No One Likes Humans

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No One Likes Humans Page 16

by Clare Solomon


  “You refused to listen to anything I had to say and you think you looked bad?” He stared at her, wondering how she could be so oblivious to her own cruelty. “All those names you called me in front of Reese and the captain and you’re complaining about how I treated you?”

  “This isn’t about your ego.”

  Wow. She didn’t even see the need to apologise and he couldn’t go on like this. He’d let her rude comments slide for years and he was done with it. “No, it’s about our relationship and how little you seem to actually care about me.”

  She stared at him with a blank expression. “That’s rubbish.”

  “You’ve been calling me a moron or an idiot or similar insults for years and I’m starting to think that that’s really what you think of me. We had a professional disagreement tonight but you went out of your way to humiliate me. You’re the only family I have out here, the only person I’m really close to and you refused to even take me seriously when I needed your help.”

  “You’re my brother. Ribbing each other’s always been part of our relationship. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  He could see that she still didn’t get it and, if he didn’t let his feelings out now, he didn’t think their relationship would ever recover. “It does matter to me and it hurts every time you do it. How would you have felt if it’d been the other way round and I was speaking to you like that, calling you a moron, in front of other people?”

  She paused and her tone was gentler when she spoke again, more like the sister he had grown up with. “I would’ve been livid. Nick, I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t realise it bothered you so much.”

  “Just don’t do it again.” Her response made him feel a bit better. Perhaps they could find a way to resolve this whole mess together after all. “What about Bop? I wouldn’t have spoken when I did if I didn’t believe he’s not guilty.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you. I mean that, but it doesn’t change the facts of this case. You called this a professional disagreement so I’ll say this simply. The evidence all says Bop is the killer and the captain wants you off the case while I prove it.”

  “Poppy, all I need is a little time and a chance...”

  “I agreed.”

  He took in her words with a rising sense of betrayal. She looked more sad than angry now but it didn’t change the way that, after he had given up everything good in his life for her sake, she still wouldn’t stick by his side when he needed her.

  He had won the argument about the name-calling but she wouldn’t trust him over the larger issue and, as she turned and left, that hurt more than anything else in the world could have.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “HOW CAN I help you?”

  The quiet words made Nick lift his head, to see Reese standing in the kitchen doorway. Nick hadn’t been alone, after Poppy’s departure, for more than five minutes but it had been long enough for him to doubt everything in his life. “Why would you even try? Apparently I’m not a person anyone on this ship takes seriously.”

  “You’re one of the smartest investigators I’ve met,” Reese said. “If you believe he’s innocent, you’re probably right.”

  Nick shook his head, refusing to accept the words. He didn’t want to trust anyone. Hell, at this point he wasn’t even certain he trusted himself. “I don’t know anymore.” He rubbed his eyes, feeling a bone-deep weariness.

  Reese crossed the room and put his arms round Nick, who almost pushed him away, his feelings too raw to cope with the sympathy. He stood there, arms at his sides, allowing it but not participating, then a hand carded through his hair and he couldn’t resist any longer. Reese was the one person who had never let him down and Nick needed him so badly. He clung to Reese, emotions threatening to overwhelm him as he realised he hadn’t had anyone to lean on since he was a child.

  Nick closed his eyes and allowed himself the luxury of trusting that Reese would help him get through this, that he could let go and Reese wouldn’t let him fall too far. The flood of misery lessened as Reese stayed with him and soothed him, fingers stroking down his head and back in a gentle, rhythmic motion.

  He didn’t know whether they stayed like this for minutes or hours, just that Reese handed him the damaged pieces of his heart and helped Nick put them back together.

  His concern over Bop eventually overrode the desire to stay in Reese’s embrace for the foreseeable future. Nick reluctantly pulled back and tried to turn himself back into a functioning human being. “Thank you,” he said, lacking the vocabulary and ability to express the depth of this sentiment.

