He blew a raspberry in my head.Silly Pigdog. Can’t see past her nose.
Uh-huh. Nice chatting to you,I said drily.
Channing and I divided Jingo’s paper file between us and settled in to wade through the nefarious past of Jude Jingo.
When Robbie returned, he looked triumphant.
‘What have you got?’ I asked.
He shot me a look. ‘Inspector, let me have my moment. I was an “undercover cop”, working for the Connection secretly.’His eyes glimmered with mischief. ‘It was a lot of fun.’
‘I doubt the shop assistant bought it for a moment.’
‘Maybe not, but I enjoyed myself all the same, and I got you your information.’ He pulled out his phone. ‘This is what he bought.’ He showed me an image of a simple, crisp, pale blue shirt.
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘He bought it on the day of his date with Kate, but that wasn’t what he was wearing when I saw him later that night.’ I drew up a copy of his statement on SPEL. ‘In his statement to me, he said he’d bought the new shirt that day specifically for the date later on that evening, but he was wearing a white shirt, still starched in harsh lines, like it had been pulled out of the packet, not that blue one. Did he buy a white shirt there too?’
‘No.’
It might not mean anything. Maybe he’d changed his mind about wearing blue. Maybe it was nothing. Yet my gut said maybe it was something. Maybe he had worn that blue shirt and taken it off because of blood spatter. Yeah, my gut liked that. And if he had swapped shirts, maybe we could find the blood-stained discarded one in his dirty laundry basket. I had found blood-stained clothes at another of Jingo’s residences once. When you hurt people every day, blood-stained clothes become thenorm. You didn’t need to panic and burn them like most innocent people did. No, you chucked them in the hamper for the maid to launder.
A trip to Troy’s home was in order.
Still, if Troy was Jingo – and I was certain he was – I wanted to keep Loki off his radar. Way off. Jingo had imprisoned Loki before and I’d be damned if I gave him an opportunity to do the same again.
I’m heading out,I told my bonded bird.Can you stay here and supervise things at home? Tell me if the team here have any breakthroughs?
His little chest puffed out.Absolutely.
Thank you, buddy.
I looked at Robbie. ‘You up for some breaking and entering with me?’
He winked. ‘Always.’
Fairglass lived in an apartment in The Royal Albert Dock. Red-bricked and sun-drenched, it looked cosy and inviting.
The docks were busy, with people wrapped in coats and persevering in getting the most out of the autumn sun.
The location was busy, but its proximity to water made it convenient for a merman. I’d expected Troy to live on the ground floor, but the seventh son of the mer king resided in the penthouse suite. Of course he did.
The apartment was so fancy that it even had a greeter at the door, who confirmed Troy had just left the building, which meant we had the all-clear to go snooping.
I flashed my badge and the building manager took us into a sleek lift and up to the penthouse, no questions asked.
‘Thank you. You can go now,’ I said to the manager once he’d unlocked the door for us.
‘Pull the door closed when you leave,’ he grunted. ‘It’ll lock automatically. Don’t do it by accident or I won’t let you in a second time.’
My eyes went flinty. ‘You’ll open the damn door for me as many times as I need.’
He swallowed. ‘Right. Sure.’
He left, and I watched him walk back to the chrome lift and step into it and away. When I was sure we didn’t have an audience, I pulled on purple disposable gloves and handed a pair to Robbie, who snapped them on with a flourish.
‘You’re enjoying this,’ I muttered.
‘I’m enjoying watching you,’ he corrected, voice warm with amusement.
