‘I have already told them all that you are in my shadow, so that meanstechnicallyyou need to be there too. You’re under my protection, so you’re recognised as being part of the den.’
‘So what you’re telling me is that you need me to come to dinner tonight with all of your local ogres?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time?’
‘Around 7pm would be ideal, but I’ll delay the start until you arrive, even if that ends up being midnight.’
I grimaced. It was difficult juggling an active serial-killer case with social obligations. Previously, I’d never had much need to do so. My family knew if there was a live case, I’d be working until the small hours to close it. Having to stop work to do something so seemingly trivial as going to dinner with Robbie’s ogres rankled a little, but it wasn’t trivial to him, to any of them, and I’d asked to be let in. Here was Robbie rolling out the red carpet. I cricked my neck. I’d make it work.
‘No problem,’ I said easily. ‘I’ll try to clock off on time.’
‘I know how hard that was for you to say, and I appreciate it, Stacy. Message me when you’re ready, and I’ll get Maktel to pick you up. I have to remain at the hearth until the blessing is complete.’ He wasn’t happy about that.
‘All right, is there a dress code?’
‘No. Just make sure you wear some weapons.’
He hung up before I could ask if he was joking.
I finished my can of Dr P and headed back to the interview room. With a date with Robbie’s whole den looming, I had no time to dawdle.
Chapter Twenty
Beeks swaggered in like the room owed him rent. Ex-military, dishonourably discharged, tattoos that looked more like a sick manifesto than body art. The beheaded centaur on his arm certainly rang alarm bells. Maybe beheading was his thing.
He sat, crossed said-tattooed arms, and waited defiantly.
Channing switched on the recorder. I wasn’t going to waste time on a pissing contest with this ingrate. ‘Ambrose Beeks,’ I began, ‘you were at the rally outside the police station.’ Calling it a rally was generous, but I thought I’d start by appealing to his ego – inflate it until I was ready to pop it like the dangerously over-inflated balloon it was.
‘Wasn’t a rally,’ he grunted, his eyes sayingstupid bitchwithout needing words.‘It was a protest.’
‘Right, a protest that ended with one of your members dead.’
‘No one died at the protest. Who’s dead?’ he asked innocently, as if he didn’t know full well, but there wasn’t a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He was playing dumb, or maybe he was just plain dumb. Either way, he already knew Drummond was dead.
‘Your pal, Alasdair Drummond.’
He sniffed. ‘Dead is he? That’s a shame, but he wasn’t a pal of mine. He was a damned animal lover. A bleeding heart. All fussy about the environment, always getting us to turn off lights when we weren’t using them and stopping us from using plastic plates. Making uswashup.’ He shook his head and his tone made it clear that he considered washing up the equivalent of wiping his bum after taking a shit: it was necessary but distasteful.
‘I bet he made you take canvas bags to the shop too,’ I said flatly.
He thumped the table. ‘He fucking did!’
‘Is that why you killed him?’ All right, not my smoothest segue ever, but the pills hadn’t smoothed out the headache yet, and I was done chit-chatting.
His eyes narrowed, and he sat back with a show of studied nonchalance. ‘Didn’t touch a hair on his head.’
‘It wasn’t his head that got hurt,’ I pointed out. I opened the manila folder on the desk and turned it so he could see the horrific image of Alasdair Drummond’s body splayed and ruined in his bed, the cream sheets soaked crimson.
Beeks didn’t bat an eyelash. ‘He was related to an ogre,’ he said instead, a shade gleefully. ‘That’s who you need to look at. His little tusked nephew.’
Ah, that was their plan, was it? Pin it on the mysterious ogre relative. I bet they had no idea hislittle tusked nephewwas Robert Krieg, King of the Ogres, because if they did, they would have shit their pants and left Drummond well alone.
‘How do you know an ogre made these wounds?’ I asked.
He faltered. ‘It’s obvious,’ he finally said.