  Reese’s eyes were soft and he pressed a quick kiss to Nick’s lips. As chaste as it was, it made Nick yearn for so much more, but there were reasons he wouldn’t think about why they couldn’t take things between them any further now.

  Nick pulled his mind back to the case. “I know Bop’s innocent but I don’t have the tiniest bit of evidence to back it up. It’s just that that first murder was too premeditated for Bop and he was too grief-stricken when we arrested him for him to have committed the second.”

  Reese rubbed Nick’s arm and then took a step back from him. Nick could almost see the whirr of thoughts going through the other man’s mind. “Everything I saw while I was working at the du Lissin castle suggested that Bop had a volatile temper but that he was kind beneath it. If both murders had been committed impetuously then Bop might have been a convincing suspect but I agree with you that he doesn’t fit the profile of a cold-blooded killer.”

  “How do we prove it? The evidence led us to Bop.”

  “It did, didn’t it? If we’re starting out with the assumption that Bop is innocent, then the real killer framed him. It was someone with access to the castle and the export warehouse.”

  “It’s unlikely that the person didn’t leave the slightest DNA fragment at the scene of Kass’s murder,” he realised, brightening as he realised that finding the right person might not be impossible, as it had seemed earlier, “so we do actually only have a small number of suspects left. Before we arrested Bop, Poppy and I were planning on speaking to the family’s solicitors about who would benefit from Kass’s death.”

  “If they’re still hanging about outside, trying to arrange bail for Bop, we might be able to see them now.”

  Reese’s continued support and the promise of action gave Nick a boost of confidence. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  A LOT of the solicitors had left, presumably unwilling to face waiting outside for hours in the freezing night air, but three still remained, locked out, with Tem and Lyro standing guard rather unnecessarily inside the docking bay.

  Nick and Reese walked past them and Nick said to the shivering solicitors, “I think we should talk about the case.”

  The solicitors – two human women and a blue ratall – tried to enter the bay and Prince’s bodyguards raised their guns. “Captain says they can’t enter,” Tem said.

  “They won’t bother the captain,” Reese promised the alien with a friendly smile that was ignored. “We just need a few minutes with them.”

  “Please,” Nick added. “It’s important and I’ll take all the blame if Prince finds out about it later.”

  “We watch,” Lyro said.

  “Of course,” he agreed.

  Lyro pushed its companion out of the way and they had a muttered disagreement before Tem capitulated. They went and stood at the inner door, guns lowered but the sight of the bodyguards was still an intimidating one.

  There were no chairs in here so the group remained standing. The ratall alien introduced himself as Gu, one of the partners of the firm, while the human women were Sea Gull (really) and Prunella Hatfield.

  “I have doubts about Bop’s guilt,” Nick said, “but I need a way to convince my captain to consider other suspects. We know Ember du Lissin didn’t have a Will which meant that, by default, Kass and Swall inherited everything. Now that Kass is dead which people inherit her wealth?”

  Pru
nella Hatfield answered this. She looked around seventy, with white hair and a heavily lined, stern face. She wore a broach that was in the shape of the sea monster and he smiled, distracted, nearly missing her answer: “Arwyl.”

  Nick lifted his head to stare at her. “Just Arwyl?”

  “That’s right. Her other children receive bequests of money and belongings but Kass updated her Will a few days after her sister’s death and Arwyl gains ownership of the export company and the half share of the main family business.”

  Nick glanced at Reese, thinking that this was almost too easy, another perfect suspect falling straight into their hands. Reese looked at the solicitor. “So what you’re saying is that the main company is now owned by just Swall and Arwyl?”

  “In a sense.” Sea Gull took over the explanation. “Swall has made it clear that he doesn’t intend to use his shares to make any decisions about the running of the company. Norla has taken over the management and she, Mer and Arwyl will make all the decisions regarding it. The export company is in Arwyl’s hands alone, although, at present, Bop still has a job as the Director of Trade.”

