huge market that shouldn’t be ignored.

Magic caters to the Other realm, a much smaller fraction of the market, but of course they pay a lot more for potions.

Different markets, different price points.

The competition between them is absurd.’

‘And that’s why you’ve been flirting with Quintos?

You want a slice of that much-larger science-based pie.

You’re rich – but he’s Midas rich.’ I paused.

‘He’s rich but you’re better. You’re smart, and brave.

You take risks.’ I appealed to her over-sized self-esteem.

‘I can’t get over how brilliantly all of this was orchestrated.

The sheer audacity, the elegance … it’s . .. impressive.’

Louisa feigned disinterest but I caught the faint flicker of pride in her eyes.

‘You must have seen the piece in The Mystic Informer?’ I went on. ‘The Art of a Perfect Crime.’ I let the words hang. ‘Obviously they didn’t name names, but between you and me? That article had you written all over it. A real connoisseur’s work.’

Louisa smirked. ‘I don’t read trash.’ Which was good because the article was pure fabrication on my part.

‘Journalism isn’t evidence, Inspector. What evidence do you have against our client?’ Lawyer Three snapped.

‘I’m getting to it, gentlemen. Patience is a virtue.

’ All three lawyers glared at me. ‘Anyway,’ I said quickly, ‘the article wasn’t good enough.

It didn’t do true justice to your level of sophistication.

And they got so much wrong. Like the part about the dryad assassin.

They called him “reckless”. Can you believe that?

Kane? Reckless?’ I chuckled. ‘If you ask me, Kane was the perfect choice. Dryads don’t usually kill their own kind, but you knew how to handle him, didn’t you? ’

‘Don’t answer that!’ Lawyer Two advised his client stiffly.

Her smirk faded slightly though her eyes were still glinting with satisfaction and she didn’t deny it.

‘And then there’s Helga.’ I sighed and shook my head.

‘That was ... bold. Witnessing the murder first hand, ensuring everything went off without a hitch. Getting another ogre to do it was inspired, and now you’re totally protected by the in-house rule.

Besides which, no one would ever suspect a Carnforth of being involved in such a messy business.

’ I leaned forward and lowered my voice.

‘It’s almost as if you’re building a legacy. ’

Lawyer One started to say something, but Louisa held up a hand and he fell silent.

Louisa’s chin tilted upwards and a satisfied smile curled her lips. ‘If someone were doing all that they’d be making a statement,’ she said coolly. ‘Showing this patriarchal world that they shouldn’t be underestimated.’

‘Miss Carnforth—’ Lawyer Two started.

‘Oh shut up!’ she said. ‘We’re talking in hypotheticals here. Aren’t we, Inspector Wise?

‘Not entirely,’ I paused. ‘Katz is claiming it was all his idea.’

‘Preposterous!’ she said instantly. ‘That ingrate can barely conceive the most basic of ideas, let alone something like this!’

Lawyer Three muttered something urgently to Lawyer Two. They both leaned forward to speak to Lawyer One.

Lawyer One glared at me. ‘Enough. Unless you have some actual evidence, this interview is terminated.’

I smiled. ‘Let’s get to the evidence then, shall we? You had a difficult relationship with your father.’

‘I don’t deny that,’ she said coolly.

‘Your father didn’t see your potential.’ I looked sympathetically at her. ‘That must have been hard.’

She slammed a fist onto the table. ‘He tried to make me take up needlepoint – needlepoint! Like I was a fucking damsel in the fifteenth century!’

‘You made him the damsel in the end,’ I said admiringly.

‘Your father – well, he just needed to go. He was holding you up. He put a stop to you dating Quintos.’ I smiled.

‘I bet you taunted him while he was bedbound. Such small doses of Imbarum, a potion created by your company … But Amber DeLea tells me that the Coven Council refused to authorise it for sale.’

‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘Those witchy bitches are just jealous dried-up old hags with no vision.’

‘Miss Carnforth!’ Lawyer One snapped.

‘That’s not incriminating,’ she shot back. ‘The witches are dried-up old hags. It’s just the truth.’

‘Like the truth that you decided to end your father,’ I murmured. ‘Like Alice Rose. Like Helga. All of them were stepping stones to prove you’re the one in control. Which, of course, you are.’

Her lips curled into a cruel smile. ‘I am in control, yes. And yet here I am, perfectly untouchable. They were all killed under the in-house rule. None of the deaths are anything to do with the Connection so you can’t arrest me, even if I had something to do with it, which I didn’t.

’ She smirked, so certain of her security.

Lawyer One let out a low groan.

I smiled. ‘It’s a funny thing about the in-house rule.

As soon as another species gets involved it becomes conspiracy to murder and the in-house rule doesn’t apply.

With your father’s death, you involved the witches who supplied you with the Imbarum.

And you’re a wizard so every death is a conspiracy to murder. ’

The truth was that the witches had supplied an illegal drug meant to incapacitate her father, not kill him, and I wasn’t sure that charge would stick. But the others? Oh yeah, they’d stick like glue.

‘You have no proof of any wrong doing,’ Lawyer Two shot at me. ‘Unless you have some actual evidence, we’re ending this now.’

I grinned. ‘I have more proof than a good bottle of whisky. Let's start with the footage from her fancy videographer showing she was indeed missing from the fireworks at the time of death.'

'That shows nothing,' Lawyer Two dismissed.

'It shows opportunity. But you're right, that's not the smoking gun we need – not alone anyway. But let's pair it with Helga's blood on Miss Carnforth’s dress – I got to it before the dry cleaners could remove it – and that gun is starting to warm up. But then, we've got the statements.'

'From who?' Lawyer One asked tightly.

'We have a full statement from a Volderiss Clan vampyr, Verona. She witnessed everything. Quintos made her swear an oath, but he fumbled the wording and the oath didn't take. She sang like a bird.'

Louisa groaned. 'Fucking idiot!'

I slid a copy of Verona's statement across to the three lawyers, which they pored over. I was kind enough to give them some reading time before I added, 'And of course, there’s the statements from Quintos and Katz blaming Louisa for the whole thing.’ I passed the lawyers the additional statements.

The lawyers needed better poker faces, their expressions were all dialled to “oh shit”. Even Louisa was finally beginning to look a little alarmed.

‘Even with all that … there’s the fingers.

We have a warrant to search your residence for your trophy – we found the first one in Greed in Nocturne Circle but I suspect we’ll find the second one in your home.

Not to mention, those vials of Imbarum. Deny it all you like, the evidence against you is sizeable and irrefutable.

’ I smiled. ‘Louisa Carnforth, you are under arrest for conspiracy to murder Helga Jónson and Alice Rose, and for the murder of Magnus Carnforth. I find you guilty, and sentence you to Wraithmore Prison for a term to be determined by the CPS.’

‘Don’t say another word!’ Lawyer One instructed her.

She pressed her lips together, silencing herself, but the action was too little, too late.

'We'd like a moment with our client,' Lawyer Three said grimly.

'I'm sure you do. You'll have it.' I pushed away from the table.

'If she wants a plea bargain, she's going to have to confess.

Otherwise, the full weight of the law will be thrown at her.

She's going to Wraithmore Prison, that much is certain.

How long for, is up to her co-operation and remorse. Something to think about.'

I walked out. Louisa may not have masterminded Helga’s death from the very beginning but in the moment she sure as hell had ordered it. I was more than satisfied that she was guilty – beyond all reasonable doubt – and in the Other realm, my opinion was all that counted.

Rupert was officially cleared, justice had prevailed. Katz, Quintos and Louisa Carnforth were all going away for a very, very long time.