Page 31 of Mystic Justice
‘Another thing no one has said to you, huh?’
‘Never.’
I searched his eyes. ‘Get used to it. If we’re going to mean something to each other, I won’t hesitate to tell you what I think.’
His expression grew wistful. ‘Are we going to mean something to each other, Inspector?’
I sighed. ‘I suspect we are.’
His answering smile was brilliant. ‘Good.’ He bowed ridiculously low, straightened and started for the door.
‘Krieg!’ I called after him. He turned, one eyebrow raised. ‘When are we going to kiss?’
The smile was back. ‘Not yet. Once we start, I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop.’
‘Like a tube of Pringles,’ I said understandingly.
‘Pringles?’
‘Tell me you’ve eaten Pringles,’ I demanded.
‘Add it to the list.’ He winked and left while my jaw was still hanging.
The click of the door was enough to bring me out of my disbelief. ‘He hasn’t had Pringles, Loki,’ I said to the bird. ‘Can you believe that? No Pringles, no Dr Pepper. What does the man eat?’
‘I not Pringles,’ the bird confessed.
‘Shut the front door!’ I exclaimed and marched to a cupboard. Before I could open it, my resident ghost opened the door and atall can of crisps flew towards me. ‘Thanks!’ I said as I grasped the red tube. I almost always had a ready-salted snack on hand and Pringles were a constant in my larder.
‘Once you pop you can’t stop,’ I explained to Loki. ‘I’m just warning you. They come with a little plastic lid, but we won’t need that bad boy.’
‘Better than ham?’ Loki sounded optimistic.
‘Let’s not be hasty. They both have their place.’ I pulled off the foil lid and, after a moment’s indecision, crumbled one of the crisps and laid the crumbs on a plate for him to peck at. Then, knowing that Pringles weren’t a balanced diet, I found him some ham. Too tired to chop it, I ripped it into small pieces with my fingers.
Loki warbled. ‘Is good!’ he declared as he pecked away at the salty, crispy goodness.
‘Right?’ I made myself a cup of tea and then got back to work. Logging in remotely on my laptop, I called up McCaffrey’s file on Moss Hollings and checked to see if she’d missed anything. After an hour I concluded that she’d done a thorough job, which was great for her but a pain in the arse for me. I’d been hoping for a loose thread she hadn’t picked at, but she’d tied them all off. Dammit.
I did one last check of my emails and leaned forward when I saw one from Ji-ho. It was a quick write-up after he’d viewed the CCTV footage that Peter Glenn had sent through. Sure enough, Rowan Dewlin had remained on site for his whole shift and left the building at 3.12am. He was in the clear. Frustrated, I closed the laptop.
Brain still buzzing despite the late hour, I grabbed some more Pringles and found my phone. I unlocked it and practised navigating SPEL. I couldn’t remain ignorant forever – I wasn’t a Luddite like so many of the dragons were.
I paused mid-chomp. I’d been so fixated on identifying the centaur’s body that I hadn’t given a thought to who could kill a centaur like that. Hecouldhave been chucked out of a plane but then you’d need to find an obliging pilot and there would be rosters, flight paths –evidence.No, it was more likely that the Other killers had used something Other to achieve their desired effect.
Our main aerial threats were griffins and dragons. The centaur had been heavy and I wasn’t sure if a griffin had the strength to lift a centaur that high. Still, dragons always spoke the truth, so if I found a suspect one I only had to ask them if they’d killed the centaur. If they refused to answer … well, that was an answer in itself.
I sent a message to Shirdal, the leader of the griffin assassins, and asked whether or not a hit had been taken out on a centaur in this area. If so, had the hit had been carried out successfully.
Another airborne threat was the phoenix. With some effort, swearing and backtracking, I managed to use SPEL to look up the latest intel on her. It said she was still on Llanddwyn Island, a deadly place where the Connection sent things it deemed dangerous but that didn’t merit being incarcerated in Wraithmore Prison.
We sent things that were inherently deadly to Llanddwyn but whose actions were tightly bound into their very nature so they couldn’t be blamed for what they’d done. If the griffins hadn’t found an outlet in sanctioned assassinations, no doubt they’d be languishing on the island too.
‘More?’ Loki chirped, and I happily crumbled another couple of Pringles for him. He gave a happy dance, looking world’s better than he had all day.
‘You feeling better, bud?’ I asked carefully.
He stilled. ‘Jingo evil.’