  “Did Arwyl already know about her mother’s Will?” Nick asked.

  “Yes,” Gull said. “She was with Kass when the Will was drawn up.”

  Nick checked that Reese didn’t have any other questions and thanked the solicitors for speaking to them, saying, “We’ll pursue this and, once we get further evidence, I promise to speak to the captain about getting Bop released.”

  “We will waiting to hear from you.” Gu teleported away, leaving the humans to walk outside to their robicles.

  Nick gave a nod of gratitude to Tem and Lyro before returning to the kitchen with Reese. The ship’s cook and the captain’s chef were busy cooking, Nick’s room was occupied by Bop and the room Reese shared with Prince was presumably unavailable, so they took seats in the canteen. With the sounds of other conversations around them, it wasn’t ideal place to think the matter over, but it was all they had.

  “If the intention was always to kill both women then Arwyl and Pos have a clear motive,” Reese said, putting his elbows on the table and leaning closer.

  “And they both left forensic evidence at the site where Kass died.” Nick rubbed his jaw. “I have the same doubts about Arwyl as the ones about Bop. I don’t think she’s cruel enough to have killed her own aunt and mother. We saw her after Kass died and she was a wreck.”

  “I was digging into the finances of the companies on my computer and discovered that Pos’s marketing business is almost bankrupt. I spoke to Ember’s assistant yesterday, who confirmed that Ember had turned down his request for money days before she was killed. While I was pretending to be a gardener at the castle, I saw Kass refuse to speak to Pos and Groa.”

  “They said they had a routine appointment with Kass on the afternoon she died,” Nick remembered, “but I thought at the time they were hiding something or not being totally truthful. If they asked Kass for a loan and she refused, Pos might have killed her to get the money through Arwyl’s inheritance.”

  “We’ve certainly got more than enough to question Pos and Groa and to try to get a confession.”

  “I’ll speak to Poppy... Wait.” Nick remembered the conundrum they still hadn’t solved. “What about the witness who said he saw Bop at the warehouse, when Bop swore to me he hadn’t been there.”

  “There must be an explanation.”

  They drew closer to talk it through.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  NICK KNOCKED on Poppy’s door. It was after midnight – standard time – but this couldn’t wait. She was wearing a robe as she opened in it and there was a touch of guilt as she met his eyes that vanished when she looked beyond him. “What’s he doing here?”

  “You’re talking about Bop du Lissin?”

  “Obviously.”

  Nick grinned at his companion who said, “Clothes, deactivate appearance alteration.” The man she had acknowledged as Bop was replaced by Reese, using the same everyday trick that had let him pretend to be a native of the planet when getting a job at the castle.

  “Are you still convinced that Bop couldn’t be innocent?” Nick asked Poppy.

  “You’d better both come inside.”

  As the second most senior officer, Poppy’s room on the ship was larger than his and more comfortable, her visibly better relationship with the captain something that rankled with Nick after the earlier disagreement when she and Prince backed each other up against him. Now wasn’t the time for an argument, though, not when the real Bop du Lissin needed Nick to find the murderer and get him freed.

  At Poppy’s command, her bed changed into a sofa. Nick sat down beside her and Reese took a nearby chair. They told her everything they had discovered. “That still leaves the DNA sample at Kass’s murder site that matches with Bop.” She held up a hand before Nick could object. “But it wouldn’t have been difficult for someone else to plant that, someone who was already at the warehouse and had murder as a back-up plan in case Kass wouldn’t help save Pos’s marketing company.”

  “It’s too late to speak to Pos and Groa together now,” Nick said, “but will you come with us tomorrow?”

  “Yes, of course. I owe you an apology for not being willing to consider your objections earlier.”

  “Yeah, you do,” he said with feeling, mollified but not able to forgive her right away for letting him down so badly.

  He left with Reese. There was nowhere for him to sleep but it would be morning soon anyway and his mind was too active for him to feel particularly tired. He turned to Reese in the corridor. “Thanks for everything you did tonight. Your support... I’m bad with words but I really...”

