Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Beeks swaggered in like the room owed him rent. Ex-military, dishonourably discharged, tattoos that looked more like a sick manifesto than body art. The beheaded centaur on his arm certainly rang alarm bells. Maybe beheading was his thing.
He sat, crossed said-tattooed arms, and waited defiantly.
Channing switched on the recorder. I wasn’t going to waste time on a pissing contest with this ingrate.
‘Ambrose Beeks,’ I began, ‘you were at the rally outside the police station.’ Calling it a rally was generous, but I thought I’d start by appealing to his ego – inflate it until I was ready to pop it like the dangerously over-inflated balloon it was.
‘Wasn’t a rally,’ he grunted, his eyes saying stupid bitch without needing words. ‘It was a protest.’
‘Right, a protest that ended with one of your members dead.’
‘No one died at the protest. Who’s dead?’ he asked innocently, as if he didn’t know full well, but there wasn’t a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He was playing dumb, or maybe he was just plain dumb. Either way, he already knew Drummond was dead.
‘Your pal, Alasdair Drummond.’
He sniffed. ‘Dead is he? That’s a shame, but he wasn’t a pal of mine.
He was a damned animal lover. A bleeding heart.
All fussy about the environment, always getting us to turn off lights when we weren’t using them and stopping us from using plastic plates.
Making us wash up.’ He shook his head and his tone made it clear that he considered washing up the equivalent of wiping his bum after taking a shit: it was necessary but distasteful.
‘I bet he made you take canvas bags to the shop too,’ I said flatly.
He thumped the table. ‘He fucking did!’
‘Is that why you killed him?’ All right, not my smoothest segue ever, but the pills hadn’t smoothed out the headache yet, and I was done chit-chatting.
His eyes narrowed, and he sat back with a show of studied nonchalance. ‘Didn’t touch a hair on his head.’
‘It wasn’t his head that got hurt,’ I pointed out. I opened the manila folder on the desk and turned it so he could see the horrific image of Alasdair Drummond’s body splayed and ruined in his bed, the cream sheets soaked crimson.
Beeks didn’t bat an eyelash. ‘He was related to an ogre,’ he said instead, a shade gleefully. ‘That’s who you need to look at. His little tusked nephew.’
Ah, that was their plan, was it? Pin it on the mysterious ogre relative. I bet they had no idea his little tusked nephew was Robert Krieg, King of the Ogres, because if they did, they would have shit their pants and left Drummond well alone.
‘How do you know an ogre made these wounds?’ I asked.
He faltered. ‘It’s obvious,’ he finally said.
I smiled. ‘It is when you know who or what killed him,’ I agreed easily.
‘I’m military,’ Beeks grunted. ‘I know wounds.’
‘Ex-military,’ I corrected. ‘And you were part of a Common army, so you wouldn’t have seen ogres rampage as part of your service.’
He leaned forward, nostrils flared, eyes dark. ‘Bitch. You don’t know what I’ve seen.’
‘You’re right. I don’t. So tell me, what was the name of Drummond’s purported ogre relative?’
His eyes were still narrowed in anger, jarring with the nonchalant shrug he offered.
‘Dunno. But he told us he had one once. He couldn’t hold his liquor.
Said he had an ogre nephew, but that they’d never got on, obviously.
That he was ashamed his sister had parted her thighs for a monster.
’ His smile now was vicious. ‘Like you, I suppose Inspector.’
‘Shut your mouth,’ Channing snapped from his position by the recorder. ‘Or I’ll shut it for you. Show some damned respect.’
‘Threats of police brutality,’ Beeks sneered. ‘Watch yourself, little man, because I’ll be walking out of here without a blemish or you’ll be kicked off the force.’ He leaned forward. ‘I have friends in high places.’
‘Barnaby Kerr Senior, I presume?’ I interjected, giving Channing a little warning glance purely to pander to Beeks’s ego.
Beeks smiled maliciously. ‘He’s going to bust you down to traffic for opening your whore legs. Just you wait and see.’
