“First you said she called you every day,” says Storm. “And now you’re saying she didn’t.”
Everett looks defensive. “We had a fight on the phone, all right?” he snaps. “But it wasn’t my fault. She started it. She was a hot-blooded succubus. She liked to fight over nothing.”
Beside Everett, Remi manages to keep a straight face. Storm knows she is internally rolling her eyes at Everett’s stereotyping of his own fiancée.
“So you admit you fought when you last spoke?” Storm says.
“You’re twisting my words!” Everett snaps. But he looks disturbed, as if he knows he has been caught out. Something occurs to him, and he says triumphantly, “She was angry before she even called me! She said she’d had a fight with our housekeeper Marta and fired her!”
“Marta who?” says Storm.
“I don’t know! Marta whats-her-name.” He gestures at Caprio.
“Marta Perrone,” says Caprio.
“It’s Marta you should speak to,” says Everett. “She must be the last one who saw Lynesse alive. Perhaps she left the door open and that’s how the killer got in! And why are you even questioning me? It’s DCK who killed Lynesse. All of the newspapers say so!”
“Are you saying DCK had an accomplice?” says Caprio incredulously, looking from Storm to Remi for confirmation.
“It is procedure for us to interview the victim’s partner,” says Storm, unwilling to disclose his suspicions at this early stage. The last thing he needs is for this to get out to the press, whose wild speculation will only hinder the investigation.
“But I’m sure you have nothing to worry about, Mr Everett,” says Remi saccharine sweetly. “I’m sure you have a rock solid alibi. It’s just that we have to ask these questions and note things down for our records. It’s to make sure all our bases are covered for when killer is taken to court. You understand?”
Everett nods. “Kris and I have been in Ireland since last Thursday to early this morning, when we flew back. We were together all week. You can check the flight records.” He tells Kris to give them details of the hotel he stayed at, and the name and phone number of his director friend who had invited him to the movie set.
“And you went there to film a role?” says Remi, batting her eyelashes.
“An integral supporting role,” says Everett smugly. “I couldn’t do the lead. I’m too busy with my vampire hunter show, of course.”
“We’ve already called your director friend,” says Storm, diving in for the kill, and noting the sudden tenseness in Everett’s body. “And he said that he’d decided to axe the supporting part. You didn’t film anything.”
“You— You spoke to him?” says Everett, looking flustered.
“He said you stayed some days to watch the shooting, but then you left this Wednesday. Two days before the murder. Plenty of time to fly back here in time for Friday night, and then fly back to Ireland.”
“It wasn’t me!” Everett explodes. “I never flew back early. Tell them Kris!”
Kris Caprio nods. “I booked Jared into a nearby beach cottage for a few days. He needed a break. I stayed on set while he was away.”
“So Jared has no alibi?” says Storm.
“I do,” mutters Jared resentfully. “You people are worse than the reporters.”
“Her name is Astrid Wikander,” says Caprio, with a sigh. “She’s the female lead in the Ireland movie. I’ll give you her number. Can you please keep it quiet? It’s the last thing we want in the press.”
Storm exchanges a look with Remi. Talk about the unexpected. Astrid Wikander is one of Hollywood’s hottest young female leads, and Jared Everett’s icy-hearted ex-girlfriend. One who was furious when Everett dumped her for a succubus ‘whore’, as Wikander had once called Lynesse in a now-famous swiftly deleted tweet.
Instead of one suspect, it now looks like they have two.
Chapter 11
DIANA
On Monday morning I wake up gritty-eyed as ever from the same dream of murder, which was a hundred times worse now I know the victim’s names, and that they are already dead and nothing I can do will change it. All that is left is to put their killer behind bars.
Or beneath the ground, suggests the little voice.
Full of determination, I spring out of bed. Yesterday after Storm had escorted me out of the morgue I had stayed in the car park fuming. I had wanted to march back in and have another go at him for even implying I might be under suspicion for murder. His words are still echoing in my head. “You were right about James Fenway too, and look what happened to him.”
As if I hadn’t felt enough guilt over James Fenway’s death. He should have been behind bars for what he did to his niece, not have had his head blown off.
He deserved it, whispers the little voice in my head.
“It’s not vengeance I want,” I tell her. “It’s justice.”
Same thing, she says. I can almost feel her shrugging.
Maybe it is. Maybe Raif Silverstone’s shattered spirit would have felt better knowing his killer would suffer. His remnant, his ghost if you will, had asked for my help. I’d promised him that. I’d vowed justice for Lynesse. I’m not going to back off simply because Storm will be disappointed in me. My promises have to mean something, because they’re to people who are dead and can’t do anything to help themselves.
So all this anger I have been feeling lately, all of this rage and helplessness, I’m going to have to bottle it and use it, even if that makes Storm mad.
