Blood Evidence Read online

  Mike sat down promptly.

  One thing I had always admired about Ram. He could get people to do pretty much anything he wanted, and without resorting to force. Whether it took a flirty smile or a casual threat, he always knew the right direction to take.

  “What do you want to know?” Rosie asked, in that same quiet tone.

  “What time did you arrive to check in the day before the murder?” Ram asked.

  “Half past three in the afternoon,” Rosie said. I was quick to make a note.

  “Right after school,” Ram grunted. “Moving on: what time did you go to the bar? We saw you there around nine.”

  “Just past six,” Mike said. “We ate in the restaurant before the party came in. Then we went to the bar for a drink.”

  “I saw someone from school,” Rosie added. “She’s friends with the cousin of the guy whose birthday it was. John, I think.”

  “Johnny; that’s right,” Ram confirmed. “Did you notice anything that might be relevant while you were in the bar? Or did your friend have any gossip to tell you?”

  “We didn’t speak much,” Rosie shrugged.

  “I saw Isabelle,” Mike said. “She was barely wearing anything. Grinding up against that bloke like a slut, right there in front of everyone.”

  Ram paused. “You had a problem with that, did you?”

  “Of course I did,” Mike scoffed, casting a sideways glance at his girlfriend. “That kind of behaviour in public? What a disgrace.”

  Rosie shifted uncomfortably, tugging on the bottom edge of her shorts.

  “I believe you left a short while after we sat down at the bar,” Ram said. “Did you go straight upstairs to your room?”

  “Yeah,” Rosie said. “Mike was hor- tired.” She had corrected her course after he dug his elbow into her side, but we had both caught it.

  Ram raised an eyebrow. “The sight of ‘that kind of behaviour in public’ too much for you to bear, was it?”

  It was Mike’s turn to be uncomfortable. He crossed his arms over his chest. “We checked in here so we could spend some time together. No point in spending all of our time in the bar.”

  We got the message, loud and clear. I wrote ‘UNDERAGE SEX’ in capitals on my notes and underlined it twice.

  “And did you hear anything unusual after you had gone into your room?”

  “Next door had room service,” Rosie said. “And I heard you come up the stairs, I think. You’re in the room at the end of the hall, right?”

  “That’s right,” Ram said. “Sharp ears?”

  Rosie looked at her own hands. “I was a bit nervous,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone coming in.”

  “We heard the people opposite coming in as well, didn’t we?” Mike said. “I wasn’t looking at the time, though.”

  I checked Ram’s scrawl. Opposite was Andrew and Miranda. That meant, if everything they told us was true, we had covered up to eleven P.M. that night.

  “We fell asleep sometime around one,” Rosie said. “I didn’t wake up at all after that.”

  “Me either,” Mike agreed with obvious smugness. “I was pretty knackered.”

  Information which we neither wanted nor asked for. Though in fairness, that was a run of almost four hours. They had outdone the cheaters.

  “And you were woken up by the screams?”

  “Yeah,” Rosie said, her face drawing paler at the mere thought of it. “It was horrible. I never seen a dead body before.”

  “Me either,” Mike said, slipping a comforting arm around her shoulders. “You were quite upset, weren’t you?”

  I could read what Ram was thinking on his face as clearly as if he had said it out loud. Teenage girls are prone to getting a bit upset when coming into contact with dead bodies, Mike.

  “There’s nothing else that comes to mind?” I asked, so that Ram wouldn’t have to.

  “No,” Mike said, and Rosie shook her head.

  “Then we’ll be in touch again if we need more details,” Ram said, standing up. “You’ve been a good boy, Mike. Well done. Now if you could just learn to sit and stay, you might have some potential.”

  Mike growled at us, as if on cue, but we were already at the door. The last thing I heard as it shut behind us was his voice, faint as he whispered to Rosie, but still audible.

  “You were flirting with them, weren’t you?”

  I shook my head as we headed not to our own room but down the hall, towards the stairs.

