Chapter Eleven
I showed Mrs Marlow to the mess hall – calling it a cafeteria was overly generous – but it was a gathering space with tables, chairs and a toaster.
There were always basic supplies on hand, funded by a collection we all contributed to, keeping us in tea and coffee.
It was there that Ada found her son washing down his teacake with a glass of orange juice while happily drawing on some paper.
Channing sat opposite the boy, while Detective Frost sat next to him.
Frost was drawing flowers on the paper, and Frankie was tracing over them. The other pictures strewn across the mess hall table had various states of scrawl across them.
‘Oh Frankie!’ Mrs Marlow said, cooing over the scribbles. ‘These are just wonderful.’
‘This is a rainbow,’ he said, pointing to a doodle which, to be fair to him, did have a decent arch. Then he pointed to a dark ball of scribbles, sharp and edgy. ‘And here is Daddy, dead.’
‘Oh,’ she faltered. ‘Well … that’s … nice.’
He smiled beauteously up at her. ‘And here’s one of him in heaven.’ He pointed to another sketch which looked, to my untrained eye, exactly like ninety percent of the rest of the sketches.
‘Very nice,’ Mrs Marlow replied, smile strained. ‘Well, we’ve taken up the lovely Inspector’s time for long enough, haven’t we? Let’s go and see if we can’t find Tyler.’
‘For ice cream?’ he asked optimistically.
‘It’s a little early for ice cream.’
‘Please?’ He batted huge eyes at his mum.
‘We’ll see,’ she hedged. ‘Come on now Frankie. Say thank you to the nice policemen.’
‘Policemen help keep us safe,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘They’re people who help us.’
Frost smiled. ‘That’s right.’
‘Thank you!’ He gave Frost an enthusiastic hug goodbye, which she warmly reciprocated, and then we all watched them go.
‘Cute kid,’ Frost said.
‘Looks like he had a shit dad, though,’ I commented.
Frost shrugged. ‘His mum will be enough for him.’
I nodded, thinking of my own mum who’d struggled fiercely to raise us all after Dad died. ‘Yeah. She will be.’
Laura strode over to us. Today the pencil skirt she wore was black, the shirt was white, and her choker was black lace with a small pearl-drop pendant. She was wringing her hands as she approached, balanced neatly on small kitten heels.
‘The DSU wants to see you, Stacy, and he’s on the warpath.’
I sighed. When was he not? ‘Okay, thanks, I’ll go see him.’ I pulled out a five-pound note from my pocket and passed it to Channing. ‘For whoever’s teacake we stole.’
‘It was mine,’ Frost said. ‘It’s okay. I could probably do without the extra calories anyway.’ She patted her non-existent stomach.
‘Take the money. Get yourself another teacake. Thanks for looking after the kid.’
‘You want me to come with you, boss?’ Channing asked.
‘No, it’s okay. I’m a big girl. I can take my lumps. Loki, you stay with Channing. I don’t want Faraday seeing you and taking issue with you.’
‘I invisible!’ Loki protested.
‘Bird, don’t be stubborn. You’re going to wear yourself out.
Stay here. Channing, keep an eye on Loki.
’ I fixed my bird with a glare. ‘No more pooping on people. Channing, I want you to dig up what you can find on the other partners for Marlow’s aerometric firm, Zephyr Metrics.
The company was getting ready to go big.
Maybe one of the partners wanted half rather than a third of the profits. ’
Frost looked dubious at my comment, so I continued, ‘Greed is a surprisingly common motivator for murder, so let’s dig in. And Frost, you free to assist?’
‘Absolutely. I just wrapped up a traffic violation this morning.’
‘Great. I’m pulling you all in on this one, subject to caseloads. Lord Marlow’s death is going to make waves, and Thackeray doesn’t like waves.’
‘He’s more of a millpond guy,’ Channing agreed.
‘Frost, dig into Ada and her new beau, Tyler Carter.’
‘You got it, ma’am.’
I left them to it and went upstairs to where the brass’s offices were, physically and metaphorically above us all. I rapped firmly on Thackeray’s door and let myself in when he gruffly called, ‘Enter.’
I walked into the office and kept my face blank as I saw that not only was DSU Thackeray there, but so was DCS Faraday.
