Page 30 of Crocodile Tears

“We don’t beat our detainees at Inquisitus,” Josiah said firmly. “But it’s certainly time for you and I to have a long chat.” He gestured towards the door.

Alexander hesitated. “Investigator Raine,” he said, and this time the challenge was gone from his voice. “Would you mind… um… I was wondering… could I see the body? Elliot’s body?”

This unexpected request brought Josiah up short. “Why?”

“I’d like to say goodbye.” Alexander raised his chin defiantly. “Elliot deserves that. He was my houder for three years, and he wasn’t a bad man. I liked him.”

“You said he was selfish,” Josiah pointed out.

Alexander smiled. “Oh, he was. He was vain, too. He wore his toupee when we had sex, even though I knew he was almost completely bald – and he could be demanding, self-absorbed, and occasionally very silly. But he was good fun, and he often made me laugh. I’m sad he’s dead. He kissed me when I left the house this morning…” Alexander brushed his fingers over his lips. “I didn’t know that was the last time I’d see him, and I wish I’d had the chance to say a proper goodbye.”

Josiah wasn’t sure if he was being sold a crock of shit or if Alexander meant every word he said, but he saw no harm in the request – in fact, it could be illuminating.

“Very well.” He nodded at Baumann, who opened one of the refrigerated units and pulled out the sliding metal tray containing Dacre’s corpse, still in its body bag.

Alexander approached the tray slowly.

“Have you ever seen a dead body before?” Baumann asked kindly. “If not, you should prepare yourself. I know people say that the dead look like they’re sleeping, but in my opinion, they don’t. They look very different.”

“Ihaveseen a dead body before,” Alexander said quietly.

Josiah remembered the car crash that had killed his mother. How had he coped, as a seventeen-year-old boy, with the fact he was responsible for his mother’s death and his brother’s life-shattering injuries? How had that warped and shaped him?

“Okay, well then, here goes.” Baumann unzipped the body bag to reveal Elliot Dacre’s cold white form, with the shocking red hole in the forehead. The body hadn’t been cleaned, and there was dried blood on the corpse’s face.

Alexander swallowed hard, his gaze fixed on the bullet hole. “You’re right,” he said softly. “The dead don’t look as if they’re sleeping. They just look… dead.” He put his head on one side and studied the corpse. “Elliot isn’t there anymore.”

“No,” Baumann said sympathetically. “He’s gone, Alexander. I’m sorry.”

“He wouldn’t like it,” Alexander said as he gazed at the body.

“Being shot in the head? Yeah, most of us would feel that way,” Josiah said.

“I meant that he’d hate you seeing him this way. Not his naked body, because he was something of an exhibitionist, but he’d never let anyone see him without his toupee. Maybe it was dislodged when he was shot?” He glanced at Baumann for confirmation.

She nodded and reached into the body bag. “It’s here,” she said, holding up the brown wig.

“Would you mind if I…?” Alexander reached out to take the wig, but Josiah stopped him.

“You can’t contaminate the body,” he said, wondering if that had been the indie’s intent all along.

“No, of course not – although my DNA will be all over him already,” Alexander said. “We had oral sex this morning, before I left for my workout.” Baumann looked embarrassed by this news, although Alexander obviously wasn’t. “Doctor Baumann, would you…?”

He gestured at the wig.

“I’ll take care of it,” Baumann said gently.

“Thank you.” He shot her a grateful look.

“Time to go,” Josiah said briskly, unsure what to make of Alexander’s odd little display of affection for his dead houder. “It’s time for that chat now.”

Having escorted his prisoner upstairs to one of the Inquisitus interview suites, he locked him in a room dominated by a huge two-way mirror. Then he went into the adjacent viewing room to skim through the file on Dacre.

It was full of his iconic photos, but there was one in particular that caught Josiah’s attention – that of his husband, Christopher, who had died in the duck accident several years ago. The man had wavy dark hair, pale skin, and deep-set green eyes, and although he wasn’t as beautiful as Alexander Lytton, there was definitely a resemblance. Clearly, Elliot Dacre had a “type”.

There was a knock on the door, and Reed entered, holding a holopad. “You need to see this before you start the interrogation,” he said, waving it at Josiah. “I’ve been sorting through all the crime scene stuff and found this on the coffee table.”

“Dacre’s holopad? You gained access?”

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