  “Are you really going to let him get away with that?” I asked. “We should report them.”

  Ram snorted. “Of course I’m going to fucking report them,” he said. “Like I said, the man’s a creep. I’ll call Fairlight tomorrow.”

  “Glad to hear it,” I sighed in relief. “For a moment I thought I was going to have to get your moral compass recalibrated.”

  “You can’t calibrate something that was never even installed, Will baby,” Ram grinned, slinging an arm around my shoulders. “I just fucking hate slimeballs. Come on, let’s get some dinner.”

  15 – Ram

  The night is uneventful, for once. No parties in the bar. No arguments before bed. No waking up to screams in the morning.

  We actually manage to get the full experience as it should have been, how it is for most guests at the Inn. There’s something strange about hearing bird calls and a small horse whinnying when your alarm goes off, instead of traffic and people yelling.

  I’m not sure I like it.

  “The check-in book says that Reed is leaving today,” Will says, studying his phone again. “We should track him down at breakfast if we can.”

  I nod. That makes sense to me. Get one task out of the way while we eat, and the rest of the day becomes that much more open.

  We make our way down the stairs to the restaurant area – down opposite the bar, through a doorway which leads into a long room that ends, by my estimation, at the Dickens room. The chairs and tables all match, seats upholstered in cream damask, and there are classical paintings hung on every wall. On close inspection of one of them, they appear to be the genuine article.

  Mike and Rosie are already seated and working their way through their plates. They both avoid my eyes, staring resolutely at the table or each other once they spot me.

  There is a sizeable breakfast buffet laid out in a central location, so I grab a plate and start helping myself. Scrambled eggs, plus a fried egg because why not? It’s all good protein. Crispy bacon, fried mushrooms, a generous ladleful of baked beans. Two slices of toast and a hash brown finish the job.

  I move to a nearby table and put my plate down, grunting in displeasure when I see Will’s plate. Half a bowl of cereal, dry, no milk.

  While he gets us both a glass of orange juice, I pick up two croissants, a miniature pot of jam, and more toast. I’m not going to watch him starve today.

  “We’ll be able to see Reed if he comes down for breakfast from here,” I say quietly.

  Will nods. We sit and begin to eat. I notice he is studiously ignoring the extra toast, so I pointedly move the plate closer to him.

  He pushes it a few millimetres back.

  Oh, so it’s going to be one of those days, is it?

  Will finishes perhaps half of his cereal, then sits back in his chair as if he is done. I shoot him the kind of look that I hope he knows means he’s in serious trouble if he doesn’t eat up.

  Not that I can really follow through with any kind of punishment. I’m not his bloody mum. Still.

  “Here he is,” Will murmurs, almost under his breath.

  I look up and see Reed entering. “This doesn’t mean you’re off the hook,” I say. “I’m only halfway through my plate. We’re finishing this after we talk to him.”

  Will ignores me and walks forward, trapping Reed by the juice dispenser and touching his elbow lightly. “Reed, would you mind answering a few questions for us? We’re talking to everyone who was here that night.”

  “Of course!” Reed says, joyo
usly. I bet the guy is so fucking starved for attention he would talk to us even if we said we wanted to sell him double glazing. Or entry to the Mormon church.

  “Come and join us,” I say, gesturing to the empty chair opposite me. I didn’t even have the chance to get up.

  “Let me just grab some food,” Reed says, casting an eye around the almost-deserted dining room. “Wouldn’t want to miss out in the rush!”

  He picks up four croissants, some chocolate spread, and honey to go with his apple juice. I almost wince. I’m not going for the healthiest breakfast of the year award, but that is some serious sugar intake.

  He is dressed like a blind man again: purple cord trousers with brown patches on the knees, paired with a moss-green shirt. Over his arm is draped a particularly woolly yellow jumper. It appears to feature pom poms dangling from some areas of the knit.

  Reed finally joins us, settling in opposite me with an expectant expression. I fire him a smile, feeling instinctively that he will respond so well to friendliness that there will be no need for any other kind of tactic.

