Page 40 of Mystic Justice
‘I’m delighted you’re bonding,’ I interrupted, ‘but can we focus on whatever made you burst in here like you’d just cracked the case?’
‘Right.’ Channing’s cheeks were as red as mine felt. He cleared his throat. ‘Not as exciting as cracking the full case, but I did track down two of Lena Shaw’s friends. Miss Shaw is alibied out until 3am.’
‘You checked it? Thoroughly.’
‘It wasn’t hard,’ he admitted. ‘They gave me access to their social media and they’d taken group selfies at every venue they visited. Sometimes repeatedly. They went out in Liverpool and stayed there all night. The selfies were taken every fifteen totwenty minutes and even more regularly in a place called Albert Schloss. Apparently it has a disco toilet.’
I blinked. ‘A disco toilet?’
‘Two loos, rainbow lights and a juke box.’
I shook my head. ‘So you can dance while you pee? Seems like asking to piss on your shoes, if you ask me.’
Channing looked embarrassed again. ‘Right. Anyway, I checked the original photographs on their phones and the encoded time stamps near enough match their posting times. All Lena Shaw’s movements are documented until 3am when they called it a night and got taxis home. The longest period between photos was twenty-two minutes and that was nowhere near enough time for her to get to Grosvenor Lake, let alone back again.’
A selfie-filled night was my idea of hell; better to live life than document every minute of it. One picture was great; two was overkill.
Remembering DS Roberts’ prodding, I cleared my throat and tried my hand at positive feedback. ‘Great work, Channing. Have you uploaded the witness statements and accompanying photographs to SPEL?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I’d say one thing for the app; it certainly speeded things up.
‘Fantastic. Well then, go and get Sandra Jaxim, and bring her in for questioning. Let me know when she’s here.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He looked excited at the prospect of flying solo. Back in the day cops had always worked in pairs but with financial cuts being what they were, we were back to working solo at regular intervals. If that was the new status quo, Channing needed to be confident to fly without me holding his hand.
‘Check in on arrival and again when you have her secured.’
‘Yes, ma’am. I won’t let you down.’
‘Great. And Channing? Call me Wise. All the “ma’ams” are giving me a headache.’
Looking a little proud, he nodded. ‘Sure thing.’
‘Good. Then get to it.’ He got.
‘The kid didn’t get Introduced until late?’ Krieg asked.
‘He was sixteen.’
‘That explains a lot.’
It did. There was something so green about Channing; his eyes, which were supposed to be cop-cynical, were always on the verge of wonder and he often looked like a kid in a sweetie shop. It was something I found endearing but I worried because the Other realm ate wonder for breakfast, burped out corruption and death and washed it down with the last dregs of hope. This realm wasn’t for the faint of heart and I fretted about what Channing would do in a kill-or-be-killed situation.
Krieg came around to my side, picked me up like I weighed nothing and sat me on the edge of my desk facing him. He opened my legs and stepped up to me. ‘Now,’ he murmured. ‘Where were we?’
‘I think we were about to kiss,’ I offered, heart suddenly racing again.
‘I think we were,’ he agreed. His eyes looked longingly at my mouth and I licked my lips. He followed the movements of my tongue like a man starved, and heat pooled in my stomach.
He moved towards me with deliberate slowness – and then a firm knock on the door interrupted us once more. Krieg gave a low groan of frustration but moved back around the desk and sat in the visitor’s chair again. Battling my own frustration, sexual and otherwise, I slid into my own seat. ‘Come!’ I barked to the intruder.
‘I wish,’ Krieg muttered, making me snicker inside. It was an effort to keep the grin off my face.
McCaffrey strode in. ‘We’ve got an ID on the centaur.’
All thoughts of kissing vanishing in an instant, I leaned forward. ‘And?’
‘Joe Bogan, part of the Anglesey herd. He had a degree in economics and he was looking to move to Liverpool with his new girlfriend. But get this, Inspector, he was one of two centaurs that Bland dealt with yesterday. Bogan came to Liverpool to surprise his girlfriend and found her in bed with centaur number two. He and the other guy ended up brawling in the street and that’s when Bland found them.’
