Blood Evidence Page 4

  A security guard is winding his way through the scattered dancers, apparently keeping a watchful eye on everyone. The man with the spiked hair slips his hand fully over the woman’s chest, as if no one else can see them. The security guard watches them for a moment, but says nothing.

  The younger couple beside us get up and go. By the time I finish watching them leave, an older couple have taken up the only remaining bar stools, both completely absorbed in one another. They look like they could be anywhere in the world. At least someone’s bringing a little bit more class to the place.

  I finish my whisky, and give Will a questioning look. He takes another gulp of lemonade and nods, leaving the almost-empty glass on the bar.

  We go up, and I dodge around a room service cart parked right at the top of the stairs, in perfect position to block everything, just as the door to room one opens to admit it. Some people don’t have any sense of personal space.

  Back up in the hotel room, we gather our things. It might be reasonably early still, but there’s more sense in getting up first thing in the morning. People might be more able to talk when it’s quiet.

  I head into the bathroom to change, or at least undress. I strip down to my underwear, brush my teeth, and cleanse and moisturise my face. Looking this good doesn’t come only with genetics. Though they do help rather a lot.

  I head back into the room, allowing Will the chance to get ready, and start rearranging things in my bag. I think about Ray Riley. I wonder what room he stayed in. Was it this one? Did he stand here, looking through his own belongings? Did he even have any with him?

  I study myself in the mirror on the wardrobe. Am I standing where he stood? The thought passes, and I rake a hand back through my hair. I should fit in more sessions at the gym. My arms look great, and I’ve had no complaints at all about my abs, but I’m thinking about defining that six-pack a little more. You know, really go for it. I’m not a fan of the gym bunny image, but I do like the way a guy’s eyes pop when they see you shuck off your shirt.

  Will emerges from the bathroom – fully dressed. I look at him with some surprise. I thought he would be ready to sleep.

  “Are you not getting into bed, then?”

  He hesitates. He hesitates for long enough that it hurts.

  “I didn’t plan this, you know,” I snap.

  “I know,” he says, his voice unsure. “It’s just a bit… weird.”

  “It’s weird to sleep near to someone you’ve been friends with for years? Someone you actually live with?” I ask. I can’t stop myself from challenging him. I probably shouldn’t. This has always been my fucking problem. I don’t know when to stop. And even when I do know, I still can’t.

  “But it’s different, isn’t it? I mean, because you’re…” Will stops abruptly, pursing his lips together and looking down at the floor.

  “Say it,” I say. Heat rushes through me. “Go on, say it. Because I’m gay.”

  “I didn’t mean…” Will starts, then sighs and shakes his head.

  “Yes, you did. You think if we sleep in the same bed, I’m not going to be able to keep my hands to myself, is that it?”

  Silence. Will won’t look up. He won’t meet my eyes.

  “Well, guess fucking what. You’re not as irresistible as you clearly think you are. And I’m not some kind of fucking caveman. I can restrain myself for one whole night.”

  I climb onto the bed, rearranging my pillows angrily and with far more force than necessary. Fuck him. If that’s what he really thinks of me, fuck him.

  I settle down on top of the covers – it’s warm enough not to need them, anyway – and turn on my side. My back to Will. I leave space for him, even though it looks like he’s not going to take it. I start flicking through apps on my phone, pretending to occupy myself.

  I hear him sigh, and head back into the bathroom. It’s only a few moments before the door clicks open again, softly, as if he doesn’t want to let me know his movements. Then there’s only the slightest creak of the bedsprings on his side as he sits down, swivels, and lays his full length out behind me.

  Six – Will

  The morning was not supposed to come quite as early as it did.

  I heard a strange noise out in the hall that woke me. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, and I was about to roll over and go back to sleep when I heard something else.

  Below us, somewhere, a woman was screaming.

  I sat bolt upright, and beside me, Ram opened his eyes as well. We stared at each other for a moment, before he leapt up and out of the bed.