  “Let’s start with your routine on the day before it all happened,” I say. “When did you check in?”

  “At one p.m. precisely,” Reed says. “I was just in time to have lunch. May I eat?”

  “Go ahead,” I say, taking the opportunity to pick up my last piece of toast and use it to scoop up beans. “And did you eat lunch here, I take it?”

  “That’s right,” Reed says, nodding vigorously. He takes his first croissant, and opens it expertly with a butter knife from knot to knot across the centre. “I was sitting to the left, over there by the window. I saw everything as it happened.”

  “As what happened?” I ask. Surely he doesn’t mean he witnessed the murder?

  “Winter and Blackburn having their little argument.” Reed neatly cuts off both of the ends of the croissant, creating a shape more like the traditional pain au chocolat, and discards them onto another side plate.

  I stare at him. An argument between Cameron and Johnny? No one mentioned this. Not in the room where we were all questioned, and not at the police station. My radar is officially up.

  “What happened? In detail, if you can?” Will asks.

  “It was all a to-do,” Reed says, shaking his head as he spreads chocolate across the inside of his pastry in a thick layer. “Blackburn was sitting over there, near the door. He had boxes and bags – birthday gifts. He was sitting and opening them all one by one. The waitress – the Lithuanian one – was talking with him about all his new things.”

  “He came over to a hotel by himself to open all of his presents,” I say, mostly to myself.

  “He was talking loud. I heard him say he was having a big night out, so he wanted to treat himself in style,” Reed shrugs. I don’t expect him to find this unusual. This is a man who is now cutting the ends off a second croissant and putting them aside.

  I see Will making a note out of the corner of my eye. I lean further over to see what he’s written. Loner? Home issues?

  “So, then what happened?” Will asks.

  “He had one present, this fine gold necklace. A thick chain. He was wearing it in the morning, when we all sat together.”

  “I know the one you mean,” I nod.

  “He suddenly starts up from his chair and yells out, asking who’s got his necklace. He’d been up to the bar, see, to get a new drink since the waitress wasn’t coming over anymore. I think she was tired of talking to him. I knew the look in her eyes.” Reed moves on to cutting open his third croissant.

  For a moment, I look at him with new eyes. Pity and understanding. He’s different, so he must know rejection well. That’s not an expression I would like to see on anyone’s face enough times to be able to recognise it.

  “Winter was sat near him, at the next table. He’d finished eating, and gone upstairs. Blackburn started shouting that Winter must have stolen the necklace, and the waitress ended up calling his room and asking him to come down. They had it out right over there. Winter swore he didn’t know anything about it.”

  “But they must have found the necklace, because Johnny was wearing it later,” I say.

  “Right. I don’t know what happened after that. I finished eating and went for a long walk outside,” Reed says. He has finally finished preparing all of his croissants, piling them one on top of the other now that they are ready. “Did you see the Shetland pony here? His name is Cookie.”

  “I wasn’t aware,” I say gravely.

  “There are at least thirteen different species of bird living around the lake, too. I counted.”

  “Thanks for the information,” I press on. “So, what time did you come back in?”

  “Oh, not long before dinner. I ate here again, and then I stayed around to see the party. Incidentally, I recommend the pizza.”

  “We saw you there, at the bar,” Will says.

  “Yes. I spoke to Julius here for a while. About the trees.”

  “I remember,” I say.

  “I went up not long after that. Nearly the same time as you. We’re next door to each other, did you know that? I’m room five.”

  Will nods. “We had a look at the room plans.”

  “Don’t worry,” Reed says, with a twinkle in his eye. “The walls are pretty solid. I didn’t hear a thing.” He picks up all four croissants, like a sandwich, and bites down through all of them at once. His jaw stretches to what seem to be snake-like proportions.

  I find myself speechless yet again. I don’t know what the fuck Kent is doing to me, but this seems to keep happening.

  “You didn’t hear anything all night?” Will asks.