‘My whore legs are no concern of yours,’ I said mildly, unruffled. ‘And where were you when Alasdair Drummond was getting his insides ripped out?’
‘I was with Junior and Angie. They like a little ménage à trois.’ He shot me a salacious wink, and I knew it was total bullshit just to cover their arses.
That meant they had something to hide, and I was going to nail them to the wall.
I smiled, but there was nothing friendly in the expression. ‘Yeah, is that right? And you called me a whore?’
His grin slid off his face. ‘Don’t you be rude about Angie. She’s everything you’re not!’
‘Bitter and bigoted?’
His teeth ground together audibly.
‘Let it be shown for the record that Mr Beeks is grinding his teeth,’ Channing said, tone cheerful. It almost made me slip up and smile.
‘Fuck you,’ he snarled.
‘No thanks,’ Channing shot back. ‘If you’re sleeping around, then there’s a high chance you have a sexually transmitted infection, so I’ll pass.’
Beeks’s face went even redder.
‘Where were you when Marlow was murdered?’ I pressed.
‘With the Kerrs,’ he ground out.
‘You don’t even have to ask when the murder was? Ask which day?’ I arched an eyebrow.
‘I already know which day. It was in the news.’
‘No, it wasn’t. But you know what is in the news? Let me read you the piece that The Mystic Informer is running. You’re going to love it. You’re all famous.’
I cleared my throat theatrically and began, ‘It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Theodore Marlow, a much-beloved member of the air-elemental community who served on the Symposium.
He was found murdered early on Wednesday morning.
His killers made a weak attempt to make it appear as if he was murdered by an ogre.
Similarly, one Mr Alasdair Drummond, a piper and a known Anti-Crea sympathiser, was found murdered in the early hours of Friday morning. He too was killed in such a way as to attempt to lay blame at the ogres’ door.
We spoke with the lead investigator, Inspector Wise, who had this to say:
‘The sad deaths of Marlow and Drummond were carried out by a person or persons currently unknown, in a pathetic attempt to frame the ogre community for the same. The murderer was cowardly on both occasions, striking in the dark and utilising tasers and magic-cancelling cuffs to incapacitate their victims prior to delivering grisly deaths. The deaths were clearly designed to whip up ire against the ogre community, but luckily the pure incompetence of the killers is such that the attempt has fallen flat. Meanwhile, members of the local Anti-Crea chapter are being questioned in relation to the deaths. It is only a matter of time before the killers are identified, apprehended and justice carried out.’
When asked what sort of justice the killer would receive, Wise confirmed it would be ‘the permanent kind.’
Let us remember that prejudice and fear serve only those who would see us broken and divided. As a community, we are only as strong as our weakest member. If we turn on each other, then we are truly lost.
Reported by The Mystic Informer, standing for unity across all races and realms.’
I looked up at Beeks’s red face. ‘That’s a nice touch, isn’t it? Their sign off?’
‘Weak-willed, pathetic bullshit,’ he snarled. ‘The Other realm is dog-eat-dog, and if you forget it, you deserve to get eaten.’
‘Like you ate Drummond?’
‘I didn’t eat him!’
‘No? Do you reserve that treat for Angela Kerr?’
He didn’t like that, and his fists clenched. ‘I had nothing to do with Drummond’s death. I was with the Kerrs at the time.’
I smiled. ‘We both know that’s not true.’
His nostrils flared. ‘I want my damn lawyer.’
‘I bet you do. Interview terminated until such time as Mr Beeks has legal representation.’
Channing switched off the recording equipment.
‘You’re free to go, Mr Beeks. Present yourself, and counsel, tomorrow at 9am. DC Channing, escort Mr Beeks out of the building.’
Beeks stood, shoved away from the table and stormed out, rage licking his guts. I watched him go with satisfaction.
Anger induces people to make mistakes.
I would be ready to take full advantage of it when Beeks fucked up. And he would. I was counting on it.