Maybe he deserves to be a little mad. Like I was when I had stood outside that morgue spoiling for a fight and fuming about the fact that he must be inside talking to the cool, elegant Beatrice Grictor with her shiny red hair and big weepy eyes.
I had finally persuaded myself that I should leave when Beatrice Grictor had come out, heading to her car after identifying her business partner’s body. On some mad instinct I had flagged down a cab and asked the driver to follow her. Like in the movies. I’d wasted a whole bunch of my money doing it, but I’d thought she’d be going back to her office, back to where Raif Silverstone used to work.
Even when Beatrice parked in front of a London townhouse and I had paid my cab driver and I realized there might have been cheaper ways of finding their office, I had been glad. Because I had been doing something. I had taken action. And it had felt good.
Beatrice had disappearing into what was clearly her home, not her office, and I had walked right up to her front door and seen the silver plaque beside it. Turns out I had found their office after all. Beatrice Grictor and Raif Silverstone had worked from her home.
Which had made me wonder if they’d ever had a relationship, and whether she had mentioned that to Storm.
Maybe she had. One thing was for certain. Storm would never tell me. He wanted me off this case.
So that was where I was going to go today. Back to Beatrice’s house to find out what the hell is going on. The plaque at the entrance had said that Raif’s office was in there. I need to get into it.
But what about your job? says the little voice inside my head. She is needling me. She doesn’t give a crap about my job.
She is right, of course. I have a shift at my catering job this morning. I need it because the tips at Luca’s restaurant last night had been crap. But I’ve already lost three shifts at the catering job, and wasted a stupid amount of money on the cab yesterday. No way am I going to be able to pay my rent by Thursday.
The only way to do it is if I win the wager and get that consultancy fee the chief promised me.
So that’s your only option really, the little voice says. I can almost feel her dancing with sheer glee inside my head. She hates the catering job as much as I do.
“Stop being so smug,” I tell her.
I feed AngelBeastie and let her out on my way out to Beatrice Grictor’s house. It is in central London, so it takes a good long march to get there.
The day is sunny and pleasant, and I am glad of it. I had plan
ned to scope out the house from a nearby cafe that had a decent view of Beatrice’s front door, but all the window seats are taken. I end up having to sit outside with my tea, the cheapest thing on the menu, and hope that my floppy sun hat and sunglasses are enough to stop Beatrice from spotting me if she should come out. A damn fool I would have looked had it been cloudy.
I nurse my cold tea for many hours, not drinking it because then they might make me leave. I see first a young lady in a smart little dress and a matching silk scarf enter the house with a key — I figure she must be the secretary — and then the comings and goings of several people who must be Beatrice’s patients.
I note down the times they arrive and leave. Each appointment seems to be an hour long. At lunchtime, Beatrice’s secretary comes out of the house and walks off down the street and around the corner. Beatrice does not come out. The secretary returns thirty minutes later, to my great relief. The secretary is a key part of my plans.
Twenty-five minutes later another patient arrives and disappears into the house. I wait fifty minutes before I abandon my tea and dart over to the house, intending to ring the buzzer for the secretary to let me in. There is no need. The patient has not pulled the door shut. It is still slightly ajar.
I go inside, expecting to see the secretary sitting at a desk near the entry way. The desk is there, visible through a glass partition, but her chair is empty. She is not there. The waiting area is empty.
Hurry, whispers the little voice, doing nothing to ease my nerves.
Surprise makes me hesitate. This is off-plan. I had thought I was going to have to wait for the next patient to come to the house, hopefully in just a few minutes. I had planned to tell the secretary that I wanted to make an appointment with Beatrice and then ask her to use the bathroom. I had hoped the next patient would distract her, allowing me to sneak off to explore the house.
Turns out my hopes aren’t needed. Beyond the secretary’s desk are two doors with little silver name plates on them. On one is written Beatrice Ann Grictor, Clinical Psychologist. On the other is Dr R. Silverstone.
I run to the second door and listen with my ear pressed to it just long enough to make sure it is quiet on the other side, and then I hurriedly let myself in and pull the door shut behind me.
My heart is thumping. I had worried it would be locked. It was not. Once inside, I pause to catch my breath and calm myself. There is a latch on the door. I lock it quietly, just in case the secretary tries to walk in for some reason. The latch will give me the few moments I need to hide.
The room is fairly cramped. A plush darkwood desk and leather upholstered chair dominate it. They look like they were designed for a much larger space.
I can hear a very muted voice coming from one wall that is lined with bookshelves. It is the wall which joins onto Beatrice’s office. She must be in there with her patient.
For a small office, it has a lot of stuff in it and it is very messy. Too messy, in fact. The shelving is crammed floor-to-ceiling with books and manuals. Many of them are crooked and in disarray, as if they have been hastily put onto the shelves. Some have spilled onto the floor.
