Page 53 of The Dark Hiss of Magic
‘I don’t know,’ I told her honestly. ‘But we’ll do everything we can to find out.’
Chapter
Nineteen
Simon Campbell lived in a modern tenement building in the far reaches of Coldstream. The location said a lot; although it was a well-kept building, and several passersby smiled at Thane and me, it wasn’t the sort of place where anyone with great magical or financial endowments would choose to live. The natural ground enchantments were so weak that I could barely detect them. Whoever Simon Campbell was, he hadn’t possessed much power.
We clomped up the stone stairs to Simon’s third-floor flat. His name was neatly printed on the front door beneath the doorbell. Thane stepped forward and rang it; unsurprisingly, nobody answered.
I flipped over the doormat, but there was no spare key handily hidden underneath. I stepped back and glanced around on the off-chance Simon Campbell might have used another spot. I could easily pick the lock but there was no point in doing that if there was a simpler way to get inside.
‘Stand back.’ Thane braced his body. ‘I’ve got this.’
I stared at him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Kicking the door down.’ He grinned at me. ‘I’m stronger than I look.’
‘I don’t care how strong you are. We just spent the night in a cell, so I’m not about to do anything that will get us arrested again. Break down that door and every person in this building will hear us and call the MET!’
He frowned. ‘You used to be an assassin, Kit. Since when did you have respect for the law?’
‘I was an assassin who never got caught,’ I told him haughtily. I took my keys from my pocket, unscrewed the fob and produced my very small, very trusty lockpick.
Understanding dawned. ‘You’re saying there’s more than one way to skin a cat.’
‘I hate that idiom,’ I hissed. It should hardly have been a surprise that I wasn’t a fan of feline taxidermy.
‘Fair enough.’ Thane paused. ‘How about “there’s more than one way to seduce a werewolf”?’
I gave him a long look and he winked.
Hunkering down, I squinted. My brass lockpick had been charmed by a skilled witch to work with many different types of locks. It wasn’t perfect – for one thing, it wasn’t indestructible and its magic wasn’t eternal, so it would only function for a certain number of lockpicking attempts – but it was an old tool of my trade and I was fond of it. It didn’t work on warded doors or magically enhanced keyholes, but there was no sign of those even though Simon Campbell had been a witch.
I hesitated, listening for any sound that suggested a neighbour might be approaching. When I was sure the coast was clear, I inserted the pick and wiggled it. It only took a moment before there was a satisfying click and the door swung open. I gave Thane a triumphant glance but he wasn’t watching me and admiring my prowess. He was staring open-mouthed at the interior of SimonCampbell’s flat.
The place was a mess. Not the sort of ‘I can’t be bothered to clean up after myself mess’, but more of a ‘stampeding ogres had a riot in my home when they were on a mission to break everything I own’mess. It had been ransacked.
Thane let out a low whistle. ‘Fuck. If Simon Campbell is our Rory Taggert, his killer must have come here afterwards.’
I nodded. ‘There were no keys found on the body and that lock hadn’t been tampered with. Somebody was searching for something – they probably killed Campbell, took his keys and came here to find it.’
We both gazed at the devastation. ‘Daniel fucking Jackson,’ Thane muttered.
I nodded. There was a nasty taste in my mouth that I did my best to swallow.
We didn’t spend long looking around; if there’d been anything here to find, there was little chance that it was still around. I picked up a smashed photo frame and turned it over to reveal a picture of four smiling faces.
I immediately recognised Knox Thunderstick. Next to him was a smirking troll and a nymph, probably Ian and Adrienne, his other two friends. My gaze slid past them with disinterest because I was certain that the figure at the end had to be Simon Campbell. He was grinning, his right hand resting protectively on the gold buckle of his belt, his left hand slung around the nymph’s shoulders. His features matched those of the body recovered from the River Tweed. Yeah, this was my John Doe.
Rory Taggert had probably never existed; Fetch Jackson must have created a character using Simon Campbell’s photos to stop the likes of me from delving too deeply into the case.
I held the photo out to Thane. ‘It’s definitely John Doe.’
He nodded slowly, unsurprised. ‘I think we might have a motive of sorts as well. Look at this place.’ He picked up a small gold box from the floor. ‘A garden-variety burglar wouldhave stolen this, and there are other valuables still lying around. Whoever created this mess wasn’t interested in thieving, they were searching for something specific. I reckon Simon Campbell had something that Daniel Jackson wanted. The Fetch killed him, then came here to get it.’ His eyes narrowed in speculation. ‘From the way he’s turned over every inch of this flat, it doesn’t look like he found it.’
‘Maybe that’s why Knox was tortured,’ I said quietly. ‘Perhaps Jackson thought that Simon Campbell had given it to his friend to look after.’
‘What could be so valuable that a respectable council witch would murder two people?’
