“You want me to pay you money for a drawing I don’t want, and admit to murdering someone I didn’t even know? When did this murder happen?”
“Two nights ago, around nine, in a bookshop in ___field,” Morrie said.
Holly backed across the room, her cheeks reddening. “I didn’t murder anyone in a bookshop, and I can prove it.” She lunged across a desk and grabbed for a mobile phone.
Panic shot through me.If she gets that phone, she’ll call the police.
Morrie heaved himself off the chair and lunged across the room. But he wasn’t as fast a Quoth, who dived through his open cage door and swooped at the desk. Halfway there, his body buckled in midair, wing-bones elongating, legs twisting into a new shape, talons knitting together to become feet. Black feathers scattered across the floor as Quoth’s bones snapped and buckled, his features twisting into his human form.
Shit shit shit.
“Croooooooak,” Quoth warbled, the sound forming a human cry as his naked body sailed across the desk and knocked the phone to the ground. Morrie bent down and picked it up.
“What the hell is going on?” Holly screamed, sliding off the desk and slamming into a rack of clothes. Dresses and jackets flew in all directions. “Where did that naked guy come from?”
“He…”Remember, today you are Ashley.My heart hammered against my chest, but I straightened my back and glared at Holly. “He’s with us. He just prevented you from making a very stupid mistake. Now, we’ll be taking this phone, just to make sure you don’t call the police.”
“I wasn’t calling anyone. I have photos on my Instagram that prove I’m innocent!” Holly cried, tossing a jacket at Quoth, who shrugged it on and went hunting through the pile for some pants. “It’s all there. Just take a look.Please.”
Morrie was already flicking through the phone. “Look at this, gorgeous.” He held up the screen, scrolling through Holly’s Instagram feed. Sure enough, there was Holly with five other women – including the assistant downstairs – clinking Champagne glasses under the Eiffel Tower.
“Even if I’dwantedto kill someone, which Idon’t, I couldn’t have done it because I’ve been in Paris for the last week – I gave my staff the trip to say thank you for all their hard work this year. We got back yesterday, and I have the hotel receipts and plane tickets to prove it.”
“You could have hired someone to do it,” I shot back. “It’s a convenient alibi.”
“Everyone I would trust to do it was on that trip with me.” Her eyes blazed. “So you can take your accusations and your stolen drawings and your weird naked friend and shove them up your twat. Now, get out!”
Chapter Nineteen
“If it wasn’t Holly, who could it be?” I slumped over Heathcliff’s desk, staring at Marcus’ drawing with my head in my hands.It didn’t make sense. If Ashley had been killed for the drawing, why didn’t the killer take it with him?
Morrie, Quoth and I arrived home an hour ago, just as Heathcliff was shutting up the shop. He was in a rotten mood because the place had been full of gawkers all day, but he’d also sold a record number of books, which means that he’d already lined up three bottles of mid-priced wine for us when we returned. I was too dejected to even make it up the stairs to the flat, so I slumped down opposite the desk. Morrie luxuriated under the window, his eyes fixed on his phone screen.
Heathcliff set a glass down in front of me and I accepted it gratefully, letting the cold, fruity alcohol soothe off the weirdness of the day. Who knows, maybe wine was just what I needed to figure out what I was going to do about Morrie, about my mixed feelings for all of them, about Ashley… all of it.
“It could still be Holly,” Morrie said without looking up from his phone. “She probably hired someone.”
“I don’t believe that,” Quoth perched on the edge of the table, swinging his legs while Grimalkin prowled around him. He still wore the jeans and shirt he’d ‘borrowed’ from Holly. They looked fucking amazing hugging his narrow hips and broad shoulders, the deep green of the shirt reflecting shimmering emerald strands through his hair. “A hired assassin wouldn’t have used that knife, or done the deed in the shop while we were upstairs, or left the drawing behind.”
Morrie glanced up, his eyes sparkling. “You’re right. My genius is rubbing off on you.”
“I’ve been reading a book about assassins, actually. It’s fascinating. Did you know that in ancient India, women calledvishkanyadosed themselves with poison a bit at a time until they built up an immunity to it, and then got themselves invited into the presence of a rival king to cook and feed him poisoned food?”
“That’s fascinating,” Heathcliff said, in a tone that implied it was not fascinating at all. “But it does not help with the mystery in front of us.”
“I want to know more about thesevishkanya,” I said, feeling weirdly protective of Quoth. After all, he’d leapt in to rescue us today when we thought Holly was calling the cops, risking exposure and capture to stop her getting that phone. Luckily, Holly had been too freaked out by the whole situation to have noticed Quoth’s shift.
“Quoth knows all sorts of useless facts,” Morrietap-tap-tappedthe screen of his phone. “Useless facts for a useless animal.”
Quoth’s face twisted with rage, like a switch flicking on behind his skull. Pain pooled in his eyes, those big brown orbs flaring with fire. I reached out toward him, to ask him what was the matter. But I never got the chance. Feathers flew in all directions as his body snapped and twisted, and a moment later the raven took off up the stairs, following by an excited Grimalkin.
“Why did yousaythat?” I yanked Morrie’s phone out of his hand. “You hurt his feelings.”
Heathcliff snorted, reaching across the desk to pour himself another wine. “Emotions are a human fault, and Quoth isn’t human.”
“Relax, gorgeous. We say stuff like that all the time. Quoth knows we’re kidding.” Morrie reached for his phone, but I held it behind me back. Above our heads, footsteps pattered across the floor as Grimalkin chased Quoth around the shelves.
“Yeah? Well, maybe you couldn’t see how that comment affected him, because you’re both insensitive wankers, butIdid.”
