Page 88 of Crocodile Tears

“Ah, Josiah – and in a good mood, too, I see,” Mel said cheerily. Normally he enjoyed the way she teased him, like a wayward little sister, but he wasn’t up for that today.

She shoved her chair away from her desk and rolled herself across the floor towards him. “What’s bugging you?”

“What did you find on Alexander Lytton’s clothing?” he demanded.

“Which set? The ones he was wearing when you brought him in, or those we took out of his duck?” She gestured at the tables in the sterile area of her lab, which were covered in several neatly wrapped piles of plastic.

“Both.”

She smiled at him sweetly. “Well, the ones he was wearing showed a bit of sweat and dirt – I think you knocked him over? There wasnothing I wouldn’t expect to find there. Faint traces of his own blood on the inside back of the shirt, but there were some pre-existing injuries, I believe? No trace of any blood not his own. No firearm residue.”

“And the ones in his duck?”

“Gym clothes.” She pointed at a lycra vest and shorts, jockstrap, a pair of white socks, and trainers. “Lots of sweat, all consistent with him spending a couple of hours at the gym.”

“Which, according to his personal trainer, was precisely what he did.” Josiah checked his holopad to see the signed statement from D’Angelo Clarke that had arrived in the latest infodump, courtesy of Reed.

“None of this incriminates Lytton,” Mel said, waving her hand at the clothing.

“But none of it exonerates him, either.”

“No,” she agreed.

“He could have shot Dacre, changed, carried his clothes and the gun out of the house wrapped in plastic in his gym bag, disposed of them, and taken a shower at the gym.

“Yes – but where on earth would an indentured servant get a gun?”

“Dacre could have owned it. Or Alexander could have acquired it. Dacre allowed him a certain amount of freedom.”

“How did he pay for it?”

“That’s easy – sex.” Josiah shrugged. “But I think someone else killed Dacre. Someone who watched the house, waited until Alexander left, and then knocked on the door. Someone Elliot knew, or at least was happy enough to let into the house. Someone who knew they had a brief window of time between Alexander leaving for his regular gym session and the housekeeper arriving. They shot Elliot through the forehead at point-blank range – one shot. Would they have been covered with blood as they left?”

“No, not from the angle of the shot.” Mel shook her head. “There would have been faint spatter on their clothing, but nothing more than that. Was anything taken from the house?”

“The housekeeper says not.” Josiah shifted uneasily, remembering the holopicture he was sure he’d seen, but the housekeeper had saidotherwise, and she knew the house better than him. “I believe it was personal – the murderer visited the house with the sole intention of murdering Dacre.”

“Or it could have been a professional hit,” Mel suggested. “Single gunshot wound to the head, quick in and out, clean crime scene…?”

“Maybe. Have you found any other prints in the house?”

“No – and we’ve swept the entire place now.”

“So, Dacre, Lytton, and Boucher are the only people we know for sure were in that house in the past twenty-four hours.”

“Have you ruled out Boucher?” she asked.

“Her story checks out.” Josiah glanced at his holopad again. Reed had found several traffic cameras that showed her waiting for a bus on the road outside her apartment block and then getting off again at a stop near Dacre’s house at 10.27a.m. She’d made her call to the police shortly after entering the house and finding his body. “So, you have no leads for me,” he said stonily, putting his holopad away.

She looked at him steadily. “Joe, I’ve been working on this case non-stop; you know everything I know.”

He turned on his heel and strode towards the door without another word.

“You’re welcome!” she yelled after him.

Josiah thrust his way forcefully through the media scrum outside. They parted to make way for him, backing off in the face of his death stare. He climbed into his duck, drove to the edge of the floating city, and shot off across the water with his favourite Pre-R rock playlist blaring out.

A glance at his watch showed he had four hours to either charge Lytton or send him into the probate system; he refused to even consider the third option Esther had given him.

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