  I scrambled for my clothes. I’d slept in an oversized shirt, so I was ready before Ram, and then I was out of the door. He cursed and ran after me shirtless, down the corridor to the stairs.

  I guessed he wasn’t too pleased with the idea of letting me run out on my own, after what happened last time I pulled that stunt. It took a long time for the bruises on my neck to heal.

  Others were joining behind us – I heard their doors opening and footsteps. I raced down the stairs as quickly as I dared, hoping that my bare feet would not stumble and trip and make me fall down. I jumped the last step.

  I didn’t need to get my bearings or wonder where to go next. The woman was still screaming. We could all hear her, calling out over and over again from the bar.

  I rushed in, then paused just beyond the threshold, arrested by what I saw.

  A young woman, sprawled across the floor, her tight dress slid so far up her thighs as to be indecent.

  And around her, a halo of blood.

  “What happened here?” Ram asked, his voice over my shoulder. Behind him, more people were arriving, stifling screams and gasps as they saw what was on the floor.

  “It’s so horrible,” the woman dressed in the bar’s uniform was crying. She was still stood near the body. It was clear that she had been the one who had screamed. There was no one else in the room.

  Ram brushed past me, his arm making contact with mine. I tried not to stare at the muscles in his bare back as he passed me. He slipped that same arm around the woman’s shoulders, and started to lead her away so that her back was to the grisly scene.

  “You walked in and found her like this?” he asked. His tone was gentle, but I knew what he was doing. Investigating.

  It wasn’t like being a detective was something that you could just switch off, after all.

  “Y-yes,” she sobbed. “She wasn’t here last night when we closed up. I just came in to start getting the breakfast ready.”

  The PA system fired into life suddenly, bursting out a pop song. It must have been resuming from where it had left off the night before. Several different voices swore at once, including Ram’s.

  I looked behind me to see a group of people – maybe five or six – variously staring at the body or turning away with their faces covered. I recognised some of them from the night before.

  An elderly man appeared behind them, dressed in a green hunting suit over a thin mustard-coloured jumper. He had white hair sticking out at all possible angles, and the kind of face that you might describe as benignly confused.

  “What’s all the ruckus?” he asked, his voice querulous and thin over the music. “Settle down, now, everyone.” He searched for a device set down on a low table near the door and touched a few of the buttons, shutting the music off.

  “Oh, Richard,” the barmaid sobbed. “It’s so awful. She was in here last night. No, don’t look, don’t look!”

  But it was too late. The others had parted to let him through, and the old man could see what we were all gathered around, and he gave a great gulping gasp of shock that seemed to run right through his body. He clutched his chest and made a thin, keening noise.

  One of the bystanders, a man I had seen last night drinking with his wife, snapped into action. “Let’s get you away from there, shall we? Richard, come this way,” he said, gently guiding the old man back into the hall and a faded, antique-looking chair. “Sit down and catch your breath,
that’s it.”

  Richard only gasped for air feebly, looking over towards the door again and again as if he could see around the corner.

  “Has someone phoned the police?” a younger man asked. He and his – girlfriend? – had been at the bar last night, too.

  “No,” the barmaid spluttered. “I was too… too…”

  “I’ll do it now,” he volunteered.

  “In the meantime, we should try to make sure that we disturb the scene of the crime as little as possible,” Ram said. “Let’s all move back into the corridor and shut the doors. No one else needs to see this.”

  We moved as a group, stepping back as he said. I felt like I should do something, take control somehow, but there was nothing to do. It was all falling into place anyway. The only thing I could possibly do to be helpful was to start figuring out who had done this, and when, and why.

  “Is there anyone missing?” I asked.

  “Yes,” the barmaid wiped her eyes. “We’ve got more guests than this.”

  “What’s your name, dear?” Ram asked. His arm was back on her shoulders, rubbing her, comforting her.