‘Sirs,’ I greeted them.
‘Sit down, Wise,’ Faraday ordered. This was his rodeo then.
I sat.
‘There’s pressure on this one, Wise, as you can imagine. Lord Marlow was a Symposium member. We can’t let this kind of thing stand. Justice needs to be swift, and it needs to be brutal.’
‘Understood.’ I waited a beat. ‘It also needs to be right.’
Faraday’s lips pinched. ‘We’re not asking you to sell your soul or do anything you wouldn’t normally do. What we’re saying is, you pull every resource at your fingertips to close this in a timely fashion.’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve already told my team that it will be all hands to the tiller on this one.’
‘Excellent. We’re not unaware,’ Faraday continued carefully, ‘of your continued romantic entanglement with Robert Krieg.’
‘It’s not a secret,’ I said as mildly as I could manage. ‘It also has no bearing on this case.’
Faraday’s eyebrows shot up. ‘No bearing? An ogre killed Marlow.’
‘That has yet to be proven conclusively,’ I said broadly. ‘The ME, Dr Potter, is running additional tests.’
‘For what?’ Thackeray asked.
‘There is some suggestion that the ogre marks were deliberately simulated to point the finger at the creature community. It is notable that the Anti-Crea are currently protesting outside the office.’
‘So?’
‘So how do they know of Marlow’s death and the ogre connection – which has yet to be proven and has not yet been released to the public?’
Faraday studied me. ‘You think the Anti-Crea are involved.’
‘I think there’s a good chance they might be.
Two of the men outside gave off ex-military vibes.
One of them could have done this – in and out, taser, snap on cuffs.
Yeah, it had the smoothness of a seasoned professional.
I am, of course, running down other avenues: business partners, the separated wife and the new boyfriend.
But the fact that the Anti-Crea are here when it’s been less than twenty-four hours since the murder and no report has been made in The Mystic Informer …
how do they know about the death? The ogre angle? ’
Thackeray harrumphed. ‘Leaks, regrettably, happen. Their attendance is not the smoking gun you need it to be.’
‘No indeed.’ I nodded. ‘Which is why none of them are in an interview room. Yet. But if the ogre marks were simulated, then we have to look at who would benefit from framing the ogre community. The Anti-Crea have been quiet lately, ever since Emory Prime Elite decimated their ranks. Maybe they want the limelight again. Maybe they need to recruit to fill the hole.’
‘Why would the Anti-Crea want to kill Teddy? He was an elemental,’ Faraday pointed out, and I didn’t miss the familiarity of calling the deceased by his first name.
‘That, I’ll need to dig into. But his death made a splash, that’s for sure.’ As had his guts on his bedroom floor.
‘All right,’ Thackeray said. ‘Everything else is on the back burner. We want the full attention of every member of Unit 13 on this. Get your team to wrap up their existing cases or set them aside.’
Justice might be blind, but murder someone important and everyone else got to wait. It didn’t sit well with me, but I nodded all the same. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And talking of Unit 13,’ Thackeray said gruffly. ‘We’ve closed the deal with the vampyr who owns 1 Bridge Street. Our lease commences tomorrow. We’ll worry about moving the unit when this case is closed.’
‘Noted. Permission to requisition Ji-ho’s time and expertise for the Marlow case also?’ He wasn’t permanently attached to Unit 13 yet, but I fully intended to change that.
Faraday nodded, hands clasped loosely behind his back. ‘Granted. Find the killer, Wise. Quickly.’
I stood. ‘I’m on it.’
‘See that you all are. And Wise?’ Faraday called as I reached for the door. ‘Lethal force on this one. We have had a quorum. The Symposium is eager to send a message. You’ve got a green light for any kill orders you think are merited and any collateral damage that is deemed acceptable.’
This was the bit of my job I hated the most. Collateral damage was never acceptable in my eyes. I kept my face expressionless but nodded stiffly. ‘Yes, sir.’
I had killed when needed – would do so again – but only when I was sure. Not even Faraday or Thackeray would speed my hand until then. I’d find the killer, but I’d do it right, and then I’d mete out the justice required of me.
And I’d deal with the nightmares that followed.