  A door opened and Prince looked out. “Oh, there you are,” he said to Reese. “Come inside.”

  Reese smiled at the captain before touching Nick’s arm. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  They vanished into the bedroom and Nick’s hopeful mood faded away. He thought Reese’s reaction to Prince had been strained... Why was he kidding himself? No one was forcing Reese to be involved with the captain, although it was Reese’s only way off the planet. Perhaps, once they were gone from here, Reese might change his mind... No, Nick wouldn’t keep hoping for something that would never happen. Reese was a good friend to him, someone he could rely on, and that was it. He wasn’t going to think about it anymore.

  He spent the next few hours thinking about Reese.

  * * *

  The three of them – him, Reese and Poppy – walked through Seaspray to Pos’s marketing company – having had to ask directions several times – and got there not long after Pos and Groa must have arrived, since they were both still wearing outdoor coats.

  “Can’t this wait for an alternative time?” Pos asked them irritably while Groa hovered in the office doorway as she took off her own coat.

  “Don’t you want us to solve the murders of members of your wife’s family?” Without waiting to be offered a chair, Reese sat down and the others did the same.

  Pos glared at him. He was a large, powerfully built man with black hair and a fringe that fell nearly to his eyes. “Of course, but I thought everything was already resolved. Didn’t you arrest Bop last night? He’s the last person I would have suspected but I suppose you must know what you’re doing.”

  “Like you, we have doubts about Bop being the killer,” Nick said, “which brings us to you.”

  Pos looked from one to the other of them. “You’re venna fish! Why should I harm anyone?”

  “Your business is failing so you turned to your wife’s family for help, but they turned you down, first Ember and then Kass,” Poppy said. “You had killed Ember, reasoning that Kass – as your mother-in-law – would give you a loan but when she too turned you down you saw no choice but to murder her as well. You knew your wife would inherit a fortune and then you’d have as much money as you wanted.”

  “That’s unknown word. You’re just so desperate that you’re makin
g one guess after another.” He wasn’t faltering, clear disbelief at their accusation in his eyes. He was either an excellent liar or he wasn’t guilty.

  “There were only a few people whose forensic evidence was at the scene of Kass’s murder and you’re one of them,” Poppy insisted. “None of the warehouse people had a motive for both murders. Are you suggesting that your wife is guilty? Perhaps she was desperate to help you.”

  “How dare you!” He stood up and leaned over his desk, towering over her. “You’ve got no right to speak in such a way. Arwyl would never hurt her own mother or Aunt Ember – she adored both of them.”

  “That’s right,” Nick said. “Perhaps there was someone else who had as much at stake as you but no personal connection to the du Lissin family, who wouldn’t have the same scruples as you and your wife.” He turned to look behind him. “Isn’t that right, Groa?”

  They all turned towards the mousy-haired, ordinary-looking woman, who shook her head. “Y-you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Nick exchanged glances with Reese: they had been certain it was one or the other of the duo. “You own a one-third share in this company but, unlike Pos, you don’t have a wealthy spouse to help you if it all fails. You would have been bankrupted.”

  “Groa?” Pos sounded uncertain.

  She rubbed her arms. “You don’t have proof.”

  “Not enough just yet but how difficult do you think it will be to find a witness who saw you near Ember’s office at the time she died? Perhaps someone can tell us about that gun you own.”

  She stamped her foot. “Fish excrement!”

  She turned and ducked out of the door, slamming it and, as they all jumped up and raced towards it, Nick heard the click of it being locked as they pushed ineffectually against it.

  Behind them Pos said in a shocked voice. “I always thought she was a sweet, kind woman.”

  “Maybe that slaver had a point about humans being duplicitous,” Nick commented.

  Reese’s expression went blank, then he grinned at Nick before kicking the door, which barely even shuddered. “That no one liked humans? I hope that’s not entirely true.”

 

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