  Reed shakes his head as he chews, swallowing rapidly in his haste to answer us. “No. I sleep very deeply. I always meditate for at least fifteen minutes before I lay down, so that I am already in a state of deep relaxation. I left my curtains open so that I would wake with the dawn. I was reading my local guidebook and waiting for breakfast to open, so I didn’t come down until I heard the screams.”

  I’ve seen enough of this guy’s eating habits. With his second bite, honey oozes out of the second croissant from the top and drips thickly over his fingers. I get to my feet in a hurry. Will looks pretty green, too.

  “Thanks for your help, Reed,” I say. “We’d best be going – more people to chat to. And we don’t want to interrupt your breakfast any longer.”

  Reed struggles to finish his mouthful in order to reply to me. I’m fairly certain that he will utter some sort of protest designed to induce us to stay and chat for longer, so I don’t wait. I throw a hand up in an awkward wave and move for the exit as quickly as I can, Will only one step behind me.

  “Aha,” someone says as we enter the main hallway. “Just who I was looking for.”

  I groan inwardly. “Detective Chief Inspector Fairlight,” I say, by way of greeting.

  “William. Julius,” he says. “Come and sit with me in the, ah – the Dickens Room, is it?”

  We follow him obediently into the small antechamber. He gestures for us both to take a seat, which we do, though on my part at least there is a good deal of reluctance to it. This man is the last person I want to see right now.

  “I’ve had a call from Miranda Eccles and Andrew Fox,” he says, consulting his notebook briefly. “Apparently, you’ve been representing yourself as being part of the official investigation.”

  “We never did that,” Will says quickly. “We told them we were investigating, that’s all. They knew that we’re private detectives.”

  “And you were just happy to let them assume whatever was most convenient, I’m sure,” Fairlight says, flaring his nostrils and shaking his head. “I’ll not have any more interference from you. Too much confusion, and people will end up telling you things and not us. Then we’ll miss out on important information that could be critical to the case.”

  I think about making a snide remark about how people should be able to tell civilians apart from police, if they
’re doing their jobs properly. But I don’t. I think Will must finally be having some sort of calming influence on me.

  “Or we could pool our resources,” Will says. He has a quiet, deferential tone, but he speaks with confidence. The kind of tone one learns growing up as the son of a diplomat. “We’ve been brought in as civilian consultants previously, with the Met. We helped solve the Highgate Strangler case.”

  Fairlight grunts. “Maybe you did. But I can also see that Mr Rakktersen here was arrested as a suspect in that case. Seems like you boys weren’t careful enough in the beginning about going around looking for evidence. You might have done more harm than good.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I say, and sigh. Will is right. If we want to get anywhere on this case, we need to work with the police, not against them. “Let me call Detective Alex Heath. We worked closely with him. He’ll vouch for us.”

  “I’ve already had Detective Inspector Heath sniffing around,” Fairlight says. “That was on your behalf, was it?”

  “He was helping us out with a private client,” I say. “We’re looking for her fiancé. Your boys had him, but he’s since wandered off again. That’s why we’re here. It was all just a coincidence that this happened while we were in the hotel.”

  “Some coincidence,” Fairlight scoffed. “This isn’t a detective novel, you know. We tend to look closely at people who are followed by murders wherever they go. It often turns out that they have more of a hand in it than they claim.”

  “Please, just talk to Alex,” I say, taking my phone out of my pocket and dialling. “He’ll at least tell you that you have nothing to worry about from us.”

  Fairlight breathes out heavily through his nose, but he doesn’t stop me.

  The phone rings only a few times before the line connects.

  “Getting yourself into trouble again, Julius?”

  I laugh, trying to put more humour into it than I really feel. If only he knew. “Morning, Alex. I was hoping you could help us out with something.”

  “Why am I not surprised?”

  I let that one go. “I’m here with DCI Fairlight. He’s running the investigation down in Sevenoaks.”

  “I know of him,” Alex says, more cautiously now. “Christ, you haven’t actually got yourself into trouble, have you?”