  “Lina,” she said.

  “Lina, is there a guest register or something like that?”

  “Yes,” she said, wiping her face again. “Should I go get it?”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” Ram said. “And maybe everyone should go back to their rooms, get dressed, and gather those who aren’t down yet. We can meet again down here. In the… Dickens room, was it?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lina said, nodding. She looked a little more steady on her feet, although the shock was clearly not yet gone.

  “Dickens drank tea there,” Richard said faintly from his chair.

  “Alright, why don’t you wait in there for us all, Richard?” Ram suggested. “We can stay there to keep out of the way of the police, and Lina can check that everyone is accounted for. Is that alright?”

  “Yes, good idea,” Richard said, though his words lacked any kind of strength. I had the sense that he was simply going along with the first suggestion he had been given.

  Ram looked around and nodded at the others who had gathered, and they all started to shuffle their way back up the stairs. The others were in white robes or pyjama sets, or dressed hurriedly in haphazard clothing like we were.

  “Come on,” he said to me, putting a hand low on my back. I started at the touch. I didn’t like it when people touched me – felt me. Next would be the comments about the ribs peeking through my skin or the lumps of my spine. The concern about my weight. It made me shudder involuntarily.

  “I’m going already,” I said crossly, moving away from him.

  Ram gave me an odd look, but led me up the stairs. I hung back on purpose, letting him go first so that he wouldn’t try it again.

  Around us in the hall, I began to hear low murmured voices and louder exclamations. The ones who had stayed behind being notified. We headed into our room to prepare, starting our day on a much different note than the one I had expected.

  7 – Ram

  “Well,” I say. “I expect Poirot’s going to come in shortly and tell us all why we’re all guilty.”

  There is scattered, nervous laughter. The others in the room look about as uncomfortable as we feel.

  Several more have joined us as the news spread. I count nine guests, including us. The older of the two barmaids from last night are joined by Richard and Beverley, who I gather are the owners of the Highcastle Inn.

  We’ve been waiting mostly in silence since the police came. The silence is not good. It makes me think about how I want to get a drink, just a little drink, something to take the edge off the shock we’ve had.

  I try not to think about whisky.

  I try not to think about the moment when we woke up, Will next to me in the bed. About how fucking thin he looked, dressed in a baggy shirt with his legs bare. Like he was a baby deer that might fall over in the breeze.

  Like Bambi.

  I try very hard not to make that into his new nickname. Besides the fact that it would annoy him very much, which is always amusing, it’s not funny. He shouldn’t look like he’s about to drown in a t-shirt that would probably be tight across my chest and biceps.

  Trying not to think is not very successful when every single sound is swallowed by the silence.

  “Let’s go over the guest register,” Lina says nervously. I note the trace of an accent. She is a robust-looking woman, large-chested and stout with stiff, bleached blond hair tied back. She didn’t seem robust when she found the body. “The police will want to know that everyone is accounted for.”

  “Good idea,” I say, grateful for something else to listen to.

  “Okay,” she says, tracing the register with a hand that is still shaking. “Room one: Cameron Winter.”

  “Here,” a young man says. He’s slim and tall, but looks as if he isn’t totally lacking muscles. He has a serious set to his jaw, and dark hair that sweeps over his eyes. He could probably be a male model, except for the fact that he dresses like a geography teacher. He’s wearing faded brown corduroy trousers and a white button-down shirt with a tie.

  “Room two is Andrew and Miranda Fox,” Lina continued.

  “That’s us,” the man from the married couple speaks up. Their hands are clasped tightly together. Both look tired. I put them in perhaps their mid-forties. Miranda’s wedding ring is a plain gold band with a single diamond set down into it, while the hand Andrew holds hers with is adorned by a thick silver band carved with some kind of pattern. Miranda looks like she might have been crying.

  “Room three, Mike Rhodes and Rosie Carson.”