Behind the desk is a wall full of photographs and framed certificates that turn out to be educational diplomas. Dr Silverstone has more degrees than I had thought a doctor needed. The two largest frames are wonky. The rest are perfectly straight, immaculately aligned as if Dr Silverstone had been a neat freak.
The appearance of his ghost had certainly attested to his liking for neatness. He had been perfectly groomed, clean shaven, his short hair neatly sprayed into place, and wearing the same preppy outfit he’d had on in my dream.
The room is at odds with itself. It is like someone rifled through everything and didn’t do a great job putting it back in its place. Which makes my job harder. The key Raif was talking about could be anywhere. And what was the point of it anyway? I am looking for his murderer, not a key.
Knowing that I am no great detective and have nowhere near the time it would take to go through the contents of his large desk and his filing cabinets and shelves, I focus on the photographs.
I place my hand on each one, hoping it will bring me some insight. The pictures are largely of people, some in groups, some portraits of individuals, many of them women. They all seem to have been taken in impoverished communities; some rural villages, some urban shanty towns. The people in them look tired but are beaming, clearly at the end of some sort of rewarding project. Dr Silverstone is in almost every shot, standing at the center of each group like a heroic savior. Everyone hugging him. He looks happy.
I scrutinize each of the tiny faces in the group shots, paying particular attention to anyone who might resemble Lynesse Jones. The pictures that fascinate me most are the ones that have been taken in Otherworld, which is apparent from the exotic vegetation and the glimmering skies and buildings with architecture distinctly unlike those found on Earth.
I reach the last picture and am disappointed that none have sparked any insight, even though there had only been the merest chance one would.
Sighing, I go to the desk and take a seat in Dr Silverstone’s chair. I occupy the space he must have occupied so frequently, trying to envision the world through his eyes. One thing is certain. He liked comfort and nice things. The chair is lusher than my bed.
He said he had come from a Great Family, Otherworld nobility. I got the feeling he grew up with massive wealth. So what choices had he made in life to end up here in this cramped office? Was he the family black sheep, and why?
I open the top drawer of the desk and find a diary, the sort that you keep appointments in. I flip through it, and am disappointed to see it is mostly empty. His secretary must have managed his schedule for him.
The only thing written in it is on the back page. The words Sao Paulo written over and over. An exuberant joy seems to dance out of them. I smile, and touch the words. The feeling of joy intensifies. It must have been Raif’s joy.
Suddenly I drop the diary back into the drawer. Crap! Crappety crap crap! How stupid could I be? I had even brought rubber gloves with me and in my excitement I’d forgotten to put them on! And now Storm’s team are going to find my damn prints all over this room and on this diary, which of course they are going to be very interested in. And Storm has already warned me he has to treat me like a suspect!
Cursing myself for forgetting, I pull on my gloves and then find a tissue in my pocket. I use it to wipe down the leather cover of the diary and the page I touched.
I roll back the chair, intending to wipe down all the pictures. The chair’s wheels crack loudly over broken glass. Something is beneath it that I hadn’t noticed. I freeze, scared Beatrice will have heard the noise from her office. I relax only after I hear her in there, still talking with her patient.
I crouch down beside the desk and find I have rolled the wheels over a framed photograph that was lying on the carpet. I have thoroughly broken the glass into unsalvageable shards. The frame has a little stand on the back, so it must have originally sat on the desk.
I pick it up and carefully shake off bits of broken glass. The picture is of Dr Silverstone standing amid a group of young women in what appears to be a forest in Otherworld. Their smiles are furtive, almost hurried, as if they are worried about being disturbed.
The way that his arm is clasped around the shoulder of one of the young women makes me look twice. She is fine-boned and petite, with jewel-like blue eyes. She is important to him.
Something tells me that this is Zarina. He put her on his desk, hidden away in this group shot. Like all the other women she is wearing a silver metal collar for a necklace. It must be of tribal importance, an Otherworld thing.
I wonder if she was looking forward to visiting Sao Paulo. If she would have found it a big grimy city compared to her lush jungle paradise. I wonder how on Earth I am supposed to get in touch with her, especially if she lives in Otherworld.
I pull the photo out of the frame and turn it over, hoping
to find a caption. There is none. But there is a tiny envelope the size of a gift tag hidden behind it. The letter Z is written on it in pencil.
My heart leaps, and for a second I think it must contain the key. But inside is just a small slip of folded paper and a business card. No key.
The business card says: Theodore Grimshaw, Wizard, Purveyer of Needs, along with a London address and phone number. It is plain and yellowish, boring looking. Not the sort of extravagant card I would have expected of a wizard.
I hastily unfold the slip of paper, knowing anything important enough to hide must be a clue. But it is just an ink drawing of a circular symbol. The elegant curves and swirls tell me it might even be a bunch of intertwined sigils, the letters of the magical language.
Psychic for Hire Series Box Set Page 36