  “I’m Rosie,” speaks up the young-looking woman I saw at the bar last night. Her boyfriend, I presume, silently raises his hand and nods to indicate that he is Mike.

  “Room four, Johnny Blackburn.”

  “Me,” Johnny says. I almost want to scowl in his direction, but given the situation, I hold it in. I know I saw him last night. He was the thug type with his hand almost inside that poor girl’s arse.

  That poor girl who is now lying in a pool of her own blood in the bar.

  He looks pale. Good. Maybe he knows he’s about to get caught.

  “Room five, Reed David. Sorry, it’s been written wrong – David Reed.”

  “No, you got it first time,” the strange young man who likes trees says. He’s dressed even more oddly today. Bright orange trousers, faded enough with use that I know they must be part of his regular attire; a blue shirt with a shark design outlining a slogan about saving our seas; a knitted cardigan in rainbow colours, chunky and unwieldy enough that it looks handmade; and finishing off the look, thick-soled black combat boots that would look more at home on a goth. “My first name is Reed.”

  “That’s an unusual name,” Lina says, almost sounding as if she is parroting the pre-recorded lines which must be said in such a situation.

  Reed simply shrugs, providing no explanation.

  “And finally, room six,” Lina finishes. “William Wallace and Julius Rakktersen.”

  “Here and here,” I say, pointing to myself and Will.

  “That’s everyone,” Lina says, looking up from her list.

  “What about staff?” Will asks.

  “I’ll check the roster,” she says, flipping to the next page of the book. “Okay, I’m here, obviously. Lina Wright, for those of you I haven’t met. Beverley and Richard are the bosses, they live here. Stacey’s not due in until later. Then there’s Jude, the security guard. Jude Hargreaves.”

  A bald-headed man in a reflective vest over a white shirt and black trousers nods.

  “That’s all of us,” she finishes, looking around the room. Everyone is present. No one is missing.

  “She wasn’t a guest, then,” Jude speaks up.

  “She was at the party last night,” Lina says, distantly. “I kept serving her.”

  “Looked like she was a bit worse for wear,” Miranda says.
<
br />   “She was all over him an’ all,” Mike puts in. He nods his head towards Johnny. “He couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Had her flashing half the bar.”

  “I had nothing to do with this,” Johnny says vehemently, crossing his arms over his chest. “I was just having a good time. I didn’t see her after that.”

  “What, didn’t take her back to your room then?” Mike sneers.

  “No, actually,” Johnny says. “She went out for a cigarette and I never saw her again after that.”

  “I saw her,” Jude says. “I was on duty outside. She came out and asked that one for a lighter.”

  He’s pointing at Cameron.

  “Me?” Cameron protests. “I was… I don’t remember anything.”

  “Yes, it looked like you’d had a skinful,” Jude says, with that easy-going cruelty that all bouncers seem to possess.

  I look at Will thoughtfully. “We might be able to speed this up a bit.”

  “What’s that?” Jude is looking at us, an accusation clear on his face. He obviously doesn’t like people talking behind his back.

  “I’m just saying, we might be able to help get the investigation underway before the police take over,” I say. “Get to the bottom of the course of the night’s events.”

  “Best leave that to the professionals,” Richard says faintly. The man still looks pale. I doubt he’ll recover from what he saw very quickly.

  “Well, we are,” Will says. “Professionals, I mean.”

  “You’re police?” Rosie asks, her voice rising in pitch.

  “Private detectives,” Will says, taking a business card out of his wallet and holding it up for the room to see. “We’re known as Serial Investigations London.”

  Dead silence meets his proclamation, and mostly slightly puzzled faces.

  “We helped solve the case of the Highgate Strangler last year,” I add.

  There’s a brief flurry of recognition across a couple of faces, but mostly blankness. I sigh. So much for good fucking publicity.

  “Anyway, we trained with both the Met and the FBI,” I say. At least someone must have heard of those. “So we’re experienced at solving crimes like these.”